If you or someone you know needs help getting a DNI, a drivers license or getting their residency papers in order, help is on it’s way.

The “Immigrant Mutual Aid Society” has arrived and it’s entire purpose is to help you get legally settled into this wonderful country.

The Society is a kind of “open source” group aimed at linking people together so they can help each other with common challenges.

According to the group’s website:

“Our model is the old 19th century immigrant mutual aid societies that helped members of their respective ethnic groups with learning and assistance with Spanish, finding their way around, finding housing, finding employment, navigating bureaucracy, social services, medical services, legal services, residency and citizenship, friendship and camaraderie, and generally saving time and effort that can be better spent enjoying life.”

The Society will hold its first seminar on “How to Obtain Legal Residency” next Tuesday. Details follow:

Where: areatres – Malabia 1720 (right behind the Starbucks, in Palermo Soho)
When: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 – 7:00pm
Contact info: info@immigrantmutualaid.com.ar

*Kudos to Yanqui Mike for the heads up on this.

Editor’s Notice: I’ve gotten a number of emails about this, so for those of you who are interested you can follow me on Twitter here. I’ll post Twitter links to other contributors as they offer to share them.

Crime seems to have worsened last month, according to a new study.

But as overall crime rose, the percentage of violent criminal acts appears to have declined.

Still, Torcuarto Di Tella University’s latest crime “victimization rate” survey indicates that both overall criminal activity and violent crime continue to be a cause for concern.

Di Tella’s study, which surveys households in 40 urban centers around the country, shows that 31.6% of these homes said at least one household member was a victim of a crime within the past 12 months. That figure is up just a hair on the year, but it’s up almost 11% from the previous month.

Crime was worst last month in Greater Buenos Aires, where just over a third of households reported having at least one crime victim. It was lowest in the cities of Cordoba, Mendoza, Rosario and Tucuman, where 28.4% of households reported having a victim.

In the City of Buenos Aires, 31.4% of households said at least one resident had been a victim of crime.

In another poll carried out in May, 71% of those surveyed said they had changed their habits – stopped going to certain places or avoided going out alone – because of concern about crime.

Link: Di Tella Victimization Survey

As reported by The New York Times recently, Nazi concentration camp doctor Aribert Ferdinand Heim seems to have escaped Europe after WWII and moved to Egypt, not Argentina, as had been previously thought by some Nazi hunters.

It is now believed that Heim, who reportedly converted to Islam and changed his name to Tarek Hussein Farid, is thought to have conducted hideous medical experiments on Jews during WWII. Evidence now indicates that he died in 1992 in Cairo.

But as recently as two years ago, Nazi hunters were trying to track down Heim here in Argentina (see the video above).

It wasn’t completely out of the question that Heim may have come to Argentina. After all, even more famous Nazis did, including Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mengele and Erich Priebke.

In 1962 Israeli agents captured Eichmann,who had adopted the name Ricardo Klement, and eventually brought him to Israel for trial. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity, among other things, and hanged.

According to the 2005 book Eichmann: His Life and Crimes, the Nazi’s last words included a special reference to Argentina:

“Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries with which I have been most connected and which I will not forget. I greet my wife, my family, and my friends. I am ready. We’ll meet again soon, as is the fate of all men. I die believing in God.”

In the 2002 book The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron’s Argentina, Uki Goñi offers in-depth evidence that Argentina’s government actively collaborated with local Catholic Church officials, the Vatican, and Swiss officials to provide a safe haven to Nazi leaders in Argentina.

Critics say the Argentine government has yet to completely open its archives and clarify its role in providing a cushy, post-war life for the Nazis.

The City of Buenos Aires last week took a giant step toward ecological sustainability by passing a law to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags at supermarkets, gas stations, and other stores.

Legislators passed the bill unanimously. Part of the bill calls for a public awareness campaign to educate residents about the benefits of using – and re-using – their own biodegradable bags when shopping.

The law gives supermarkets up to four years to comply and stop using plastic bags.

Other businesses will get up to five years. Businesses that violate the law will face fines of up to 100,000 pesos, if caught.

With passage of this law, the City of Buenos Aires has once again shown itself to be far more proactive than the federal government on health and environmental issues. In 2006 the city passed a nearly complete ban on smoking, something the federal government has yet to do.

The City of San Francisco, in the U.S., banned plastic bags in 2007. Ireland slapped taxes on the bags earlier this decade and usage of them plummeted almost immediately.

TomTom, the GPS unit and digital map giant, is coming to Argentina.

The company will begin selling products at retailers like Garbarino, Fravega, Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Falabela in August.

“Argentina offers a good potential with over 9 million cars on the road every day, and we are confident that we can achieve the same leading position in Argentina that we already have in the rest of the world,” Elias Kabeche, TomTom’s Area Director Latin America, said in a statement. “Offering our fully localized PND (portable navigation device) products in Argentina is a logical next step in our expansion strategy in Latin America.”

(more…)

Plans to celebrate the 4th of July at ICANA were cancelled Friday because of fears regarding the A/H1N1 flu virus. The Democrats Abroad Argentina, or DAA, which had been planning the event, sent out the following notice:

“Due to the influenza epidemic, DAA’s 4th of July celebrations with Puertas Abiertas at ICANA have been canceled. We regret any inconvenience and wish you a safe and healthy holiday.”

Juan Luis Manzur, Argentina’s new health minister, late Wednesday called for schools across the country to suspend all classes to stop the A/H1N1 flu virsus from killing more people.

Manzur said that as many as 44 people have died from the virus, though Health Ministry officials haven’t officially provided updated data since last Friday, when the number of confirmed dead stood at 26.

It’s unclear what other measures might be taken to detain the virus as Argentina’s heads into peak flu season.

Photo: Argentine President Cristina Fernández swearing in the new health minister. He replaced Graciela Ocaña, who quit on Monday.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s “dear, dear friend” issued a statement Sunday discussing part of her involvement in the governor’s disappearance scandal. In the statement, she talks about how her e-mail communication with the governor may or may not have become public knowledge.

The Argentine Post was not going to publish her name, but since she has come out publicly and done so herself, this ethical quandary has become a non-issue. For those of you interested, what follows is the e-mailed statement, in English, that María Belén Chapur provided to the TV station C5N.

The Argentine Post has independently confirmed that the statement is from Chapur herself. The statement was given to C5N host Eduardo Feimann.

Dear Eduardo, (more…)

Torcuarto Di Tella University has released its latest crime “victimization rate” survey and the results are much more encouraging than they were a month ago.

The study, which surveys households in 40 urban centers around the country, shows that 31.8% of these homes reported that at least one household member was the victim of a crime within the past 12 months. Although that figure is up 17.3% on the year, it’s actually down 17.8% from the previous month.

It’s hard to know how promising this news is. After all, when compared with the previous month, crime declined last May too. In fact it declined in each of Argentina’s winter months last year. Are criminals less apt to rob and steel when it’s cold? (more…)

By now you’ve almost certainly read about South Carolina Mark Sanford and about how he surreptitiously traveled to Argentina. While Sanford was in Argentina, his staff back in the U.S. told reporters that he was hiking the Appalachian trail alone. In reality, he was hanging out in Palermo with his Argentine mistress.

Before Sanford disclosed the facts of his sexscapade to staff and later to the nation in a teary-eyed press conference, yours truly already had confirmed exclusively that Sanford had flown into Buenos Aires on June 19 on Delta Airlines. He was here until June 23, when he flew back through Atlanta.

Sanford also had been in Argentina a year ago on what was at least partially an official visit. On that trip, the governor flew into the country from Paraguay, arriving at an airport in Cordoba on June 24. He stayed until June 27, when he returned to the U.S., also on Delta. During the 2008 trip, Sanford met with Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli (seen in the photo above) and, presumably, his Argentine mistress. Sanford called the woman a “dear, dear friend” who he has known for eight years.

McClatchy published this story which includes a photo of an apartment building near the Jardín Botánico that allegedly belongs to the woman. Sanford reportedly stayed at the place while in Buenos Aires.

The State newspaper in South Carolina, which claims to know the woman’s identity, published emails sent from Sanford to his mistress here. The Wall Street Journal has a complete wrap on the sorry tale here.