January 3, 2006

Just four years ago, Argentina's economy was prostrate and its politics in chaos, after a financial crisis resulted in bank deposits being frozen, the government defaulting on more than $100 billion in debt and five presidents holding office in two weeks. But on Tuesday, the country is expected to pay off the last of its debt to the International Monetary Fund and simply walk away from further negotiations with the group. Argentina still owes tens of billions to private lenders, even after a debt restructuring in March. But the $9.8 billion payment is an important symbolic milestone and just one of several recent signs that President Néstor Kirchner appears to be concentrating more power in his own hands and steering his government to the left. Since a midterm election victory in October, Mr. Kirchner has also moved to establish an alliance with Venezuela's populist leader, Hugo Chávez, and, as a traditional Peronist, to extend the hand of the state deeper into the economy, the judiciary and the news media.

Harvey Araton Sports of The Times column discusses parallel but vastly different careers of New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury and Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash (M)

Facing cuts in antiterrorism financing, the Department of Homeland Security plans to announce today that it will evaluate new requests for money from an $800 million aid program for cities based less on politics and more on assessments of where terrorists are likely to strike and potentially cause the greatest damage, department officials say. The changes to the program, the Urban Area Security Initiative, are being driven in part by a reduction in the overall pool of money for antiterrorism efforts. For 2006, Congress has appropriated $120 million less in these urban grants than for 2005.

X-ray technicians William M Cox and Gene R Pesola describe image of 73-year-old Inuit woman's appendix filled with buckshot; findings, which are published in New England Journal of Medicine, explain that she had likely ingested buckshot from local game over period of years; photo (M)

Imre Kertesz, Holocaust survivor, has written screenplay for his novel Fateless, which is based on his experiences in concentration camp as teenager; movie is not chronicle of Holocaust, but rather coming-of age story set amid Holocaust; costing $13 million, Fateless is most expensive Hungarian film ever made, as well as year's most successful Hungarian film and country's entry for best foreign language film at 2006 Academy Awards; photos (M)