Tomas Eloy Martinez, journalist and writer, has died at age 75 in Buenos Aires. He was born in Tucuman, in the country’s far northwest, and took up journalism there as a proof reader, then moved to Buenos Aires. In the early 1970s, the country’s politics became increasingly radicalized. Eloy Martinez investigated a massacre of leftists in 1972 on a military base in Trelew, south of Buenos Aires, and wrote a book about it. This earned him the attention of the Triple A right-wing death squad. He fled Buenos Aires and settled in Caracas, Venezuela where he founded El Diario de Caracas.

In 1985 he moved to the USA and headed the Spanish studies department at Rutgers University in New Jersey. His most famous book, Santa Evita, about the life and times of Eva Perón, has been translated into over 30 languages. His latest novel, Purgatory, was published in 2008. He wrote for Argentina’s La Nación, Spain’s El Pais, and the New York Times op-ed pages. He was awarded the Ortega y Gasset lifetime achievement in journalism prize in 2009.

Links to other sites: El Pais, La Nación, New York Times

Felix Luna, historian, writer, politician and songwriter, has died in Buenos Aires, 5 November. He was 84. Born in Buenos Aires in 1925 to a well-connected family from La Rioja in Argentina’s poor northwest, he studied law, but soon turned to writing. He won his first prize for a short story in 1957, and wrote more than a score of books.

He was acclaimed as an historian, and explained Argentine history to the Argentines, notably in A brief history of the Argentines, but also in the first person account, Soy Roca, of a divisive 19th century politician and general, Julio Roca. In 1967 he founded the history magazine, Todo es Historia, which is still sold on newsstands around the country.

He entered into a fruitful partnership with composer Ariel Rodriguez in the 1960s, and wrote the words to music like the Misa Criolla, a mass using the idioms and language of folklore in the aftermath of the second Vatican Council, and Mujeres Argentinas, sung by Mercedes Sosa. His haunting tribute to the Swiss-born poetess, Alfonsina Storni, Alfonsina y el mar, is one of his most lasting contributions to popular musical culture.

Iran’s new government contains one woman, Marzieh-Vahid Dastjerdi, as health minister, the first in the Islamic Republic’s history. The parliament approved most of the cabinet proposed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently re-elected  president, although it rejected two other women.

The new defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is a hardliner and former chief of the elite Quds force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He is wanted by Interpol and the Argentine government for his alleged involvement in the 1994 explosion of the headquarters of Amia, a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. He received the most votes from parliament. CNN, Reuters, Clarin (Spa)

Honduras ordered all members of the Argentine embassy in Tegucigalpa to leave the country within three days, Tuesday 18 August. But Argentine foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, on a trade mission in Mexico, said he had not been informed of the deadline, and his diplomats were staying put. The Honduran ministry of foreign affairs said it was expelling the diplomats in line with “strict reciprocity” for the expulsion last week of the Honduran ambassador in Buenos Aires, who stated publicly that she approved of the forced removal of Manuel Zelaya as Hondura’s president last 28 June. The interim government of Honduras said its relations with Argentina would be conducted through the Argentine embassy in Israel. Honduras previously expelled Venezuelan diplomats, most of whom have stayed because President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela says he will not take orders from the interim government. BBC, Clarin (Spa), CNN, La Nación (Spa)

A pit filled with an estimated 10,000 human bones is being excavated in La Plata, south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, near a former detention centre, possibly giving the first solid proof that many of the country’s “disappeared” population really were killed by the military dictatorship during the late 1970s and early 1980s. BBC