Politics

Nearly 17,000 workers at Chile´s National Copper Corporation, went on strike on Monday to protest about the privatization of the mining company. The strikers planned a national rally in Plaza de la Ciudadania outside the presidential palace, where copper miners, the teachers’ union and student federations will demand the re-nationalization of the copper mining industry.

The Argentine ambassador to the United Nations, Jorge Argüello, confirmed Argentina’s readiness to “negotiate” with the United Kingdom. This comes after Cristina Fernández de Kirschner described Britain’s rejection of dialogue as a “gesture of mediocrity and stupidity.” Argüello pointed out that the British government “is remaining without arguments” in the dispute.

Peace activists won a major victory on Monday, June 20, when the US Conference of Mayors voted to adopt two resolutions that call for a drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Both resolutions also demand the reprioritization of defense spending, including the $126 billion spent each year in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While headlines in global media focus upon candidates for the presidency and new parties jostling for electoral advantage, the dynamics of change in Egypt are being shaped at the grass-roots. After six months of political tumult familiar problems dominate the lives of most Egyptians. What is the price of bread? Are jobs available – and what do they pay?

Last week it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would be allowed to own all of BSkyB, a large provider of TV and video. Now a series of reports of criminal and indecent journalism on the part of the “News of the World”, part of Murdoch’s newspaper group are coming out. Avaaz is campaigning to flood the BSkyB public consultation and stop the deal.

Demonstrators take to the street tomorrow in Malaysia calling for reforms of the electoral system to make elections clean and fair. The rally, organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) is supported by the three largest opposition parties in the country but deemed illegal by the government.

The extraordinary scene was captured by video yesterday of the police backing down from an attempt to detain a Senegalese national living in Madrid. The multiracial neighbourhood of Lavapies in Madrid was holding an assembly as part of the M-15 movement when, according to police a man attempted to board a train without a ticket and was stopped by staff who called the police.

A social phenomenon exploded almost fifty years ago: young people began to make their voice heard and took control of the social space. Different cities witnessed the simultaneous uprising as this clamour became the visible form of the much-discussed Gasset y Ortega thesis on generational dialectics as the driving force of history with extraordinary empirical evidence.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the persecution of Mario Sánchez, a radio journalist based in the town of Centenario, in the southwestern province of Neuquén, who has been the target of repeated attacks and threats that began on 19 June, when unidentified intruders set fire to his home after taking his computer and travel documents.

Some news need no comment, like this one by which nothing less than the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia decided now to express ‘concern’ about Gaza as if the inhuman situation of its children and the elderly were not know to them.