Teachers' unions blocked streets and snarled traffic on Wednesday in the Mexican capital in protest of education reforms, according to dpa. The protests closed more than 100 schools in Mexico City, and as many as 4,000 police officers took to the streets to keep demonstrators from flooding the city's central Zocalo square. The reforms enacted in 2013 require teacher evaluations and take away unions' power to award vacant teaching posts. The government on Tuesday agreed to talks with the teachers but ruled out striking down the law. Protesting teachers have for weeks blocked roads in the Mexico's southern Oaxaca state, causing local shortages of fuel and food staples. Clashes between police and demonstrators there left eight dead and more than 100 injured.
