Argentina

Almost exactly two years ago, in April 2014, Greece issued €2.5 billion in 5 year bond yielding around 5%, which was met with huge investor interest and ended up being 8x oversubscribed. Fast forward to today when another former shutout from global bond markets, Argentina, is in the FT's words, "on the cusp of one of the most anticipated comebacks in recent history, as the Latin American country ends a 15-year exile from the international debt market with a multibillion-dollar sale."

On Thursday, March 24, the 40th anniversary of the last Argentine coup d’état, a large crowd filled Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires with shouts of “nunca más,” “never again.” They were referring to the U.S.-supported Argentine military dictatorship of 1976-1983 and the repression that characterized it: the imprisonment, torture, and murder of political opposition on a mass scale. “Never again,” then, to such oppression, and “never again” to the overthrow of democracy—the last coup was the sixth in Argentina’s brief history. But President Obama’s visit to Argentina, the first such U.S.

Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,

Rumors are circulating about a Chinese space station is being built deep in Argentina’s Patagonia region.  Beijing and Buenos Aires signed a deal in 2012 to build the “Deep Space Station”, due to be completed by the end of 2016. While both countries maintain that “the ground station in the Southern Hemisphere to support the program for moon exploration and other space activities,” there is a concern that the Chinese facility may harbour military ambitions.

Argentina has announced that one of its warships sank a Chinese-flagged boat that was fishing illegally in Argentinian national waters. They said that four people on the boat were rescued and arrested as sailors shot holes into the boat’s hull, causing it to sink. China has meanwhile expressed its serious concern to Argentina and the government has called for an investigation. Al Jazeera reports: The navy statement said on Tuesday that the boat was intercepted a day earlier off the coast of Puerto Madryn, about 1,460km south of Buenos Aires.