Argentina's Spygate: 38 former Macri officials indicted

Indictments were issued in Argentine federal court against 38 officials in former President Mauricio Macri's 2015-19 administration for their roles in a wide-reaching surveillance operation against Macri's critics.

Those indicted by Federal Judge Juan Pablo Augé include former Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) head Gustavo Arribas, former deputy AFI head Silvia Majdalani, former Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF) head Emiliano Blanco, and Macri's secretary Susana Martinengo.

The scheme, carried out between 2016 and 2019, involved over 500 targets of warrantless surveillance and over $80 million in undeclared expenses by an AFI team known as the "Super Mario Bros."

Judge Augé described them as "permanent association in accordance with the so-called 'cycle intelligence' - created with the purpose of obtaining information on an undetermined number of people by the mere fact of their private actions, or political opinions, or of adhesion or belonging to partisan, social, labor or community organizations."

"All actions expressly punished by the National Intelligence Law," Augé noted.

Known targets - believed to be as many as 1,500 - thus far include at least 403 journalists, 58 businesspeople, 28 academics, 20 federal lawmakers, 2 former presidents - as well as Macri's sister Florencia and her family.

Macri, 62, denied re-election in 2019 amid the worst recession in two decades, has been the focus of numerous scandals involving alleged warrantless wiretapping of both public figures and relatives - including another sister, the late Sandra Macri (resulting in his 2009 indictment).

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.pagina12.com.ar/324885-espionaje-macrista-procesaron-a-las-cupulas-de-la-afi-y-el-s

Gustavo Arribas, head of intelligence under former Argentine President Mauricio Macri (his former business partner); and Arribas' deputy (and operational head of intelligence), Silvia Majdalani.

The two are the most prominent of some 38 former Macri officials indicted today as past of a probe into extensive - and warrantless - surveillance against both opponents and supporters of Macri's 2015-19 tenure.

An effort by Macri allies in the judiciary to transfer the case to Buenos Aires' right-wing dominated Comodoro Py federal courthouse was rebuffed on Thursday by an appeals court.

'Vaccine-gate' roils Peru: Politicians, families and friends secretly got COVID shots

In Peru, they’re calling it ”vaccine-gate” — revelations that the then-president, his wife and other well-connected citizens were secretly inoculated against COVID-19 starting in October, before the Chinese-developed shots were available to the public.

The escalating scandal that broke last week has already forced the resignations of Peru’s foreign and health ministers, among nearly 500 people who received so-called courtesy doses.

The scandal has already resulted in the resignations of the health minister, Pilar Mazzetti, and the foreign minister, Elizabeth Astete.

The vaccine in question was produced by Sinopharm, one of several Chinese companies aggressively marketing COVID-19 vaccines throughout Latin America.

Peruvian federal prosecutors and a congressional commission are investigating how the Sinopharm shots ended up allocated to a privileged few as COVID-19 ravaged the country of 32 million.

The government has released few details about the contract — it is not publicly known how much Peru paid the majority state-owned company — fanning speculation about a vaccines-for-favors scheme that sidestepped non-Chinese suppliers.

At: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-02-18/peru-vaccine-gate-politicians-diplomats-received-chinese-vaccine

Former Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra, former Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti, and former Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete.

All have been implicated in ‘Vaccine-gate’, in which nearly 500 influential figures and their friends and family received so-called courtesy doses - while nationwide, the number of vaccine doses administered thus far is one-sixth the world average, on a per capita basis.

Nearly 45,000 COVID-19 deaths have been recorded in Peru - over four times the world average, on a per capita basis.

Argentine Health Minister asked to resign over preferential vaccine access allegations

Argentine President Alberto Fernández asked for the resignation of Health Minister Ginés González García after veteran investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky revealed he had accessed a COVID-19 vaccination with the assistance of the health minister.

Verbitsky, 79, who suffers from asthma, recounted in a radio interview that he was vaccinated "after calling my old friend, Ginés González García, who told me to go to Posadas Hospital (a major public hospital west of Buenos Aires)."

"But I was then called by his secretary - who informed me that a vaccination team from Posadas Hospital would be at the Health Ministry, and that I should go there."

González García, 75, will reportedly be replaced by Public Health Access Secretary Carla Vizzotti, 48 - with whom he had often clashed during his 14-month tenure.

He had been praised for restoring access to 19 free-of-charge vaccines for children - a program discontinued by Mauricio Macri's right-wing, 2015-19 presidency - and for his support for generic drugs and abortion rights, which culminated in its historic legalization in January.

González García had also earned plaudits for expanding ICU bed access and securing COVID-19 vaccine agreements with Britain's AstraZeneca (for 22 million doses), Russia's Gamaleya (20 million), and the WHO's Covax program (9 million).

As of yesterday, however, only 635,000 doses had been administered (mainly Gamaleya) - half the global average on a per-capita basis. Argentina has so far recorded 2.05 million cases and 51,000 COVID-19 deaths.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagina12.com.ar%2F324841-el-presidente-alberto-fernandez-le-pidio-la-renuncia-a-gines

Outgoing Health Minister Ginés González García (center) and his successor, Carla Vizzotti, during a press conference early in the COVID-19 crisis in March.

González García had earned plaudits his efforts to expand access to vaccinations in general and his support for abortion rights - recently legalized in Argentina after decades of debate.

Today's revelations of apparent preferential access amid a slow vaccine rollout proved insurmountable for the health minister, who had clashed with Vizzotti - and increasingly, the president.

Protests continue in Spain against jailing of rapper over tweets

A dramatic arrest earlier this week of Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél, who was convicted of criticizing the monarchy and supporting a Basque separatist group in social media posts, has sparked days of protests across Spain and renewed debate over free speech in the country.

Thousands of Hasél supporters have taken to the streets in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Girona, since his arrest.

But peaceful protests devolved into chaos as protesters clashed with police for a third night in a row Thursday. Dozens have been arrested across the country since the demonstrations began.

Hasél was arrested on Tuesday, the day after the expiration of a deadline to turn himself into police for his March 2018 conviction. He has begun serving a nine-month prison sentence.

At: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/19/969320165/protests-continue-in-spain-against-jailing-of-rapper-over-tweets

GDP in European Union down 6.4% in 2020

Seasonally adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 0.6% in the euro area and by 0.4% in the European Union as a whole in Q4 2020 from Q3, according to the final data of the statistical office Eurostat.

From the same quarter a year ago, seasonally-adjusted GDP fell in 2020 Q4 by 5% in the euro area and by 4.8% in the EU as a whole.

Throughout 2020, the decline in GDP in the euro area amounted to 6.8%, and in the entire EU, the decline amounted to 6.4%.

Employment fell 1.7% in the EU during 2020, or 3.4 million jobs; the U.S. lost 8.9 million jobs despite a milder recession.

The most serious downturns were felt in Spain, with GDP down 11% in 2020; and France, with an 8.3% fall. Ireland bucked the trend with estimated growth of 3.6% - the only EU economy to grow in 2020.

This compares to a 3.5% drop in the U.S., a fall of around 7% in Latin America, and a 9.9% plunge in the U.K.

China's GDP growth slumped to 2.3% - the slowest since the 1989 Tiananmen crisis.

At: https://wbj.pl/gdp-in-european-union-down-almost-65procent-in-2020/post/129842

A line outside an unemployment office in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, last year.

Spain's 11% collapse in GDP - the worst since the 1936-39 Civil War - was the most severe among the EU's 27 nations.

For the EU, this was the deepest annual contraction (-6.4%) since World War II. Even in 2009 the contraction was only 4.3%, Eurostat said.

2021 TIME 100 NEXT: Mercedes D'Alessandro

Pandemic-related job losses have hit women harder than men. But in Argentina, economist Mercedes D’Alessandro is determined to soften the blow that this period poses for gender equality in the workplace.

After five years of analyzing the subject through her media outlet Economía Femini(s)ta, in 2020, D’Alessandro, 43, became the Argentine government’s first ever National Director of Gender, Equality and Economy - a post created by the center-left Alberto Fernández administration, elected in 2019.

In September, her office published a report quantifying the economic value of unpaid care and domestic work—three-quarters of which is carried out by women in Argentina—at 15.9% of GDP (or around $56 billion in 2020), more than all other sectors.

That understanding of women’s labor underpins the 2021 national budget, targeted to support women through measures such as expanded public infrastructure for childcare and requirements for state construction contractors to employ more women.

Going forward, one of D’Alessandro’s priorities is to lengthen Argentina’s two-day state-mandated paternity leave (mothers get 90 days). But she says all economic policy in Argentina needs to account for gender.

Thanks to her, it likely will. ··· Ciara Nugent

At: https://time.com/collection/time100-next-2021/5937708/mercedes-dalessandro/

Argentina's National Director of Gender, Equality and Economy, Mercedes D’Alessandro.

Her office, which promotes gender and diversity programs in the Economy Ministry and oversees a $66 million budget, is a first in Argentina.

“It is the first time that we have a Budget with a gender perspective,” D'Alessadro pointed out.

“In the face of the crisis, women are the ones with the highest levels of unemployment, of poverty. That a budget addresses this problem, means that there are paths to resolving these issues.”

Johnny Pacheco, Fania Records co-founder, dies at 85

Johnny Pacheco, the legendary bandleader who co-founded Fania Records in the 1960s and became one of the leading architects of the music that would come to be known as salsa, has died. He was 85 years old.

The Dominican-born, New York-raised Pacheco, who lived in New Jersey, died at Holy Name Medical Center, according to published reports. Sources say he had been hospitalized for complications stemming from pneumonia.

Pacheco, a Juilliard-trained multi-instrumentalist who’d found success recording with his band, Pacheco y Su Charanga, sparked a musical revolution when, in 1964, he met Jerry Masucci and together, they founded Fania Records. The two started the label with $5,000, selling albums in Spanish Harlem from the trunks of their cars.

Fania soon became known as the Latin Motown, home to superstars like Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano and Héctor Lavoe - and the breeding ground for seminal artists in the genre of music that would come to be known as “salsa,” a collision of traditional Cuban song and pan-Latin rhythms with American jazz and funk.

At: https://www.billboard.com/index.php/articles/columns/latin/9526303/johnny-pacheco-dead

Salsa great Johnny Pacheco, 1935-2021, performing with his group Tumbao Añejo in 2009.

OpenLux: the secrets of Luxembourg, a tax haven at the heart of Europe

Multinationals, billionaires, artists, sportsmen, criminals: an investigation by French daily Le Monde reveals for the first time exhaustively what the Grand Duchy’s financial centre conceals, thanks to its tax advantages.

The OpenLux investigation, conducted by Le Monde along with ten media partners for more than a year, provides answers: 55,000 offshore companies managing assets worth at least 6 trillion euros ($7.3 trillion).

These phantom companies without offices or employees were created by billionaires, multinationals, sportsmen, artists, high-ranking politicians and even royal families. Luxembourg acts as a magnet for the wealth of the world.

More surprisingly, OpenLux reveals that questionable funds, suspected of originating in criminal activity or linked to criminals targeted by judicial investigations, have been concealed in Luxembourg.

This is the case of companies linked to the Italian Mafia, the’Ndrangheta, and the Russian underworld. The League, Italy’s far-right party, has hidden a secret fund which is sought by the Italian authorities.

People close to the Venezuelan regime have recycled corrupt government procurement funds, as has former Argentine President Mauricio Macri.

At: https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2021/02/08/openlux-the-secrets-of-luxembourg-a-tax-haven-at-the-heart-of-europe_6069140_4355770.html

Partial view of the Kirchberg financial district in Luxembourg City.

The OpenLux investigation was compiled by French daily Le Monde from a database listing beneficiaries of the 124,000 commercial firms registered in Luxembourg - i.e. their true owners, along with 3.3 million administrative acts and financial reports.

Combined with the 2014 LuxLeaks published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), this week's revelations help paint a broader picture of the use of Luxembourg as a money laundry and tax haven.

OpenLux: Argentina's Macri family used Luxembourg companies to reap $70 million

Data revealed in Luxembourg’s UBO registry by the OpenLux revelations published last week may help unlock an investigation into Argentina's Macri family’s lucrative dealings in six wind farms.

A Luxembourg company could hold the key to a corruption scandal that has swirled around Argentina’s former president, Mauricio Macri, and his family for years.

Lares Corporation, set up by his brother, was part of a chain of companies in Argentina, Spain, and Luxembourg was part of a chain of entities used to buy and sell six wind farms in allegedly corrupt deals that are thought to have netted the former president and his relatives around $70 million.

Argentine law enforcement, who have been probing the deal since 2018, say the discovery of the company may be an important piece of evidence in their case.

The heir of one of the country’s richest families, Macri was seen by many as a pro-business leader who would help open Argentina to the world - but by the time his term ended in 2019, the country was mired in a debt crisis and deep recession.

Macri, 62, was one of five world leaders named in the 2016 Panama Papers scandal.

Other cases he has faced charges on include the Odebrecht scandal (for a failed rail tunnel project shared with IECSA, a family firm), the purchase of a failing Macri charter airline (MacAir) by Colombia's Avianca in 2016 in exchange for access to local routes, an attempted write-off in 2017 of up to $250 million in Macri Group debts to the Argentine postal service, and the Wind Farm scandal.

So far none of the cases has resulted in convictions, and he denies wrongdoing.

At: https://www.occrp.org/en/openlux/gone-with-the-wind-argentinas-former-first-family-used-luxembourg-companies-to-reap-70-million

Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri enjoys a light moment during the opening of a wind farm in northwest Argentina in 2017.

Macri is under investigation for the purchase and resale of six windfarms by a family firm (SIDELI/SIDSEL) during his 2015-19 tenure for a $70 million profit.

He has been charged in numerous other self-dealing, tax evasion, money laundering cases - though so far none have resulted in convictions, and he denies wrongdoing.

Former Argentine President Carlos Menem dies at age 90

Former Argentine President Carlos Menem died today after being hospitalized in Buenos Aires for a urinary tract infection. He was 90.

Though elected as a populist, the flamboyant Menem governed Argentina on largely pro-business lines from 1989 until 1999 - a decade remembered for prosperity clouded by rising unemployment and crime, as well as for a debt bubble that led to economic collapse in 2001.

Born in 1930 to Syrian immigrants in a small desert town in remote La Rioja Province, he became a lawyer in 1955 and was eventually elected governor of his province in 1973.

Elected on the Justicialist Party ticket - the party founded by the late populist leader Juan Perón - Menem, like many Peronist officials, was detained and jailed during the fascist 1976 coup.

He was released in 1978 and, with democracy restored in 1983, was returned by La Rioja voters as governor.

Menem unexpectedly won his party's 1988 presidential primary – a victory welcomed by the ruling UCR, who saw in the eccentric Menem an easier target. But amid a debt crisis inherited from the dictatorship and economic collapse, in 1989 he defeated conservative UCR nominee Eduardo Angeloz by 10%.

Carnal relations

Upon taking office in July he quickly shed his populist platform, appointing policymakers close to Argentina's landed and financial elites. He soon short-circuited resistance by packing the Supreme Court and using the Army as strike-breakers.

His adoption of the "Washington Consensus" - unconditional support of U.S. foreign policy by once non-aligned nations - heralded a U.S.-Argentine lockstep during the 1990s that Foreign Minister Guido di Tella famously termed "carnal relations."

Menem's first two years in office were, however, rocked by renewed financial crisis in November 1989, a historic seizure of bank deposits, record hyperinflation of 20,000% by March 1990, uproar over pardons for 1970s-era human rights abusers and far-left insurgents, allegations of money laundering by in-laws - and an acrimonious separation from First Lady Zulema Yoma in June.

But to supporters and detractors alike, his presidential legacy was defined by his appointment of Harvard-educated economist Domingo Cavallo as Economy Minister in 1991.

Cavallo's enactment of dollar-peso convertibility, led inflation to plummet from 1,344% in 1990 to 18% in 1992 - and the economy, declining since 1975, grew by one third in just four years.

Privatizations yielded improved and expanded public services while inflation remained near zero between 1993 and 2001 - the longest stretch of stable prices since the 1940s, and so far the last.

These results helped Menem secure support for a moderately progressive constitutional overhaul in 1994, as well as a landslide re-election in 1995 - the first since Perón's in 1951.

From landslide to disrepute

Privatizations proceeds came largely in near-worthless Brady bonds however, and 1-to-1 peso-dollar convertibility required massive borrowing to maintain - with foreign debt ballooning from $61 billion in 1991, to $166 billion by 2001.

Layoffs resulting from privatizations as well as improved productivity led to 17% unemployment by 1995, and a subsequent crime wave.

His 20% landslide in 1995 turned into an 11% loss in the 1997 mid-terms, and his Justicialist Party was defeated in 1999 by 10%.

He again sought the presidency in 2003, winning the first round by 2% - but forfeiting the runoff after polls showed him losing to center-left Peronist Néstor Kirchner by up to 50%.

Menem later faced charges for his alleged role in illegal arms sales to Croatia and Ecuador, obstruction of justice related to the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing (which killed 85), and embezzlement - for which he was sentenced to a four-year prison term in 2015.

A senator since 2005, the seat shielded Menem from prison.

Menem is survived by ex-wife Zulema, 78; daughter Zulemita, 50; an illegitimate son, Carlos Nair, 39; and son Máximo, 17 – whose mother, Chilean model Cecilia Bolocco, 55, was married to Menem between 2001 and 2007.

His first son Carlos was killed at 26, in a 1995 accident still under investigation. Netflix has announced an upcoming miniseries based on Menem's life, ¡Síganme! (Follow Me!) - his 1989 campaign slogan.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.pagina12.com.ar/323746-murio-carlos-menem

Former Argentine President Carlos Menem and his daughter Zulemita greet Princess Diana during her last visit to Argentina in 1995.

The media-savvy Menem enjoyed mostly favorable press abroad, and dollar convertibility plus privatizations helped modernize Argentina's antiquated and inflation-wracked economy.

But the sale of flagship state enterprises for near-worthless bonds, sharp rises in unemployment and crime, a subsequent debt crisis, and myriad corruption allegations made him the most controversial public figure in Argentina since his mentor, the late populist leader Juan Perón - whose state-led, pro-labor policies Menem largely dismantled.