At least 23 Argentines were injured when a small blast marred a largely peaceful mass march by tens of thousands of jobless people to mark the second anniversary of riots that ousted an elected government.
The cause of the blast, which came in the middle of a rally near the presidential palace, was unclear. Municipal health spokeswoman Adriana Ghitia said most of the 23 people were slightly injured. A health worker at the scene told local TV three people were badly burned after a device exploded, apparently in a garbage bin near the palace.
Some protesters said it was a homemade bomb. Others said a small gas canister exploded accidentally. Police had no comment.
PHOTO: AFP
The blast came as demonstrators wound up the biggest protest since Argentine President Nestor Kirchner came to power in May. Columns of banner-waving unemployed clapping their hands in unison streamed around the presidential palace.
Widespread looting in 2001 and the deaths of at least 27 people, ending in the ouster of President Fernando de la Rua, shocked this once-wealthy South American nation to the core.
Two years later, there were few police on the streets and Kirchner's left-of-center government said it would do nothing to provoke the protesters. City center storefronts were barricaded and the presidential palace cordoned off.
"Ours is a call for social justice and a job," said Juan Carlos Alderete, a leader of a militant unemployed group, as protesters marched with red flags under a fierce summer sun.
Kirchner is hugely popular in polls but unemployed protests have proved one of the most difficult issues he has faced. Many Argentines, tired of traffic chaos, have called on Kirchner to end what they say is a lenient stance to road blockades.
Protests by groups of the unemployed -- known as piqueteros -- have become a near daily event since Latin America's No. 3 economy suffered a crash last year that rivaled that of the US' Great Depression.
As the economy slowly recovers, Argentina's unemployment rate has fallen over three percentage points in the last year to just over 14 percent. But many say it is much higher because the government counts welfare recipients as employed.
Groups of unemployed, including mothers with children, were joined by human rights groups and leftist parties on Saturday.
Echoing the growing impatience with free market reforms in Latin America, protesters criticized the International Monetary Fund and a proposed free trade accord with the US as doing nothing to alleviate the poverty that affects more than half of all Argentines.
Despite pressure to stop the protests, Kirchner is wary that a crackdown could result in violence or even deaths, as happened as recently as last year when two piqueteros were shot to death during clashes with police.
Polls in recent months show some two-thirds of voters disapprove of Kirchner's stance. But his position is praised by many politicians for ensuring the food riots of two years ago do not resurface.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS