Specter of Default Stalks Argentina

For Dominga Kanaza, it wasn't the soaring inflation or the weeklong blackouts or even the fear that looting would spread from the outskirts of Buenos Aires that frayed her nerves. It was all of them combined. The looting broke out days earlier after police went on strike in the nearby province of Cordoba. Kanaza says it was like nothing she had seen since the rioting that followed the nation's record $95 billion bond default in 2001. Pres Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is running out of time to avert another crisis. The country remains locked out of international debt markets as it haggles with billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer over lawsuits stemming from the 2001 default. Argentina's attempt to link its currency to the dollar in the 1990s throttled the economy, leading to its default.