New Delhi, June 6 -- Teachers, families of Mexico's 130,000 missing people, animal rights groups and a range of other social movements in Mexico are capitalizing on impending FIFA World Cup celebrations next week to put pressure on authorities and make demands.

Protesters from the country's teachers' union, CNTE, blocked main throughways in Mexico City, bringing central parts of the city to a standstill this week to demand better working conditions. Demonstrators knocked down figures of World Cup soccer players, broke into a government building and on Friday played a soccer match on a blockaded street. At the same time visitors from across the world began flooding in to the Mexican capital ahead of the competition that starts June 11.

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