By Enrique Marcarian

Used to covering news with headlines like hyper-inflation, devaluation, coup d’etat, protest, bond default, election, poverty, earthquake, and even papal visit, I never imagined what it would be like to cover the papal conclave in the new Pope’s country of origin. What made it even more baffling was the fact that the winner was someone we never dreamed it would be.

The day the conclave began was one when all the elements around me seemed to confirm that there was no chance of an Argentine Pope. I went to the Metropolitan Cathedral to take pictures of the optimistic worshippers, and found just one nun praying in a nearly empty church.

The next day, a phone call from a colleague shook me up. He told me that a journalist, who is notorious for always being wrong in his predictions, had said, “Bergoglio won’t be elected for many reasons.” That was when we decided we should go to the Cathedral.

Fifteen minutes before the name of the new Pope was announced, I commented to my editor that if he prepared the archive photos of Bergoglio, I would go to the Cathedral. His answer was to remain calm. “The next Pope will likely be Brazilian,” he said. In the end I’m not sure which of us was more surprised.

We immediately began searching for members of the new Pope’s family in Argentina, his old schools, and any details about his past life that might lead to historic photos.

Old photos, black & white and color, emerged from different sources, many of them in negatives for which we had trouble finding a scanner to digitize, as editors pressed us for haste.

“Thank God!” was heard from the San Lorenzo de Almagro football club. The club’s spokesman confirmed that the Pope is a member and fan of their team. That was followed by emails containing then Cardinal Bergoglio holding the jersey of his favorite team.

I naively thought that the new Pope would soon appear at his local home to pick up his belongings, but then realized that it doesn’t work that way. Whenever he does return home for the first time as Pope, there will be millions lining the streets to greet him.

Whenever that happens, we’ll be better prepared, and have a little more faith.

By Enrique Marcarian

I first photographed a soup kitchen in 1998, in a parish in one of Buenos Aires’ famous “villas miserias,” which literally means “misery towns” in reference to its large slums. At that time I only saw children taking their daily rations and often smiling at my camera.

I assumed that the sheer number of children depending on soup kitchens was just circumstantial, and the next governments would improve the situation for them and there would be more being fed at home instead of by charities.

I was wrong. A couple of years later the country entered into one of its worst economic crises. Suddenly I no longer saw just more children in the soup kitchens but I saw them even more malnourished, to the extent that they were at risk of starvation. In fact, I came to find out that some children did die, although official versions didn’t say it was starvation.

I can say that thanks to the widespread publication of shocking images of international food and medical aid being sent to Argentina, local authorities were prompted to act and look around at what was happening, although it was only for a short period.

As time and governments passed, soup kitchens only multiplied, such as one I visited this week that’s run by the Catholic Church. This one isn’t located in a slum, but rather in one of Buenos Aires’ better districts. And this time there were not just children there but adults too. They were adults who looked like they had been prosperous at some time in the past.

In three daily shifts, with about 80 people waiting patiently at each shift, they each took a plate of food from a common pot and bread that was already on the tables. Some hid their faces from the camera, perhaps out of shame for their poverty despite having the apparent strength to earn their own bread.

There were no smiles from the children as in 1998. I felt that images like these are not just of the past and present, but are also a projection of the future.

The ARA Libertad, a tall sailing ship used as a training vessel, was detained in the West African nation on October 2 due to a court order obtained by NML Capital Ltd as it fights to get full repayment for the bonds in the courts.

Argentina’s government, which calls funds like NML “vultures,” asked a U.N. maritime court to intervene and the Hamburg-based tribunal ordered the ship’s release last month.

The detention of the Libertad during a tour of Africa was a blow for Argentina’s efforts to put the 2002 debt crisis behind it and drew a furious response from left-leaning President Cristina Fernandez.

Fernandez hailed the Libertad’s return as a triumph of sovereignty over “anarcho-capitalism.”

“The vultures were there (but) we didn’t listen to them, we listened to the people’s demand,” she said.

“We’re going to keep on fighting because no one’s going to get anything out of Argentina with extortion and strong-arm tactics,” she told crowds of supporters and vacationers in the seaside town of Mar del Plata.

Plumes of white and sky blue smoke – representing the colors of the national flag, and a celebratory fly-past greeted the ship as it pulled into harbor.

Latin America’s third-biggest economy has yet to return to global credit markets 11 years since staging the biggest sovereign debt default in history and legal wrangling with creditors continues.

A U.S. appeals court will start hearing oral arguments next month in a case that could eventually force Argentina to pay bondholders who rejected two debt restructurings in 2005 and 2010 to battle for full payment in the courts.

In order to avoid the risk of having the presidential plane seized by holdout creditors, Fernandez has hired a private aircraft for a four-nation tour of Asia and the Middle East at a cost of $880,000, the government said this week.

(Writing by Helen Popper; Editing by Eric Walsh)

When Argentina invaded the Falklands in 1982, I tried to reach there on an Argentine Air Force plane from the continental mainland, but due to restrictions imposed by the military government I only reached a port on the Patagonian coast. I was stuck there for a week, but as I was there I managed to photograph what I still remember as one of the saddest moments in the story of that conflict – the return of the ARA Alferez Sobral, the Navy’s rescue tug that had been attacked by British helicopters. On board the boat were survivors with their uniforms torn and trembling in the South Atlantic cold, and eight dead crew members in coffins.

It was only 23 years later, in 2005, that I finally did manage to reach the islands in one of the weekly commercial flights leaving from Chile. That was to be my first coverage of life in the Islands. I was anxious to see how the locals would react to an Argentine photographer taking pictures of them.

My first stop was at a major dart tournament. I entered cautiously trying to be unnoticed, which worked at first while everyone was focused on the dartboards and beer drinking. Once I had a few beers and took a few pictures, a couple of schoolteachers took notice of my nationality. To my surprise, instead of throwing me out they asked me about my country, and complimented me on then-Foreign Minister Guido di Tella for having sent Christmas presents to Falklands children.

The next day I went to the local police station to request a map of the places where there were still landmines planted by Argentine troops. The police told me that under no circumstances was I to try to cross those fields, because it would mean a fine of £2,000 and arrest. I joked to one officer that both of those penalties would only be enforceable if I survived the crossing, but he didn’t find it funny.

The rest of the week I toured the minefields and observed the penguins crossing them, and thought of following them, but decided not to. I didn’t have £2,000 to pay the fine.

I visited battlefields, Port Howard, and pubs, far from the hostility that I admit to having expected. I only met people who wanted to leave their memory of the War behind them.

In June 2007 I returned to cover the 25^th anniversary of the islanders’ commemorating the Argentine surrender. This time I found an atmosphere much more militarized, but most likely due to the presence of Prince Edward and some combat exercises.

Since 2007 my country’s government has only increased its claims over the Falklands, reaching their peak just recently in the days running up to the 30^th anniversary this year. In Argentina that 30^th year is celebrated on April 2, when the invasion began, and in the Islands the celebration is on June 14, the day Argentina was defeated.

Upon landing on my third visit to the Falklands last month, I called the local government press officer who told me that I could cover all the events I wished. His only recommendation was that it would be better not to photograph children without the permission of their parents. On June 13^th I went to the British cemetery in San Carlos, two hours from Stanley, where some 20 British veterans and British Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne paid tribute to the 14 soldiers buried there. With some discretion I took photos from a distance, and when the ceremony was over I approached Mr. Browne, and ended up posing with him for a picture.

The next day, during the main ceremony in Stanley, there was a more formal ceremony in tribute to the British fallen, under a steady snowfall in which it took us two hours to get a satellite signal to transmit. Strangely enough, during the ceremony I felt as if I were watching a football match of my favorite team from the rival’s tribune.

I had never taken photos in a snow storm, and found it impossible. Each time I raised the camera snow fell onto my lens front and froze there. I worked hard at getting an image of one officer in particular, but every time he began to bark orders, he got a mouthful of snow.

Later in the day I went to a reception at the Governor’s residence, and again met Minister Browne, who remembered having taken his picture with me. He was very nice, although I noticed he was a little nervous when I first approached him. Maybe he thought I was an Argentine about to attack.

The islanders I spoke to were thankful to the British government for protecting them from my president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who they referred to as “La Kirchner,” and other worse names as well.

In spite of their pride in being British, they also were very adamant in calling themselves “Falklanders” with the right of self-determination.

On my return flight home we had a scheduled stop in Rio Gallegos, Argentina, at the southern tip of the Patagonia, for a plane change to Buenos Aires. Immigration officials there demanded that all passengers fill out a customs declaration, something which I denied. I felt that if Argentina insists that the Falklands are really called the Malvinas, and that they belong to us, then they shouldn’t treat passengers as if we were arriving from abroad. I asked them to stamp my passport as having returned to Argentina, which would have confirmed their recognition of the Islands as foreign territory.