Reporters Without Borders warns against media ownership concentration in Argentina under Macri.

The international organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) questioned Argentine President Mauricio Macri's decrees abrogating Argentina’s 2009 Audiovisual Media Law, warning that the new legislation that creates the Enacom agency “favors concentration of media ownership in the country.”

In its annual Press Freedom Index report, the Paris-based international group ranked Argentina 54th, improving its position from 57th. The report stressed, however, that the rescission of the Audiovisual Communications Services Act – passed by Congress during the Cristina Fernández de Kirhcner administration in 2009 - might "result in a higher concentration of media ownership."

“Argentina’s warring media have long been polarized between those owned by the state and those owned by the private sector. The 2009 media law, which encouraged pluralism and provided for a better distribution of frequencies between state, privately-owned and community media, was immediately modified when Mauricio Macri became president in 2015,” the report says.

“The new legislation will probably result in a greater concentration of media ownership, especially in the hands of the Clarín media group, which had to surrender some of its broadcast frequencies after a long legal battle during Cristina Kirchner’s second term as president.”

The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by RSF based upon the organization's assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year.

The 2016 Press Freedom Index has Finland at the top; 15 of the 20 countries with the most press freedoms were in Europe. In the Americas the highest ranked are Costa Rica (6th), Jamaica (10th), Canada (18th), Uruguay (20th), and Chile (31st); the United States ranked 41st. The worst ranked in the Americas were Colombia (134th), Honduras (137th), Venezuela (139th), Mexico (149th), and Cuba (171st); worldwide, the country with the least free press was, according to the report, Eritrea.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/212952/rsf-warns-against-concentration-of-media-ownership-under-new-legal-framework

Is press freedom on the decline? Reporters Without Borders says yes.

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Press freedom worsened in 2015 across every region of the globe, according to a report released Wednesday by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

"Today, it is increasingly easy for powers to appeal directly to the public through new technologies, and so there is a greater degree of violence against those who represent independent information," said RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire in a statement accompanying the report.. "Journalism worthy of the name must be defended against the increase in propaganda and media content that is made to order or sponsored by vested interests."

The World Press Freedom Index, published annually since 2002, measures "pluralism, media independence, the quality of the legal framework, and the safety of journalists in 180 countries," says the report. The data come from a questionnaire, published in 20 languages and completed by experts all over the world, combined with data on abuse and violence against journalists. Since 2013, the index has included a number representing the overall level of media oppression in each nation and region. The higher the figure, the worse the situation.

According to the 2016 report, Europe remains the region with the freest media (19.8), followed by Africa (36.9), which ranked better than the Americas (37.1) for the first time. Asia ranked third (43.8), followed by Eastern Europe/Central Asia (48.4), while North Africa/Middle East (50.8) was ranked the worst.

Finland was ranked as the country with the highest degree of press freedom, followed by the Netherlands and Norway. The United States was ranked 41st, up from 49th last year, a position that the watchdog attributed to cyber surveillance.

Eritrea ranked as the country with the worst media freedom worldwide, below Syria, China, and North Korea.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2016/0420/Is-press-freedom-on-the-decline-Reporters-Without-Borders-says-yes

60,000 fewer Democrats in Brooklyn and no clear reason why.

Source: WNYC

As the birthplace of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Brooklyn figures into nearly every one of his stump speeches. It’s also where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has based her national campaign headquarters.

Yet, even as the candidates lavish love on Brooklyn, a WNYC analysis of state voter enrollment statistics found that the number of active registered Democrats dropped there by 63,558 voters between November 2015 and April 2016. That translates into a 7% drop in registered Democrats in the borough. No other borough in New York City nor county in the rest of the state saw such a significant decline in active registered Democrats. In fact, only 7 of the state's 62 counties saw a drop in the number of Democrats. Everywhere else saw the numbers increase.

Despite the precipitous decline, no city or state election official could explain to WNYC why the number had dropped in a borough that’s been a hotbed of campaign activity, and has the highest population in the state, raising the perennial concern that there will be chaos at the polls on Tuesday caused in part by the very agency responsible for overseeing voter registration and election administration: the Board of Elections.

Valerie Vazquez-Diaz, a spokeswoman for the city Board of Elections, said a member of the Board’s Management Information System staff said the drop was the result of shifting some voters from active to inactive status. But even though more than 60,000 people were dropped from the list of active registered Democrats in Brooklyn, there was only an increase of roughly 10,000 inactive voters in the county. That means some 50,000 voters are unaccounted for entirely.

For a voter who believes she or he is a registered Democrat or Republican and does not appear in the poll books, New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan said there is another option. “If for some reason there's a processing error and the person's name does not appear on the book, they can vote by affidavit ballot at the poll site,” said Ryan.

Affidavit, or provisional, ballots are paper and are not put through the scanner. But it still gives a person the ability to vote and those votes are counted.

Read more: http://www.wnyc.org/story/democratic-voter-rolls-drop-more-60000-brooklyn-presidential-primary/

For anyone living in New York:

If a voter experiences a problem at their poll site, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office has set up a hotline that will be staffed by attorneys in the office's Civil Rights Bureau. That number is 800-771-7755. Complaints can also be submitted through email at civil.rights@ag.ny.gov at any time between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

Please remember as well that, according to New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan, if your name does not appear on the book, you can vote by affidavit ballot at the poll site.

More than $65 billion in orders for Argentina's first international bond offer in 15 years.

Argentina got an enthusiastic welcome back to the club of borrower nations on Monday, amassing more than $65 billion in orders for its first international bond in 15 years.

An international bond market exile since defaulting on its debt in 2001, the country clearly won over investors with a nearly $15 billion bond offer four times oversubscribed. The surge in demand for the bond, which will price on Tuesday, allowed Argentina to set pricing guidance close to its optimistic funding costs for the ground-breaking deal.

The proceeds will be divided between recent settlements with holdout bondholders ($8.5 billion) and local balance of payments deficit financing needs. Litigant bondholders who rejected the terms of Argentina's 2005-10 debt restructuring and filed suit for a better payoff will have first dibs on the proceeds of the transaction. These holdouts, led by Paul Singer's hedge fund Elliott Management (Cayman Islands) and Aurelius Capital (London), will get about 75% of what they had claimed under the agreement.

The $8 billion payout to holdouts (including $4.65 billion to four vulture funds, led by the two above) was touted by the Mauricio Macri administration as a way to put aside years of messy litigation and re-open the capital taps to help fund his ambitious overhaul of Latin America's third-largest economy.

The success of today's sovereign bond offer - the largest since Mexico's in 1996 - allowed Argentina to tighten pricing significantly across most of the four-tranche bond on the back of the order book.

It set guidance of 7.5%-7.625% on the 10-year tranche - the centerpiece of the offering - from initial price thoughts of 8%. The yield on the 30-year tightened at guidance to 8% from initial thoughts of 8.5% over the 10-year yield. At the short end of the curve, guidance on the three-year was set at 6.25%-6.50% and on the five-year at 6.875%-7.125%.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/212823/more-than-us$65bn-in-orders-for-argentinas-first-international-bond-in-15-years

Brazilian congress votes to impeach president Dilma Rousseff

Source: The Guardian

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff suffered defeat on Sunday as a hostile and corruption-tainted congress voted to impeach her.

In a rowdy session of the lower house presided over by the president’s nemesis, house speaker Eduardo Cunha, 344 of the 513 deputies backed impeachment – beyond the two-thirds majority (342) needed to advance the impeachment to the upper house..

As the outcome became clear, Jose Guimarães, the leader of the Workers party in the lower house, conceded defeat with more than 80 votes still to be counted. “The fight is now in the courts, the street and the senate,” he said.

Watched by tens of millions at home and in the streets, the vote – which was announced deputy by deputy – saw the conservative opposition comfortably secure its motion to remove the elected head of state less than halfway through her mandate. Just 127 deputies had voted against the move at the time the two-thirds majority was reached.

Once the senate agrees to consider the motion, which is likely within weeks, Rousseff will have to step aside for 180 days and the Workers party government, which has ruled Brazil since 2002, will be at least temporarily replaced by a centre-right administration led by Vice President Michel Temer.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/dilma-rousseff-congress-impeach-brazilian-president

James Levine, Metropolitan Opera music director for 40 years, to retire.

Conductor James Levine is citing ill health as his reason for stepping down as music director at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

In the coming months, the Met intends to appoint a new music director, one of classical music's most prestigious positions and a key figure at the largest performing arts organization in the United States. He will also continue to oversee the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, which nurtures emerging singers.

The Met said Levine had in recent years "struggled with the effects of Parkinson's disease, making it increasingly hard for him to conduct a full schedule of Met performances."

"Through 45 years of unwavering devotion, maestro Levine has shaped the Met Orchestra into the world-class ensemble it is today", clarinetist Jessica Phillips, chair of the orchestra committee, said in a statement. Levine, 72, has led 2,551 performances of more than 85 operas with the Met, by far the most by an individual in the company's history. He made his debut there conducting "Tosca" in 1971.

His final performance of the current season will be on May 26 in Carnegie Hall, where he will lead the Met Orchestra in excerpts from Wagner's "Ring" cycle: music he has championed, perhaps more than any other American conductor, over the long arc of his immensely distinguished career.

A successor will be announced in "a couple of months." He then suffered spinal stenosis, leading to surgeries in May and July 2011, and he had another operation that September after falling and damaging a vertebra, an injury that sidelined him until May 2013. He is withdrawing from next year's new staging of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier but remains slated for revivals of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, Verdi's Nabucco and Mozart's Idomeneo.

At: http://farandulife.com/2016/04/james-levine-metropolitan-opera-music-director-for-40-years/

Argentina's Macri backtracks on austerity; announces $2 billion social benefits package.

In a bid to compensate for the recent increase in public transportation and utility rates and high inflation, Argentine President Mauricio Macri yesterday announced a set of measures to “improve the income” of the most vulnerable sectors, increasing funds for social programs and announcing a substantial increase the minimum wage and unemployment insurance in the coming months.

The bill being sent to Congress would reimburse retirees, pensioners, and pregnancy and universal child allowance (AUH) beneficiaries 15% of value-added tax (IVA) paid at the supermarket. This refund would be limited to 300 pesos ($20) a month. This same group of beneficiaries (8.4 million people, or 20% of the Argentine population) would receive one-time, 500-peso ($35) payment in May to help mitigate the effects of the recent run-up in prices.

Macri's announcement would also extend the AUH to self-employed workers, which make up nearly 25% of Argentina's work force. “The measure will benefit 514,000 children and their families,” Macri said, speaking at a senior center in the working class Buenos Aires district of Mataderos. “The state," he added, “is as active as it has never been before.”

The bill likewise includes a hike in unemployment insurance, set at 300 pesos ($20) a month since 2006 despite an over 7-fold increase in prices since then. The insurance, for which demand has risen sharply with the 70-fold jump in layoffs so far this year, may be increased to 3,000 pesos ($200) a month.

Other social programs from the Kirchner era, which many in Macri's right-wing alliance had called to be rescinded, will instead be increased by 20%; these include the 'Argentina Works' coop support program and the 'Women Make It' job training program for poor single mothers (with 200,000 beneficiaries).

President Macri announced that the Minimum Wage Council will meet as scheduled in order to discuss an increase in the minimum wage for July. The council, created by former President Néstor Kirchner in 2004, is a three-party committee formed by Labor Ministry, business, and trade union representatives. The minimum wage currently stands at 6,060 pesos ($410) a month for full-time work, still one of the highest in Latin America despite Macri's recent steep devaluation. The President is said to be seeking an increase to 7,600 pesos ($520), or 25%; the minimum wage hike could reach 30%.

The package, as announced, is estimated to cost 30 billion pesos the first year ($2 billion); of which 20 billion pesos would be for increased social benefits, and 10 billion for the value-added tax refund.

Mixed reactions

The announcement was welcomed by most of Argentina's wide political spectrum, albeit with caveats.

The head of the Buenos Aires Province Justicialist Party (Peronism) head Fernando Espinoza applauded Macri’s announcement. “Peronists will always agree with measures that benefit the most humble. Reimbursing the value-added tax to retirees was one of the campaign promises made by Daniel Scioli,” he pointed out, referring to the center-left Peronist candidate Macri narrowly defeated last November. Espinoza warned, however, that these measures “are just a patch - insufficient, given the difficult situation the middle class and the workers are going through.”

Renewal Front head Sergio Massa, which represents centrist Peronists, largely dismissed the announcement, pointing to Macri's steep public service subsidy cuts and sharp increase in rates and fares. “We won’t be able to solve the economic crisis if we don’t do it together, workers and business leaders. But the largest effort has to be made by those with the most means, the business leaders and the state - not the workers,” he said on his Twitter account. “The Macri government,” Massa lamented, “is trying to lower inflation by reducing consumption.”

Federico Pinedo, the Provisional President of the Senate and leader of Macri's right-wing PRO party, praised Macri’s announcements, proclaiming that “the lie about Macri only ruling for the richest people is now over.” Referring to concerns over 100,000 mostly private sector jobs lost in the first two months of 2016 alone, Pinedo said that “these measures will boost the income of Argentines while looking out for employment.”

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/212736/macri-trumpets-welfare-benefits

Panamá Papers: influential Argentine right-wing daily La Nación in the eye of the storm.

Just days after Argentine President Mauricio Macri was named as part of the massive offshore tax evasion scheme reveled by the Panamá Papers, the country's influential conservative daily La Nación was listed as a client as well.

Ironically, La Nación is one of 108 international media outlets working with the International Consortium of investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to organize and disseminate the leaked documents.

The newspaper, already facing fallout over op-eds in opposition to ongoing dictatorship-era human rights abuse trials, must now face news that the director of the La Nación SA media group, Luis Saguier, and other executives have been clients of the Panamanian corporate law firm Mossack Fonseca, which since 1977 oversaw a vast tax evasion and money laundering operation through the use of shell companies prepared and often managed by the firm itself.

The daily was thus put in the embarrassing position of having to report its own participation in the scheme, which it delayed until its Sunday edition of April 10, because, according to their article, "many of the 11 million documents to which La Nación was able to have access, through the ICIJ and the Süddeutsche Zeitung are still being processed."

The shell company was part of an apparent corporate inversion involving La Nación's sale of its lucrative classified ad division to Navent Group Ltd., one of whose subsidiaries is located in Panamá. The sale was paid for with Navent shares in January 2015 and deposited in the Panama subsidiary; La Nación's director, Luis Saguier, is on the board of both Navent Group Ltd and La Nación SA. The newspaper said that the information regarding this acquisition was recorded at the time to the Public Commercial Register.

La Nación, which openly called for the removal of both President Néstor Kirchner (by a coup) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (by impeachment), supported President Macri's right-wing campaign last year - which he narrowly won thanks in large measure to corporate media support. Macri, however, is now reeling from revelations that he was a principal in at least three offshore shell companies with his father, a public contractor with a lengthy record of defrauding the state.

Macri had frequently promised greater transparency and a fight against corruption both during his 2015 campaign and since taking office on December 10. In all, the Panamá Papers case involves some 600 Argentine nationals - including at least eight individuals in Macri's administration or inner circle (including his father).

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.lemonde.fr/panama-papers/article/2016/04/14/panama-papers-l-influent-quotidien-argentin-la-nacion-dans-la-tourmente_4902133_4890278.html&prev=search
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As bad as this is, the Navent heist pales in comparison to La Nación's continued use of an expired tax credit which, over the last 12 years, has cost federal coffers around $50 million. The (heavily Opus Dei) Buenos Aires courts have sat on the case for years, effectively giving them carte blanche to continue claiming the credit.

Macri halts construction of Argentina's 4th nuclear power plant, laying off 2,400 and irking China.

Two weeks after Argentine President Mauricio Macri announced he would "reevaluate" the 2014 agreement between China and Argentina to cooperate on the construction of Atucha III (Argentina's 4th nuclear power plant), the Secretary General of the UOCRA construction union local in Zárate, Julio González, confirmed that the government had fired all 2,400 employees involved in the project.

"This is the sad reality we're living with today. Due to the change of government, there was a series of abrupt changes that affected work on the fourth nuclear power plant for political reasons. They (the Macri administration) did not consider that there are many heads of households that today are left out of work and with no employment alternatives," González said in an interview with Gustavo Sylvestre on Radio del Plata.

The subcontractor overseeing the project, Nucleoeléctrica SA, had lobbied the administration to keep a minimum crew of 1,100 workers; but both the UOCRA union and Macri's Labor Minister, Jorge Triaca, rejected this proposal.

The decision to shelve the 750 MW Atucha III reactor, which was designed in Argentina and was to be partly financed and supplied by China, may have negative geopolitical as well as economic consequences. "The involvement of the Chinese is giving Macri's backers hives," said an industry source with knowledge of the Atucha III project. "They are bristling at the idea; but it would be foolish to say no to the Chinese."

He added that the decision to walk away from the project probably did not originate in the Macri administration; but rather "in U.S. business interests, which have been intensely lobbying Macri to nix the project."

The city of Zárate, an industrial hub of 100,000 people about 50 miles north of Buenos Aires, meanwhile is evaluating the possibility of taking over the construction phase of the project, including 12 different ancillary public works projects.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.infonews.com%2Fnota%2F287378

And: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.lapoliticaonline.com/nota/96578/&prev=search

Gato Barbieri, Latin Jazz great and 'Last Tango in Paris' composer, dead at 83.

Leandro "Gato" Barbieri, the influential Latin jazz bandleader and saxophonist best known for his Grammy-winning score to the film Last Tango in Paris, died Saturday at a New York hospital following a bout with pneumonia. He was 83.

"Music was a mystery to Gato, and each time he played was a new experience for him, and he wanted it to be that way for his audience. He was honored for all the years he had a chance to bring his music all around the world," Laura Barbieri said. In 2015, Barbieri was awarded a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his musical contributions.

Born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1932, Barbieri broke into the American jazz world as part of fellow Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin's orchestra before immersing himself in the free jazz movement pioneered by Ornette Coleman; in the late 1960s, Barbieri worked primarily in the quartet led by trumpeter Don Cherry, another Coleman disciple.

In the Seventies, Barbieri shifted his sound toward the Latin jazz previously mined by Charlie Parker, the jazz great who first inspired Barbieri to learn his instrument, as well as the native music of his South American roots. That blending of styles led director Bernardo Bertolucci to recruit Barbieri to compose the score for his controversial 1972 film Last Tango in Paris.

"There is always tragedy in the Tango — she leaves him, she kills him. It's like an opera; but it's called Tango," Barbieri said in 1997 of his score. "The lyrics and the melodies are very beautiful, very sensual." The Last Tango in Paris soundtrack scored Barbieri a Grammy win for Best Instrumental Composition and made the saxophonist a star on the jazz circuit.

After recording prolifically throughout the 1970s, Barbieri's output slowed immensely following a dispute with his record label, which forced the saxophonist to tour more frequently. His discography ended a decade-long hiatus with 1997's Que Pasa, which he recorded while dealing with the death of his then-wife of 35 years. Barbieri's final LP was 2010's New York Meeting, which featured covers of Miles Davis' "So What" and Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No Chaser."

At: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/gato-barbieri-latin-jazz-great-and-last-tango-in-paris-composer-dead-at-83-20160403#ixzz45vviIMx4
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Chau, maestro. It was an honor to have met you.