In the budget that President Cristina Kirchner sent to the Congress on Monday, the President had slashed 2 billion dollars in subsidies as a way to prove that Argentina is committed to paying off their national debt.According to the International Herald Tribune, the surplus for the national budget in 2009 should be 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product, making the surplus 3.15 percent higher than last year.Argentina has twelve billion dollars in bonds that mature in the year 2009, and this budget is designed to prove that they will be able to pay those bonds as well as pay the 6.7 billion dollars they have promised to return to the Paris Club.Energy is one of the main subsidies that will be cut, but the government assures people that health care and public works will stay strong.

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The Argentine government began their first step towards protecting the rights of gays in Argentina when they announced the first nation-wide gay rights measure yesterday.From now on, couples who can prove that they have been living together for more than five years can claim their deceased partners’ pensions.According to the Associated Press, this measure is being celebrated as a victory by gay rights activists in Argentina, who have been petitioning the government to give gay long-term relationships the same status as married heterosexual relationships.Gay civil unions are legal in five cities in Argentina, including Buenos Aires, which legalized them in 2002.

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Last Friday, the Argentine government established the rules for bidding on a new high-speed train project that would link Buenos Aires to the city of Mendoza, at the foothills of the Andes.Covering a massive distance (1,100 kilometers), this train will cost around 2.8 billion dollars to build.Many companies have expressed interest in the project, including ncluding France’s Alstom SA, Spain’s Construcciones & Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles SA, and Brazil’s largest construction company Odebrecht SA.Alstom SA already has a contract to build a high speed train from Buenos Aires to Rosario and Cordoba, a distance of 710 kilometers.If these projects are completed, they will be the first and second high-speed trains in South America.

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There have been talks over the last several weeks of Argentina nationalizing Aerolineas Argentinas, and now the sale is finalized. Marsans, the Spanish company that owned the airline, sold it to the government for an undisclosed sum. According to the BBC, the company was losing one million dollars a day on the airline and leaves Aerolineas with a massive debt of 900 million dollars. 70 percent of Argentines polled said that they were in favor of the government nationalizing the airline. It is unclear how the government will turn the airline around to make it profitable, but they are beginning by carrying out a full audit of the company.

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