Bush faces Latin fury as popularity sinks at home

President George Bush, his presidency foundering and his popularity at record lows at home, ran into new protests abroad yesterday at a Western hemisphere summit in Argentina - a gathering that is theoretically focussed on trade but which has so far only served to highlight the battered image of the US across Latin America.

Mr Bush went into the 34-nation meeting intent on promoting traditional US doctrines of free trade and liberal market economics, with the goal of a giant free trade area, building on the existing agreements, that would stretch from Alaska to the Southern Ocean.

But not far from the sealed-off, massively protected hotel where the leaders met, some 10,000 demo-nstrators marched through the resort city of Mar del Plata. "Get Out Bush," they chanted, in protest not only at the free trade proposals but at the Iraq war and other US policies

"We don't have any confidence in anything Mr Bush might propose here," said Juan Gonzales, an Argentine trade union leader. Whatever emerged, it "will only prolong hunger, poverty and death in Latin America," he said. Among those at the protest rallies were Hugo Chavez, the radical Venezuelan leader and vitriolic critic of the Bush administration, and the legendary Argentinian footballer Diego Maradona.