Argentina’s Fernandez returns from surgery, names new economy minister

By Hugh Bronstein and Jorge Otaola BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez burst back on the scene on Monday after a five-week absence following surgery, naming as economy minister the government's point man in its 2012 seizure of the country's biggest oil company. The promotion of leftist economist Axel Kicillof, who had been deputy economy minister, was announced by government spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro in a televised address just minutes after Fernandez appeared for the first time since early October. The YPF takeover enraged Argentina's trading partners from the European Union, but was welcomed by many Argentines as a defense of national strategic interests. Known for his fiery speeches in defense of Fernandez's unorthodox economic policies, Kicillof spent most of his career in academia, giving classes and writing about the theories of economists such as John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx.