Argentina's version of Hillary Clinton, first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was taking it easy at home far from the bustle of Buenos Aires on Saturday, ahead of an election almost certain to make her president.
Fernandez was spending the weekend with her husband and outgoing president, Nestor Kirchner, in their house in Rio Gallegos in the chilly and sparsely populated Patagonia region in far southern Argentina.
The couple arrived from the capital late on Friday on board the presidential jet Tango One as restrictions on campaigning ahead of Sunday's vote kicked in.
According to all the last voter surveys, Fernandez can afford to relax.
Her numbers are so high she is expected to easily sweep the elections and emerge as the successor to Kirchner, who is stepping aside for her after only one four-year term.
That would make her Argentina's first elected woman president (Juan Peron's third wife and vice president, Isabel Peron, was made briefly head of state on his death in 1974 before a military coup ousted her).
The only suspense left is whether Fernandez will carry off outright victory in the elections Sunday -- as the polls predict -- or be forced to contest a knockout round next month against the second-placed candidate.
A few of the 13 politicians trailing her dared to hope there would be an upset.
"I think there is a certain possibility of a second round. It depends on the undecided voters, on people voting for other candidates voting for us," Elisa Carrio, seen as coming a distant second in the polls, told La Nacion newspaper.
"If there is a second round, I will lead the people, the voters," candidate Roberto Lavagna, a former economy minister credited with steering Argentina's economy back from its 2001 collapse, told the daily.
In a campaign speech on Thursday, she referred to the popular leftist policies overseen by her husband and vowed more of the same.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS