Argentine resort braces for anti-Bush protests

By Kevin Gray
2 hours, 32 minutes ago

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (Reuters) - Shopkeepers boarded up storefronts and residents fled town on Thursday as thousands of demonstrators prepared to protest against U.S. President George W. Bush at an Americas-wide presidential summit at this Argentine seaside resort.

Bush arrived late on Thursday for the two-day Summit of the Americas but sentiment against him runs high in Argentina due to opposition to the Iraq war and to U.S.-backed, free-market policies that many say pushed millions into poverty.

Leftist activists mostly from Latin America are holding an alternative Peoples' Summit and Bush's main critic in the region, leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was due to speak in that forum on Friday.

The war of words between Bush and Chavez over trade and development was expected to take center stage at the formal summit, where Washington will urge Latin American states to further open their economies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051104/wl_nm/latam_summit_dc

that Bush's FTAA is dead and that the US negotiators are trying to establish 'bi-lateral' agreements with individual countries.

But which country would be stupid enough to provoke its people by signing a trade agreement that would ease the flow of resources and capital to the US? The sort of country that doesn't exist in LA anymore, except for Colombia.

I am willing to forgive Maradonna for his 'hand of God' if he can now use it to smack Bush about the chops.