Ernestina Herrera de Noble, who built a media empire in Argentina, dies at 92

Ernestina Herrera de Noble, who transformed her late husband’s newspaper into Argentina’s most powerful media organization, a telecommunications giant whose size allowed her to tangle with presidents and quietly shape national politics to her advantage, died June 14. She was 92.

Ernestina Laura Herrera was born in Buenos Aires in 1925, the youngest of six children of Spanish immigrants.

A former Flamenco dancer, she once said that she met her future husband, who was 23 years her senior, during a 1946 cruise down the Paraná River. Roberto Noble, a wealthy rancher with a reputation as a charismatic womanizer, had served as a minister to a conservative Buenos Aires Province governor before founding the Buenos Aires-based news daily Clarín in 1945.

They saw each other intermittently and married in 1967, by which time Noble had divorced another woman.

Following Noble’s death in 1969, Mrs. Herrera de Noble vied for control of the paper with a daughter, Guadalupe Noble, from his earlier marriage. They eventually settled in court, with Mrs. Herrera de Noble taking control of Clarín.

Running Clarín

The paper — its name means “bugle” in Spanish — featured striking, photo-filled front pages designed to capture a working-class audience, and grew to become Argentina's largest in 1965. Yet by the time of Noble’s death, it had fallen into debt.

She surrounded herself with talented advisers - including accountant Héctor Magnetto, Grupo Clarín’s current CEO - and within a decade, the paper became a political heavyweight, buying provincial dailies, local radio stations, websites, film productions, printing plants, a wireless carrier, and the country’s largest cable and internet business, Cablevisión.

With annual revenue of $3 billion, the Clarín Group is today among the largest telecom businesses in Latin America.

The election of right-wing President Mauricio Macri in 2015, whom the group's outlets supported, helped it expand further as televised football rights were privatized (sold to a Fox/Turner/Clarín consortium), and regulations were rolled back to allow it to enter the Argentine mobile phone market.

Macri was denounced in December by the three leading mobile carriers - Spain's Telefónica, Carlos Slim's América Móvil, and France's Telecom - for allowing Clarín's Nextel unit free access to 4G networks that had cost $2 billion between them.

Kingmaker and power player

The company’s growth was driven in part by close relations with presidents and dictators who approved successive buyouts of competitors. They regarded Mrs. Herrera de Noble as a kingmaker, a backroom operator capable of cutting deals or skewering her opponents with negative press coverage.

Clarín's coverage, it was said, could “topple presidents with five headlines.”

Its most controversial such relationship was with the military dictatorship in power between 1976 and 1983. It was then that Mrs. Herrera de Noble joined with two rival papers (one of which Clarín later bought out) to purchase the country’s main newsprint manufacturer, Papel Prensa - giving it the power to limit access competitors' access to newsprint.

A number of competing dailies folded, and were absorbed into the Clarín Group, incorporated in 1999.

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a left-wing populist opposed by Clarín, ordered investigations in 2010 into links between Mrs. Herrera de Noble and atrocities committed during the Dirty War of the 1970s and early ’80s.

Kirchner and her allies charged that the 1977 purchase of Papel Prensa was facilitated by the junta. Mrs. Herrera de Noble, they said, was complicit in the sale and in the subsequent torture and murder of associates of the plant’s former owners.

Her two children, whom she said she adopted in 1976, were likewise alleged to have been stolen from mothers abducted as political prisoners during the Dirty War. An estimated 30,000 people were killed or “disappeared” by the military during the conflict - while Clarín and other Argentine papers, partly out of fear, avoided coverage.

She and Clarín “were always a power player,” Clarín historian Graciela Mochkofsky noted. The company, she said, was “opportunistic .?.?. always negotiating behind closed doors, with every government from the dictatorship on, to obtain licenses for cable television or support for their business growth.”

At: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ernestina-herrera-de-noble-who-built-a-media-empire-in-argentina-dies-at-92/2017/06/15/a9a93486-5149-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html?utm_term=.ef1279b4b78e

Vice President Mike Pence to travel to Central and South America

Speaking at the inaugural Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America today, Vice President Mike Pence announced he will travel to Central and South America in August on behalf of President Trump.

On August 13–18, 2017, the Vice President will travel to Cartagena and Bogotá, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; and Panama City, Panamá.

During his travel, the Vice President will meet with leaders from government and the business community to reaffirm the President’s commitment to deepening bilateral trade and investment ties with the region and continue the Administration’s support of security cooperation, business engagement, agriculture, and infrastructure development.

“At the President’s direction, I’ll be traveling to Central and South America later this year, to continue to build on the good work that is being done at this conference,” said Vice President Pence.

Additional details about the Vice President’s trip are forthcoming.

At: https://cl.usembassy.gov/vice-president-mike-pence-to-travel-to-central-and-south-america/

What is the Actual Hidden Agenda of the Radical Right?

Former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner launches Senate bid under United Citizens banner

Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced her candidacy today for a seat in the Argentine Senate representing Buenos Aires Province, the nation's largest.

Mrs. Kirchner, 64, will not run on an official Justicialist Party (JP) ticket but instead on a Citizens United ticket representing her own Front for Victory (FpV) and a number of smaller, progressive parties as well as numerous JP figures.

The move would allow an ally of Mrs. Kirchner's, former Transport Minister Florencio Randazzo, to run in the August primaries without having to step aside for the final round of voting in October.

Recent polling shows Mrs. Kirchner ahead with 43%, with the centrist Renewal Front (led by Congressman Sergio Massa, who represents the Peronist right) at 20%, the right-wing 'Let's Change' coalition (led by President Mauricio Macri's education minister, Esteban Bullrich) at 20%, Randazzo at 6%, and the FIT Leftist Front (led by its 2015 presidential candidate Nicolás del Caño) at 4%.

·Peronist divisions·

Randazzo, 53, served during the entirety of Mrs. Kirchner's 2007-15 presidency as interior minister until 2012 and transport minister until 2015. He's best remembered for his effective management of the renationalization and refurbishment of Argentina's formerly privatized and dilapidated commuter rail network.

Both Kirchner and Randazzo represent the JP's left wing, which rose to prominence during the 2003-07 presidency of Cristina Kirchner's late husband and predecessor Néstor Kirchner - a period marked by a strong recovery from the 2001 collapse and rising living standards.

The Justicialist Party was originally founded as the Labor Party in 1945 by the late populist leader Juan Perón and his wife, Evita. While broadly populist and social democratic, Peronism has, even since before Perón's death in 1974, suffered deep divisions between its socialist-leaning left and more nationalist right.

·Voter disillusionment·

Voters in Buenos Aires Province, home to 16 million people (38% of the nation's total), have been trending away from candidates tied to the Argentina's increasingly unpopular president, Mauricio Macri.

Narrowly elected in 2015 with staunch support from Argentina's corporate media, his support has eroded amid the worst recession since 2002 with real wages down 11% and unemployment rising from 5.9% in 2015 to 9.2% currently.

Macri's ties to corruption scandals such as Brazil's Lava Jato and Odebrecht bribery cases, his family's Postal Service debt write-off and Panama Papers scandals, as well as reports of judicial harassment against opponents, have further eroded his credibility among all but right-wing voters.

The president's allies have attempted to preclude Mrs. Kirchner from returning to politics by launching a series of investigations against her - most of which, like the $4 billion dollar futures case and those related to jailed public contractor Lázaro Báez, backfired after evidence showed the Macri family were the chief beneficiaries.

His bid to impose electronic voting nationwide, moreover, failed last November after cybersecurity experts proved to Congress that the system made voters' private information easy to access and was vulnerable to tampering.

"After the deception and the electoral fraud, now a second phase of austerity," Mrs. Kirchner told supporters in Buenos Aires after presenting her 15-point pro-labor, pro-industry program. "Citizens must unite if we are to have a future again."

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.infonews.com%2Fnota%2F308367%2Felecciones-legislativas-cristina-kirchner&edit-text=

Club for Hollywood Republicans locked in dispute caused in part by Trump

Source: The Guardian

Hollywood conservatives used to cherish the Friends of Abe as a secretive club where they could meet and vent rightwing views safe from liberal backlash.

It boasted Clint Eastwood, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer as members, and hosted top Republicans, including Donald Trump, at events in Los Angeles. Last year it announced its dissolution amid fractures caused in part by Trump’s run for the White House.

Now there are two rival Friends of Abe clubs. One is accused of being a usurper and the other is allegedly wilting, fuelling confusion and recrimination.

The dispute appears linked in part to internal conservative divisions over Trump – one of the challenges facing the so-called “resistance to the resistance” in deep-blue California.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/13/hollywood-republicans-friends-of-abe-club-trump

Arrabal: New American Repertory Theater show explores legacy of Argentina's brutal military regime

John Weidman never imagined that his knowledge of modern Japan would prep him for Broadway.

Even with his broad background as a noted television and theater writer, Weidman's “Arrabal” - onstage at the A.R.T. through June 18 - brings its own challenges, including deeply serious source material.

The musical follows a woman’s search for information about her father, one of the thousands of “the disappeared” who were abducted by death squads in Argentina during the 1976-83 military dictatorship. Up to 30,000 disappeared; many were tortured, and others were never seen again.

“I got the call for ‘Arrabal’ because I was the guy who had written the book for ‘Contact,’” said Weidman, acknowledging the plays’ similar storytelling-through-movement design. “There’s a very short list of people who have done that — I am not even sure there is anybody else on it.”

In “Arrabal” - an Argentine term referring to working-class neighborhoods, which suffered the brunt of the Dirty War - almost every element of the story is generated by the movement onstage, with the exception of an occasional video or projection.

Fortunately, Weidman can rely on the show’s dancers, a talented team from Buenos Aires steeped in the tango tradition, as well as the five-member band Orquestra Bajofonderos, led by Academy Award-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla.

Blending tango, milonga, rock, hip-hop, electronic music, jazz, and classical into a unique sound, Santaolalla's score “sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before,” according to Weidman. “It sounded inherently theatrical.”

“My job was to try to be sensitive to what their story was,” said Weidman, who struggled with the historical brutality he encountered while researching the project. Still, the suffering, he acknowledges, is central to the show’s story line.

“It seemed to me that if we were going to touch this material, deal with it at all, there was an obligation, in a stylized way, to be direct about the events within which this girl’s story takes place.”

“Not to put some version of torture on stage — you couldn’t do that.”

At: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/arrabal-explores-legacy-of-argentinas-brutal-military-regime/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=05.18.2017.b+%281%29



‘Arrabal’ writer John Weidman: “My job was to try to be sensitive - to be direct about the events.”

Labour rounds off remarkable election with narrow win in Kensington

Labour has staged a major upset by taking one of the wealthiest constituencies in London, from the incumbent Conservative candidate Victoria Borwick, in a dramatic result 24 hours after polling closed.

Emma Dent Coad, the Labour candidate and local councillor, overturned Borwick’s 7,000 majority by just 20 votes. She took 16,333 (42.23%) of the vote compared with Borwick’s 16,313 (42.18%), representing a swing of 11.11% to Labour.

The results gave Labour a net gain of 32 MPs, and the Conservatives a net loss of 13.

At: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/09/labour-rounds-off-remarkable-election-with-narrow-win-in-kensington

Mays abusive top staff removed as recriminations grow over poll failure

Theresa May was forced to sacrifice her two closest advisers – Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy – on Saturday, as Tory recriminations grew over the party’s catastrophic general election performance.

The two aides, who were joint chiefs of staff, have been widely blamed for both strategic and policy failings during the campaign and had become increasingly unpopular among ministers and MPs for their abrasive styles and refusal to listen to advice even from cabinet ministers.

Gavin Barwell, a former minister ousted in the election, was named as their replacement on Saturday night. May said Barwell, who lost his Croydon Central seat on Thursday, would bring “considerable experience” to the job.

The removal of Hill and Timothy from Downing Street is a stark demonstration of May’s weakness in the aftermath of an election that has left the prime minister clinging to power after losing 13 seats, stripped of an outright majority, and lacking the mandate for Brexit that she sought.

She is now deprived of the two people she had trusted most and who were with her during her transition from the Home Office to N° 10.

At: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/10/theresa-may-top-advisers-quit-nick-timothy-fiona-hill-tory-recriminations-grow

General election 2017: DUP 'in positive talks' with Tories

The Democratic Unionist Party says it has had "positive talks" over a "confidence and supply" deal to support a Conservative government.

Theresa May was left eight seats short of an overall majority in the general election, while the DUP won 10 seats.

Tory chief whip Gavin Williamson went to Belfast on Saturday for talks with the Northern Irish party.

The DUP said talks would continue next week to "work on the details" and "reach agreement."

At: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40236152

Argentine presidential offices raided by investigators for first time in history

Argentine Federal Judge Sergio Torres ordered a massive raid on Wednesday at thirteen Buenos Aires offices belonging to President Mauricio Macri, his family conglomerate, and numerous officials in his administration.

The raid, pursuant to conflict of interest investigations over Macri's decision last year to open more domestic air routes, included three offices in the presidential office building known as the Casa Rosada - among them those of Chief of Staff Fernando de Andreis (a Macri relative) and Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich.

This was the first such incident in the Casa Rosada's 131-year history.

Approved by Judge Torres in March, the investigation was triggered by a series of decrees signed by Macri beginning June 2016 that granted Colombian airline Avianca broad access to Argentina's air routes at expense of its own national airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, and its domestic subsidiary, Austral.

Avianca was given access to Argentina's domestic air market two months after the Macri family's SOCMA conglomerate sold its small charter airline, MacAir, to Avianca Holdings.

The raid, which took place Wednesday, was kept secret; it was reported this Friday by the conservative Buenos Aires news daily La Nación.

The nation's largest daily, Clarín, and its cable news outlet, TN - whose support helped elect the right-wing Macri administration 18 months ago - has made no mention of the raids.

Members of Macri's administration and his family have also come under scrutiny over a bribery scandal involving Brazil's largest builder Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying nearly $800 million in bribes across Latin America - including at least $20 million to secure a lucrative Buenos Aires rail tunnel contract in partnership with the Macri family's contractor IECSA.

IECSA's offices were themselves raided for evidence on June 5.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diarioregistrado.com%2Fpolitica%2Fescandalo-avianca--allanaron-las-oficinas-de-la-casa-rosada_a593aa7f9d669e67b19cf680e&edit-text=



The Casa Rosada