International

Late Wednesday night (17 August, 2011) Anna Hazare’s team accepted Delhi police’s latest proposal for holding their protest against the government’s version of the Lokpal Bill, from August 16, at Jai Prakash Narayan Memorial Park, next to Feroze Shah Kotla grounds, New Delhi. The Humanist Party supported this campaign.

Three Chilean students on hunger strike were admitted today in a delicate state after 31 days of fasting which, from this week included the rejection of liquids, as a deepening of the protest demanding free and better quality education. They were admitted with heart and kidney problems.

Police detained veteran anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare as he prepared to start a banned hunger strike against the government, provoking widespread outrage. Hazare, 74, was taken into custody by plain-clothes officers at an apartment in New Delhi early Tuesday morning, an hour before he was due to lead a parade to a public park where he was to begin a “fast unto death”.

On Sunday the ‘Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity’ carried out ​​a silent march against Mexico’s militarization movement to fight organized crime. The demonstration was led by poet Javier Sicilia. Around 3000 people joined the demonstration. The protest took place in downtown Mexico City and ended in the federal district in front of the Mexican Senate.

Five Filipinos, two of them domestic helpers and two former helpers, are fighting in Hong Kong’s High Court for right of abode, which other immigrants can get after seven years in Hong Kong. The plaintiffs in three judicial reviews want the court to declare that the rule denying helpers residency contravenes the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

Thousands of protesters faced off with riot police in northeast China to demand a chemical plant be relocated after a toxic pollution scare sparked urgent evacuations, state media said. Residents in the port city of Dalian gathered in front of the municipal government’s office, shouting demands as hundreds of police looked on, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

India’s embattled prime minister said his government was taking the “strictest possible action” to stamp out corruption after a string of recent scandals. “We are taking the strictest possible action in cases of corruption that have surfaced,” Manmohan Singh said from the ramparts of New Delhi’s 16th-century Red Fort in an Independence Day speech on Monday.

The President of the National Palestinian Authority (PNA), Mahmud Abbas, will personally deliver the request for full membership of the United Nations by Palestine on the 20th of September.

In moments when public opinion is turning against nuclear energy due its inherent dangers to the environment and nuclear proliferation, Algeria takes a different path

Tunisian police fired teargas on Monday at a rally by hundreds of people protesting at the lack of political reforms since the overthrow of President Ben Ali in January. Columns of smoke could be seen rising above an area in front of Tunis cathedral where protesters gathered for a demonstration at the same time as an authorised one called by the General Workers’ Union.