LyrArc Article Gist
Millions of Argentines pour into the streets of Buenos Aires after the World Cup win. About one million were out on the avenue leading to the Obelisk in the heart of the city on the day of the win, and four million large crowds when the team returned to Buenos Aires. NYT shows the amazing sight.

LyrArc Article Gist
Borg Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway, resigns from leading Davos Economic Forum over Epstein connections- astonishingly he interviewed Merz other leaders on Davos Forum broadcasts. This is one more reason that Davos or Switzerland is not where one should look to or for a real understanding of what is happening in the world that extends to places that have little in common with Switzerland, and look very different, from Japan to India and China, from Spain to Italy, and from Canada and the US to Britain and Australia, from Brazil to Chile and Argentina. So many other forums exist and so much happens there, there is also the G-20 and other world gatherings, and meetings of regional leaders where so much more happens.

LyrArc Article Gist
Rosario, Argentina is the hometown of Lionel Messi. DW.com looks at this city, the third largest in Argentina, and capital of Santa Fe state. Two of Argentina's famous soccer coaches were born in Rosario. Lionel Scaloni, the current national coach and 1978 coach Cesar Luis Menotti. Argentina lost to Germany 1-0 in 2014, and 8 years later locals are sensing something big as Argentina meets France on Sunday.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ms Constantini is one of the executives who followed Mr. Macri as he became president of Argentina. She is a former CEO of GM Argentina. She was appointed CEO of Argentina's national airline Aerolineas Argentinas. The state owned airline has lost about $5 billion, and loses about $1 billion a year. There is no culture of budgets or revenue at the airline, say people familiar with the airline. Ms. Constantini has set the goal of cutting losses to $260 million in 2016. The goal is to increase revenues and improve earnings to the point where the airline is profitable in 4 years. The new CEO is taking an approach that she sees has a better approach of succeeding. She is getting employees involved in the company's decisions and progress. She carefully tells labor leaders of her plans and seeks feedback. Because it was run more like a government ministry than a performance based airline, says Constantini, the transformation requires a patient and employee involved approach. In 2008 the government of Mrs. Kirchner nationalized the airline previously owned by Spain's Marsans Group. Because Argentines see the airline with national pride, its like the country's soccer team. Sales are up 10% in 2016 and the airline flew one million passengers in July, up 13% from the prior year.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
NYT shows the "potrero" circuit in Buenos aires where young soccer players get their raw beginnings.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Peronist candidate Alberto Fernandez wins Argentina's election with 48% support. Mr. Macri's economic policy led to mismanagement of the economy, and recession, high inflation. Mr. Macri took on $100 billion in foreign debt and had to turn to the IMF for a $57 billion bailout. The shift in administration happens as the peso tumbles. By lifting capital controls in 2016 when the official rate was 10 to the dollar Mr. Macri shifted direction but failed to manage this in a prudent way leading to a jump in the foreign debt. By the second half of 2018 this policy led to the peso falling to 45 to the dollar and another drop by mid 2019 to about 60 to the dollar. The central bank has burned about $22 billion or a third of the central bank reserves to defend the peso, including $4 billion only last week. A third of this decline in reserves is due to withdrawals as capital controls were reimposed., the remainder due to interest on debt and bank interventions in currency markets to defend the peso. Customers are now limited to $100 in withdrawals leading to demand in the black market pushing the rate to 75 pesos to the dollar. Argentina is no stranger to these crises, yet they repeat every 10-15 years. The earlier Peronist administration of Mr. Nestor Kirchner came in when there was economic collapse in 2003 and had to suspend debt payments as a last resort. Negotiations were begun with lenders only after 2007 when Mr. Kirchner's wife Christina Kirchner assumed office. She won the election in 2011 but was defeated in the 2015 election by Mr. Macri, and reelected in 2019 as vice president running under her former chief of staff Mr. Alberto Fernandez. The Peronists are a socialist party and restored a degree of stability to the economy, limiting foreign debt and managing the economy with a rebound in commodity prices such as soyabeans exported by Argentina to meet growing demand in China. By 2015 the country appeared ready for a change, but Mr. Macri's austerity policies and mismanagement of the debt led to a repeat of earlier crises with high inflation and collapsing peso, hitting working class Argentines.    Argentina has a long history of alienation with IMF loans with policy strings attached for austerity spending, starting in 1957.  About 58% of the people who voted Macri into office opposed turning to the IMF in May 2018 after interest rates were raised to 40% by the central bank to stem a drop in the peso. The IMF loan this time was a shorter duration loan on better and was supposed to help Mr. Macri stabilize the economy and its cash and payments position. The jump in foreign debt including issue of dollar denominated bonds, lack of caution and prudence in managing the finances, lack of currency controls, drop in foreign investment by 2019, and the fall in commodity prices from the commodity boom years especially soyabeans, combined to create another collapse in Argentina. It was thought that the 2003 crisis that hit the working class and poor hardest was behind it once and for all. Yet only 15 years later the country is in a similar mess and hardships, showing that prudent management of finances, maintaining social programs to support the middle and weaker segments, and ways to create sustainable growth from within, are still the major problems facing not just Argentina, but also Brazil, Chile and other nations of Latin America.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona who died at 60 after health problems. Many controversies surround Maradona, unlike Messi and Reynaldo, two of the prominent players at this time from Argentina and Portugal. Unlike the period when Pele and Maradona dominated, today there are many good players and many good coaches such as the coaches of Liverpool and Manchester City teams from Germany and Spain, each having made soccer the single largest worldwide sport in history. New younger players are also taking the place of older players as seen in the Spanish and German teams in the Nations League soccer games. Coaches and team owners shun the publicity that drives the cost of players up and prefer to give younger unknown players a chance, which is itself a good thing for the game.

LyrArc Article Gist
The election win of Sebastian Pinera in Chile marks a shift in Latin America away from left parties. Economic conditions improved initially with the left parties in Brazil, Chile and Argentina, following currency crises and debt problems. The commodities boom helped the left party governments finance social programs which increased their popularity. The middle class also benefited with increased consumer spending and a growing economy. All this changed as the commodities boom collapsed and state finances were stretched thin in Brazil and Argentina. Corruption scandals, and decline in economic growth exposed serious problems in delivery of services, infrastructure and other areas which had been neglected. Voters decided to turn to alternatives and parties from centre right with Macri in Argentina and Pinera in Chile as a consequence.   The striking fact is that instead of shifting to the right leaders of the centre right, Macri in Argentina and Pinera in Chile have decided it is best to keep some of the best initiatives and achievements of the previous governments that have created a broader middle class in Chile and Argentina. Pinera says he will preserve some of Bachelet's initiatives in bringing broader access to education and health care. In this sense Latin America has matured so that the sharp conflicts have been set aside to set a more conciliatory tone and work together. Compared to Chile and Argentina Brazil is different in that corruption scandals affect most parties and there is a general loss of confidence in Congress and politicians across the spectrum. Brazil is looking at a situation in which a whole generation of politicians would have to give way to a new generation for the public to gain a renewal of confidence- so deep is the loss of confidence.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Relations between the U.S. and Argentina improve under the new Macri administration. U.S president Obama visits Argentina in March 2016.

LyrArc Article Gist
Jim Yardley of the NYT provides this exceptional and detailed report on Pope Francis, his roots in Argentina, and how he approaches issues of injustice, poverty, and capitalism. Pope Francis brings change to the Catholic Church through his humility and a humbler Church to millions of people around the world, especially in developing countries. Yardley points out that Francis challenges the attention paid inside the church to doctrine, and the bishops paying too little attention to "spiritual worldliness" and the needs of ordinary people. Coming at a time of increasing social and economic disparities, decline in upward mobility in the western world, failures in governance by political authorites and business leaders, the words resonate in a deeper way. This report traces the story to its early beginnings in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to immigrants from Piedmont, Italy, in 1927, fleeing the Mussolini fascist regime for a land of new opportunity. As Archbishop Bergoglio in Buenos Aires he created a group of priests who worked and lived in the slums of Buenos Aires, and he made regular trips to the poorer areas of Buenos Aires. He does not embrace ideology say people who know him from the Argentine experience, but focusses on the native peoples and culture, rejecting colonial legacy, in a faith where the poor and ordinary people are central to this idea of Christianity, far from intellectuals and political manipulation. ...