Rally will affect central Mexico City traffic

Teachers from various states and Mexico City will march in the capital on 8 October 2008 to protest against the Alliance for Educational Quality (ACE), a plan to reform the educational system in Mexico. The march is scheduled to begin at the Independence Monument, located on Paseo de la Reforma and end at the Ministry of Education building, located near the Plaza de la Constitucion (Zocalo); no time has been announced for the start of the protest. The marchers have also stated that they intend to establish an open-ended presence on the following streets: Republica de Brasil, Republica de Argentina and Republica de Venezuela. The teachers claim that the reform plan will hurt job security. Protests against the ACE escalated on 7 October in the central state of Morelos, where teachers blocked the major access points into the state, disrupting traffic to and from Mexico City, as well as between Morelos and the states of Mexico, Puebla, Guerrero and Oaxaca. Police officers used tear gas to disperse a group of teachers who were blocking the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway. At least five teachers were injured (one report put the number of injuries at 20), and officers detained seven others. Following the police action, local residents blocked a parallel roadway for seven hours.