Students on Wednesday clashed with riot police in Chile’s capital, Santiago, during protests that marked the second anniversary of conservative Chilean President Sebastian Pinera taking office.
The protests coincided with the 30th anniversary of Chile’s return to democracy after Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorship.
During a ceremony in Santiago, Pinera said that 30 years of democratic rule in Chile had been a “fertile” period that dragged 8 million Chileans out of poverty, but he also recognized shortcomings and inequalities that hurt “the soul of our nation.”
Photo: Reuters
“We have not sufficiently taken into account the fears and shortcomings of our middle class. We have not progressed strongly enough towards full equality between men and women. We have not fought with sufficient will against the abuses and the privileges of others,” Pinera said.
Fueled by outrage at Pinera and the Chilean elite that controls most of the nation’s wealth, the South American nation has since October last year seen its worst social unrest since the transition to democracy in 1990.
Thirty people have been killed in the protests, many as a result of a heavy-handed police response condemned as repressive by UN investigators. Thousands have been wounded.
The main aim of the continuing protests is to pressure Pinera to expand social reforms he has already proposed.
The most serious of Wednesday’s disturbances occurred outside the landmark National Institute school in the center of Santiago, just a few blocks from the presidential palace, where police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse stone-throwing students.
The demonstration gained momentum through the afternoon, when other protesters joined the students.
“Before, we protested in Plaza Italia, and now we are here,” said Rodrigo Lagos, a teacher, referring to the square where most of the protests have begun.
“If [Pinera] doesn’t leave the easy way, he’s going to have to leave the hard way,” the 46-year-old added.
The clashes disrupted traffic through the center of Santiago for several hours.
Similar incidents took place elsewhere in the capital, as demonstrators responded to social media appeals to protest against Pinera.
Several metro stations were shut because of the violence, and some transport routes to the south of the city were suspended.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS