Normally vibrant and thronged with tourists, picturesque Oaxaca City has ground to a virtual halt as protesters armed with pipes, machetes and clubs roam the cobblestone streets -- burning buses, seizing media outlets and blocking highways and bus stations.
The three-month-old protest -- now almost an insurrection against state Governor Ulises Ruiz -- made many in Oaxaca afraid to leave their homes on Monday, as striking teachers, trade unionists and leftist sympathizers shut down most forms of transport and warned residents it was unsafe to venture outside, even to take their children to school.
"You are running a risk by taking your children to school, to all the private schools," a female protester said in a radio broadcast from one of a dozen seized stations. "For the safety of your children, it would be better not to take them to school."
PHOTO: AP
Barricades of burning tires, scrap wood and metal roofing sheets went up across Oaxaca, as protesters blocked plazas, bus station offices and major roads. With many services in the city center shut down, uncollected garbage began piling up in the streets, and businesses and homes began running short of water, which is often delivered by tanker trucks.
Demonstrators wielding machetes and clubs marched through the city, demanding punishment for an early morning attack in which unidentified gunmen shot up a government-owned radio station which the strikers had seized on Aug. 1.
Strikers said a male teacher apparently was taken to the hospital, but the extent of his injuries was not immediately known.
The state government denied it had anything to do with the attack, which also damaged equipment. Protesters have used the facility to broadcast their demands for the resignation of Ruiz.
Some 70,000 government school teachers went on strike on May 22 to demand salary increases totaling about US$125 million, but the government said it couldn't afford that and counter-offered with less than a tenth of that amount.
The protesters have since expanded their demands to include the resignation of Ruiz, whom they accuse of rigging the state election in 2004 and of using force to repress dissent. Ruiz belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has governed the state for more than 70 years.
The teachers refused to halt their three-month-old strike to allow 1.3 million students to return to classes on Monday, the start of the new school year. Private schools were shuttered too.
Radio station owners urged the Mexican government to send federal police to restore order.
Giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang delighted visitors to Zoo Atlanta during their public debut Friday, chewing bamboo and lounging in their new US habitat while on loan from China. A male named Ping Ping and female Fu Shuang arrived from Chengdu in via a FedEx flight dubbed the “Panda Express,” and are to be hosted in the southern US facility for the next 10 years. Pandas are “animals that have got a unique ability to inspire curiosity, instill passion, evoke joy, and unite people around the globe,” chief executive officer Raymond King told onlookers at Zoo Atlanta. “This extraordinary
KIRIBATI: Nine people on a skiff had been reported missing after they failed to return to Ruo Island in Micronesia on July 30. Four people remained missing Five people, including two children, were rescued this week in the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati after three months drifting at sea in a 20-foot (6m) skiff, authorities said. Another four remained missing. Villagers rescued the group on Sunday off Fanning Island in Kiribati, the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported, after they had drifted an estimated 5,400km east from the Federated States of Micronesia. The US Coast Guard in Guam yesterday confirmed that the skiff with nine people aboard had been reported missing after it failed to return to Ruo Island in Micronesia on July 30. 10-DAY SEARCH A 10-day search covering
China plans to roll out a broad set of standards governing the safety of artificial intelligence (AI) from development through deployment, representing some of the most comprehensive guidelines to guard against a loss of control over increasingly powerful artificial intelligence. The state economic planner yesterday said it was quickening legislation to govern and oversee how AI is developed and applied, covering the entire life cycle of models. The regulations would extend to areas from data to computing power, Wang Ruomeng (汪若夢), deputy director-general of the Department of Innovation and High-Tech Development at China’s National Development and Reform Commission, told a briefing in
One of Haiti’s most powerful gangs said on Friday that it reached out to a government agency responsible for dismantling armed gangs in a push for “peace, stability and national reconciliation.” The 400 Mawozo gang sent a three-page statement to The Associated Press stressing that “dialogue is not a capitulation,” but rather an “act of patriotic responsibility to preserve human lives.” The UN and human rights groups have accused 400 Mawozo of raping, killing and kidnapping people, which it has denied. On Sunday last week, gang leader Wilson Joseph said that he wrote to the UN Secretary-General and requested that the organization
RSS