US court overturns $16.1 billion judgment against Argentina over oil firm seizure

A US appeals court on Friday overturned a $16.1 billion judgment against Argentina for nationalizing the oil company YPF in 2012.

The ruling was a big victory for President Javier Milei as he tries to boost Argentina's troubled economy.

"We won the YPF trial," Milei wrote in capital letters on the social media platform X, calling the 2-1 ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York the "best possible outcome."

The court struck down a 2023 ruling from Judge Loretta Preska of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that ordered Argentina to pay $16.1 billion to minority shareholder companies she said were harmed by the nationalization of YPF.

The appeals court said Friday that breach of contract claims made by these companies were not recognizable under Argentine law.

At: https://www.nbcrightnow.com/national/us-court-overturns-16-1-bn-judgment-against-argentina-over-oil-firm-seizure/article_23824e59-e913-53bb-9588-a939890d7c5f.html

The headquarters of energy firm YPF - Argentina's largest company of any size - looms over Buenos Aires' upscale Puerto Madero ward.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that Federalist Society Judge Loretta Preska's 2023 ruling awarding Burford Capital - a litigation vulture fund domiciled in money-laundering hub Guernsey - over $16 billion for a 2012 renationalization in which they took no part, violates Argentine law.

YPF has, since 2012, spearheaded the development of the Vaca Muerta unconventional oil and gas field - which now provided over 60% of Argentina's oil and gas needs.

Its stock price has risen over 13-fold since its July 2022 low.

Actor James Tolkan of 'Top Gun' and 'Back to the Future' fame dies at 94

James Tolkan, known for his roles as authoritarian figures in the Back to the Future and Top Gun films, has died. He was 94.

Tolkan died Thursday in Lake Placid, New York, where he lived, his booking agent, John Alcantar, said Saturday. A brief obituary published on the Back to the Future website said Tolkan died “peacefully,” but no cause of death was given.

In Back to the Future, Tolkan portrayed the bow tie-wearing vice principal Gerald Strickland, who eyeballed students for trouble in the halls of the fictitious Hill Valley High School — in particular Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox.

Born in Calumet, Michigan, Tolkan served in the Navy during the Korean War and eventually made his way to New York, where he spent a quarter century acting in theater roles. He was a member of the original ensemble cast of “Glengarry Glen Ross.”

Tolkan is survived by his wife of 54 years, Parmelee Welles.

Perennial tough guy with a career that spanned 60 years, actor James Tolkan confronts tough questions with co-star Robert Loggia in the 1986 comedy Armed and Dangerous.

50 years after its last coup, Argentina remembers painful legacy of dictatorship as Milei challenges narrative

In Argentina, March 24 is a day of mourning, marches and political disputes.

Fifty years after the coup d’état that brought the last military junta to power, tens of thousands of people once again took to the streets this Tuesday to remember the victims of a dictatorship that far-right President Javier Milei is seeking to reinterpret.

Under the slogan Nunca más (“Never again”), which marked generations, human rights organisations, trade unions and social advocacy groups gathered for their annual march, carrying photos of the disappeared in a large demonstration in Buenos Aires that converged on the famous Plaza de Mayo.

Human rights organisations estimate that 30,000 people were disappeared during the dictatorship, mostly between 1976 and 1978. The Argentine government acknowledged 8,961 in a 1984 report - triggering a debate that rages to this day.

Milei's Human Rights Secretary, Alberto Baños, dismissed the 30,000 figure as “false” last November - a sentiment publicly shared by Milei, Vice President Victoria Villarruel, and Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona.

Declassified files show that dictatorship officials themselves acknowledged “22,000 dead” in a July 1978 cable to their Chilean counterparts.

An estimated 500 infants and children were likewise abducted at the time - many for adoption by pro-regime families. Some 140 have thus far had their true identities restored - mainly thanks to the efforts of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which 95 year-old Estela Barnes de Carlotto still leads.

Since the 1987 amnesty laws that benefitted members of the armed forces were struck down in 2003, 1,231 defendants have been convicted of crimes against humanity.

At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/amp/argentina/argentina-remembers-dictatorship-victims-as-milei-challenges-narrative.phtml

Argentines in Buenos Aires commemorate the 50th anniversary of the country's last military coup.

Though the fascist, 1976-83 dictatorship is repudiated by 7 out of 10 Argentines, its still-sizable number of apologists include many in President Javier Milei's far-right administration.

But besides its infamous Dirty War against dissidents, historians also point to the ruinous economic legacy of the last dictatorship, under which the country's foreign debt ballooned five-fold to $45 billion - which foreign speculators and the country's own elites largely used to dollarize and offshore local assets, leaving Argentina “the richest poor country in the world.”

The resulting hard-currency shortage has led to sputtering GDP growth averaging just 1.6% over the past 50 years (compared to 2.7% for the U.S.), and soaring poverty as real wages faltered and housing leapt out of reach for millions after the country's landmark National Mortgage Bank program was defunded in 1977.

Yanis Varoufakis: 'Nothing can save' Trump from Iran War disaster

"Donald Trump - like George W. Bush before him, like LBJ in the 1960s - has been caught in a trap of his own making, and he doesn't know how to wriggle out of it."

"This is a perfect storm: You have energy going up; AI investment tapering; interest rates going up - even if the war stops today, which [Trump] can't because he has no way of de-escalating."

Argentina's Karinagate: 19 indicted on racketeering charges

The former head of the now-defunct National Disability Agency (ANDIS), Diego Spagnuolo, was prosecuted on Monday along with 18 other people — including former government officials and representatives of pharmaceutical companies — in a probe investigating a bribery scheme that operated within that state sector.

Spagnuolo has been prosecuted for illicit association, fraud against the public administration, bribery, carrying out negotiations that were incompatible with his role as a public official, and infringement of the law regulating the ethics of public service.

Spagnuolo was the most prominent figure among the 19 indicted Milei officials and pharmacy chain executives - alleged partners in what Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello called "a criminal structure that operated within the agency as a means of enrichment and to the clear detriment of the agency's public mandate: the protection and care of the disabled."

Prosecutors found nearly US$30 million in "reduced bidding" ANDIS contracts between July 2024 and August 2025.

The scandal broke in August 2025 with the leak of several audios attributed to Spagnuolo, in which Presidency Secretary Karina Milei — President Javier Milei’s sister — and her right-hand man, Eduardo "Lule" Menem, were accused of running the bribery scheme.

The system consisted of taking bribes from pharma and medical companies in exchange for state contracts. The voice in the audios said that Karina Milei took 3% of each contact as bribes.

The audios were not included as evidence in the case, and Karina Milei and Lule Menem were not prosecuted.

At: translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&hl=en&u=https://www.politicargentina.com/notas/202602/71659-escandalo-en-andis-procesaron-a-diego-spagnuolo-y-a-otras-18-personas-por-corrupcion.html&client=webapp

Disgraced National Disability Agency (ANDIS) director Diego Spagnuolo poses between Argentine President Javier Milei, and his sister and chief of staff, Karina Milei, in a 2023 campaign photo.

Spagnuolo - who shares a lawyer with Milei and Argentina' top convicted drug trafficker, Fred Machado - was one of 19 people indicted today in the ANDIS bribery scandal.

Critics noted, however, that none in the Kovalivker family - who control the Suizo Argentina pharmacy chain - or Milei's Chief of Staff Karina Milei - whose "3% share" in the bribery scheme was detailed by Spagnuolo in recordings - were included in the indictment.

Milei responded to the scandal by shuttering ANDIS.

Head of Argentina's statistics bureau forced out by Milei amid controversy over new inflation index

Marco Lavagna resigned unexpectedly as director of Argentina’s statistics institute INDEC on Monday, after six years at the post serving two presidents.

The news comes just eight days before the institute was set to publish January’s inflation figures, calculated with a formula INDEC authorities said would better reflect purchasing power.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo said Lavagna, 51, will be replaced by Pedro Lines, who has served in the INDEC since 2016 and has been its technical director since 2018.

Political dismissal

Lavagna’s announcement surprised a great deal of government officials and workers.

“We are appalled,” said Raúl Llaneza, deputy secretary-general of the State Workers’ Association and a union representative for INDEC.

Llaneza added that Caputo’s announcement that INDEC would finally not publish January’s inflation rate with the updated methodology doesn’t give workers “peace of mind,” as everything was “up and running” to implement it.

“We find it strange, a justification that lacks technical rigor — it’s political, and we don’t think it’s right,” said Llaneza.

The updated CPI basket prepared by Lavagna's team before his ouster would have raised the share of housing and utilities in the new index from 9.4% to 14.5%, and of transport costs from 11% to 14.3%.

A University of Buenos Aires study found that utility costs have jumped 525% since President Javier Milei took office in late 2023, with public transport costs skyrocketing by 912% - or ten-fold.

At: https://buenosairesherald.com/economics/argentinas-indec-head-steps-down-on-heels-of-new-index-debut

The now former director of Argentina's INDEC statistics agency, Marco Lavagna, during a 2021 interview.

Lavagna's dismissal by the far-right President Javier Milei rattled markets, as his ouster was quickly linked to his introduction of a revised CPI index - which would have raised estimated inflation in Milei's first two years in office from 249.5% to 288.2%.

The new CPI index prepared by Lavagna's team - promptly scrapped by the new INDEC authorities - would have raised the 2024 inflation rate from 117.8% to 123.3%, and the 2025 rate from 31.5% to 33.5%.

Argentina's Mileise: Infant mortality and other vital statistics deteriorate markedly in 2024

Data published on Friday by Argentina's Health Statistics and Information Directorate (DEIS) shows a marked deterioration during 2024 in all major vital statistics for the South American nation of 47 million.

The shift, which breaks over 50 years of nearly-uninterrupted improvements in national health indicators for Argentina, came amid deep budget cuts in health and education during far-right President Javier Milei's first year in office - enacted largely by decree.

Public health observers were especially worried by a worsening infant mortality rate - which rose from 8.0 to 8.5 per 1,000 live births (compared to 5.5 in the U.S. and 6.2 in neighboring Chile and Uruguay).

The 6.3% jump was the highest such increase since 1970 - when similar cuts to public health budgets by the right-wing dictatorship of Gen. Juan Carlos Onganía triggered a nationwide strike by public-sector medical staff.

Maternal mortality rose even more sharply: from 31.9 per 100,000 live births to 44.3 - far higher than the 17.9 recorded in the U.S. (itself the highest in the developed world).

Overall death rates rose as well, with registered deaths rising by 6.5% - the sharpest rise, excluding the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21, since 2007.

Much of the increase came from respiratory (14.5%) and circulatory (5.7%) causes - though a sharp rise (10.4%) was also noted in septicemia deaths; COVID-19 deaths, on the other hand, fell by 64.5% to just 791 as the pandemic wound down.

Critics note a two-thirds reduction in the number of basic medicine kits distributed to needy seniors under the REMEDIAR program during Milei's first two years in office.

Empty cribs

Birth rates, in turn, declined sharply in 2024 - intensifying a trend that began in 2016, after right-wing President Mauricio Macri slashed transport, public utility and educational subsides.

Registered births plummeted by 10.4% - far steeper than the 6.2% average decline seen during the country's birth dearth since then.

The number of total births (413,135) was the lowest since 1948 - with birth rates in 2024 (8.9 per 1,000 population) a mere half of their 2015 levels, and well below the 10.6 recorded in the U.S.

The Argentine population's natural increase - the difference between births and deaths - thus plunged to levels not seen since the 19th century: just 36,730 - a fry cry from the 419,000 annual average between 1975 and 2015.

Argentina's National Population Directorate estimates that the country's 2025 population (46,735,000) was nearly 300,000 less than the 2023 total - owing to a 20% decline in the number of foreign-born residents since then.

Around 600,000 registered jobs have been lost since Milei was elected in November 2023.

At: https://www-pagina12-com-ar.translate.goog/2026/01/31/cuando-el-estado-se-retira-la-salud-es-lo-primero-que-se-pierde/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

And: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/serie_5_nro_68_anuario_vitales_2024_v2.pdf

Argentine senior citizens in Buenos Aires protest earlier this month over the declining real value of their pensions, which average under US$300 a month.

Cuts to federal prescription subsidies and public health, along with a decade-long slide in real wages (with minimum wages losing 60% of their real value), have combined to slash birth rates in half since 2015 while death rates have creeped upward - a birth dearth comparable to Eastern Bloc countries during the 1990s, and among the sharpest in recorded history.

Argentina's population, according to its own statistical authorities, is now declining.

Despite Trump bailout, Argentina slips back into recession in November

Data published today by Argentina's Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) showed the country's economy shrinking by 0.3% in November, compared to a year earlier.

Declines were most severe in fisheries (-25%), manufacturing (-8.2%), retail and wholesale commerce (-6.4%), and construction (-2.3%).

As in most of far-right President Javier Milei's two-year rule, significant growth was recorded only in finance (13.9%), agriculture (10.5%), and mining and extraction (7.0%).

The country's economy - Latin America's third-largest - declined a seasonally-adjusted 0.3% in November from October. The fifth such decline in nine months, it left GDP just 0.8% higher than in November 2023 - the last full month of the embattled, center-left Alberto Fernández administration.

The monthly decline - the second in a row - comes after U.S President Donald Trump pledged $20 billion to bail out the hard currency-strapped nation of 47 million ahead of mid-term elections in October (which Milei's party unexpectedly won).

Argentine officials on January 9 announced the repayment of the $2.5 billion drawn.

Mixed results

For the first eleven months of the year, GDP grew 4.5% - the best showing since 2022 and a rebound from the 2.0% decline in January-November 2024, when the impact from Milei's sharp austerity measures hit hardest.

The country recorded a $1.8 billion budget surplus in 2024, and just over $1 billion in 2025 - in sharp contrast to the $27 billion deficit recorded in 2023 (4.4% of GDP - compared to 6.2% in the U.S.).

The austerity measures are credited by Milei with helping reduce inflation to 31.5% last year - the lowest in eight years, and a dramatic improvement from around 211% in 2023 and 118% in 2024.

Argentina's labor market has borne the brunt of austerity, however, with the number of registered workers falling by 585,000 - or 4.4% - from November 2023 to October 2025 (the latest data available).

And while Milei pledged to "take a chainsaw" to public sector employees he often referred to as "the caste" during his 2023 campaign, seven out of eight jobs lost (some 513,000) have been in the private sector.

A net 21,000 employers (4.1% of the 2023 total) went out of business in Argentina during that period.

At: https://www-eldestapeweb-com.translate.goog/economia/actividad-economica/la-actividad-economica-volvio-a-caer-en-noviembre-empujada-por-el-derrumbe-de-la-industria-y-el-comercio-202612116944?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Former President Alberto Fernández (center) poses with staff and public officials at Whirlpool's new factory in Pilar, Argentina, in June 2023.

Following two years of austerity and free-trade measures enacted (largely by decree) by his right-wing successor, Javier Milei, however, the U.S. appliance maker announced on November 26 that it would shutter the plant - adding some 220 workers to Argentina's growing ranks of unemployed.

Chris Rea, 1951-2025

What's in the Huge Military Bill Heading to Trump?

Congress has now passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, a sprawling $901 billion measure that includes everything from a pay raise for troops to several direct challenges to President Donald Trump’s authority.

It’s easy to get lost in this 3,000-plus-page measure, but there are also consequential details you shouldn’t miss:

It requires the Defense Department to give Congress the specific orders to carry out strikes targeting boats the administration says were carrying drugs to the United States. Administration officials have not publicly provided evidence for that charge.

The administration has not sought congressional authorization for use of force even as it has carried out 26 strikes so far.

The second provision forbids Trump from reducing the number of troops permanently stationed in or deployed to Europe below 76,000 for more than 45 days.

There’s also one notable thing the legislation doesn’t do: It retains the “Defense Department” label rather than Trump’s preferred name, “Department of War.”

The legislation repeals the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

At: https://www.usnews.com/news/u-s-news-decision-points/articles/2025-12-18/whats-in-the-huge-military-bill-heading-to-trump