Buenos Aires

The United States Embassy in Argentina rejected reports that it had told President George Bush’s twin daughters to leave the country after a widely publicised purse-snatching incident. ABC News reported that embassy officials had ”strongly suggested” that the twins cut short their visit to due to security concerns.

Wildlife wardens and volunteers are working round the clock cleaning hundreds of oil-covered penguins found over the past days in a remote southern nature reserve, officials said. At least 70 of the penguins have died, said Jorge Perancho, the coordinator of protected areas of the far southern province of Santa Cruz.

It is a measure of Diego Maradona’s genius that the scandals which dogged his career will not stop him from being remembered as one of the two greatest footballers to grace the sport. Like Pele, Maradona etched his name among the legends of the game on the most demanding stage of all, the World Cup.

Scientists have discovered the remains of seven carnivorous dinosaurs that travelled in packs throughout an area of southern Argentina nicknamed Jurassic Park, one of the palaeontologists said on Tuesday. ”This is a new type of carnivorous dinosaur, known as the Mapusaurus, that lived some 90-million years ago, said Argentine palaeontologist Rodolfo Coria.

Every night in Buenos Aires is tango night. Throughout the city milongas — the word for any place that tango is danced — proliferate. There are tourist-trap milongas, traditional milongas, modern milongas. There is even a seniors’ milonga, where couples trickle round the room with a grace that is a million miles from Strictly Come Dancing pyrotechnics.

South Africa is desperate not to lose to the best Argentina line-up in a year, in their one-off rugby Test at Velez Sarsfield Stadium on Saturday. Both teams have spent the build-up paying their respects to each other. Springbok coach Jake White noted Argentina was the only leading side in the world not competing in a major tournament such as the Tri-Nations and Six Nations.

Milan Lukic, one of the most wanted war criminals from the carnage in Bosnia, was due to appear before a judge in Buenos Aires on Tuesday after being captured on Monday. After seven years on the run from war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Lukic was seized outside his apartment in Argentina.

Argentina qualified for their ninth successive World Cup with a sweet 3-1 defeat of arch-rival Brazil on Wednesday. The Argentines joined Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea as the first nations to qualify for next year’s finals, along with host Germany, an automatic qualifier in the 32-nation field.

Argentine rocker Andres Calamaro was charged on Monday for saying he would like to smoke marijuana — more than 10 years ago. "I feel so good that I could smoke a joint," Calamaro told a crowd of 100 000 fans on November 19 1994 in La Plata, 50km south of Buenos Aires.

Despite their best performance in the four-Test series, the Spar South African women’s hockey team lost their fourth and last Test against Argentina on Sunday, going down by one goal to three to the team ranked second in the world. ”It was our best performance as a team,” said team coach Jenny King.

Hundreds of rioting convicts in the city of Cordoba are holding a prison warden and 75 people hostage, threatening to throw some of them off the roof, while two inmates and a police officer were killed in a jail-break attempt, officials said early on Friday. Armed inmates atop the prison roof threatened to throw some prison guards to the pavement below.