South America

The World Trade Organization member countries are moving towards the Eighth Ministerial Conference in Doha next December, again with no concrete results, even on issues relating to least-developed Countries (LDCs), recognized by the member countries’ ambassadors in the informal meeting of last July 26.

The Students Federation of Chile, the School of Professors and the Assembly of Secondary School Students confirmed on Wednesday that they will stage a march and a national strike to demand quality public education. The students will continue their mobilization and discuss in meetings countrywide the stand to be adopted against the government proposals.

At around 8pm today Police officers followed the vehicle of Mario Aguilar, the leader of the national Teachers’ Union, who was just coming out of the head office of the Union after sheltering there, completely soaked due to the police repression that demonstrators for a non-profit, quality education suffered today.

It is necessary to reflect on the possible ways out of the entire crisis in which our society is submerging. The excessive power of financial capital, the widespread debt and enormous concentration of wealth is something which the nation state, captured and blackmailed by that power, is unable to confront.

Mr. Ollanta Humala

President of the Republic

Government Palace,

Lima, Peru

Dear President Humala,

Today you assume the office that the citizens of Peru conferred on you in an election on 5 June.

“I have medical, scientific, humanitarian, loving, and political reasons for staying on as leader of the government and as leader of an even stronger campaign than before” said Chávez. In an interview with the Correo del Orinoco newspaper, Chávez confirmed that he would be the first to put themselves forward in a bid for presidency if he is physically and mentally capable.

Auro Ida, a renowned political journalist in the west-central state of Mato Grosso and editor of the Midianews (http://www.midianews.com.br/) website, was gunned down in Cuiabá, the state capital, on 22 July, becoming the fourth journalist to be murdered in Brazil since the start of the year.

Following a long absence from Venezuela for surgery in Cuba to remove a reported pelvic abcess, Chavez flies back to Havana for more treat. Chavez, who was accompanied by his daughter Rosa, will stay here for an undisclosed period of time.

The ex-presidential candidate for the Humanist Party, Tomás Hirsch, confirmed, on Friday, his participation in an activity at the University of Santiago (USACH) where, following the harsh intervention of police officers in the march for education, the authorities are attempting to confuse public opinion by criminalising the student movement.

Over 100,000 high school and university students and teachers have been protesting throughout Chile since mid-June demanding reforms to the country’s education system. To calm the demonstrations, President Sebastián Piñera announced on July 5 a US$4 billion-plan, financed using income from the copper mining industry that, he says, will make schools more efficient.