President Nestor Kirchner

Argentina's Senate overwhelmingly approved a law that will transform the nation's media landscape on Saturday, and President Cristina Kirchner said she would sign it immediately. Senators voted by a surprisingly high 44-24 margin for the law, celebrating the end of dictatorship-era rules that enabled a few companies to dominate Argentine media. Opponents say it instead gives the government too much power and will curtail freedom of speech. The new law preserves two-thirds of the radio and TV spectrum for noncommercial stations, and requires channels to use more Argentine content. It also forces Grupo Clarin, the country's leading media company, to sell off many of ... Read Full Story

An epic battle between Argentina's two reigning powers — the presidency and media giant Grupo Clarin — started with a political cartoon, the way one editor tells it. When President Cristina Fernandez was drawn with an X taped over her mouth, she called it a "mafia-like" threat and accused "media generals" of using their newspaper and TV stations to rally her opponents. She and her husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner told Clarin to be more "disciplined," editor Ricardo Kirschbaum recalls — one of many attempts to control the paper's coverage. Now, in the name of "freedom of speech," Fernandez has proposed a law that ... Read Full Story

AMSTERDAM/MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish authorities have arrested a Dutch-Argentine airline pilot on charges that he flew planes used to throw opponents of Argentina's former military junta into the sea, Spain said Wednesday. Julio Alberto Poch, a retired lieutenant in the Argentine navy who holds Dutch and Argentine passports, was arrested on Tuesday at Valencia's Manises airport during a stopover on the way back to Amsterdam. Poch was working for the Dutch airline Transavia, owned by Air France-KLM, the airline said. An Argentine government report says more than 11,000 people died or disappeared during the so-called "Dirty War," a crackdown on alleged leftists and other ... Read Full Story

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner starts an official three-day visit to India on Wednesday with a trade mission and plans to sign bilateral accords, the foreign ministry said Sunday. Kirchner, who set out on her trip late Saturday, was due to meet with her Indian counterpart Pratibha Devisingh Patil and with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Argentine president, who plans to visit New Delhi and Mumbai, also will meet with Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, with the head of the Congress Party and ruling coalition Sonia Gandhi, and leaders of other parties. More than 50 Argentine companies are taking part in the trade mission side ... Read Full Story

President Cristina Fernandez on Friday proposed decriminalizing libel and slander as a way of "guaranteeing even more" freedom of expression in Argentina. "I prefer a billion lies to shutting someone's mouth," Fernandez said in an address to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. "This is how I understand freedom and human rights," she told members of the organization, in Argentina to commemorate a visit 30 years ago that helped expose crimes committed by the military dictatorship. "I doubt there has ever been a time when it has been possible to speak with more liberty" than under the current administration, she said. "I challenge any historian, ... Read Full Story