Thursday, March 01, 2012

Argentina's Cristina Fernández isn't afraid to assert the democratic public interest against private greed

Argentine President Cristina Fernández addressed the Argentine Congress today on that Buenos Aires train disaster in the neighborhood of Once, Tragedia de Once 03/01/2012 in this report in Spanish from TV Publica Argentina.



She certainly sounds serious about finding out quickly what caused the deadly wreck and in planning to take action, both in legal consequences and in terms of addressing the operation of the two rail lines (Sarmiento and Mitre) operated by the private company TBA.

Página 12 describes her speech in CFK: "Un gobierno se tiene que hacer cargo de todas las cosas" 01.03/2012.

Cristina's not really a "Look Forward, Not Back" kind of person on this sort of thing. She's really pretty tough. She also talked about measures she would take to push the largest private oil company there, YPF, to invest more in their operations. She blasted monopoly power and made it clear that the government would take a stake in YPF if that's what it takes to get them moving.



An American can only wish that our own President in 2010 had reacted with half this much vigor in dealing with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We can dream.

I think I've become a "kirchnerista". That's the name of the political approach that Cristina and her late husband Néstor Kirchner have been taking since 2002.

She also expressed her solidarity with Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who just got railroaded out of his official position in Spain in an awful abuse of the legal system in Spain, for his defense of human rights and pursuit of war criminals. Garzón was present in the Congress when she spoke and received a standing ovation.



Página 12 reports on the tribute to Garzón in Un reconocimiento para Garzón 01.03.2012

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