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Argentina votes in bellwether legislative election

AFP

Argentinians choose new lawmakers Sunday in a vote that could determine President Alberto Fernandez’s ability to govern effectively for the remaining two years of his term, marked so far by economic hardship worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.

The mandatory vote for nearly half the Chamber of Deputies and a third of the Senate follow on September primaries in which Fernandez’s center-left Frente de Todos (Front of All) ruling coalition suffered a battering.

In shock results, Frente garnered only about a third of votes cast compared to nearly 40 percent for the center-right opposition group, Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change), led by former president Mauricio Macri.

The September vote to pick candidates for Sunday’s elections revealed deep-seated disillusionment with the government of Fernandez, who said afterwards that “we must have done something not right.”

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The outcome unleashed a political crisis pitting Fernandez against his deputy president and coalition partner Cristina Kirchner, who pressured her boss into a cabinet reshuffle in the hopes it would help appease an increasingly-frustrated electorate.

Frente de Todos has 120 of 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, which is the lower house of Congress, with 124 up for grabs on Sunday.

It holds a majority of 41 out of 72 seats in the upper house, or Senate, which it will be eager to maintain, although analysts believe this is unlikely.

“If the results of the PASO (September’s primary) are repeated, the ruling party could lose its majority in the Senate,” said political analyst Rosendo Fraga of the New Majority think-tank.

“Not only would it not achieve a majority… but also lose seats.”

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– 40% poverty –

Critically, Macri’s Juntos grouping made great strides in September in the province of Buenos Aires, the country’s largest electoral district and considered a bastion of Fernandez’s party.

Fernandez took power from Macri in 2019.

But public discontent with his government has been growing in a country in recession since 2018 and registering a GDP drop of 9.9 percent last year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Argentina has one of the world’s highest inflation rates, at 40 percent so far this year, and a poverty rate of 42 percent for a population of 45 million.

Last month, the government announced a deal with the private sector to freeze prices on more than 1,500 basic goods, following street protests demanding greater food subsidies.

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It has also increased the minimum wage and family allowances.

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International

Trump to sign over 200 executive orders, declaring National Emergency at U.S.-Mexico Border

Donald Trump will sign over 200 executive orders this Monday, including declaring a national emergency at the southern U.S. border and designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorists on his first day as president, according to U.S. network Fox News.

A senior administration official familiar with the executive actions Trump will sign, and who was authorized to inform the media according to Fox News, said that the president will sign multiple “omnibus” executive orders, each containing dozens of significant actions.

The source indicated that Trump will declare a national border emergency, order the U.S. military to work with the Department of Homeland Security to fully secure the southern border, and make it a national priority to eliminate all criminal cartels operating on U.S. soil. This version of the emergency declaration had previously been reported by CNN News and was also confirmed to The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

According to Fox News, Trump will close the border to all undocumented foreign nationals through a proclamation. He will also create task forces for national security protection, working with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and other agencies to “completely eradicate the presence of criminal cartels.”

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International

Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday the appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone (‘Rocky’) and Jon Voight (‘Midnight Cowboy’), as well as actor and director Mel Gibson (‘Braveheart’) as special ambassadors to the “very problematic” Hollywood.

“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.

“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.

Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.

Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”

The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.

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International

Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan

Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.

The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).

The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”

This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.

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