Argentines protest as world leaders gather in Buenos Aires for G20

Thousands of demonstrators marched in Buenos Aires on Friday (November 30) to protest the G20's economic policies as the world's leading industrialised nations opened their annual summit in the Argentine capital.

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-kilometre (5-square-mile) area around the riverside Costa Salguero convention centre, where the summit is being held. Cargo traffic on La Plata River was shut down for the event.

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.

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.