
-
Kenya's economy faces climate change risks: World Bank
-
Dollar, stocks sink as gold hits high on Trump tariffs
-
Trump tariff blitz sparks retaliation threats, economic fears
-
Lessons and liquids: buried alive in Myanmar's earthquake
-
Nintendo Switch 2 sparks excitement despite high price
-
Sri Lanka's crackdown on dogs for India PM's visit sparks protest
-
China vows 'countermeasures' to sweeping new US tariffs
-
Trump jolts allies, foes and markets with tariff blitz
-
How Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs will impact China
-
Europe hits out at Trump tariffs, keeps door open for talks
-
Australia sweats through hottest 12 months on record: official data
-
South African artist champions hyenas in 'eco-queer' quest
-
Taiwan says US tariffs 'highly unreasonable'
-
Trump escalates trade war with sweeping global tariffs
-
China says opposes new US tariffs, vows 'countermeasures'
-
Quake-hit Myanmar's junta chief to head to Bangkok summit
-
New Spielberg, Nolan films teased at CinemaCon
-
Shiny and deadly, unexploded munitions a threat to Gaza children
-
Stocks tank, havens rally as Trump tariffs fan trade war
-
Financial markets tumble after Trump tariff announcement
-
Europe riled, but plans cool-headed response to Trump's tariffs
-
'Shenmue' voted most influential video game ever in UK poll
-
Revealed: Why monkeys are better at yodelling than humans
-
Key details on Trump's market-shaking tariffs
-
US business groups voice dismay at Trump's new tariffs
-
Trump sparks trade war with sweeping global tariffs
-
US stocks end up, but volatility ahead after latest Trump tariffs
-
Boeing chief reports progress to Senate panel after 'serious missteps'
-
Is Musk's political career descending to Earth?
-
On Mexico-US border, Trump's 'Liberation Day' brings fears for future
-
Tesla sales slump as pressure piles on Musk
-
Amazon makes last-minute bid for TikTok: report
-
Tesla first quarter sales sink amid anger over Musk politics
-
World's tiniest pacemaker is smaller than grain of rice
-
Nintendo says Switch 2 console to be launched on June 5
-
Certain foreign firms must 'self-certify' with Trump diversity rules: US embassies
-
Nigerian president sacks board of state oil company
-
Heathrow 'warned about power supply' days before shutdown
-
Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre 'stable' after car crash
-
Swedish insurer drops $160 mn Tesla stake over labour rights
-
Stock markets mixed as uncertainty rules ahead of Trump tariffs
-
Warner showcases 'Superman' reboot, new DiCaprio film
-
Asian markets edge up but uncertainty rules ahead of Trump tariffs
-
UK imposes online entry permit on European visitors
-
How a Brazilian chief is staving off Amazon destruction
-
Brazil binman finds newborn baby on garbage route
-
Trump set to unleash 'Liberation Day' tariffs
-
GM leads first quarter US auto sales as tariffs loom
-
Trump 'perfecting' new tariffs as nervous world braces
-
Trump puts world on edge as 'Liberation Day' tariffs loom

Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse
Argentine biochemist Alejandro Nadra worries that President Javier Milei's budget cuts will undo his scientific quest to unravel the cause of genetic diseases that disable and kill millions.
Since taking office last December, budget-slashing Milei has frozen public university and research budgets even as annual inflation stands at 236 percent.
This meant real spending on science and technology fell 33 percent year-on-year in August, according to the CIICTI research center.
Nadra said he has already had to stop some of his experiments with the proteins responsible for gene mutations that cause diseases.
"We are on the verge of collapse," Nadra told AFP from his laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires, home to three Nobel Prize laureates in science.
Along with artists, teachers, pilots, social workers and countless other professionals affected by Milei's drive to curb flyaway inflation and public debt, scientists fear for their future in Argentina.
"People are leaving, and they aren't applying for scholarships or teaching positions anymore because they can’t make a living," said Nadra.
Those who do often end up working in labs without the necessary equipment or supplies.
"If things don’t change, the time is near when everything disintegrates," said Nadra.
Nadra said he has not been able to buy anything he needs for his research since last November.
"So, if I run out of supplies, I either borrow from someone who still has some, or I stop doing those experiments."
The gross monthly salary of a research assistant today at Argentina's Conicet research council is about 30 percent less, roughly $1,180, than a year ago, according to the RAICYT network science institutes.
Official figures released last week showed that 52.9 percent of people live in poverty in Milei's Argentina.
- 'Drastic reduction' -
Biologist Edith Kordon works at the IFIBYNE state research institute,where she investigates breast cancer.
"This is the first time this has happened to me. I mean, it has always been very hard to get funding, it has always been very hard to get scholarships, but now there is this practical certainty that we have nothing... I’ve never had so little money to do anything," she told AFP.
Former science minister Lino Baranao recently highlighted that even before Milei's cuts, Argentina spent about 0.31 percent of GDP on science compared to 1.21 percent in Brazil, 3.45 percent in the United States and 4.9 percent in South Korea.
Today, it is even less, at about 0.2 percent.
"Never in the recent history of Argentina has there been such a drastic reduction in the (scientific) budget," Baranao told La Nacion newspaper.
In a more prosperous past, state funding of research had made possible the development of a transgenic wheat strain resistant to drought by a Conicet research team, among other life-changing breakthroughs.
Last week, Milei's government adjusted Conicet's working budget upward to just over $100,000 for 2024, a figure which physicist Jorge Aliaga considers "irrelevant" in its inadequacy.
"It doesn’t change anything," he told AFP.
In March, a group of 68 Nobel Prize laureates from around the world expressed concern in an open letter about Argentina's public research system approaching "a dangerous precipice."
Self-described "anarcho-capitalist" Milei, for his part, has hit out at "the so-called scientists and intellectuals who believe that having an academic degree makes them superior beings."
C.Smith--CPN