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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS