Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

Populist leaders around Latin America are increasingly making legal and political moves to silence their media critics, the president of the Inter American Press Association said Friday. Tactics include revoking broadcast licenses, fostering hostility toward journalists and giving a free hand to government supporters who have attacked broadcast stations, newsrooms and printing plants. "We are extremely concerned at the growing level in recent weeks of harassment and violence in various countries," Enrique Santos Calderon told The Associated Press at the opening of the regional association's annual meeting in Buenos Aires. "Democratic systems require a free and unfettered press." In Argentina, top editors are criticizing ... Read Full Story

Argentina's election The Kirchners make a dash for it Hoping it’s not the exit AS ARGENTINA’S president in 2004, Néstor Kirchner pushed a bill through Congress that pinned all future federal elections on the fourth Sunday of October. The intention was that incumbents should not benefit from holding them at their political convenience. Five years on, his successor—his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner—is meddling with the law to bring forward this year’s mid-term elections to June. The “first gentleman” himself will probably lead their Peronist party’s list of candidates in Buenos Aires province. Having passed in the lower house, the president’s measure was due ... Read Full Story

A new proposal from Argentina president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has the country’s tech community stratching their heads. Her pitch: to nearly double taxes on technology products that are not manufactured or assembled in the province of Tierra del Fuego, including notebooks, cell phones and digital cameras. Oddly, few of these devices are actually made there. In fact, Argentina imports the vast majority of them from elsewhere entirely. So the tax would affect a majority of Argentines, not to mention Argentine companies. How Tierra del Fuego even got involved is a mystery to most in the industry. An archipelago stretching off the southernmost tip ... Read Full Story

Initial exit polls from Argentina's parliamentary election Sunday suggested a defeat for President Cristina Kirchner's ruling party. "The party in power risks losing their majority in the chamber of deputies, having lost six seats in the province of Buenos Aires alone," said political scientist Rosendo Fraga, citing television exit polls conducted by his institute, New Majority. Buenos Aires province is home to around 40 percent of the 28 million Argentines eligible to vote in the election, and if the exit polls are accurate they suggest a serious blow to Kirchner and her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner. The election for half of the 247 ... Read Full Story

The ruling party of President Cristina Kirchner and her husband, former leader Nestor Kirchner, lost seats in both houses of parliament in the midterm election, multiple exit polls showed. The Kirchner power couple risks losing control of Congress for the first time since they came to power as their incumbent Peronist Party lost seats, according to at least five polls. "The party in power risks losing their majority in the chamber of deputies having lost six seats in the province of Buenos Aires alone," said political scientist Rosendo Fraga, citing television exit polls conducted by his New Majority institute. But if correct, the polls ... Read Full Story