US President George W. Bush braced yesterday for the second day of the 34-nation Summit of the Americas here, buffeted by anti-US protests and dogged resistance to his bid for pan-American free trade.
Riot police fired tear gas on Friday as demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails, lit bonfires and smashed shop windows some 600m from the plush hotel where leaders were meeting in the Atlantic resort city of Mar del Plata.
Hundreds of protesters in ski-masks confronted police after a larger group of some 40,000 rallied peacefully at a football stadium to voice their anger at Bush's foreign and economic policies.
PHOTO: AP
The US leader, faced with record low popularity at home as well as abroad, acknowledged the tensions after meeting with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.
"It's not easy to host all these countries. It's particularly not easy to host, perhaps, me," allowed Bush, whose motorcade whisked past the protests.
Federal police said 64 people were arrested in the clashes, in which a bank and nearby shops were torched. By late on Friday, street violence had subsided and a security source said the situation was "under control."
However, this was not before about 30 attackers tore up sidewalks and hurled the concrete through the windows of the BankBoston branch.
A branch of British-based HSBC also was targeted and an office of local Banco Galicia was set ablaze under a barrage of Molotov cocktails. McDonald's and Burger King restaurants also had their windows smashed.
In protests elsewhere in Argentina, police in the southern city of Neuquen fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators who threw eggs and stones at a Blockbuster video store, part of a US-owned chain.
In Buenos Aires, protesters covered the Obelisk, the capital's central monument, with a banner declaring "Bush Get Out." Demonstrators burned a US flag nearby.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said he was "dismayed and deeply troubled by the violence ... We in Canada believe in the free and frank exchange of ideas; peaceful demonstration is a part of this. We cannot allow the integrity of the peaceful exchange of ideas to be demeaned by the deplorable and reckless acts of a few."
Market reforms and a proposed free-trade area of the Americas (FTAA) touted by Bush have encountered growing skepticism amid persistent unemployment and poverty across the Americas.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a virulent critic of Bush and close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro, repeated his accusation that Washington was plotting to invade his oil-rich country.
"An imperialist invasion of Venezuela will be the start of a 100-year war," Chavez told the crowd, speaking for more than two hours under driving rain.
Among anti-US activists here were Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel; the populist frontrunner in Bolivia's presidential race, Evo Morales; and Argentine football idol Diego Maradona.
On arrival, Chavez, who has boosted his international profile in the region with his coffers flush with petrodollars, announced: "the FTAA is dead and we are going to bury it here."
Officials struggled to agree on the wording of the final declaration to be adopted later yesterday.
also see story:
Leave dissenters out of trade pact: Fox
FIREPOWER: On top of the torpedoes, the military would procure Kestrel II anti-tank weapons systems to replace aging license-produced M72 LAW launchers Taiwan is to receive US-made Mark 48 torpedoes and training simulators over the next three years, following delays that hampered the navy’s operational readiness, the Ministry of National Defense’s latest budget proposal showed. The navy next year would acquire four training simulator systems for the torpedoes and take receipt of 14 torpedoes in 2027 and 10 torpedoes in 2028, the ministry said in its budget for the next fiscal year. The torpedoes would almost certainly be utilized in the navy’s two upgraded Chien Lung-class submarines and the indigenously developed Hai Kun, should the attack sub successfully reach operational status. US President Donald Trump
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
RSS