BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Police stormed a city hall in western Argentina Wednesday where rioting workers had trashed their offices, smashing and overturning furniture. The frenzy was the latest as anger over a deep economic crisis boiled over around the country.

Earlier Wednesday, police firing tear gas quelled a looting rampage by some 2,000 people in a commercial district near the capital, Buenos Aires.

Wednesday's unrest came after a weekend of scattered supermarket lootings in cities across the country. Argentines are desperate after four years of recession that has pushed unemployment above 18 percent. The government has partially frozen accounts to halt a run on the banks.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/12/19/argentina.economy.ap/index.html

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) -- Violence raged through the night and into Thursday morning following a government-declared state of siege after at least two people died in escalating violence by rioters angry at the country's economic crisis and the failure of a government austerity plan to keep the economy afloat.

The state of siege -- in effect for 30 days -- suspends constitutional rights and gives the government wide-ranging power to quell the violence.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/12/19/argentina.riots/index.html

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Latin American leaders said Thursday that the political and economic chaos gripping Argentina would not spread beyond the borders of the region's third-largest economy.

http://money.cnn.com/2001/12/20/international/wires/argentina_react_re/

I have a mileage run planned to EZE for early Feb (staying 2 nights). Hopefully things will be a bit calmer by then.