As of January 1, 2017, supermarkets in the City of Buenos Aires will no longer provide their customers with plastic bags. According to the City government, the plan is to reduce the number of plastic bags by 55 percent, or by 580 million. Over the weekend, a letter sent to the head of the Buenos Aires provincial police’s internal affairs department, Guillermo Berra, was revealed that allegedly outlined a police plot to kill Buenos Aires Province Governor María Eugenia Vidal and her Security Minister Cristian Ritondo. Fariña, who is under a witness protection program, received a message on his secret mobile phone number (i.e. He had first been diagnosed with cancer at 28, but survived until the age of 71.

A judicial ruling threatened punitive sanctions last week if real estate agents continued charging rates above the legal limit, often doubling or tripling them. Resolution 2,340, which was initially passed by the Buenos Aires City legislature in 2007, mandates that real estate companies can only charge a maximum 4.15 commission rate on a 24-month tenant contract. The real estate association president warned, though, that this could have some negative financial consequences on the more than 5,500 realtors in the city. Alba García, a realtor in the Buenos Aires City neighbourhood of Almagro, told the Herald that real estate companies were resorting to various methods to recover their losses. “We are increasing our advertising budgets, or shifting part of the commission rate charges to the owners, but it depends on each real estate firm,” she said.

Monday, September 5, 2016 Argentina to play without its kingBy Dan EdwardsFor the HeraldCoach Bauza looks for team to control both possession and tempoThe stories of Lionel Messi’s international demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, were highly exaggerated, even if it was the Argentina captain himself that put them in motion. Tomorrow, however, Argentina will be without its king. Those two casualties were the only negative points of an Argentina debut which left plenty of credit for Bauza, often maligned as a defensive, safety-first coach. Bauza wants a team that will impose itself on the opposition, controlling both possession and tempo, and keeping play far from Sergio Romero in the Argentina net. The last time Messi dropped out of an Argentina squad, the team made a disastrous start to the World Cup qualifiers that has only now, a year later, been rectified.

Monday, September 5, 2016 Obama: Macri is example to the worldUS president praises Argentine government for bucking protectionist trend at G20 summitHANGZHOU, CHINA —President Mauricio Macri got another big nod from up north yesterday, as US President Barack Obama highlighted him as one of the few national leaders setting an example for the world by going against a wave of protectionism gaining presence on a global scale, in a speech during the G20 conference. This occurred during an informal meeting held after the presidential group photo and the G20 inaugural speech given by Chinese President XI Jinping. Before the G-20 summit began yesterday, Macri met with Sun Yafang, the CEO of electronics company Huawei, a Chinese firm which specializes in electronic products and telecommunications equipment. Argentina’s ambassador to China, Diego Guelar, said Macri had been very well received at the conference. The common theme repeated were warnings over the “challenges to the global economy” that “low growth” in trade posed, with widespread questions about protectionism (see page 5).

Monday, September 5, 2016 What kind of person do people say you are? So how then can you work out whether you’re as good a judge of character as you think you are? If you’re an accurate forecaster of those folks’ behaviours, too, you’re more likely to be a good judge of character overall. This “at it” is that other activity the person is engaged in, which activity has textual reference, that is to say, it has to have been mentioned before. “needless to say” (11)This expression introduces such an obvious, self-evident idea, statement, situation that it doesn’t need to be expressed.

When Carlos Bulgheroni was 28 years old, doctors diagnosed him with cancer and said he only had five months to live. In the years since his first diagnosis, he and his brother, Alejandro, built a business empire based on the oil business that turned them into Argentina’s richest men. The Bulgheronis ended up selling 50 percent of Bridas to China’s influential state-owned oil company Cnooc in 2010 for US$3.1 billion. One of the most iconic photos of Carlos Bulgheroni shows him sitting in the desert, negotiating with the Taliban to build a pipeline through Afghanistan in 1994. The significance of that photo goes well beyond Argentina’s borders as it confirms how Carlos Bulgheroni effectively became the first Western business leader to negotiate directly with the Taliban.

Sunday, September 4, 2016 Prat-Gay: growth expected by the end of 2016Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay has announced that he expects the economy to begin growing again by the end of the year or in early 2017 while at the same time warning that “not sealing a social pact implies less economic growth and more inflation.”Prat-Gay, who has sparred with Central Bank Governor Federico Sturzenegger over the relative importance of inflation this week, told the La Nación daily yesterday that overall growth in the economy can be expected soon. That will certainly take place toward the end of this year or early next year. That means that, in the first half of the year, the economy fell by 1.3 percent, according to EMAE’s estimate. In light of that grim panorama, Prat-Gay yesterday said that there were four reasons to be optimistic for the economy. Just like we said four months ago, give me reasons to say that inflation is not going to fall.

The Week Sunday, September 4, 2016 Hangzhou hangout & hanging onBy Michael Soltys / Senior EditorThe drama of Brazil’s presidential impeachment and the scale of the G20 summit in China eclipse anything happening here over the last week. Government electoral strategies might be very much geared to polarization against Kirchnerism but reality might not bear that out. As for corruption cases on the opposite side to Kirchnerism, Macri continues to both defend and suspend his Customs chief Juan José Gómez Centurión. Macri’s presence in Hangzhou made for a cheerless Industry Day with protectionist hackles raised by fears that recognizing China as a “market economy” would open the floodgates for dumping. And that’s about it for a week ending, courtesy of Hangzhou, with Michetti heading the government in Argentina and Rodrigo Maia (the Lower House Speaker, in case you don’t know) in Brazil.

Sunday, September 4, 2016 Macri tackles deficit with ChinaHANZGHOU, CHINA — President Mauricio Macri proposed solving Argentina’s six-plus billion dollar trade deficit with China by promoting tourism from China to Argentina, in a bilateral meeting held with Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday in Hangzhou, China. According to the Chinese leader, 130 million Chinese citizens travel abroad per year, with the majority going to other Asian countries, Europe or Canada. In 2015, China purchased 9.4 million tons of soy beans from Argentina, increasing over 20 percent in the past four years. “Macri wants China to purchase via Alibaba, the great Chinese MercadoLibre, products from Argentina and the region,” said Argentine Ambassador to China David Guelar in an interview with radio La Red after the meeting. They arrived last Thursday in China after a stopover in Qatar where Macri had meetings with the country’s Emir.

Unfazed by the disasters brought about by Stalin, Mao, Fidel and their enforcers, some insist on giving it another try. But, like their revolutionary comrades in Cuba and North Korea, the Chavistas refuse to recognize that their dream is a nightmare. For them, the revolution, or their version of socialism, is all that really matters. They share with the holy warriors of Islamic State the conviction that an abstraction is worth more than life itself. None of them could have predicted that, a century later, their mantle would fall on the shoulders of an individual as unprepossessing as Maduro.

If you’re looking for a new approach to local cuisine, Roux is where you want to go. Grilled shrimp and giant squid from the southern cone have an intense roasted flavor that combines with the herbal aromas from the couscous perfectly. Starting with the Lentils Ragout served with grilled cuttlefish and a southern cone giant squid. Black olive Gnocchis and a grilled giant squid play the role of sides, and do they play it right! Bottom line is take the Chef’s advice on this one and don’t leave the table without trying the house’s Chocolate Textures: a chocolate nemesis topped with chocolate ice-cream, chocolate coulis and chocolate tuile.

The Buenos Aires City legislature approved a measure to name the Sante Fe station of the newly inaugurated “H” subway line after Argentine LGBT activist Carlos Jáuregui. The words Jáuregui wrote in his autobiography maintain a relevance today as much as they did in 1990s Argentina. “If being gay were to affect those who are, it is because of the lack of rights, discrimination and marginalization to which we are exposed to unfairly. He helped found an LGBT rights organization CHA (Homosexual Community of Argentina) that fought for legal recognition and dignity after “seeing what was possible” while living in France. He fought for the legal rights he was refused, for the treatment those in his life (and later he) would need has HIV decimated his community.

Federal Judge Sergio Torres today indicted former vice president — and current political pariah — Amado Boudou for allegedly defrauding the state by having the Economy Ministry purchase 19 luxury cars it didn’t need during his tenure as minister. According to Torres, there’s enough evidence to conclude that in December 2009, Boudou ordered an arbitrary and unfounded purchase of the luxury vehicles through a private auction. In his ruling, Torres argued skipped the legal procedure to get the vehicles and even paid a higher price than the “market value for corporate purchases” at the time. One of the cars was used by Boudou for his personal use as vice president for almost two years when he was Vice President, even though they had been bought for the Economy Ministry, according to Infobae. While we’re at it, let’s take a look back at the other two cases that have the former Vice President in hot water and one where he was left off the hook, just to give him a break.

When he welcomed staff and players of his favorite football club, San Lorenzo and the AS Roma team today, it was a friendly affair. “[The AS] Roma [team] needs to fly high [to beat San Lorenzo, presumably], so I think a San Lorenzo plane would be fitting,” said the Pope to AS Roma, brandishing a toy airplane with the San Lorenzo logo on the side. Of course, Pope Francis’ allegiance is hardly new and, oh how coincidental, the club has enjoyed an astonishing rise in success since he was elected pontiff in 2014. San Lorenzo gave the Pope a San Lorenzo jersey, although he appears to have gotten emotional over the basketball jersey he received. We knew his father had played basketball at the club,” San Lorenzo president Matías Lammens said.

MESA, menús de estación con sabores de Argentina (seasonal menus with flavors of Argentina), is making environmental consciousness cool and delicious with their Buenos Aires based food week. Food weeks are common in la ciudad de la furia, but this one is extra special. The idea behind this new semana gastronómica is to promote the use of local ingredients in the community in order to reduce environmental impact. The Buenos Aires based eateries getting in on the action include:1893BASACucina ParadisoLa CabreraLos GalgosMOOI PalermoNANAParaje ArévaloPura TierraSucreTeguiTerrazas BistroTomo IThe seriously indulgent menus for each of the participating restaurants can be found here. Its main M.O is to get people excited about using local and seasonal produce.