Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 26 (UPI) — Argentine President Javier Milei’s government is promoting a reform that seeks to redefine the role of the state in public education, curb direct government intervention and give families greater control over their children’s schooling.

A proposed law would legalize homeschooling, expand school choice and grant parents a more active role in school governance, including mechanisms to influence the appointment or removal of principals.

The stated goal is to introduce greater competition among educational institutions to attract students. The initiative has been submitted to Congress, and debate could begin in March.

The reform focuses primarily on basic education, which includes preschool, primary and secondary levels, while also introducing changes to the university financing system.

If approved, it would fully replace the current National Education Law in force since 2006.

“Argentina faces a deep educational crisis, as shown by our students’ results in national and international assessments,” a report by the Ministry of Deregulation and the Secretariat of Education said.

Internationally, PISA tests, which measure skills in math, reading and science, show stagnation or a sustained decline in the performance of Argentine students.

“Compared with other countries in the region, Argentina consistently ranks among the worst performers,” the report said.

Domestically, national assessments show that more than 80% of students in their final year of secondary school fail to reach satisfactory levels in math, while more than 40% have difficulties with reading comprehension.

The official diagnosis also describes the system as overly centralized and bureaucratic, with little room for pedagogical innovation and oversight mechanisms considered weak and lacking transparency.

“The family is the natural and primary agent of education; civil society is the space where it develops through various institutions and projects; and the state has the obligation to guarantee access, continuity and completion of studies at all levels,” the draft law says.

At the secondary level, reform would promote agreements between schools, companies and the productive sector to improve general education and vocational guidance.

Basic education also would be declared an essential service, requiring a minimum level of classes.

The bill recognizes multiple teaching modalities, including in-person, hybrid, community-based, home-based and distance learning, all subject to supervision and evaluation under national and local standards.

Julio Alonso, an academic at the University of Buenos Aires, told UPI the education reform is part of a broader package of changes pushed by the government.

“It is not an isolated measure. It is linked to labor and tax reforms,” he said.

According to Alonso, the central change lies in redefining the role of the state relative to that of families.

“The state takes on a subsidiary role. It guarantees access, but the main decisions fall to parents. The family is formally established as the central actor in the education system,” he said.

Another key point, he said, is the abandonment of a unified national curriculum. Provinces and the country’s capital would assume full responsibility for education, while the federal government would be limited to setting common minimum content.

“The idea of a national education project is left behind. In practice, responsibilities are further delegated to provincial governments,” Alonso said.

He added that the initiative also decentralizes education financing by eliminating the legal spending floor equivalent to 6% of gross domestic product.

“Under this reform, provinces would cover costs with their own resources, while the national government would concentrate spending on direct transfers to families,” he said.

A third pillar of the proposal concerns teachers, with greater family participation in evaluation processes, though not in hiring decisions.

Alonso warned, however, that the reform faces political and social obstacles. The ruling coalition lacks a majority in Congress and depends on support from provincial lawmakers — a weakness recently seen during the budget debate.

On the social front, Alonso anticipates strong resistance, particularly over cuts to the university system, with possible strikes and protests.

BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 19 (UPI) — Argentina has formally created the Secretariat of Nuclear Affairs, a significant structural shift in the country’s national energy strategy under President Javier Milei, aimed at positioning Argentina as a global energy leader and attracting large-scale investment.

In announcing the move, the government highlighted the country’s strengths for developing a nuclear plan, including its pool of highly trained human capital and vast, low-temperature lands in Patagonia seen as suitable for hosting artificial intelligence data centers. These advantages, officials said, allow for a combination of clean nuclear energy and cutting-edge technology.

The plan will roll out in stages. The first phase involves building small modular reactors, or SMRs, at the Atucha Nuclear Power Plant site, already underway, to ensure nationwide energy supply and reduce power outages.

SMRs produce stable and low-cost electricity, making them well-suited to power AI data centers, and would position Argentina as a regional hub for digital innovation and nuclear energy exports.

In the second phase, the government plans to develop uranium reserves to meet domestic demand and turn Argentina into an exporter of high-value nuclear fuels.

The Economy Ministry summed up the strategy in a recent statement, saying the government aims to “turn Argentina into the ‘Saudi Arabia of uranium.'”

This ambitious goal is based on the country’s uranium reserves, estimated at 36,483 tons identified and concentrated in provinces such as Mendoza, San Juan and Chubut, according to a report by the National Mining Secretariat.

Those reserves could generate significant export volumes and position Argentina as a key supplier in a growing global market driven by the energy transition.

However, physicist Alberto Baruj urged caution.

“Argentina has enough uranium for its reactors for decades. It does not have the extraordinary reserves found in other countries. Talking about being the Saudi Arabia of uranium is an exaggeration that I cannot support from a technical standpoint,” Baruj told UPI.

Baruj said Argentina could export uranium, thanks to its processing capacity. However, “it makes no sense to do so with raw ore. It would be far more convenient to process it for use in domestic reactors, including small modular reactors such as the domestically designed CAREM.”

The new nuclear institutional framework will also be tasked with leading policy on the exploitation of rare earth elements, minerals critical for batteries, cellphones and green technology, as well as nuclear minerals, in coordination with other government agencies.

It will promote collaboration among mining companies, provincial governments and private actors to increase production of these resources and drive investment, working alongside the Mining Secretariat to advance nuclear mining projects, material processing and technological applications.

“The Secretariat of Nuclear Affairs is taking on roles that previously belonged to the National Atomic Energy Commission, which blurs the agency’s place within the institutional structure,” a respected nuclear sector source who requested anonymity told UPI.

In their view, amid a budget crisis at the commission, the creation of a new body “further endangers what has historically been the center of Argentina’s nuclear activity. The inclusion of rare earth exploitation comes as a surprise within a nuclear affairs secretariat.”

Baruj also questioned the need for the new agency, saying its stated purpose, coordinating the nuclear sector, already falls by law under the National Atomic Energy Commission.

“It is possible that with the creation of the Secretariat, the government is seeking greater political control over the sector,” Baruj said. But, he added, creating a new secretariat is unnecessary if each institution fulfilled its assigned role.

“The massive loss of technical personnel with extraordinary capabilities must be reversed. But above all, the salary issue must be resolved, because the commission pays the lowest wages in the entire science and technology sector,” he said.

Baruj said the priority should be to ensure continuity of key projects such as completion of the RA-10 multipurpose reactor, its associated neutron beam laboratory, the CEARP Proton Therapy Center and the heavy water industrial plant.

“Argentina’s nuclear sector has sufficient capacity and depth to take on and carry out these projects. What is lacking, precisely, is political will,” he said.Based o

EU delays Mercosur trade deal until January amid farmer protests and opposition from France and Italy.

The European Union has delayed a massive free-trade deal with South American countries amid protests by EU farmers and as last-minute opposition by France and Italy threatened to derail the agreement.

European Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho confirmed on Thursday that the signing of the trade pact between the EU and South American bloc Mercosur will be postponed until January, further delaying a deal that had taken some 25 years to negotiate.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was expected to travel to Brazil on Saturday to sign the deal, but needed the backing of a broad majority of EU members to do so.

The Associated Press news agency reported that an agreement to delay was reached between von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – who spoke at an EU summit on Thursday – on the condition that Italy would vote in favour of the agreement in January.

French President Emmanuel Macron had also pushed back against the deal as he arrived for Thursday’s summit in Brussels, calling for further concessions and more discussions in January.

Macron said he has been in discussions with Italian, Polish, Belgian, Austrian and Irish colleagues, among others, about delaying the signing.

“Farmers already face an enormous amount of challenges,″ the French leader said.

The trade pact with Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay would be the EU’s largest in terms of tariff cuts.

But critics of the deal, notably France and Italy, fear an influx of cheap commodities that could hurt European farmers, while Germany, Spain and Nordic countries say it will boost exports hit by United States tariffs and reduce reliance on China by securing access to key minerals.

Brazil’s President Lula says Italy’s PM Meloni asked for ‘patience’

The EU-Mercosur agreement would create the world’s biggest free-trade area and help the 27-nation European bloc to export more vehicles, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America at a time of global trade tensions.

Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said Germany, Spain and the Nordic countries were “all lobbying hard in favour of this deal”. But ranged against them were the French and Italian governments because of concerns in their powerful farming sectors.

“Their worry being that their products, such as poultry and beef, could be undercut by far cheaper imports from the Mercosur countries,” Kane said.

“So no signing in December. The suggestion being maybe there will be a signing in mid-January,” he added.

“But there must now be a question about what might happen between now and mid-January, given the powerful forces ranged against each other in this debate,” he added.

Mercosur nations were notified of the move, a European Commission spokeswoman said, and while initially reacting with a now-or-never ultimatum to its EU partners, Brazil opened the door on Thursday to delaying the deal’s signature to allow time to win over the holdouts.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Italy’s Meloni had asked him for “patience” and had indicated that Italy would eventually be ready for the agreement.

The decision to delay also came hours after farmers in tractors blocked roads and set off fireworks in Brussels to protest the deal, prompting police to respond with tear gas and water cannon.

Protesting farmers – some travelling to the Belgian capital from as far away as Spain and Poland – brought potatoes and eggs to throw and waged a furious back-and-forth with police while demonstrators burned tyres and a faux wooden coffin bearing the word “agriculture”.

The European Parliament evacuated some staff due to damage caused by protesters.

Lionel Messi’s tour of India got off to chaotic start in Kolkata as fans vented their anger over the Argentina legend’s brief appearance at a city stadium. Fans paid up to $150 for a ticket to see their football idol – but many barely caught a glimpse of him.