Argentine youth long for pricey high-tech gadgets

Buenos Aires

TEN-YEAR-OLD Cloe Barrios spent a year saving for an iPod, a struggle shared by many Argentine youth scrambling to keep up with technology despite economic woes that make such gadgets exorbitantly pricey.

The third-largest economy in Latin America, Argentina was one of the most plugged-in countries in the 1990s. But its high inflation, devalued currency and exchange controls have produced infrastructure failures and a dearth of technological gadgetry today.