“The president must resign!” and “Long live the Bolivian worker!” they chanted. Shopkeepers protected their storefronts, fearing a repeat of the looting that engulfed La Paz last Wednesday.Last week’s disturbances began when 7,000 police officers seeking a 40 per cent pay rise walked out to protest a government plan for a new tax to reduce the budget deficit, as required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for new funds.Clashes between government troops and the strikers left 22 people dead and more than 100 injured. Looters ransacked dozens of businesses and torched at least 13 government buildings.No violence was reported yesterday, the same day as a a nationwide general strike called by leaders of Bolivia’s largest workers’ union. The strike appeared to have only a limited effect as most businesses remained open.Juan Melendez Perez, a union leader, led 3,000 demonstrators and called on the government to ignore the IMF’s demand for spending cuts. “If the president wants to adhere to those policies, then he must go,” he said.Meanwhile, Sanchez de Lozada met with his top aides over ways to cut government spending.

Among the proposals was a reduction in the number of Cabinet positions and a tightening of staff expenses. On Sunday, Sanchez de Lozada, 72, said he would not accept his salary for the remainder of his time in office.. A heaving night of smoke-hazed hip-hop, alcohol and groove at a Chicago nightclub ended in numbing disaster in the early hours yesterday after a stampede by 1,500 patrons left at least 21 people dead, and 40 injured, most of them trampled in a narrow stairwell leading to the only available exit. “I seen so many people on top of each other, dead.”The tragedy began shortly after 2am at the the vast, second-floor nightclub, occupying almost half a city block above the upscale restaurant Epitome, in Chicago’s South Side, apparently after security personnel released a crowd control spray, possibly pepper spray or Mace, to subdue a fight between two women.Witnesses said that triggered panic, possibly because clubbers thought a terror attack was being committed, and the rush to the stairwell.

In the m?e, people tripped at the top of the stairs, unleashing an avalanche of flailing bodies.Police last night declared the club a crime scene, after noting that a back door exit on the same level as the dance floor had been chained shut from the outside. The only escape route was down narrow stairs to doors to the main street, Michigan Avenue. Officials said the club had a double glass door on to the avenue but that one had apparently been jammed shut to prevent people sneaking in without paying the cover charge.The crush of people meant that the only open door was pressed shut by the weight of bodies and could not be pulled open. The dead were “pinned down by a stampeding crowd,” police Superintendent Terry Hillard said.