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.
Half of Argentina is supplied with water by invisible underground aquifers, which are crucial in the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, experts say. But Tierramérica discovered that nobody – not even the government – has any accurate scientific data on these groundwater reserves.
To maintain its trade surplus, Argentina continues to control imports – a strategy that has bolstered its national industry but is questioned by importers, partners in the Mercosur trade bloc, and rich countries.
Disillusioned with an economy that promotes individualism and ruthless consumption, thousands of people in Argentina are giving things away in street markets, organising car pools with strangers or offering free accommodation to travellers from abroad.
Latin America’s cash transfer programmes are a more effective weapon against poverty and social inequality than economic growth alone, according to a study by two Argentine economists.
The mystery still surrounding the massive business of stealing and buying babies, practised for decades in Spain by the regime of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), could start to be clarified in courtrooms in Argentina.
As a sign of Argentina’s willingness to repay its bondholders, President Cristina Fernández introduced a bill for a new swap of the foreign debt held by “holdout” creditors who refused earlier restructurings after the country’s late 2001 default.
A new system of exclusive lanes for bus rapid transit appears to be benefiting public transport passengers and bus drivers in the most congested part of the centre of the Argentine capital.
A new social programme launched by the Argentine government to fight hard-core poverty is providing unemployed mothers who are heads of households with education, training, work and an income.
The progress made by Argentina in trials for crimes against humanity committed by the 1976-1983 dictatorship has been tarnished by a growing number of human rights violators escaping from prison.
Industry in Argentina has seen a sustained rise in production, exports and employment since 2003. But in order for this trend to become a structural change, greater import substitution is needed, analysts say.
Nine of the 47 tuition-free public universities in Argentina were created in the last decade, with the aim of improving access to higher education in low-income areas. But despite the expansion and strategies to provide support for students, the drop-out rate has proven difficult to combat.
The debate over the reform of Argentina’s seed law has pitted transnational corporations that make transgenic seeds against social and rural organisations and academics opposed to the expansion of monoculture in defence of biodiversity and food security.
With its abundant natural resources, productive capacity and rising investment, Latin America looks set to become of the main suppliers to meet the growing, diverse and increasingly sophisticated global demand for food.
The native people of Argentina are achieving unprecedented visibility for their demands. However, they are still faced with hurdles to more rapid progress towards their claims.
The latest railway tragedy in the Argentine capital, the third in less than two years on the same commuter line, brought to light the severe limitations of a hybrid public-private system, despite the changes underway.
In the 10 years since late president Néstor Kirchner, who was succeeded by his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2007, first took office in Argentina, poverty has fallen, employment has climbed and educational coverage has expanded, although there is no agreement on the exact statistics.
Thirty-seven years after leading the coup d’etat that ushered in the most brutal dictatorship in the history of Argentina, former army commander Jorge Rafael Videla died in a common prison Friday.
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.