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.

POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Outrage over Nazi Congress near Jewish Centre

By Marcela Valente
Argentine Jewish community organisations and anti-discrimination leaders were outraged Wednesday by a secret Neonazi congress held opposite the new office of a Jewish centre blown up killing 86 people in 1994.

POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Youths Criticise from the Sidelines

By Marcela Valente
Most young people in Argentina have no interest in politics, are skeptical of leaders and institutions and rarely participate in organised groups, not even student organisations.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Activists Prepare Case Against Supreme Court

By Marcela Valente
A human rights group in Argentina is preparing a request for a political trial of the Supreme Court, which ruled against a woman's right to learn the truth about what happened to her daughter, who was "disappeared" during the 1976- 83 military dictatorship.

ARGENTINA: More Women Head Households, but With Less Money

By Marcela Valente
The percentage of Argentinian households whose main breadwinners are women has increased from 9.5 to 25 since 1991, when unemployment started rising in the Southern American country.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Women Fight to Keep Land off Auction Block

By Marcela Valente
Rural women in Argentina have managed to stop more than 200 of their small farms from being auctioned since 1995 by holding hands in front of the auctioneer, praying and singing the national anthem.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Concentrated Ownership Threatens Media Freedoms

By Marcela Valente
Argentina's communication media are coming under the control of just two economic groups - something reporters read as a threat to media freedoms and the formation of balanced public opinion.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: No Male Midwives, and That’s the Law

By Marcela Valente
After years of discrimination against women trying to enter "male" jobs or careers, the flipside appeared in Argentina this week when a man was barred from training as a "midwife."

COMMODITIES-ARGENTINA: Soya, Undisputed Leader Among Farm Exports

By Marcela Valente
Argentina is still famous worldwide for its beef and cereals, but both have been overtaken by soya as the South American country's most important export crop.

ENVIRONMENT: Greenpeace Films Death of a Jungle in Argentina

By Marcela Valente
Greenpeace activists began to film and take photos Friday of the destruction of the Yungas jungle - one of Argentina's biologically richest ecosystems - by bulldozers opening a path for the construction of a pipeline to transport gas to northern Chile.

EDUCATION-ARGENTINA: Children Ensnared by TV

By Marcela Valente
Argentinian children spend hours in front of TV sets and read 10 times less than their U.S. counterparts, despite the significant development of children's literature in Argentina in recent years.

TV-ARGENTINA: TV Program Plays Match-Maker

By Marcela Valente
For 27 years the weekly television show "I Want to Get Married" has been successful in helping people do just that. So successful in fact that the programme will now be aired daily.

POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Menem Withdraws From the Running for 1999

By Marcela Valente
Argentine president Carlos Menem Tuesday announced his decision not to stand as presidential candidate in 1999 - an ambition which has pushed the ruling Justicialist Party onto the brink of division.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Videla on House Arrest for Humanitarian Reasons

By Marcela Valente
Former dictator Jorge Videla, imprisoned without bail pending trial, has been moved onto house arrest due to his old age, much to the distaste of human rights activists and his victims' relatives.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Courts Seal Prison Term for Kidnapper Videla

By Marcela Valente
The Argentine courts ordered Jorge Videla not be released from civilian prison Tuesday, 35 days after he was arrested on charges of kidnapping five children under the 1976 to 1983 military regime.

SPORTS: Heated Climate Surrounds Argentina-England Soccer Match

By Marcela Valente
In spite of efforts to downplay political connotations surrounding Tuesday's World Cup soccer match between Argentina and England, there are fears that bitter memories of the 1982 war over the Malvinas islands will lead to violent incidents between the two countries' notoriously unruly fans.

DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-LATIN AMERICA: Call For An Alliance Against Corruption

By Marcela Valente
Most Latin Americans list corruption as their most pressing concern and complain that their legal systems are flawed - a combination they see as hindering development and eroding the credibility of democracy.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Gov’t Supports ICC – But Without Retroactivity

By Marcela Valente
The Argentine government backs the creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to try crimes against humanity. But it continues to refuse to collaborate with courts in other countries prosecuting former Argentine dictators for human rights violations.

LATAM: Transparency Int’l Urges Alliance Against Corruption

By Marcela Valente
Most Latin Americans list corruption as their most pressing concern and complain that their legal systems are flawed - a combination they see as hindering development and eroding the credibility of democracy.

ECONOMY-ARGENTINA: Govt Labour Policies Exacerbate Poverty

By Marcela Valente
The Argentine government, while trumpeting statistics showing economic growth and a decline in unemployment figures, is overlooking an increase in general poverty - attributed to official labour policies, analysts say.

TRADE-AMERICAS: Civil Society Fighting Hard for Inclusion in FTAA

By Marcela Valente
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are fighting tooth and nail not to be left out of the negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Accounts of Minors Abducted During Dictatorship

By Marcela Valente
The recent arrest of former dictator Jorge Videla in Argentina on charges of appropriating minors during the 1976-83 de facto regime highlighted the silent work of the 'Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo', a rights group created 21 years ago to seek 'disappeared' children.
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