Buenos Aires  - Former Argentina president Raul Alfonsin, who led his country out of an era of dictatorship, was said to be in a rapidly deteriorating condition on Tuesday following a bout of pneumonia.

Alfonsin, 82, suffers from lung cancer, but his son Ricardo Alfonsin said that he was still lucid.

He was diagnosed with pneumonia on Sunday and was being treated at his home in the Barrio Norte neighbourhood of Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires  - Argentina coach Diego Maradona on Saturday granted to superstar Lionel Messi the prestigious number 10 jersey that he once wore himself.

Maradona - nicknamed "El Diez" because he is for most the best player ever to wear that shirt - picked Barcelona striker Messi as one of his successors prior to his first competitive game as national team coach, against Venezuela in Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires  - Thousands of people gathered Friday to buy tickets for Argentina's game against Venezuela in Buenos Aires, which was set to be Argentine football legend Diego Maradona's first official match as national team coach.

The queue was more than 700 metres long to get one of the 13,000 "popular" tickets for the Monumental stadium, the cheapest option available at around 10 dollars each, to watch the historic game on site.

Buenos Aires  - Argentina's Congress voted to move up the date for congressional elections by four months to June 28 as the government seeks to avoid the full impact of the world economic crisis on the ballot box.

The Senate approved the date recommended by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's government Thursday night by a 45-25 vote after a nine-hour debate.

Buenos Aires  - A girl who wants to be a "Barbie" has to start practicing early in life and in Buenos Aires she can.

The world now has its first store there. Little girls can immerse themselves in the dream world of the long-legged doll. Behind the store's inconspicuous facade lies a full 650 square metres of retail space where girls can discover all that goes on in the life of a proper doll.

They also can be transformed into a Barbie.

Buenos Aires - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has long made it clear that he does not like going to international summits as anything other than a protagonist - and he is travelling to London for the G20 summit in April with very clear views.

Protectionism is not a way out of the ongoing global economic and financial crisis, he is bound to say, and it is industrialized nations which caused the crisis in the first place and therefore should bear the brunt of the cost by helping poorer countries recover from the effects.