2015-02-06

1. EX-SPY CHIEF CALLED TO TESTIFY IN INVESTIGATION OF ARGENTINE PROSECUTOR’S DEATH (The New York Times)

2. DEMOCRACY IN ARGENTINA DENTED BY MYSTERIOUS MURDER (Financial Times)

3. WHY ARGENTINA’S FERNÁNDEZ REALLY CAN’T AFFORD TO MOCK CHINA (Bloomberg News)

4. ARGENTINE EX-SPY CHIEF AT CENTER OF PROSECUTOR’S MURDER MYSTERY IS MISSING (Bloomberg News)

5. FORMER ARGENTINE SPY CHIEF SUMMONED IN CASE OF DEAD PROSECUTOR –REPORTS (Reuters News)

6. ARGENTINE LEADER SLAMMED AFTER TWITTER REMARK (UPI Online)

7. ARGENTINE INVESTIGATORS SEEK EX-SPY CHIEF TO TESTIFY IN CASE OF PROSECUTOR’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH (US News & World Report)

8. A CULTURE OF FEAR IN ARGENTINA (The Weekly Standard)

9. ARGENTINA LNG IMPORTS FALL TO LOWEST LEVEL IN FOUR YEARS (Platts Commodity News)

10. CHINA’S NEW LATIN AMERICA TIES ARE STRATEGIC, NOT JUST ECONOMIC (World Politics Review)

11. WHY ARGENTINA JOURNO FLED TO ISRAEL OVER OIL-BOMB PROBE (Barron’s)

12. ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT WILL WRITE TO MIA FARROW AND MARTINA NAVRATILOVA ABOUT SCANDAL (NPR Org)

13. THE US HAD TIES TO AN ARGENTINE TERROR INVESTIGATION THAT ENDED WITH A PROSECUTOR’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH (Quartz Online)

14. CHINA TO TAKE OVER ARGENTINEAN SPACE STATION (PanAm Post News & Analysis in the Americas)

15. THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF ARGENTINA’S POLICE STATE (PanAm Post News & Analysis in the Americas)

16. ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT FENDS OFF CHALLENGES FROM THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE (ValueWalk Online)

18. THROUGH A LENS DARKLY: FOREIGN DIRECTORS ON THEIR FILMS (The New York Times)

19. CHINA EMERGES AS LENDER OF LAST RESORT FOR AILING LATIN AMERICAN ECONOMIES (The Washington Post)

1. EX-SPY CHIEF CALLED TO TESTIFY IN INVESTIGATION OF ARGENTINE PROSECUTOR’S DEATH (The New York Times)

By Simon Romero

Feb. 5, 2015

BUENOS AIRES — The lead investigator in the mysterious death of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who accused Argentina’s president of trying to shield Iranians from responsibility over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here, summoned an ousted spy chief to testify in the case on Thursday.

But Antonio Stiusso, a former spymaster at Argentina’s premier intelligence agency, appeared to be resisting the summons. Mr. Stiusso’s lawyer said he was looking into whether his client could testify about matters that might be covered by secrecy laws.

“Stiusso was an excellent civil servant,” the lawyer, Santiago Blanco Bermúdez, said in comments broadcast on local radio, referring to his client’s four-decade career at the Intelligence Secretariat as one of the country’s most powerful spies. He said he did not expect Mr. Stiusso to testify on Thursday.

Testimony by Mr. Stiusso could shed light on the circumstances around the death of Mr. Nisman, 51, who was found at his Buenos Aires apartment on Jan. 18 with a gunshot wound to his head, a day before he had been scheduled to speak to Congress about his accusations against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She and her top aides have accused Mr. Stiusso of having a hand in the events surrounding the prosecutor’s death.

Viviana Fein, the lead investigator in Mr. Nisman’s death, told the newspaper La Nación on Wednesday night that she had asked Mr. Stiusso to testify on Thursday. According to telephone records, a phone thought to belong to Mr. Stiusso was used to call Mr. Nisman hours before his death, the newspaper reported.

Appearing to respond to Mr. Blanco Bermúdez’s concerns, Oscar Parrilli, the head of the Intelligence Secretariat, said on Thursday that the president had lifted the secrecy restrictions that would have prevented Mr. Stiusso from testifying. Mr. Blanco Bermúdez could not be reached immediately for comment on the developments.

Mr. Nisman had been investigating the 1994 attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, run by the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, which left 85 people dead.

Days before his death, Mr. Nisman had accused Mrs. Kirchner of seeking to forge a secret deal to shield Iranians charged in the attack from responsibility. No one has been charged with responsibility for his death, and investigators have not yet determined if it was a suicide or a homicide. However, an information technology consultant for Mr. Nisman’s investigative unit was charged with lending him the gun that was found on the floor near his body.

The president and her top aides have angrily rejected Mr. Nisman’s accusations, which were laid out in a 289-page criminal complaint, and have pointed to statements by the former head of Interpol saying that Argentine officials had never sought to lift the arrest warrants for Iranians sought in connection with the bombing.

Mr. Nisman had acknowledged receiving ample assistance for his investigations from Mr. Stiusso, who was removed from his post by the president in December. The core of his complaint against Mrs. Kirchner was based on intercepts of telephone calls believed to have been obtained by Mr. Stiusso’s operatives at the intelligence agency.

In the radio interview, Mr. Blanco Bermúdez, said Mr. Stiusso had “a fleet of telephones in his name which were used by various people.” The lawyer said he could not dismiss the possibility that one of those phones was used by someone with access to them in the hours before Mr. Nisman was found dead.

In the uproar over Mr. Nisman’s death, Mrs. Kirchner moved last month to dissolve the Intelligence Secretariat in a sweeping overhaul of Argentina’s intelligence services, which she contended “have not served the interests of the country.” Her government wants new legislation to create an agency with reduced surveillance powers.

In another twist, Ms. Fein on Wednesday canceled plans to go on vacation on Feb. 18, a move that had driven suspicions that she was being pressured by the government. Ms. Fein has denied that she is under any pressure.

Aníbal Fernández, the president’s chief of staff, said the government was not trying to displace Ms. Fein. Mr. Fernández had even urged Ms. Fein to postpone her vacation, criticizing her for “leaving here to put on her swimsuit.” A judge, Daniel Rafecas, was also appointed on Wednesday to take up the case put forward by Mr. Nisman before his death, easing concerns that it would languish in Argentina’s legal system.

Ms. Fein confirmed that Mr. Nisman had drafted a request for arrest warrants for Mrs. Kirchner and her foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, in connection with his accusations. The draft of the document, which was not included in his complaint, was found in the garbage at Mr. Nisman’s home, Ms. Fein said this week.

Charles Newbery and Jonathan Gilbert contributed reporting.

2. DEMOCRACY IN ARGENTINA DENTED BY MYSTERIOUS MURDER (Financial Times)

By John Paul Rathbone

February 5, 2015

No Argentine believes this conspiracy will be solved, writes John Paul Rathbone

Truth can be stranger than fiction. Ever since Alberto Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment, Argentina — or, more precisely, the government of Cristina Fernández — has proved the wisdom of the proverb. You could not make this story up.

Three weeks ago, Nisman was preparing for the defining moment of his career. On January 19, the 51-year old prosecutor was set to accuse the president of covering up Iran’s alleged role in Argentina’s worst terrorist attack: a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people. A few hours before the congressional hearing, Nisman’s mother found her son lying in a pool of blood.

At first, Ms Fernández suggested Nisman’s death was suicide. Then, in a rambling Facebook post, she suggested it was a murder, at the hand of rogue spies wanting to discredit her.

“In Argentina . . . every day you have to explain the obvious and the simple,” she wrote wearily, adding: “in Argentina, like everywhere, not everything is what it seems”. Few leaders can match such sarcasm.

Conspiracy theories are thickening. Officials blame “dark interests”. Yet most of the conspiracy theories are fed by the state itself.

On Sunday, Clarín, a newspaper that has clashed repeatedly with the president, reported that Nisman had also drafted a warrant for her arrest. The government rubbished the report and, on television, the cabinet chief ripped it up. The next day, it transpired the article was true: a draft of the warrant was found in Nisman’s garbage.

Argentines remain understandably suspicious of their intelligence services, which are little changed since the military dictatorship ended in 1983. That means Ms Fernández’s idea that rogue spies planned Nisman’s death is not entirely implausible. Yet that does not make Ms Fernández a credible reformer of Argentina’s spy services, the mantle she claimed in an hour-long television broadcast on January 26.

After all, long experience has also made Argentines wary of government lies — over almost everything, but particularly corruption and inflation. The government, acting as if it is holier than Mother Teresa, has always batted away such allegations.

“No Argentine believes this conspiracy will be solved, because of the complicity of so many sectors”

But now, trapped by its own mistakes, it can no longer disguise reality with words. Nobody suggests Ms Fernández orchestrated Nisman’s death. But her government’s actions suggest that it is scared and perhaps hiding something too. Ms Fernández’s behaviour has not helped. She is yet to offer condolences to Nisman’s family. On Wednesday, on a trip to China, she also mocked her hosts’ accents by swapping l’s for r’s, remarking that humour was the best reaction to slurs.

Now the spotlight is on Argentina’s judiciary. It is slow, inefficient, perhaps corrupt, but still enjoys silos of competence and legal expertise. Indeed, its independence is one reason why Argentina is not as messed up as Venezuela, despite Ms Fernández’s best efforts to control it (she is a lawyer).

Two years ago, for example, Ms Fernández proposed a reform that would have seen the panel that chooses Argentine judges selected by popular vote. This would supposedly “democratise” the legal system. In reality, it would have put it in thrall to ruling politicians. In the end, the courts threw out the initiative, as they did a government-sponsored accord with Tehran over the 1994 terrorist attack.

One does not have to look far for reasons why Ms Fernández might want to stack the judiciary in her favour. Her personal wealth has grown exponentially since she and her deceased husband came to power in 2003. In 2013, according to the latest filing, her wealth grew 15 per cent to $6.6m. But her presidency ends this year, she cannot seek re-election and, stripped of immunity, that could leave her legally exposed. Ms Fernández’s actions give critics further cause for suspicion.

One solution now might be to bring in a credible team of independent experts to investigate Nisman’s death — and the 1994 bombing too. Mexico brought in Argentine forensic experts to investigate the death of 43 students this year. Similarly, a UN-backed commission investigated the mysterious death of a Guatemalan judge in 2009. Buenos Aires has not made a similar move.

The result is a murder conspiracy that nobody believes will ever be properly solved because of the complicity of so many sectors: the state, the presidency, the judiciary, Congress and the intelligence services. The story exemplifies that notion that Argentina, 32 years after the demise of the military junta, remains at best a flawed democracy and at worst a rogue state.

3. WHY ARGENTINA’S FERNÁNDEZ REALLY CAN’T AFFORD TO MOCK CHINA (Bloomberg News)

By Aaron Rutkoff

February 5, 2015

The president of Argentina apparently forgot that it’s not smart to make fun of the people who are bailing out your country.

Next time, Christina Fernández de Kirchner might want to listen to her doctors.

The Argentine president, already mired in a furor at home over the mysterious death of a prosecutor who had accused her of graft, posted a message on Twitter during her visit to Beijing that mimicked a stereotypical Chinese accent, asking about “lice” instead of “rice” and “petloleum” rather than petroleum. It tuns out that Fernandez went to China even though her physicians had told her not to travel because of her bum ankle, according to the official China Daily newspaper. She told her hosts she could barely walk before her visit.

Still, there was no stopping her China travel plans—and that’s due in no small part to China’s huge role in Argentina’s economy. “I came out of my desire to be here with you,” Fernández said in Beijing, “with our partners who are coming to sign agreements.” China’s official news agency decided the best strategy was to avoid the embarrassing story in its coverage. Fernández met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said afterwards he was “even more confident of the outlook for China-Argentine relations,” according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Making fun of the Chinese is especially dangerous for Fernández, given the Chinese appetite for one of Argentina’s most important exports—soybeans. China is the one overseas buyer for soybeans that really matters, accounting for 73 percent of the market among major importers. China’s imports surged 17.5 percent last year, to 70 million metric tons, and are likely to increase another 5.2 percent in 2015.

Argentina, the world’s third-biggest grower of soybeans, exported just under 8 million metric tons worldwide last year.

Argentina’s farmers can’t afford a spat with the Chinese government, which has already shown a readiness to use them as a pawn in a trade war. In 2010, China banned imports of Argentine soybean oil over worries about solvent residues. It didn’t help matters that the two countries also were squabbling about other industries, such as textiles and kitchen products. China eventually relented, and the country is now Argentina’s second-largest trading partner, after Brazil.

Another dispute would be costly, given Argentina’s current weakness. Exports of Argentine soybean oil dropped 3.5 percent last year, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture expects them to rebound in 2015. Total exports of soybeans gained only 1.3 percent last year, and the forecast for this year doesn’t look much better.

China is also helping to keep Argentina’s precarious finances in order. When Xi visited Buenos Aires last July, just before the latest default by Argentina, the Chinese leader signed a deal to establish an $11 billion swap agreement. The Argentines have been taking advantage of that generosity, drawing close to $3 billion since then. An official from the Argentine central bank told Bloomberg last month that the country would turn again to China, increasing its foreign exchange reserves by $400 million. The deal “helped to reduce the perception that the country may be heading to yet another currency run,” Goldman Sachs economic Mauro Roca wrote in December.

Argentina isn’t the only country in South America benefiting from Chinese generosity. Hurt because of the falling price of commodities—a plunge driven in part by the slowdown in the Chinese economy—both Venezuela and Ecuador have also received funds from China to prop up their foreign-exchange reserves. China has provided them a combined $27.5 billion in funding and investment, Bloomberg reported last month.

Given that sort of money from China, it’s easy to see why the same day Fernández posted her accent-mocking message on Twitter, she also told Xi of Argentina’s interest in increasing the amount of its currency swap with China, according to Xinhua. All joking aside, Argentina’s leader understands how much her country needs China’s help.

4. ARGENTINE EX-SPY CHIEF AT CENTER OF PROSECUTOR’S MURDER MYSTERY IS MISSING (Bloomberg News)

By Charlie Devereux

February 5, 2015

(Bloomberg) — Argentine authorities can’t locate the former spy chief at the center of an investigation into the death of a prosecutor who accused President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of an attempted cover up.

Prosecutors accompanied by intelligence agents weren’t able to find Antonio Stiuso at three addresses registered to his name, Intelligence Secretary Oscar Parrilli said. Stiuso, who worked his way up through the intelligence agency over four decades before his departure last month, was summoned to testify on Thursday by the prosecutor investigating the death of Alberto Nisman from a shot to the head Jan. 18.

Even Stiuso’s lawyer says he doesn’t know where his client is.

“I think he’s in the country but I’m not certain,” Santiago Blanco Bermudez said in an interview on Argentine television channel TN.

Fernandez accused Stiuso of feeding Nisman false information after the prosecutor prepared a 300-page report saying the president sought to cover up the alleged involvement of Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. The government has lifted a confidentiality gag on Stiuso if he’s questioned by investigators, Parrilli said Thursday.

‘Tell Everything’

“The president wants the whole truth to be known and for Stiuso to tell everything,” Parrilli told reporters in Buenos Aires.

Blanco Bermudez said he has met with Stiuso since Nisman’s death and that his client is willing to testify. Talking to his client can be problematic though as Stiuso has almost 100 telephone numbers to his name and he often communicates through third parties, Blanco Bermudez said.

Nisman was found dead in his apartment a day before he was due to present his evidence against President Fernandez to lawmakers. A draft document calling for the detention of Fernandez and members of her government was found in Nisman’s apartment following his death, prosecutor Viviana Fein said this week.

Under a memorandum of understanding in 2013, Fernandez and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman would push for Interpol to remove “red notices” against some former Iranian officials charged for their involvement in the terrorist attack in exchange for greater trade, Nisman said in his report. A red notice is a request to authorities abroad for help arresting and extraditing wanted persons.

In a letter published on her website Jan. 22, Fernandez said she had no doubt that Nisman was fed false information and then murdered to tarnish her government.

“They used him while alive and then needed him dead. It’s that sad and terrible,” she wrote in a statement on her website. “The real operation against the government was the death of the prosecutor.”

5. FORMER ARGENTINE SPY CHIEF SUMMONED IN CASE OF DEAD PROSECUTOR –REPORTS (Reuters News)

By Sarah Marsh and Richard Lough

Feb 5, 2015

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Argentine investigators summoned a former spy chief for questioning over the death of a state prosecutor who alleged the country’s president had tried to cover up his investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center, Argentine media reported.

Alberto Nisman was found dead in his flat on Jan. 18, a day before he was due to testify about his claim that President Cristina Fernandez tried to whitewash his findings that Iran was behind the attack in order to win economic favours from Tehran.

Iran vigorously denied involvement in the bombing and Fernandez branded Nisman’s findings absurd. She said Nisman was duped by rogue agents involved in a power struggle at the Argentine spy agency, and killed when he was no longer of value to them.

One of those spies was Antonio Stiusso, Fernandez has said.

Stiusso, fired during a December shake-up of the Intelligence Secretariat, or SI, had helped Nisman with his investigation of the bombing which killed 85 people.

Anibal Fernandez, the president’s chief of staff, declined to confirm Thursday if Stiusso had been called for questioning. Asked if he thought Stiusso would appear before investigators, Fernandez told reporters: “I suppose he has to otherwise he will find himself in an uncomfortable position.”

A spokesman in the office of the lead investigator, Viviana Fein, said he had received no official confirmation from Fein of a summons for Stiusso.

It remains unclear whether Nisman killed himself or was murdered. Conspiracy theories abound, with some pointing directly at the president.

No arrests have been made since President Fernandez’s remark two weeks ago that renegade spies were behind the prosecutor’s death.

Stiusso’s whereabouts were unknown.

“Legally he is in Argentina,” Anibal Fernandez said. “But I don’t know if he has left the country illegally.”

Citing sources close to the investigation into Nisman’s death, Argentine news agency DyN and the daily La Nacion said Stiusso had been called to testify at 11:00 a.m. (1400 GMT) in Buenos Aires.

Fein called upon him to testify after checking calls received and made on Nisman’s telephone before his death, both media outlets reported.

For years, Stiusso had been one of the most powerful and feared men in the SI. The agency played an important role in the military government’s “dirty war” against suspected Marxist rebels, union leaders and other leftists in the 1970s.

Since democracy was restored in 1983, successive governments are widely believed to have continued to use the agency to snoop on opponents.

6. ARGENTINE LEADER SLAMMED AFTER TWITTER REMARK (UPI Online)

By Ed Adamczyk

Feb 5, 2015

She referred to “rice and petroleum” as “lice and petloleum.”

BEIJING, Feb. 5 (UPI) — Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, after mocking Chinese accents on social media, was the subject of ridicule herself from angry social media users.

Fernandez, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday in Beijing to boost economic ties between the two countries. She later attended a trade event and wrote, in Spanish on her Twitter account, “More than 1,000 participants at the event…Are they all from the Campola and in it only for the lice and petloleum?”

She referred to her political party’s youth group and its reputation for attending events only for the drinks and food, but her light-hearted mention of the perceived inability of the Chinese to pronounce the letters “r” and “l” sparked a torrent of complaints by Chinese and Argentine social media users.

“Cristina Fernandez’s lack of judgment and respect is incredible. She goes to China looking for (business) agreements and she makes fun of their accents,” wrote one. “If you want to be funny, do it in an intelligent way,” wrote another.

In an attempt to calm the storm, Argentine Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich said in Buenos Aires her comment was a “sign of affection that recognizes the ties that have been built with China.”

Although her trip was overshadowed by the Twitter controversy, Fernandez and Xi signed 15 agreements, on issues including nuclear energy and enhanced cooperation in a number of economic sectors, during her four-day state visit.

The Chinese government offered no comment on what one Twitter user called Fernandez’s “stupid mistake.”

7. ARGENTINE INVESTIGATORS SEEK EX-SPY CHIEF TO TESTIFY IN CASE OF PROSECUTOR’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH (US News & World Report)

By Peter Prengaman

February 5, 2015

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The spy novel-like drama that has gripped Argentina since the mysterious death of President Cristina Fernandez’s nemesis took a critical new twist Thursday when investigators called one of the country’s most enigmatic spy chiefs to testify before them.

The testimony by Antonio Stiuso, who was dismissed in December and whose whereabouts were unknown, could be key to determining whether Fernandez is able to survive the storm in the waning months of her presidency, or whether the deepening scandal will swamp her administration.

Stiuso, a shadowy intelligence agent known by the name “Jaime,” had assisted prosecutor Alberto Nisman in his investigation of the unsolved bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994. A report Nisman submitted to a federal judge in January accused Fernandez of agreeing to shield the alleged masterminds of the attack, former Iranian officials, in exchange for oil and other trade benefits.

But Nisman was found shot dead Jan. 18, hours before he was to appear in Congress to detail his allegations.

Without naming Stiuso specifically, Fernandez has suggested rogue intelligence agents played a role in the death and, last week, she urged Congress to disband the agency.

“The government is trying to regain control of the narrative and this is part of it,” said Maria Victoria Murillo, an expert in Latin American politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “The whole thing is like a spy novel and he’s a spy, so it makes sense for the government to put him at the center of the story.”

Fernandez, who on Thursday wrapped up an official visit in China, has come under increasing heat since Nisman’s death, with conspiracy theories flourishing around the case. Although the prosecutor was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in the bathroom of his apartment, even she has rejected the initial finding that he committed suicide.

Nisman had feared for his safety and 10 federal police officers were assigned to protect him

Stiuso, who press reports say ran a vast wire-tapping operation, is said to have been one of the most powerful people in the country, a figure similar to the controversial former head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

Most Argentines, however, would be unable to recognize him. He keeps a very low profile and the only image circulated of him is a once-classified black and white photo of a young-looking man released a decade ago by one of his foes.

Now in his 60s, Stiuso joined the agency, formerly known as the Secretary of State Information, in 1972, working through the “Dirty War” years of the military junta dictatorship in the 1970s and then alongside every administration since the return of democracy in 1983.

People who have crossed him have not fared well.

In 2004, then Justice Minister Gustavo Beliz said during a television interview that Stiuso was a “dangerous” man who frequently broke the law. Soon after that, Beliz was forced to resign.

“Stiuso is an excellent professional,” Miguel Angel Toma, the former head of the Secretary of Intelligence, told The Associated Press. “I never gave him an order to do anything illegal and he never made me presume that he did these kind of (illegal) activities on his own.”

Stiuso had collaborated with Nisman during the 10-year investigation of the bombing, which killed 85 people. The spy chief was removed from his post by Fernandez in December.

The president has suggested Stiuso fed false information to Nisman that implicated her and her top officials in a cover-up of the bombing. Fernandez has denied any wrongdoing.

Viviana Fein, the lead investigator into Nisman’s death, called Thursday for Stiuso to appear to testify, said Oscar Parrilli, the secretary of intelligence.

Officials, however, have not located Stiuso. His lawyer, Santiago Blanco Bermudez, told Radio Vorterix on Thursday that Stiuso had yet to receive a summons, but would appear when he is formally called.

“It’s his obligation as a citizen and former public official,” Blanco Bermudez said.

By law, intelligence officials are prohibited from disclosing state secrets. But, Parrilli said, Fernandez would present an order exempting Stiuso from the restriction, clearing the way for him to speak about anything.

“The president wants all the truth to be known, and wants Stiuso to tell us everything, from 1972 until now,” Parrilli told reporters outside Congress.

While Fernandez has cast aspersions on Stiuso and his intelligence colleagues, bringing him to testify could potentially backfire on the president and her supporters as her party tries to position itself for October elections. Fernandez is prohibited from running for a third term.

The case Nisman built against Fernandez is proceeding despite his death. On Wednesday, it was assigned to federal Judge Daniel Rafecas, who was expected to review it later this month. Rafecas was appointed to the bench by President Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez’s late husband.

“The case doesn’t need to be strong,” said Martin Bohmer, a legal expert and former dean of the law school at the University of San Andres. “It just needs to be strong enough to start an investigation, and can become stronger from there.”

8. A CULTURE OF FEAR IN ARGENTINA (The Weekly Standard)

By Dovid Margolin

9 February 2015

Buenos Aires

The sudden death on January 18 of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, shot in the head at close range just hours before he was to have offered damning testimony against President Christina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, is the latest twist in a long-running mass-murder mystery. The saga began on July 18, 1994, when a white Renault van loaded with explosives slammed into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building on Pasteur Street in the center of the city. The blast leveled the seven-story building, killing 85 and injuring more than 300. It came just two years after the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, with 29 killed. Immediate suspicion fell on Iran, accused of working through Hezbollah with local contacts. But in the decades since, presidents have come and gone, investigation after investigation has taken place, yet nobody has ever been convicted. Justice has never been served.

Argentina’s Jewish community, centered in Buenos Aires, numbers around 250,000 people. It is mostly made up of the children and grandchildren of Jews who fled the pogroms and economic hardships of Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century, or those who came two generations later, as the Nazis rose to and fell from power in Europe. Argentina, in the minds of those early Jewish immigrants, was a faraway land, a place so exotic and distant from the ones they were leaving that they could begin their lives anew. Even today Buenos Aires feels isolated; it is an 11-hour plane ride to New York, even further to Europe and Israel. World events always seemed to happen elsewhere.

Until the AMIA bombing.

“It was a shock for all of us here,” explains Karina Falkon, a psychologist who lives in Buenos Aires. “It showed us how connected we were to the rest of the Jewish world. They showed everyone that when they want to hurt us, they can do it here, too.”

Falkon had lived in Israel in the early 1990s, so she recognized the sound she heard on that July morning as an explosion. She and friends ran to the site to see how they could help. “At night we tried to save the books from the building—the police officially didn’t let us, but we were collecting them so that they could somehow get preserved.”

AMIA is the umbrella for all Jewish organizations in Argentina, and the blast brought devastation to nearly every segment of the Jewish community, from secular to religious. All who were old enough remember where they were that day.

Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt has headed Chabad-Lubavitch of Argentina since 1978. Chabad, a Hasidic Jewish outreach organization with over 4,000 representatives all over the world, is one of the largest Jewish groups in Argentina, with more than 52 centers, including schools, synagogues, and social service organizations spread throughout the country. Its headquarters on Aguero Street is less than two kilometers from the AMIA building.

“I was here in my house,” Grunblatt recalls of that day. “I had just arrived back from New York. I went to pray in the morning and then I got back home and I went to lie down because I was exhausted after traveling. I woke up when I heard the bomb.”

With memories of the Israeli embassy attack still fresh, Grunblatt called his office at Chabad headquarters to find out what happened. “They told me, ‘The building of AMIA does not exist anymore. There was an explosion and the building just disappeared.’

“Everyone was affected. A member of my community’s mother was killed. Another member was passing through the building to pay for his father’s gravestone—his father passed away earlier that month—he was paying for the gravestone and got killed. We have a young man whose father worked as security there, he was also killed. It was a great hit for the entire community.”

“We were all there digging for days,” adds Grunblatt’s wife, Shterna. “It was just devastating.”

Today, concrete security barriers guard every Jewish center in Buenos Aires. They all have security guards as well, with the higher-profile centers employing Israeli-trained professionals.

The rebuilt AMIA building—which also houses the offices of DAIA, Argentine Jewry’s political umbrella organization—is an impregnable fortress, a monument to the precautions the Jewish community has been forced to take since the attack. Set far back from the bustling street, the front entrance to the compound is a single, nondescript steel door in a protective wall. Peering through dark sunglasses, two Israeli security guards monitor and question each person going in or out.

When I arrived in mid-December to interview an AMIA official, I handed over my ID to the guards, then was instructed to stand behind two lines of yellow tape on the sidewalk, under a large black metal sign bearing the names of all of the bombing’s victims. Fifteen minutes later I was allowed in. After going through a metal detector and a number of enormous security doors with red and green lights signaling me to stay put or move forward, I was finally in the building’s courtyard, which is dominated by a memorial to the victims designed by Israeli artist Yaacov Agam.

My purpose was to ask about Argentina’s continuing negotiations with Iran. These talks were agreed to in January 2013, when, on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, the foreign ministers of Argentina and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding that called for a joint “truth” commission to investigate the AMIA bombing. At the time, the move was condemned by AMIA’s leadership, Israel’s foreign ministry, and major American Jewish organizations.

To be sure, the Argentine investigation into the attack had been mishandled for years; a new start was needed. But Argentina’s decision to invite Iran—which had been formally charged by Nisman, together with Hezbollah, in 2006—to participate in an investigation of its own alleged actions seemed positively sinister.

If I had expected the official I interviewed (who asked not to be named) to express disapproval and anger about the Memorandum of Understanding—as Argentine Jews do regularly in private—I was wrong. The years without justice, but full of bungled court proceedings, cover-ups, and misdirection, complicated by ever-present local corruption, whispers of government intimidation, and charges of obstruction of justice against various political figures, in addition to the negotiations with Iran, have left the Argentine Jewish community in a state of fear.

“The relationship between the government and the Jewish community is a respectful one,” the official began, measuring his words. “Whatever we decide to work on together we work on together. We understand very well that there is interest on the part of the Argentine government to reach the truth and to come to the results of who is responsible. One of the tools to be used is the Memorandum, and the Jewish community of Argentina does not feel the proper way to reach the solution is through collaborating with the potential perpetrators.”

As he spoke it became increasingly clear that this was not a disingenuous bureaucrat, but a Jewish community official who, knowing full well what his government was capable of, was protecting himself and his community. Now, in the light of Nisman’s death as he was about to accuse the president and foreign minister of conspiring to cover up Iran’s involvement in the bombing in exchange for positive trade relations, the official’s caution appears abundantly justified.

“I believe that the Argentine government and the world really do want to know the truth,” the official continued. “But it’s not the job of the Jewish community to find the answer, it’s the obligation of the government that’s responsible to run this country. The Jewish community can help, can support, think together with them, but we can’t lead this investigation. The Argentine government is the only one that can do it.”

Because of the Argentine government’s entanglement in the cover-up of Iran’s suspected crimes, the circumstances in Argentina are darker and more dangerous than anything we face in the United States. But there is still a lesson to be taken from Argentina’s negotiations with Iran. The Jewish community, victim of an atrocity, has been reduced to self-censorship and mumbled platitudes to express its displeasure at Argentina’s friendly dealings with its attacker.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama said: “Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material. Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran; secures America and our allies—including Israel; while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict.”

Does Obama’s call for further negotiations with Iran, like the Argentine-Iranian Memorandum of Understanding, place Israel in a position of danger? Does it undermine America’s own security by showing softness and creating new targets?

“It’s always dangerous not to know the truth,” were the AMIA official’s parting words. “When the people who made the worst attack ever [on Argentine soil] aren’t brought to justice, that leaves Argentina scared of more attacks. There is a sense that, because nothing was done about the previous attack, there won’t be peace.”

When a government assigned to protect its people by investigating crimes and bringing the perpetrators to justice switches roles and becomes a friendly negotiator with the likely criminal, the victims are vulnerable and frightened. Contemplating events in Argentina, it is impossible not to wonder whether Obama is leading the United States and its allies down a similar path.

Dovid Margolin writes on international affairs for Chabad.org and is the director of Hebrew literacy at the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute in New York.

9. ARGENTINA LNG IMPORTS FALL TO LOWEST LEVEL IN FOUR YEARS (Platts Commodity News)

By J. Robinson

5 Feb 2015

Argentine LNG imports in December and January marked the lowest monthly volumes on record going back to 2010, data from Platts unit Bentek Energy showed Thursday.

In December, Argentina imported 244,880 cubic meters of LNG. In January, import volume totaled just 228,706 cu m. While the summer months of December and January are traditionally a time of low gas demand in Argentina, imports of LNG this season were down 55.7% and 59.4% respectively, from the year-ago period.

Gas sendout rates in early January at Argentina’s two import terminals in Escobar and Bahia Blanca were at zero, according to one South America-based market observer.

“In the midst of summer gas demand for heating is nil,” the source said. “A mild summer has also kept residential electricity demand for air conditioning low, keeping power generation demand in check.”

Beyond the seasonal impact on gas demand, a weakening economy combined with high inflation has also reduced demand for natural gas from the industrial sector where consumption is on the decline, the South American source said.

Argentina’s ability to pay for LNG imports has also been crippled by the nation’s default on an estimated $20 billion in debt obligations in late July.

Dwindling foreign currency reserves contributed to the delayed the import of at least eight LNG carriers from September to October last year. Those delays, some of which lasted as long as four weeks, increased market-perceived risk of selling LNG supplies to Argentina.

Even in the current bearish-market environment, Argentina would likely be required to pay a price premium for LNG imports, according to various market sources.

10. CHINA’S NEW LATIN AMERICA TIES ARE STRATEGIC, NOT JUST ECONOMIC (World Politics Review)

By Frida Ghitis

Feb. 5, 2015

On Jan. 8, Chinese President Xi Jinping strode into a meeting room in Beijing for an unprecedented gathering. The audience was filled with Latin American dignitaries, including three presidents, one prime minister and countless Cabinet members from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

It was the first official high-level gathering of the China-CELAC Forum, and Xi expressed his appreciation. “Your presence,” he told his audience, “has brought warmth to Beijing in the depth of winter.”

Xi vowed to double Chinese trade with Latin America to half a trillion dollars and raise direct Chinese investment in the region to $250 billion within 10 years.

The magnitude of the investments under discussion at that event, as in other bilateral encounters, is staggering. Billion-dollar numbers are thrown around as if they amounted to run-of-the-mill investments.

One might be tempted to dismiss Xi’s figure as hyperbole, considering that just a decade ago Chinese investments in the area totaled a mere $231 million, or one one-thousandth of the goal for a decade from now. But China is dead serious, and it is well on its path to achieving that goal, with all the political and strategic benefits it would entail.

Beijing, which lies some 10,000 miles away from Latin America, has made a move into the region with intensity and determination, a process that serves to highlight, among other things, Washington’s perennial tendency to become distracted from its own hemisphere.

Whether U.S. officials are occupied with the Middle East, planning for a pivot to Asia or focused on Western European allies, Latin America—which for the most part is chugging along on it

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