BUENOS AIRES -- Doctors in Argentina on Friday struggled to save the life of a baby who was mistakenly declared dead last week and spent 12 hours in a refrigerated hospital morgue before her mother discovered she was alive.
Luz Milagros Veron, who survived in a tiny wooden box in the morgue at Perrando de Resistencia Hospital, on Thursday suffered cardiopulmonary failure and an infection. She was in critical condition and in the neonatal intensive care ward Friday, hospital administrators said.
The baby was born three months premature, weighing slightly more than a pound and apparently stillborn. Doctors at the hospital signed a death certificate and sent her to the morgue.
Before leaving the hospital later that night, her mother Analia Bouter, asked to see her infant’s body one last time. After a hospital worker pried the lid off the box, she heard her frost-covered baby whimper and saw her make slight movements, Bouter later told reporters at a news conference. The baby was in stable condition until her Thursday emergency.
She's an extremely premature baby, 13 days old and weighing 708 grams (1 pound, 5 ounces). She's in a critical state, quite a bit worse than yesterday and at risk of dying," said Diana Vesco, the head of infant care at the Perrando Hospital, where the baby was born.
"Yesterday she had an episode with a hemorrhage in the lungs, which required us to increase artificial respiration. Her heart and breathing stopped. She required advanced CPR," Vesco told Reuters.
Five hospital workers involved in the case have been suspended.
Argentina has been captivated by Luz Milagros' plight since it came to light on Tuesday.
"We believe that if our daughter has gotten this far, despite everything, it's because she's here to stay," Luz Milagros' father, Fabian Veron, told reporters.
The child's mother spoke by telephone on Wednesday with President Cristina Fernandez. "She told me this shows that miracles do happen," Bouter told Clarin newspaper.
MADRID — The Spanish government warned on Friday that it would take unspecified retaliatory measures against Argentina if it proceeded with plans to take back control of YPF, the large oil and gas producer, from Repsol, its Spanish parent.
The warning came as José Manuel Garcia-Margallo, the Spanish foreign minister, also announced that Spain had called on the European Commission, the United States Treasury and other governments in Latin America to support Spain in its efforts to prevent the nationalization of YPF.
Meanwhile, Iñigo Mendez de Vigo, the Spanish secretary of state for European affairs, warned in a radio interview that Argentina could become “an international pariah” if such a nationalization went ahead.
The dispute with Argentina could not have come at a worse time for Repsol and the government in Madrid, which is already struggling with Spain’s second recession in three years, as well as facing soaring borrowing costs amid concerns among investors about whether Spain will be the next euro economy to require a bailout.
For Repsol, meanwhile, YPF has come to account for a third of its profits and 42 percent of its estimated reserves of crude oil.
Repsol took control of YPF in 1999 and owns 57 percent of its equity.
The YPF takeover was one of several forays by Spain’s largest banks and industrial companies into Latin America. These investments have recently helped soften the blow of crumbling earnings at home.
Most YPF shares are traded in New York, where they dropped 5 percent in early trading, continuing a 35 percent slide since Argentine leaders began pressuring the company in January.
Governors of oil-producing Argentine provinces have withdrawn about 15 oil leases, representing 18 percent of YPF's crude production, alleging the company failed to keep its promises to develop them. YPF countered that it had invested millions in those areas and plans to increase production, but Argentine officials have said that still falls short.
How Argentina may try to displace Repsol, which owns 57 percent of YPF, has been the subject of wide speculation since the government's pressure campaign began in February. Even with its share prices depressed, YPF is valued at $13.6 billion, and buying half of that would deplete Argentina's treasury of funds it needs to maintain the populist subsidies that have kept the country's economy humming.
Expectations rose sharply this week when Jorge Sapag, governor of oil-producing Neuquen province, told reporters that "what's coming is a mixed (public-private) company" whose board would include representatives from Argentina's provinces.
A proposed law then circulated among Argentine lawmakers Thursday, declaring 50.01 percent of YPF shares "a public good" subject to government expropriation. The proposal wasn't formally submitted to Congress, nor was there any announcement from President Cristina Fernandez following her meeting with a governors group.
Fernandez was flying Friday afternoon to a regional summit in Colombia, leaving nearly everyone involved in suspense about Argentina's next move.
Her only public comments came in an unrelated address to the nation Thursday night, when without mentioning Repsol-YPF by name, she said she was "ready to pay all the prices that must be paid" to keep Argentina growing.
BUENOS AIRES, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Repsol's Argentine unit YPF (REP.MC)(YPFD.BA) announced an increase in its proven crude reserves of more than 300 million barrels of oil equivalent on Thursday, bucking a downward trend in the country.
YPF, Argentina's biggest energy company, said it had also increased its contingent crude resources by 500 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) as part of a company drive to boost its reserves in the South American nation.
Contingent resources are subject to a final decision being made on whether to extract them.
"We've renewed projects that were already under way and launched new ones that have given us very good results in terms of oil and natural gas finds," YPF Chief Executive Sebastian Eskenazi said in a statement.
The company said it had invested some $3.75 billion in its exploration and production division over the last three years.
No significant new reserves have been found in 15 years in Latin America's No. 3 economy. Proven oil reserves fell 9 percent between 2001 and 2008, while proven reserves of natural gas sank 39 percent.
Oil and natural gas exports have plunged and drilling of exploratory wells has slumped due to the economic crisis that peaked in 2001/2002 and government price controls since then.
