- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
TEHRAN, December 01 - Thousands of demonstrators marched in Buenos Aires on Friday to protest the G20’s economic policies as the world’s leading industrialized nations opened their annual summit in the Argentine capital.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - But the protesters could not get anywhere near the leaders of the United States, Russia, China and other global powers gathered for a meeting whose agenda was expected to be dominated by the U.S.-China trade war.
Police, coast guard and border patrols cordoned off a 12-square-kilometer (5-square-mile) area around the riverside Costa Salguero convention center, where the summit is being held. Cargo traffic on La Plata River was shut down for the event.
Buenos Aires was largely locked down for the march, which was organized by a coalition of labor unions and rights groups.
Indeed, the summit comes at a tough time for Argentina. Inflation is running at about 40 percent so far this year while the economy contracts.
President Mauricio Macri, a free markets advocate elected in 2015 amid high hopes that he could straighten out an economy distorted by years of heavy-handed trade and currency controls, has seen his popularity fall as the local peso currency loses value and average Argentines lose purchasing power.
Public transportation was suspended and hundreds of intersections blocked to control traffic and crowds. Friday was declared a national bank holiday and Argentina’s center-right government suggested people leave town for the summit.
Those measures made it harder for activists to get to the march, which started at the city’s main thoroughfare, 9 de Julio, and ended at the capitol building. Some groups hired private buses to get demonstrators from outlying areas to the city.
The government said 25,000 police were on hand in case violence broke out. Last year, when Germany hosted the G20 summit in the northern port city of Hamburg, police struggled to contain black-clad anti-capitalist militants who torched cars, looted shops and hurled Molotov cocktails while tens of thousands more people demonstrated peacefully.
Source: Reuters
Your Comment