As you can read in Bolivian authorities are currently interrogating 9 (not 16 or 20 as previously reported) Bangladeshi nationals, arrested after the French authorities warned of a possible plot to hijack a plane in the La Paz-Buenos Aires route and crash it against US targets in the Argentine capital. The article lists their names and ages, all of them between 24 and 30... Which means nothing by itself, but I would be less worried about this news item if they had been either younger or older, given the usual profiles of suicide hijackers. It's important to note, however, that there still hasn't been any confirmation of their planning any attack at all, so let's not get ourselves trigger-happy here.

An scary (if the suspicions are true) extra tidbit of information: They were going to board a plane in Dec 2nd, but the flight was cancelled by Aerolíneas Argentinas.

What's very curious is how little coverage this is having on the Argentine press, even the online one. I can think of two possible reasons:


* They (a collective, not very analytically sound "they") know or suspect that the story is for some reason bogus.

* They know or suspect that the story is true, and want to keep it toned down for a little (while the government figures out a position other than "boy, we got lucky!"?)


The problem with these ideas is that I can't very well imagine the Argentine press working as a coherent, well-disciplined whole, even in the relative honeymoon the Kirchner administration enjoys. Perhaps most editors just don't find the story very interesting...

No, that doesn't sound right either. If you have a better idea, or -better yet- have direct knowledge of what's going on at the moment inside Argentina's news organizations, clue me in, please.