At 4 am on July, 15, 2010, after a fourteen hour long debate, the Argentinean Senate approved the law that authorizes same-sex marriages. 33 senators voted in favour of the bill, 27 against and 3 abstained. Argentina thus became the first Latin American country and one of the few around the world to legalize gay marriage.

The debate became very heated at times. Every senator had the chance to speak; topics like homosexuality and what it means to be homosexual, religion, traditional family values and discrimination were discussed.

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This is the first in a new series where we explore different social situations from the point of view of our contributors around the world.

Today’s topic: how to greet people in different countries.

Credit

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The Hand of God can have many different meanings.

The Hand of God - La Nacion

And although soccer is like a religion for some, it has nothing to do with divine intervention in this case. It is, rather, the name of a controversial goal scored by Argentina’s Diego Maradona against the English side in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Footage shows Maradona touching the ball with his hand; however, the goal was allowed and Argentina went on to win the match 2-1 and eventually the tournament. The name was coined when, during a press conference, Diego Maradona said the goal was scored “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios” (”a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”)

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Photo: La Nacion - Cancha Llena

Today’s match against Nigeria began at 11 am, Buenos Aires time. My mum, my sister and I were chit-chatting in the kitchen over cups of coffee and rounds of mate when we heard honking, wild cheering and even firecrackers. We’d missed the beginning of the match and Gabriel Heinze’s goal 6 minutes into the game. That was fast! (more…)

Doctors at emergency rooms around the world are getting ready for the onslaught of heart attacks and other heart-related maladies. Who’s to blame? The World Cup!

The British Heart Foundation posted on their website a series of easy-to-follow tips that will help you keep your heart healthy. Some of the tips are watching the matches with friends and family, staying below the maximum recommended alcohol units (ahem!), or giving up smoking.

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Mi Buenos Aires querido,
Cuando yo te vuelva a ver
No habrá más penas ni olvidos

(My beloved Buenos Aires / when I next return to see you / I’ll grieve no more)*

These are the opening lines of one of the most famous tango songs of all times, Mi Buenos Aires Querido, released in 1934. It was also the soundtrack of an eponymous 1936 film. The song (and the film) is about an emigrant’s yearning for his beloved city, his old haunts and the people he left behind.

Melancholy, hard luck, crushed dreams; longing for hearth and home, unrequited love, heartbreak, social issues, the passage of time are the recurrent themes of tango songs.

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Have you ever heard of Quebrada de Humahuaca? This magical place high up in the Andes has been inhabited for the last ten thousand years, where traces of pre-Hispanic civilizations and their culture can still be seen today. Also, this mountain valley located in the province of Jujuy in northwest Argentina is the tail end of the famous Inca Trail (Camino del Inca). It was part of a major trade route used from prehistoric hunter-gatherers to traders and officials of the Inca Empire to modern-day tourists.

Quebrada de Humahuaca was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 because, among other things, it has been “a crucial passage for the transport of people and ideas from the high Andean lands to the plains.” According to UNESCO, the place’s “distinctive pre-Hispanic and pre-Incan settlements” form a dramatic addition to the landscape.

The landscape is impressive. The word “quebrada” means deep valley or ravine. It’s famous for its multicolour mountains: each colour is the result of a different layer of sediments deposited over the last 600 million years. Successive tectonic plate movements gave them the shapes we see today.

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