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Queenyforever wrote:

Oh....My Sister! That is truly horrible! Of course, as normal....the ones who are hurt here are the innocent people just trying to feed they're families!
Are these protests or riots, close to your house?
Are there dangers for you and the boys?

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I ask forgiveness, not to be on the board today.
We had another day of high tension in our country.
Our President has taken another message ,.... was noticed more "peaceful"....but, his message has not convinced almost anyone. The situation continued unchanged.
The boys and I are fine. This morning, I got a bit of food.
As that my messages are not very consistent, we send this article, the New York Times, to give you an idea. The article does not reflect reality, in its entirety.......
 I love you much sister, and you need ....
BIG HUGS AND LOVE FOR YOU!
Mariel (Marita)

Argentine Leader Urges Farmers to Lift Strike

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By REUTERS
Published: March 27, 2008

Filed at 9:25 p.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph Reuters

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez urged farmers on Thursday to call off a strike and start talks to end two weeks of protests that have paralyzed exports and left meat counters bare.

Fernandez is under mounting pressure to resolve the strike, which has seen middle-class Argentines protesting in the cities to support the farmers in scenes reminiscent of the political crisis that rocked the country in 2001/02.

The center-left president struck a defiant tone in a speech to supporters and said the strike amounted to extortion, although she also urged farmers to start talks.

"The government's doors are open but please, lift this strike for the sake of the people," she said, defending the taxes on soy exports that triggered the protest as a way to share the spoils of soaring global grains prices with Argentina's poor.

A more strident speech by the president earlier this week inspired farmers to dig in their heels with the protests, but the immediate response from some strike leaders on Thursday appeared more receptive.

"This is a call to good sense, it's a call for negotiations in a tone very well suited to calm this situation. In my opinion, this opens the dialogue," said Hugo Biolcati, vice president of the Argentine Rural Society, one of the farm groups leading the strike.

But at several road blocks protests across the country, farmers vowed to stay put.

"The fight goes on, I think we have to carry on and not ease up," said Alfredo de Angelis, an Agrarian Federation leader in Entre Rios province.

HALTING EXPORTS

By holding products back from market, the farmers have halted grain exports from Argentina, an agricultural powerhouse, and affected soy buyers in Europe and China.

Groups of small and large farmers maintained their road blocks on key rural highways on Thursday and held marches and protests in cities throughout the grain-growing heartland.

Even if strike leaders decide to suspend the strike when they meet on Friday, it is not clear if farmers manning the roadblocks will pull them down because many are furious at the government over the tax hike.

Some restaurants and stores were running low on beef, chicken and dairy products.

"We're not offering meat since yesterday because we ran out of our small reserve," said Roberto, a waiter at a restaurant-bar in downtown Buenos Aires.

Middle-class protesters banged pots and pans in the streets of the capital for the third night running on Thursday to support the strikers, although in smaller numbers.

The protests have prompted comparisons to pan-banging protests that ousted a president in 2001.

The farmers are protesting a new sliding-scale tax, which would replace a fixed tax and make levies on soy exports significantly higher at current prices. They say the higher tax would harm smaller farmers.

But they are also expressing frustration with Fernandez' authoritarian style of decreeing policy. Fernandez and her husband, ex-President Nestor Kirchner, have angered farmers with export bans and price controls on their products, aimed at taming inflation and boosting government revenue.

"Beyond the economic issues, what's at stake is the dignity of growers," said Jose Apestaguia, a rancher and grain grower in the agricultural town of Pergamino.

The government earlier this week warned it would use force to break up barricades on highways, but Fernandez made no such threat on Thursday.

Ironically, Argentina has been one of the main beneficiaries of a global surge in commodities prices and the economy has been booming for five years, rebounding from a deep crisis in 2001-2002.

The standoff illustrates the country's deep disagreement over how to spread around the windfall profit -- Argentina's soy receipts totaled $13.47 billion last year.

Fernandez says farmers are getting wealthy off cheap labor and subsidized fuel, and argues the higher export taxes on soy and other products will help the 25 percent of Argentines who are poor.

(Additional reporting by Fiona Ortiz and Nicolas Misculin in Buenos Aires, Editing by Kieran Murray)

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Argentine farmers return to barricades
Posted on Sat, Mar. 29, 2008

By BILL CORMIER
Associated Press
BUENOS AIRES --
Farmers chafing at export taxes on their crops set up new blockades of rural highways on Saturday after talks failed to end a dispute that has halted grain exports and emptied supermarket shelves of meat.

Eduardo Buzzi, a leader of one of four striking farm groups, said a marathon round of negotiations that ended early Saturday failed to yield a breakthrough and that farmers might not attend the next round of talks called by the government to start on Monday.

''We went to negotiate and it turned out that the dialogue consisted of talking in vague generalities,'' Buzzi told Argentine Radio 10. ``As such we doubt there will be a meeting on Monday.''

On Saturday, farmworkers resumed highway blockades in four rural provinces -- Entre Rios, Cordoba, Santa Fe and Chaco. The move came a day after farmers called a ''truce'' and temporarily lifted barricades to allow bargaining to begin on disputed tax hikes.

Small farmers are protesting that they have been unfairly hit by a March 11 presidential decree that hiked export taxes on soybeans from 35 percent to as much as 45 percent, and slapped new duties on other farm exports. President Kristina Fernández says the measure is intended to help stem rising inflation.

For more than two weeks, the farmers have led road blockades that choked off the flow of farm goods to major cities, emptying supermarket shelves and virtually paralyzing exports of beef, soybeans and wheat from this agricultural powerhouse.

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