Argentine President Rents $880,000 Jet for Cuba, Asia Travel
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Argentina is renting a jet so President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner can avoid the threat of having her official plane seized by defaulted bondholders during a tour of Asia that will begin with a stop in Havana to see ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Fernandez rented the plane for $880,000 instead of using the president’s Boeing 757 aircraft at the recommendation of the Foreign Ministry, the government said today in a statement on the presidential website. The decision follows a legal battle with Ghana after the African nation detained an Argentine naval ship for 10 weeks as part of a dispute with investors holding bonds from the country’s 2001 default.