Strike causes huge financial loses, Massive clean-up in Quito, 48 protesters arrested, Price speculation, Venezuela pay raise is a ‘joke’

Oct 16, 2019 | 5 comments

Martes, 15/10/2019

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –
Del cuerpo del periodico –

Breast cancer campaign – SOLCA is mounting a campaign to bring free medical attention to women. It will be mañana, el jueves, y el viernes from 10:00 in the Mall del Rió parking lot. SOLCA has a mobile unit capable of doing mammograms.

Festival de lácteos – This dairy festival will be el próximo 26/10 desde (from – a word to remember) 9:00 in the plaza de EDEC (Bolívar y Huayna Cápac). Small and medium producers will be there to promote the importance of drinking milk.

Otras cosas –

Authorities say that some market vendors took advantage of the 12-day strike to raise prices.

Titular – Habilitaron las vías; millonarias pérdidas (Restoring roads, millions lost) – Streets and highways are being cleaned and reopened. Police have been mobilized to the routes connecting Azuay with other provinces to prevent new roadblocks.

The Chamber of Industry, Production and Employment estimated that industry lost $80 million during the strike. A chamber study also found 94% of the population felt strongly affected economically, and 88% felt it damaged employment in general. Especially hurt were the ceramics, línea blanca (white goods/major appliances – your phrase for the day), technology, furniture, paper and cardboard. The damage to the commercial sector in general was $130-150 million. The tourism sector lost the income from the 9 de octubre holiday with losses during the protests at about $3.5 million.

A specialist in tourism worried about the upcoming Independencia de Cuenca holidays. <I wonder if this is the “black Friday” for Cuencano tourism oriented businesses?> He had 23 clients, many from Guayaquil, who changed their bookings from Cuenca to a beach destination. <Which is where many Cuencanos go during holidays.>

The Department of Patrimonial and Historic Areas reported some 700 incidences of damage, split 50-50 between public and private properties. About $50,000 will be needed to repair the damage to public structures.

Arrests – 48 people were arrested in the last week of the strike. Charges were terrorism (1), paralyzing public services (12), inciting discord among the citizenry (5), property damage (5), and attack and resistance (3). Another charge was”escándolo público” (public scandal). <I don’t think it was “doing it in the road and scaring the horses” type of public scandal. Disturbing the peace is probably the equivalent.>

Price speculation – Most of the vendors in the markets 10 de Agosto, 9 de Octubre y 27 de Febrero said that the price of potatoes and oranges rose because of wholesale prices rising due to the strike. Police announced surprise control operations against vendors who overcharge.

Minga masiva – Thousands of Quiteños hit the streets again yesterday. This time with brooms and shovels to clean up a mess that looked like a war zone. Many of the citizens were protestors who participated in the destruction. Most of the volunteers went to the parque El Arbolito which was “zona cero” (ground zero) for the protests. <I guess their Moms taught them if you break it, you fix it.>

Household gas – The main distributor of gas cylinders said that starting today, the supply and distribution of gas tanks will return to normal. <I hope all of you were able to keep taking hot showers and did not have to cook water in the microwave for sponge baths.>

Internacional –

Venezuela – The opposition in Venezuela characterized the government’s increase in the minimum wage as una “burla.” (joke – your word for the day. “Línea blanca” was your phrase for the day.) The 375% raise in salary took the minimum wage from 40,000 to 150,000 bolivares or about $2.20 to $7.60 per month. <I’d spend that the first day. Probably before noon.>

And that’s all for today so Hasta ? –

Jeanne
_________________

Editor’s note: Jeanne’s Periodico is a translated digest of news from the Cuenca daily newspaper El Mercurio. If details, such as event dates and times, do not appear in the translation, they did not appear in the newspaper. The text between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), is Jeanne’s personal opinion and not part of the news translation.

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