To the Point

Devaluation in Argentina

Argentina's banks were supposed to re-open today and international trading in the newly devalued peso was scheduled to start, but it hasn't happened because nobody knows what the money is worth. Abandoning a policy that once linked its currency the American dollar, the newly installed government has devalued the peso by nearly 30 percent. Now, with inflation on the black market and shop owners struggling to keep a lid on prices, Argentina, once Latin America's richest country, is struggling to stay afloat. We put a human face on the spiraling economic crisis, then consider the causes and consequences for Argentina and beyond with economists and Latin America specialists. Newsmaker: NASA in for Some Tough Love With the international space station is 5 billion dollars over budget, President Bush has appointed a new chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Keith Cowing, who runs the on-line science magazine NASA Watch, predicts that Sean O'Keefe will have to perform "corrective surgery" to balance the budget and space exploration. Reporter's Notebook: Cartoons from Afghanistan Ted Rall, columnist and cartoonist for The Village Voice, calls covering the war in Afghanistan "a 12th century experience." Returning from two months of writing, drawing and reporting from the war zone, the world-class cynic describes his adventures writing and drawing about the war in Afghanistan.