Chief of Cabinet Jorge Capitanich (Photo: Daniel Dabove/Télam/lz)
Government Meets with Grain Exporters: After Friday’s verbal confrontation between Chief of Cabinet Jorge Capitanich and representatives from large agricultural companies over grain exports, the two parties met today to find a breakthrough. Upon exiting the meeting, Capitanich tweeted that: “We have finalised the meeting with the main grain exporting businesses, where we could observe they have interpreted that the exchange rate is stable, interest rates accompany this decision and the future price of soy will be US$40 lower in the near future. This means there are objective conditions for the immediate sale of the accumulated harvest and that perspectives for future harvests are auspicious,” suggesting that an agreement may have been reached. In his daily press conference, before the meeting, Capitanich had threatened to apply sanctions against grain companies, saying that “there’s always the sanctioning power of the state to generate the conditions to preserve the general interest of Argentines.” The Chief of Cabinet also confirmed via Twitter that they will hold another meeting before the end of the week.
New Bill Against Police Strikes in Córdoba: Córdoba Governor José Manuel de la Sota announced on Saturday that he will submit a bill to the provincial congress seeking to prevent “insubordinate behaviour” within the police force. If passed, the bill stipulates that all police personnel who displays insubordinate behaviour, abandons their post, or presents demands “in a hostile or tumultuous way” will be dismissed, regardless of their rank. The bill also proposes the creation of a ‘Police Welfare Council’, which will “receive, analyse, and evaluate the different initiatives regarding working conditions and pay for all the police officers,” offering an alternative to police unionisation, which the governor called “unviable.” The third aspect of the bill concerns the creation of an ‘Anti-Drug Trafficking Police Force’, defined by De la Sota as “a specialised organisation which will report directly to the [province's] general prosecutor,” and which will relieve the provincial police from handling drug-related cases, after the scandal that broke last year linking high-ranking police officers to drug traffickers. The announcements, which come two months after a police protest in Córdoba sparked a nationwide debate, were made during the opening of the 2014 parliamentary sessions.
Slave Labour in the North-East: The National Registry of Agricultural Workers and Employers (Renatea) found 32 rural workers living in “extremely precarious” conditions at a yerba mate plantation property of a former Misiones governor. The government body, which reports to the Ministry of Labour, carried out a number of inspections in the north-eastern provinces of Corrientes and Misiones. In the latter, they conducted an inspection at a yerba mate plantation, ‘Estancia I Pora’, owned by former governor Ramón Puerta, where they found 32 people living “in conditions of extreme precariousness: camping tents worked as bedrooms, with mattresses on the floor. Also, they did not have sanitary or cooking facilities.” A 14-year old child was found working at the plantation. Puerta, who was interim president of the country for three days in December 2001, will be sued for people trafficking. Renatea’s inspections also found 29 unregistered workers -two of them minors- living and working in precarious conditions in two forestry establishments in the nearby province of Corrientes.
The post Argentina News Roundup: 3rd February 2014 appeared first on The Argentina Independent.
