josedanielaromi/Arg1996 · Datasets at Hugging Face

Unnamed: 0 int64 0 2.71k	text stringlengths 71 526
1,500	<s>[INST] One of Mr Bucaram's first acts as [/INST] president was to give the Ecuadorian army a role in public security. </s>
1,501	<s>[INST] One worry is that these [/INST] armies may not be under full civilian control. </s>
1,502	<s>[INST] In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet [/INST] today cannot be sacked by the civilian president. </s>
1,503	<s>[INST] In Venezuela, the soldiers who launched [/INST] two bloody coup attempts in 1992 have been granted a pardon. </s>
1,504	<s>[INST] In Paraguay, a seditious general [/INST] nearly toppled the civilian government earlier this year. </s>
1,505	<s>[INST] By and large, though, the threat is not [/INST] (at least, not now) the old Latin American one of the caudillo, the army strongman. </s>
1,506	<s>[INST] It is that, in dealing with security problems, [/INST] too many armies think they can do more or less as they like. </s>
1,507	<s>[INST] Civilian rulers, in short, are failing to strike a [/INST] balance between democracy and efficiency-and the answer, some people think, is to have less democracy. </s>
1,508	<s>[INST] "Right or wrong," says Peter Hakim of Inter-American [/INST] Dialogue, a think-tank, "the public blames democracy for the current outbreaks of criminal violence". </s>
1,509	<s>[INST] Some technocrats are beginning to wonder whether too [/INST] much democracy is a reason why reforms have been so slow to bear fruit. </s>
1,510	<s>[INST] In Peru and Argentina, presidents have [/INST] got the constitution changed to allow themselves immediate re-election. </s>
1,511	<s>[INST] The presidents of Brazil [/INST] and Ecuador are thinking about following suit. </s>
1,512	<s>[INST] There are arguments for this trend, [/INST] which is anyway very different from the old military authoritarianism. </s>
1,513	<s>[INST] Civilians are still in charge and [/INST] are still submitting themselves to the test of electoral opinion. </s>
1,514	<s>[INST] Nevertheless, in the context of widespread discontent, [/INST] growing violence, and military rule in some areas, there are risks. </s>
1,515	<s>[INST] The consequence may well be to shift attention away from the painstaking [/INST] business of building up institutional democratic bulwarks (political parties, the courts, an accountable civil service) and towards the personalisation of power. </s>
1,516	<s>[INST] A Santiago consensus If that danger [/INST] is to be avoided, some policy shifts may well be needed. </s>
1,517	<s>[INST] John Williamson, formerly of the Institute for International [/INST] Economics, muses that a powerful president may be best for governability and growth. </s>
1,518	<s>[INST] That is remarkable coming from the father of [/INST] the Washington consensus, whose followers have tried to get the state out of almost everything. </s>
1,519	<s>[INST] He now says: "Policy needs to shift from cutting back a state [/INST] that had become bloated to strengthening a number of key state institutions whose efficient functioning is important for rapid and/or equitable growth". </s>
1,520	<s>[INST] In their zeal to end the [/INST] overbearing state, some reformers fear they went too far. </s>
1,521	<s>[INST] Devolution of central power [/INST] can allow local elites to derail reform. </s>
1,522	<s>[INST] It is clear that tackling profligate state governors [/INST] in Brazil and Argentina, or drug barons in Mexico or Colombia, requires a strong president. </s>
1,523	<s>[INST] Privatisation and deregulation have [/INST] sometimes ended in corruption or corporate crisis. </s>
1,524	<s>[INST] Mr Williamson recommends the setting up of [/INST] institutions similar to America's Securities and Exchange Commission to improve supervision. </s>
1,525	<s>[INST] Disregard for the law has [/INST] made reform of the judiciary and police essential. </s>
1,526	<s>[INST] Already, America's US AID is helping [/INST] train new police forces in Haiti and El Salvador. </s>
1,527	<s>[INST] The World Bank is helping [/INST] overhaul Venezuela's secretive and inefficient judicial system. </s>
1,528	<s>[INST] Latin America spends more of its GDP on social [/INST] services than the Asian tigers, but lags behind in standards of primary education and basic public health. </s>
1,529	<s>[INST] A main reason, suggests the IDB in its [/INST] new annual report, is that social spending is run by centralised bureaucracies which are corrupt. </s>
1,530	<s>[INST] It argues that local governments and [/INST] non-governmental agencies should be permitted to provide social services. </s>
1,531	<s>[INST] Given the populist backlash, the authoritarian temptations and [/INST] the economic obstacles ahead, can Latin America stick with market reforms and democracy? </s>
1,532	<s>[INST] Paul Krugman, an eminent American economist, argued last year that the zeal [/INST] for reform "may usefully be thought of as a sort of speculative bubble" and that Mexico's crisis marked the beginning of its deflation. </s>
1,533	<s>[INST] Latin American leaders, at any rate, seem determined to stay the course, if only because their room for manoeuvre is [/INST] restricted both by financial markets and the glare of pub licity (in Mexico, NAFTA and the American television spotlight it throws on the country was a big reason why the army did not try to crush the Zapatists). </s>
1,534	<s>[INST] In short, the most likely outcome of the [/INST] strains and stresses of reform remains a long, hard slog towards stable growth. </s>
1,535	<s>[INST] A shift towards new ways of maintaining a social safety [/INST] net could help calm the violent backlash and recoup some of the support for reform free-marketeers once enjoyed. </s>
1,536	<s>[INST] Sebastian Edwards of the University of California, Los Angeles puts it this [/INST] way: being a reformer in Latin America is rather like running up a down escalator: you have to keep running to stand still. </s>
1,537	<s>[INST] ___ Document 178 of 400 Cavallo strikes [/INST] Author: Anonymous Publication info: The Economist 341.7989 (Oct 26, 1996): 50. </s>
1,538	<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Domingo Cavallo, the former economy minister of Argentina, is asserting that Argentina's powerful interior [/INST] minister, the justice minister, President Carlos Menem's chief of staff and another former senior aid to Menem were party to corrupt practices that undermined Argentina's economic and political progress. </s>
1,539	<s>[INST] Full text: WHEN Argentina's economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, was forced [/INST] to resign in late July, he talked of wanting a break from the rough and tumble of public life. </s>
1,540	<s>[INST] He soon picked up work advising [/INST] Ecuador's new president and teaching at New York University. </s>
1,541	<s>[INST] He has spent much [/INST] of the past three months outside Argentina. </s>
1,542	<s>[INST] But when at home [/INST] Mr Cavallo has hardly evaded the spotlight. </s>
1,543	<s>[INST] Fiercely proud of his five years of [/INST] achievements, he has spent a good deal of time defending his record. </s>
1,544	<s>[INST] Argentina's powerful interior minister, the justice minister, President Carlos Menem's chief of staff [/INST] and another former senior aide to Mr Menem: all, Mr Cavallo has claimed, were party to corrupt practices that undermined Argentina's economic and political progress. </s>
1,545	<s>[INST] Last year, when things where getting tough at his ministry, he [/INST] hit out at "mafias" within and alongside the government, which, he said, were undermining his efforts to open the economy wider. </s>
1,546	<s>[INST] Once out of office, though, [/INST] it was thought he would hold his tongue. </s>
1,547	<s>[INST] In a radio interview on October 15th, Mr Cavallo accused two [/INST] former colleagues, the interior minister, Carlos Corach, and the justice minister, Elias Jassan, of an institutionalised coverup of corruption. </s>
1,548	<s>[INST] Mr Corach, he said, manipulated [/INST] the legal system through his power over government-appointed judges. </s>
1,549	<s>[INST] Mr Cavallo claimed that during a meeting with Mr Corach, the interior minister [/INST] had written the names of federal judges on a napkin and boasted, "These men answer to me, and what I say, they do". </s>
1,550	<s>[INST] He had the feeling, he said, "like [/INST] many citizens, that there is no justice or security in Argentina". </s>
1,551	<s>[INST] A few days later, he appeared before a judge investigating [/INST] alleged wrongdoing in the award to IBM of a $256m contract to upgrade the state-owned Banco Nacion's data-processing systems. </s>
1,552	<s>[INST] Reportedly, he named Mr Menem's chief of staff, Alberto [/INST] Kohan, as "at least being aware" that other senior government officials had been up to monkey business. </s>
1,553	<s>[INST] The case-in which it is claimed bribes were paid to win one of the biggest computer [/INST] contracts in Latin America's business history-has already seen the resignation of all but two of the bank's board members and one of Mr Kohan's assistants on the presidential staff. </s>
1,554	<s>[INST] Architect of a remarkable economic turn-round, he believes that, next to [/INST] maintaining economic stability, reducing corruption and boosting confidence in the legal system are the main prerequisites for Argentina's continued success. </s>
1,555	<s>[INST] If his charges are true, [/INST] this is serious stuff, not least for Mr Menem. </s>
1,556	<s>[INST] Since leaving the government, he claims, Mr Cavallo [/INST] has abandoned his loyalty to it and is now a member of the opposition. </s>
1,557	<s>[INST] Mr Menem himself this month took up the anti-corruption [/INST] banner, announcing what he said would be a determined drive to clean up the notorious customs department. </s>
1,558	<s>[INST] Mr Cavallo's anti-corruption credentials seem stronger, however, than the president's-a recent poll [/INST] found 81% of respondents sharing his belief in mafias within the government-and he has hooked his increasingly evident political ambitions to this issue. </s>
1,559	<s>[INST] He has announced he will be a candidate in [/INST] next year's congressional elections and has more freely hinted at interest in the 1999 presidential vote. </s>
1,560	<s>[INST] With his opponents saying that Mr Cavallo himself has questions to answer about his conduct while [/INST] in office, and Mr Corach claiming that the ex-minister is "emotionally unbalanced", this corruption story looks set to run and run-and maybe, for some of the characters in it, very disagreeably. </s>
1,561	<s>[INST] ___ Document 185 of 400 Menem and the [/INST] market--and the others Author: Anonymous Publication info: The Economist 341.7987 (Oct 12, 1996): 45. </s>
1,562	<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Politics and economics [/INST] have been fairly grim affairs in Argentina recently. </s>
1,563	<s>[INST] Anger is growing over the seeming slowness [/INST] of recovery from a long recession, and the public wants someone to blame. </s>
1,564	<s>[INST] As each week passes, ever [/INST] more fingers are pointed at Argentine President Carlos Menem. </s>
1,565	<s>[INST] Full text: POLITICS and economics [/INST] have been fairly grim affairs in Argentina recently. </s>
1,566	<s>[INST] Anger is growing over the seeming slowness [/INST] of recovery from a long recession, and the public wants someone to blame. </s>
1,567	<s>[INST] That used to be easy: President Carlos [/INST] Menem's long-lasting and stubborn-and till 199596 eminently successful-economy minister, Domingo Cavallo. </s>
1,568	<s>[INST] Politicians, nervously eyeing congressional elections next yearand an [/INST] ambitious handful looking beyond that to the 1999 presidential contest-are busily engaged in finger-pointing. </s>
1,569	<s>[INST] Mr Cavallo's stern market medicine was acceptable, after [/INST] the horrors of hyperinflation, and thereafter in the fat years of economic growth. </s>
1,570	<s>[INST] And who has been in [/INST] charge even longer than Mr Cavallo was? </s>
1,571	<s>[INST] Who is still determined to [/INST] push more of the same medicine down Argentine throats? </s>
1,572	<s>[INST] As each week passes, yes, [/INST] ever more fingers are pointed at Mr Menem. </s>
1,573	<s>[INST] Margaret Thatcher, from times in [/INST] her years of power, would recognise the feeling. </s>
1,574	<s>[INST] The stakes are high: not just the status of a president but that of the boldest [/INST] effort ever made in a Latin American democracy to make the leap from the statist mix of inertia and chaos to the free-market one of seeming chaos and prosperity. </s>
1,575	<s>[INST] And like Mrs Thatcher, Mr Menem is not merely standing [/INST] his ground as anger explodes around him and allies start running for cover, but seems to relish doing it. </s>
1,576	<s>[INST] When he called on Mr Cavallo to resign, many [/INST] (especially abroad) feared, and some (especially in Argentina) hoped, that his commitment to economic reform might diminish. </s>
1,577	<s>[INST] After some early weeks when neither he nor [/INST] his new minister, Roque Fernandez, did very much, both hopes and fears were proved wrong. </s>
1,578	<s>[INST] And now Mr Menem is tackling one of the hardest issues [/INST] of all, especially for the head of a party founded on Juan Peron's assertion of workers' rights: the labour market. </s>
1,579	<s>[INST] But, heir of Peron as he may be, Mr Menem is convinced [/INST] that the only way to ensure that the nascent recovery persists and brings real growth in lasting jobs is to free the market. </s>
1,580	<s>[INST] That means breaking union control of wage bargaining, [/INST] and changing the law to slim severance payments and make working hours flexible. </s>
1,581	<s>[INST] His push that way had already badly strained [/INST] relations between his Justicialist Party (as it is officially named) and its traditional trade-union allies. </s>
1,582	<s>[INST] The CGT, the overall union body, organised a 24-hour strike [/INST] in August, a 36-hour one late last month, and recently has been talking of a 48-hour one. </s>
1,583	<s>[INST] Mr Menem for much of [/INST] his presidency has tried to be everyone's friend. </s>
1,584	<s>[INST] The unions could walk out, he [/INST] said on October 4th, for "48 hours or 48 years". </s>
1,585	<s>[INST] And for good measure, the 66-year-old president [/INST] added, "they can die striking, but I will still be here". </s>
1,586	<s>[INST] Among them are the party's two front-runners for the [/INST] presidential candidacy, Eduardo Duhalde, governor of Buenos Aires province, and Ramon Ortega, former governor of Tucuman. </s>
1,587	<s>[INST] Brother Eduardo has been important [/INST] in delivering congressional support for government bills. </s>
1,588	<s>[INST] But, he said, some aspects of the president's [/INST] proposed labour measures were unconstitutional and out of tune with "our political point of view". </s>
1,589	<s>[INST] Mr Duhalde, who proclaims himself "a Peronist of the old tradition", [/INST] said new labour laws should apply only to new jobs, and the conditions of existing workers should be maintained. </s>
1,590	<s>[INST] Neither he nor his large block of supporters in [/INST] Congress, he said, would back measures that could force workers into 12-hour days at peak production periods. </s>
1,591	<s>[INST] He called his opponents "mental midgets" who had not [/INST] studied his proposals closely, and threatened to introduce reform by decree if Congress did not co-operate. </s>
1,592	<s>[INST] On October 7th he showed that he well [/INST] might: he signed a decree to begin reform of union monopolies in healthcare schemes. </s>
1,593	<s>[INST] The union health funds-some notoriously inef [/INST] ficient, some suspected of being abused-take in $2.5 billion a year. </s>
1,594	<s>[INST] Mr Menem's decree allows workers to [/INST] choose for themselves which union fund they will join. </s>
1,595	<s>[INST] But Mr Menem's own rating remains [/INST] close to its lowest levels ever, barely above 15%. </s>
1,596	<s>[INST] So be it, he says: [/INST] "We will not step off this historical path. </s>
1,597	<s>[INST] We want again to be [/INST] one of the ten greatest nations in the world". </s>
1,598	<s>[INST] ___ Document 186 of 400 The end of [/INST] the beginning Author: Reid, Michael Publication info: The Economist 341.7987 (Oct 12, 1996): S3. </s>
1,599	<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Barring accidents, by 2001, Mercosur will be an integrated, growing and relatively open market of [/INST] at least 240 million people, with an output of well over $1 trillion, and will stretch from the Brazilian northeast to Chile's Pacific coast, over what can be called South America's southern cone. </s>

1,500

<s>[INST] One of Mr Bucaram's first acts as [/INST] president was to give the Ecuadorian army a role in public security. </s>

1,501

<s>[INST] One worry is that these [/INST] armies may not be under full civilian control. </s>

1,502

<s>[INST] In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet [/INST] today cannot be sacked by the civilian president. </s>

1,503

<s>[INST] In Venezuela, the soldiers who launched [/INST] two bloody coup attempts in 1992 have been granted a pardon. </s>

1,504

<s>[INST] In Paraguay, a seditious general [/INST] nearly toppled the civilian government earlier this year. </s>

1,505

<s>[INST] By and large, though, the threat is not [/INST] (at least, not now) the old Latin American one of the caudillo, the army strongman. </s>

1,506

<s>[INST] It is that, in dealing with security problems, [/INST] too many armies think they can do more or less as they like. </s>

1,507

<s>[INST] Civilian rulers, in short, are failing to strike a [/INST] balance between democracy and efficiency-and the answer, some people think, is to have less democracy. </s>

1,508

<s>[INST] "Right or wrong," says Peter Hakim of Inter-American [/INST] Dialogue, a think-tank, "the public blames democracy for the current outbreaks of criminal violence". </s>

1,509

<s>[INST] Some technocrats are beginning to wonder whether too [/INST] much democracy is a reason why reforms have been so slow to bear fruit. </s>

1,510

<s>[INST] In Peru and Argentina, presidents have [/INST] got the constitution changed to allow themselves immediate re-election. </s>

1,511

<s>[INST] The presidents of Brazil [/INST] and Ecuador are thinking about following suit. </s>

1,512

<s>[INST] There are arguments for this trend, [/INST] which is anyway very different from the old military authoritarianism. </s>

1,513

<s>[INST] Civilians are still in charge and [/INST] are still submitting themselves to the test of electoral opinion. </s>

1,514

<s>[INST] Nevertheless, in the context of widespread discontent, [/INST] growing violence, and military rule in some areas, there are risks. </s>

1,515

<s>[INST] The consequence may well be to shift attention away from the painstaking [/INST] business of building up institutional democratic bulwarks (political parties, the courts, an accountable civil service) and towards the personalisation of power. </s>

1,516

<s>[INST] A Santiago consensus If that danger [/INST] is to be avoided, some policy shifts may well be needed. </s>

1,517

<s>[INST] John Williamson, formerly of the Institute for International [/INST] Economics, muses that a powerful president may be best for governability and growth. </s>

1,518

<s>[INST] That is remarkable coming from the father of [/INST] the Washington consensus, whose followers have tried to get the state out of almost everything. </s>

1,519

<s>[INST] He now says: "Policy needs to shift from cutting back a state [/INST] that had become bloated to strengthening a number of key state institutions whose efficient functioning is important for rapid and/or equitable growth". </s>

1,520

<s>[INST] In their zeal to end the [/INST] overbearing state, some reformers fear they went too far. </s>

1,521

<s>[INST] Devolution of central power [/INST] can allow local elites to derail reform. </s>

1,522

<s>[INST] It is clear that tackling profligate state governors [/INST] in Brazil and Argentina, or drug barons in Mexico or Colombia, requires a strong president. </s>

1,523

<s>[INST] Privatisation and deregulation have [/INST] sometimes ended in corruption or corporate crisis. </s>

1,524

<s>[INST] Mr Williamson recommends the setting up of [/INST] institutions similar to America's Securities and Exchange Commission to improve supervision. </s>

1,525

<s>[INST] Disregard for the law has [/INST] made reform of the judiciary and police essential. </s>

1,526

<s>[INST] Already, America's US AID is helping [/INST] train new police forces in Haiti and El Salvador. </s>

1,527

<s>[INST] The World Bank is helping [/INST] overhaul Venezuela's secretive and inefficient judicial system. </s>

1,528

<s>[INST] Latin America spends more of its GDP on social [/INST] services than the Asian tigers, but lags behind in standards of primary education and basic public health. </s>

1,529

<s>[INST] A main reason, suggests the IDB in its [/INST] new annual report, is that social spending is run by centralised bureaucracies which are corrupt. </s>

1,530

<s>[INST] It argues that local governments and [/INST] non-governmental agencies should be permitted to provide social services. </s>

1,531

<s>[INST] Given the populist backlash, the authoritarian temptations and [/INST] the economic obstacles ahead, can Latin America stick with market reforms and democracy? </s>

1,532

<s>[INST] Paul Krugman, an eminent American economist, argued last year that the zeal [/INST] for reform "may usefully be thought of as a sort of speculative bubble" and that Mexico's crisis marked the beginning of its deflation. </s>

1,533

<s>[INST] Latin American leaders, at any rate, seem determined to stay the course, if only because their room for manoeuvre is [/INST] restricted both by financial markets and the glare of pub licity (in Mexico, NAFTA and the American television spotlight it throws on the country was a big reason why the army did not try to crush the Zapatists). </s>

1,534

<s>[INST] In short, the most likely outcome of the [/INST] strains and stresses of reform remains a long, hard slog towards stable growth. </s>

1,535

<s>[INST] A shift towards new ways of maintaining a social safety [/INST] net could help calm the violent backlash and recoup some of the support for reform free-marketeers once enjoyed. </s>

1,536

<s>[INST] Sebastian Edwards of the University of California, Los Angeles puts it this [/INST] way: being a reformer in Latin America is rather like running up a down escalator: you have to keep running to stand still. </s>

1,537

<s>[INST] ___ Document 178 of 400 Cavallo strikes [/INST] Author: Anonymous Publication info: The Economist 341.7989 (Oct 26, 1996): 50. </s>

1,538

<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Domingo Cavallo, the former economy minister of Argentina, is asserting that Argentina's powerful interior [/INST] minister, the justice minister, President Carlos Menem's chief of staff and another former senior aid to Menem were party to corrupt practices that undermined Argentina's economic and political progress. </s>

1,539

<s>[INST] Full text: WHEN Argentina's economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, was forced [/INST] to resign in late July, he talked of wanting a break from the rough and tumble of public life. </s>

1,540

<s>[INST] He soon picked up work advising [/INST] Ecuador's new president and teaching at New York University. </s>

1,541

<s>[INST] He has spent much [/INST] of the past three months outside Argentina. </s>

1,542

<s>[INST] But when at home [/INST] Mr Cavallo has hardly evaded the spotlight. </s>

1,543

<s>[INST] Fiercely proud of his five years of [/INST] achievements, he has spent a good deal of time defending his record. </s>

1,544

<s>[INST] Argentina's powerful interior minister, the justice minister, President Carlos Menem's chief of staff [/INST] and another former senior aide to Mr Menem: all, Mr Cavallo has claimed, were party to corrupt practices that undermined Argentina's economic and political progress. </s>

1,545

<s>[INST] Last year, when things where getting tough at his ministry, he [/INST] hit out at "mafias" within and alongside the government, which, he said, were undermining his efforts to open the economy wider. </s>

1,546

<s>[INST] Once out of office, though, [/INST] it was thought he would hold his tongue. </s>

1,547

<s>[INST] In a radio interview on October 15th, Mr Cavallo accused two [/INST] former colleagues, the interior minister, Carlos Corach, and the justice minister, Elias Jassan, of an institutionalised coverup of corruption. </s>

1,548

<s>[INST] Mr Corach, he said, manipulated [/INST] the legal system through his power over government-appointed judges. </s>

1,549

<s>[INST] Mr Cavallo claimed that during a meeting with Mr Corach, the interior minister [/INST] had written the names of federal judges on a napkin and boasted, "These men answer to me, and what I say, they do". </s>

1,550

<s>[INST] He had the feeling, he said, "like [/INST] many citizens, that there is no justice or security in Argentina". </s>

1,551

<s>[INST] A few days later, he appeared before a judge investigating [/INST] alleged wrongdoing in the award to IBM of a $256m contract to upgrade the state-owned Banco Nacion's data-processing systems. </s>

1,552

<s>[INST] Reportedly, he named Mr Menem's chief of staff, Alberto [/INST] Kohan, as "at least being aware" that other senior government officials had been up to monkey business. </s>

1,553

<s>[INST] The case-in which it is claimed bribes were paid to win one of the biggest computer [/INST] contracts in Latin America's business history-has already seen the resignation of all but two of the bank's board members and one of Mr Kohan's assistants on the presidential staff. </s>

1,554

<s>[INST] Architect of a remarkable economic turn-round, he believes that, next to [/INST] maintaining economic stability, reducing corruption and boosting confidence in the legal system are the main prerequisites for Argentina's continued success. </s>

1,555

<s>[INST] If his charges are true, [/INST] this is serious stuff, not least for Mr Menem. </s>

1,556

<s>[INST] Since leaving the government, he claims, Mr Cavallo [/INST] has abandoned his loyalty to it and is now a member of the opposition. </s>

1,557

<s>[INST] Mr Menem himself this month took up the anti-corruption [/INST] banner, announcing what he said would be a determined drive to clean up the notorious customs department. </s>

1,558

<s>[INST] Mr Cavallo's anti-corruption credentials seem stronger, however, than the president's-a recent poll [/INST] found 81% of respondents sharing his belief in mafias within the government-and he has hooked his increasingly evident political ambitions to this issue. </s>

1,559

<s>[INST] He has announced he will be a candidate in [/INST] next year's congressional elections and has more freely hinted at interest in the 1999 presidential vote. </s>

1,560

<s>[INST] With his opponents saying that Mr Cavallo himself has questions to answer about his conduct while [/INST] in office, and Mr Corach claiming that the ex-minister is "emotionally unbalanced", this corruption story looks set to run and run-and maybe, for some of the characters in it, very disagreeably. </s>

1,561

<s>[INST] ___ Document 185 of 400 Menem and the [/INST] market--and the others Author: Anonymous Publication info: The Economist 341.7987 (Oct 12, 1996): 45. </s>

1,562

<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Politics and economics [/INST] have been fairly grim affairs in Argentina recently. </s>

1,563

<s>[INST] Anger is growing over the seeming slowness [/INST] of recovery from a long recession, and the public wants someone to blame. </s>

1,564

<s>[INST] As each week passes, ever [/INST] more fingers are pointed at Argentine President Carlos Menem. </s>

1,565

<s>[INST] Full text: POLITICS and economics [/INST] have been fairly grim affairs in Argentina recently. </s>

1,566

<s>[INST] Anger is growing over the seeming slowness [/INST] of recovery from a long recession, and the public wants someone to blame. </s>

1,567

<s>[INST] That used to be easy: President Carlos [/INST] Menem's long-lasting and stubborn-and till 199596 eminently successful-economy minister, Domingo Cavallo. </s>

1,568

<s>[INST] Politicians, nervously eyeing congressional elections next yearand an [/INST] ambitious handful looking beyond that to the 1999 presidential contest-are busily engaged in finger-pointing. </s>

1,569

<s>[INST] Mr Cavallo's stern market medicine was acceptable, after [/INST] the horrors of hyperinflation, and thereafter in the fat years of economic growth. </s>

1,570

<s>[INST] And who has been in [/INST] charge even longer than Mr Cavallo was? </s>

1,571

<s>[INST] Who is still determined to [/INST] push more of the same medicine down Argentine throats? </s>

1,572

<s>[INST] As each week passes, yes, [/INST] ever more fingers are pointed at Mr Menem. </s>

1,573

<s>[INST] Margaret Thatcher, from times in [/INST] her years of power, would recognise the feeling. </s>

1,574

<s>[INST] The stakes are high: not just the status of a president but that of the boldest [/INST] effort ever made in a Latin American democracy to make the leap from the statist mix of inertia and chaos to the free-market one of seeming chaos and prosperity. </s>

1,575

<s>[INST] And like Mrs Thatcher, Mr Menem is not merely standing [/INST] his ground as anger explodes around him and allies start running for cover, but seems to relish doing it. </s>

1,576

<s>[INST] When he called on Mr Cavallo to resign, many [/INST] (especially abroad) feared, and some (especially in Argentina) hoped, that his commitment to economic reform might diminish. </s>

1,577

<s>[INST] After some early weeks when neither he nor [/INST] his new minister, Roque Fernandez, did very much, both hopes and fears were proved wrong. </s>

1,578

<s>[INST] And now Mr Menem is tackling one of the hardest issues [/INST] of all, especially for the head of a party founded on Juan Peron's assertion of workers' rights: the labour market. </s>

1,579

<s>[INST] But, heir of Peron as he may be, Mr Menem is convinced [/INST] that the only way to ensure that the nascent recovery persists and brings real growth in lasting jobs is to free the market. </s>

1,580

<s>[INST] That means breaking union control of wage bargaining, [/INST] and changing the law to slim severance payments and make working hours flexible. </s>

1,581

<s>[INST] His push that way had already badly strained [/INST] relations between his Justicialist Party (as it is officially named) and its traditional trade-union allies. </s>

1,582

<s>[INST] The CGT, the overall union body, organised a 24-hour strike [/INST] in August, a 36-hour one late last month, and recently has been talking of a 48-hour one. </s>

1,583

<s>[INST] Mr Menem for much of [/INST] his presidency has tried to be everyone's friend. </s>

1,584

<s>[INST] The unions could walk out, he [/INST] said on October 4th, for "48 hours or 48 years". </s>

1,585

<s>[INST] And for good measure, the 66-year-old president [/INST] added, "they can die striking, but I will still be here". </s>

1,586

<s>[INST] Among them are the party's two front-runners for the [/INST] presidential candidacy, Eduardo Duhalde, governor of Buenos Aires province, and Ramon Ortega, former governor of Tucuman. </s>

1,587

<s>[INST] Brother Eduardo has been important [/INST] in delivering congressional support for government bills. </s>

1,588

<s>[INST] But, he said, some aspects of the president's [/INST] proposed labour measures were unconstitutional and out of tune with "our political point of view". </s>

1,589

<s>[INST] Mr Duhalde, who proclaims himself "a Peronist of the old tradition", [/INST] said new labour laws should apply only to new jobs, and the conditions of existing workers should be maintained. </s>

1,590

<s>[INST] Neither he nor his large block of supporters in [/INST] Congress, he said, would back measures that could force workers into 12-hour days at peak production periods. </s>

1,591

<s>[INST] He called his opponents "mental midgets" who had not [/INST] studied his proposals closely, and threatened to introduce reform by decree if Congress did not co-operate. </s>

1,592

<s>[INST] On October 7th he showed that he well [/INST] might: he signed a decree to begin reform of union monopolies in healthcare schemes. </s>

1,593

<s>[INST] The union health funds-some notoriously inef [/INST] ficient, some suspected of being abused-take in $2.5 billion a year. </s>

1,594

<s>[INST] Mr Menem's decree allows workers to [/INST] choose for themselves which union fund they will join. </s>

1,595

<s>[INST] But Mr Menem's own rating remains [/INST] close to its lowest levels ever, barely above 15%. </s>

1,596

<s>[INST] So be it, he says: [/INST] "We will not step off this historical path. </s>

1,597

<s>[INST] We want again to be [/INST] one of the ten greatest nations in the world". </s>

1,598

<s>[INST] ___ Document 186 of 400 The end of [/INST] the beginning Author: Reid, Michael Publication info: The Economist 341.7987 (Oct 12, 1996): S3. </s>

1,599

<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Barring accidents, by 2001, Mercosur will be an integrated, growing and relatively open market of [/INST] at least 240 million people, with an output of well over $1 trillion, and will stretch from the Brazilian northeast to Chile's Pacific coast, over what can be called South America's southern cone. </s>