Buenos Aires News: Edition 10

As one may expect, there was a lot of World Cup related news this week. However, there was also a lot of other interesting Buenos Aires news, so I have quite a list today. And remember, you can follow Buenos Aires Life on Twitter to get instant access to BA-related news and happenings.

Argentina nabs alleged Colombian money launderer [Associated Press]
A suspected Colombian drug trafficker who operated under the radar for years in Argentina was arrested as he walked near a Buenos Aires shopping mall. He was living under an assumed identity in a suburban neighborhood.

Argentina inflation slows slightly in May [Reuters]
Argentine consumer price inflation slowed slightly to 0.7 percent in May as food prices eased, the government said on Friday, but analysts said the real rate was nearly twice as high.

Buenos Aires mayor finds laws apply to him, too [CNN]
Mauricio Macri, the chief executive of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been fined for riding a motorcycle without a helmet. He faces much larger legal trouble, having been indicted this year on charges of illegal wiretapping.

Argentine Union Seeks 30% Raise in Minimum Wage [Bloomberg]
Argentina’s biggest union wants to raise the minimum wage 30 percent to 2,000 pesos ($510) per month because of inflation, newspaper El Cronista reported.

Argentine Nobelist Perez Esquivel recalls torture [AP]
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his work exposing abuses during Argentina’s military dictatorship, finally testified against his captors, describing his torture and crediting international pressure for saving his life.

World Cup 2010: Diego Maradona denied beef supply for Argentina team [Telegraph.co.uk]
Agriculture officials put a stop to Maradona’s team’s plans to bring in steak supplies from home. “They never got a permit to bring the beef in. They wanted to, but it was declined,” a chef at the University of Pretoria centre said, adding that the flamboyant Argentine coach had failed to live up to his diva reputation so far.

Argentina May Move to Lift Capital Controls Post-Swap [Bloomberg]
Argentina will likely move to lift capital controls following the conclusion of the country’s $18.3 billion debt swap, the head of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange said. Under regulations put in place under then-President Nestor Kirchner, international investors must deposit 30 percent of the funds they bring into Argentina with the central bank for a year.

Hollywood ending in Buenos Aires [The Guardian]
The slums of Latin America are growing, but so is the local film industry, which is alive with productivity and homegrown talent. In Villa 21, one of Buenos Aires’ largest slums, ‘actor, producer, scriptwriter and most of all squatter’ Julio Arrieta sees culture as a way out of ignorance and unemployment.

Pay Rises 43% as Argentines See Inflation Triple Official Rate [Bloomberg]
Argentine labor leaders are demanding the biggest wage increases in more than 15 years to compensate for inflation they say is running at more than three times the official rate of 10.7 percent a year.

Argentine Hake On the Brink of Collapse [IPS]
The Argentine hake (merluza) fisheries of the southern Atlantic Ocean, among the world’s leaders in the white fish market, are on the verge of collapse due in part to the indifference of the Argentine people, who are apparently more interested in beef, a staple of their diet. The Wildlife Foundation issued a call this year for Argentines to avoid buying hake filets less than 25 centimeters long, in order to discourage the capture of small fish.

Work suffers, parties thrive during World Cup [AP]
Leonardo Munoz, wearing a foot-tall blue-and-white wig, is ready to bare it all for the glory of Argentina.

Complicated Tango for Argentina’s Coach and Star [The New York Times]
They will remain bound through the rest of the World Cup: Maradona, 49, and Messi, soon to be 23. One perhaps the greatest soccer star ever, the other the best of his generation. One volatile, the other quiet. Both gripped in a complicated relationship with Argentina and with each other, dancing a mesmerizing soccer tango as Argentina seeks its first title since Maradona hoisted the trophy in 1986 with help from the so-called Hand of God.