Pain has long been the power structure’s compliance method of choice, whether it was the heretic’s fork or the rack of Europe, or the dogs and electric cattle prods of the Jim Crow South. More recently, police forces around the world have turned to the taser gun: a weapon which delivers 50,000 volt electric shocks to enforce compliance or retaliate or punish handcuffed suspects who are talking back, refusing to follow police instructions or attempting to escape.

The standoff continues between Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, central bank president Martin Redrado and Congress over the removal of US$6.6bn of the bank’s reserves to pay debts in Latin America’s third-largest economy.

The 1st December 2009 should have been the happiest day of Alex Freyre and José María di Bello’s lives. They had been granted permission to become the first same-sex couple to marry in Argentina, in a landmark legal decision. This was taken away from them one day before the ceremony however, when Judge Marta Gomez Alsina ordered the union to be suspended pending a Supreme Court hearing.

Tension around the Buenos Aires’ spying scandal is growing as more people come forward with evidence that Mauricio Macri, the capital’s mayor, was in fact the man giving the orders to alleged spy, Gerado Ciro James. A former member of the federal police with close links to Macri, James has been arrested for tapping various phone conversations.

On 10th October, a vote of 44-22 in the Senate sealed the fate of president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s controversial new media law. It took 16 hours of debate for the law to be passed without any concessions to a vociferous opposition and be celebrated by thousands of supporters outside Congress.

On 19th August four and a half years of waiting for justice ended as one of the most eagerly awaited verdicts in recent years was read out. The trial of those deemed responsible for the 2004 Cromañón fire drew to an end, with sentences handed down. For relatives of the nearly 200 people who died in the inferno, some sort of closure was finally found.

The hospital’s automatic doors open and an old couple walk out of the building in a hurry. The old man is wearing a facemask and is making an effort to carry his wife, who won’t stop coughing, to a car parked near by. She has just tested negative for Swine Flu and is trying to get away from that place as fast as possible.

In a surprise result, seven out of ten voters chose opposition parties in Argentina’s mid-term elections on 28th June, a result that has raised questions for the future of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government. The administration lost their majority in both houses, with opposition parties now having control of Congress, and in the Senate the government now has exactly half of the seats.

Argentina has restated claims to sovereignty over UK Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. On 21st April, Argentine Vice Chancellor Victorio Taccetti submitted a document to the UN which aims to support the country’s claim to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. Entitlement to a portion of British Antarctic Territory was also asserted.

With official figures reporting nearly 8,000 cases of dengue fever, Argentina’s Ministry of Health has said that the outbreak of disease in the country has worsened to an epidemic. “Dengue is here to stay,” said Health Minister Graciela Ocaña on 7th April, in the first official admission that hinted at the seriousness of the situation