Argentina captain Lionel Messi demonstrated why for many he is the best player on the planet with a dazzling display, as the Albiceleste destroyed Paraguay 6-1 to take its place in the Copa America final in style yesterday evening. Messi may not have found the score-sheet, but the No. 10 tore Paraguay to pieces and inspired his team-mates as they set up a clash with hosts Chile for the tournament decider.

The two teams took time to settle in Concepción, with plenty of mistakes marking a scrappy start to the game. Argentina in particular suffered from incessant pressure across the pitch, losing possession with some uncharacteristically slack passing. Gerardo Martino’s men eventually managed to overcome early nerves and began to control the game.

Javier Pastore enjoyed the first decent chance of the evening, taking the ball inside the area following a neat interchange between Lucas Biglia, Lionel Messi and Pablo Zabaleta. The Manchester City man’s cross found Pastore unmarked, but the midfielder fired a weak volley straight at Justo Villar in the Paraguay net. Those Argentines inside the stadium, however, would not have to wait long.

After 15 minutes Messi’s teasing deep free-kick managed to evade the Guaraní back-line, finding Marcos Rojo unmarked in the area. The left-back took the ball on a neat turn and fired low to beat Villar and open the scoring, to the delight of his team-mates. Pastore then had a golden chance to score the second, eventually seeing his shot saved once more by the goalkeeper after a lovely pass from Messi.

There would be time for the Paris Saint-Germain star to make amends. Once more it was Messi and Pastore who stretched the opposition in midfield, and the latter accelerated past the Paraguay defence and drilled the ball home to put Argentina two ahead. The Albiceleste were now completely dominant, with the captain and No. 10 appearing all over the pitch to trouble Ramón Díaz’s charges.

Just when the side looked set to take a healthy lead to the break, a moment of defensive madness allowed Paraguay to pounce. A poor clearance led to the ball falling kindly for Lucas Barrios, and the Argentina native repeated his goalscoring antics of the first match with a stunning strike that left Sergio Romero helpless. Paraguay were suddenly galvanized, and the half-time whistle came with Martino’s men holding on to avoid the equalizer.

But the Argentines could count on an Angel coming to save them. Just two minutes after the restart Ángel Di María latched on to Pastore’s perfect pass and finished to net the third, restoring some breathing space for the country and calming frayed nerves. The game was then put out of reach with Di María’s second, the Manchester United winger on hand to convert a rebound in a goal that owed a great deal to more Messi magic.

The Barcelona star was on another planet in the second half, and all that his performance lacked was a goal. Fate almost obliged with 20 minutes left when a one-two with Pastore left Leo free, but Villar denied the captain with a strong save that kept the score-line at 4-1. Messi will not be too troubled by the blank, however, if his team-mates keep providing the goods. Sergio Agüero made it five for the Albiceleste 10 minutes from time with a header and substitute Gonzalo Higuaín added the sixth in a late flourish as Argentina marched triumphantly into the Copa America final.

The decisive fixture will take place on Saturday in Santiago’s Estadio Nacional, while Paraguay face Peru in Concepción this Friday.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

Nation, which only trails Mexico in rankings, surges thanks to growing Hispanic population
MADRID — The United States has passed Colombia and Spain to host the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking population after Mexico, according to a new study by Instituto Cervantes.

The report, El español, una lengua viva — meaning “Spanish, a living language” — estimates that there are 559 million Spanish speakers worldwide, a figure that includes 470 million native speakers and those with some command of the language.

The US takes the second-place spot thanks to the 41 million native speakers that live in the country, plus a further 11.6 million people who are bilingual. By 2050, it’s believed the US will host the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world.

The report says there are 41 million native Spanish speakers in the United States with a total 53 million native or bilingual speakers, more than double that of 1990. This puts the US ahead of Colombia (48 million) and Spain (46 million) and second only to Mexico (121 million).

Worldwide, Spanish speakers number almost 559 million making Spanish the second mother toungue in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.

One of the sources cited in the report is the US Census Office which estimates that the US will have 138 million Spanish speakers by 2050, making it the biggest Spanish-speaking nation in the world, with Spanish being the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens.

The numbers are galloping ahead of their 2011 estimates, where they predicted between 37.5 million and 41 million Hispanic Spanish speakers by 2020.

State by state

By state the highest concentration is in the former Spanish colonies of the south and south-west, with New Mexico at top with 47 percent, followed by California and Texas (both 38 percent) and Arizona (30 percent). Some 18 percent of New Yorkers speak Spanish while, surprisingly, more than 6 percent of Alaskans are Spanish speakers.

The report adds that two-thirds of Spanish-linked GDP is generated in two areas: North America (US, Canada and Mexico) and the European Union.

Between them they account for 78 percent while Latin America only accounts for 22 percent. It calculates that altogether Spanish speakers contribute 9.2 percent of the world’s GDP.

The Index of Human Development ranks Spanish as the second most important language on earth, behind English but ahead of Mandarin. It is also the third most widely used language on the internet, although less than eight percent of internet traffic is in Spanish. The report says that Spanish is the second most used language on Twitter in London and New York. It also comes second on Facebook, a long way behind English though well ahead of Portuguese, Facebook’s third most-used language.

Originally in Spanish

More than half the population growth of the United States between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increase in the Hispanic community.

Spanish was the language spoken by the first permanent European settlers in North America, arriving in the territory of the contemporary United States with Ponce de León in 1513.

Historically, the Spanish-speaking population increased because of territorial annexation of lands claimed earlier by the Spanish Empire and by wars with Mexico and by land purchases, while modern political factors continue increasing the size of the US population.

Puerto Rico, itself a US territory, has five million citizens residing within the US, along with some one million Cubans who have emmigrated to the United States since the ascension of Fidel Castro’s government in 1959.

Likewise the migration of Spanish-speaking Nicaraguans and Salvadorans also began as a result of political instability in their countries during the end of the 1970s and the 1980s.

Lately there has been an influx of Venezuelans opposing the economic and political policies of president Hugo Chávez and the succeeding “Chavismo” movement under Nicolás Maduro.

Key campaign language

In a country with no official language, hispanic voters now comprise 11 percent of US registered voters.

This influence may be especially strong in the swing state of Florida where 23.2 percent of residents are Spanish speakers. As political analyst Larry Sabato recently wrote: “if Republicans lose either Florida or Ohio, the nominee has no realistic path to victory. Both states are typically at least slightly more Republican than the nation as a whole. If GOP voters are thinking strategically during the nominating process, they will pick a candidate with a profile appealing to Sunshine and Buckeye state residents.”

On the 2016 campaign trail, two presidential candidates are fluent in Spanish, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Bush recently officially launched his 2016 “Jeb!” campaign in Miami with speeches in both English and Spanish.

Use of the Spanish language in American politics is rare but not novel. The Kennedy campaign was one of the first presidential campaigns to feature a strong outreach to Hispanic voters, presenting an ad with the candidate’s wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, speaking in Spanish. Although there hasn’t been a US president fluent in a language besides English since Franklin D. Roosevelt more than half a century ago — he spoke French and German.

Herald with online media

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

Economy Minister Axel Kicillof has dismissed illicit enrichment accusations against him saying they are lies made up by the PRO party and the Clarín Group.

“They just don’t get tired of making things up. The PRO party is behind this, Macri is behind this, together with the Clarín Group,” Kicillof told C5N today.

Two weeks ago, lawyer Santiago Nicolás Dupuy de Lome filed a complaint against the Economy Minister arguing his patrimony grew illegally from 1.4 million pesos to 1.8 million pesos in a year, citing newspaper articles. Kicillof answered the complaint is part of a dirty campaign by the PRO party, as he is running to represent Buenos Aires city in the Lower House of Congress in the upcoming July 5 PASO elections for the ruling Victory Front (FpV).

“It is not a big difference and it is not a big amount of money. 1.8 million pesos is what an apartment in Barrio Norte costs. I have presented my earnings before AFIP tax bureau and before the Anti-Corruption Office. People can see them. The growth is simple explained by an increase in the valuation of my apartment,” he said.

The Economy Minister then linked the lawyer with the PRO party saying he has pictures with Macri [BA city mayor and PRO presidential hopeful] in his Facebook page, and arguing he already filed complaints against Juan Cabandié [Victory Front lawmaker] that had no basis.

“TN [news website of the Clarín Group] had this complaint all day in its homepage. Tomorrow, I bet Clarín and La Nación and maybe El Cronista will print it too. They did the same thing a month ago when they said I earned 5 million pesos a year. Now they say I have 1.8 million. It makes no sense,” he concluded.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday confirmed Greece had not made its 1.5 billion euro loan repayment to the Fund, making it the first advanced economy to ever be in arrears to the Fund.

The missed payment, the largest in the Fund’s history, is equivalent to a default, in that both imply a breach of Athens’ obligations. IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said Greece can now only receive further IMF funding once the arrears are cleared.

Rice confirmed that Greece had asked for a last-minute repayment extension earlier today, which the Fund’s board will consider «in due course.»

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

The Supreme Court has rejected the petition by prosecutor Raúl Plée to reinstate judge Luis María Cabral in the Cassation Court, the Centre of Judicial Information (CIJ) has informed.

Argentina’s top court dismissed the petition saying it would be inadmissible for the Supreme Court to analyze the case, as the proper way to solve it would be through a lawsuit.

This way, judge Cabral, who was removed from the Cassation Court, the country’s top criminal court, by the Magistrates Council, will not take part in the court’s final decision over the constitutionality of the Memorandum agreement with Iran.

The Cassation Court’s ruling on the memorandum was to be taken today but it was postponed until members of the court are confirmed.

Meanwhile, the injunction placed by Cabral against the Magistrate Council’s decision changed courts, following a recusal issued by the Executive against judge María José Sarmiento. Judge Esteban Furnari is now to analyze the injunction.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

After dropping in early trading today, the «blue» parallel dollar recovered to climb 11 cents and close at 13.40 pesos in underground houses, pushed by hikes in the blue-chip dollar and the stock exchange rate, according to ámbito.com.

On the markets, the blue-chip dollar rose 27 cents to trade at 13.14 pesos, and the stock market rate sold 18 cents higher at 13.02 pesos.

Following last week’s steep climb, the «blue» had calmed yesterday, helped by the 25.5 million dollars bought through the dollar-for-savings scheme.

The «blue» increased 75 cents (5.9 percent) during June, the highest monthly increase since September last year, when it grew 1.65 pesos (11.7%), and 512 million dollars were bought through the dollar-for-savings scheme.

Meanwhile, the official currency ended half a cent up at 9.10 pesos in banks and foreign exchange agencies. The Central Bank bought 100 million dollars, following yesterday’s 80 million dollars buy in the foreign exchange market. The gap between the two rates currently stands at 47.2%.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald