Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear-gas at protesting public-sector workers recently laid off by budget cuts in Argentina's La Plata municipality on Jan. 8, with several left wounded. The workers were protesting a decision by local mayor Julio Garro that canceled 4,500 contracts on Dec. 31. The country's new right-wing President Mauricio Macri [6]'s administration has laid off 10,000 public-sector workers since the beginning of 2016. In his one month since taking office, he has signed 29 Necessity and Urgency Decrees (DNUs) intended to institute structural reform and reverse the legacy of his center-left predecssor Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The mass lay offs have affected workers throughout Argentina and more are expected. (La Nación [7], TeleSur [8], Revolution News [9], Jan. 8; Perfil [10], Jan. 3)
