Stories written by Marcela Valente
Marcela Valente has been IPS correspondent in Argentina since 1990, specialising in social and gender issues.
She is a history teacher and alternates her correspondent work with teaching journalism at various schools and workshops. At the University of Buenos Aires, she has taught “Introduction to the Study of Society and the State”. Marcela has participated in several courses and workshops on journalism in Costa Rica, Germany, Denmark and Uruguay. She has covered news in Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Sweden. She began her career in 1985 as a contributor for the Argentine newspaper Clarín. She also worked for El Correo de Bilbao (Spain) and the Uruguayan weekly magazine Brecha, among other media.
Argentina is one of the countries in Latin America with the highest levels of vaccination coverage. But experts are concerned about the growing campaign by vaccine critics against immunisation.
Despite the enormous distance between the two countries, Argentina has become an increasingly frequent destination for migrants from the Dominican Republic, especially women, who are vulnerable to falling prey to sexual exploitation networks.
The enthusiasm of the government and oil and gas companies over Argentina’s unconventional fuel potential has come up against fierce opposition from communities living near the country’s shale gas reserves and environmental organisations.
Comprehensive judicial reforms pushed by the government of Argentina on the argument that they will democratise the justice system are moving ahead in Congress in the midst of staunch resistance by the opposition, heated debate, and threats of future lawsuits challenging them as unconstitutional.
Gated residential communities on the Paraná Delta have sprawled out of control in recent years, and are plugging up the local ecosystem and preventing the natural runoff of water that cushions the impact of floods in a vast area near the Argentine capital.
The fate of countries with major debt problems is at stake in federal courts in New York, which are to decide in April whether or not they accept Argentina’s proposal to the bondholders who rejected two restructurings of sovereign debt.
The new pope’s choice of the name Francis, to honour the Catholic Church’s patron saint of animals and the environment, has awakened the hopes of ecologists and others who are concerned about rampant consumerism and the deterioration of the planet.
Argentine archbishop Jorge Bergoglio was selected as pope at a time when the Roman Catholic Church in this South American country is facing a rebellion by priests and laypersons who reject the role of the church leadership during the 1976-1983 dictatorship and the lack of reparations for past omissions and complicities.
The selection of a Latin American pope, who is known for his austere lifestyle and his work with the poor, has created a stir among Catholics in the region, who are confident that Pope Francis will help bolster the Vatican’s tarnished reputation.
In search of a more transparent and agile justice system that is less authoritarian and bureaucratic, judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and legal experts in Argentina are pressing for reforms to modernise the judicial branch and make it more democratic.
The people of the Malvinas/Falkland islands voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to keep British rule, while Argentina has stepped up its claims to sovereignty over the South Atlantic archipelago located 450 km east of the South American nation.
Argentina is set to become the first country in Latin America to legalise surrogate motherhood as an option for heterosexual and homosexual couples or single people who cannot conceive but want to have a child who is biologically their own.
Despite the great strides made in Latin America with tobacco control legislation, the industry deploys a range of strategies to circumvent the restrictions imposed on cigarette advertising, social organisations and experts complain.
The trial over a campaign of terror coordinated among the dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America in the 1970s and 1980s began Tuesday in Buenos Aires with former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla as one of the main defendants, along with another 24 former military officers.
Despite the government's insistence that the purpose of the agreement struck with Iran is merely to investigate the 1994 bombing of the Jewish institution AMIA, as the Argentine parliament voted its ratification, discussions focused on geopolitics and the country's position in the changing international scenario.
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