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Police in Chile have arrested 139 school children who had been occupying secondary schools and blocking roads in the capital, Santiago. Police in full riot gear violently evicted the school children, but some still remain occupied.

According to a police inspector, they were met with:

The Syrian events are a challenge for both left wing party people and revolutionaries. I addressed some of the arguments in my recent blog series. Part of the confusion is related to how the facts are seen: how much Western interference is going on, and how much influence does it have on the battlefield and ont the likely political outcome?

Yesterday, South African police ordered thousands of striking miners to leave the vicinity of the Lonmin Marikana platinum mine or face being forcibly removed. Up to 3,000 police officers, an elite paramilitary unit, supported by horses and helicopters, confronted the miners and delivered their ultimatum.

Just before the police attacked the strikers, a spokesman said that:

A few people had expressed interest in discussing Stephen Jay Gould's book, Ever Since Darwin, as part of a science discussion/reading group. The book was Gould's first collection of essays from his monthly Natural History column.
A few general points first, then some specific ones about the first four essays that comprise the first chapter/section.

Gould's writing style

Press release, reproduced via - http://www.facebook.com/cleaners.branch/posts/398889790174882

The dispute of cleaners at the John Lewis Partnership’s flagship at Oxford Street store has ended with significant success for the workers who took strike action in July.

Around 1,000 students and transport workers have marched through the city of Nyala, burning police stations, and petrol stations along their way. Violent clashes with the police followed, who used live ammunition and tear gas in an attempt to stop the march.

“It was like a chorus of complaints! As soon as one of us stopped talking someone else jumped in. Man, she didn't know what to do!” So went the excited words of one of my workmates that Friday afternoon. We all felt it, too. We were giddy and laughing, and why shouldn't we have been? We'd done it. For once, we were the ones in control.

The measures are supposedly designed to ‘stop human trafficking’, and, ‘promote legal immigration’. Any asylum seekers attempting to gain entry to Australia by boat will now be intercepted, and immediately transferred to one of the offshore prisons.

Within the legislation – there is no limit on the length of time that people can be detained on the islands (including children).

I arrived at Cegep Marie-Victorin on Monday at 8AM to find a group of 20 or so red clad college students standing outside the main building cheerfully killing time.

Despite a weather forecast calling for rain all day, the drops held off until just as the last section of the Mile-End neighborhood's Dans la rue pour la grève sociale / In the street for social strike was being cleaned up and taken away.

Last week, 2,000 GM workers from the Brazilian Metalworkers Union, occupied, and took control of an important highway, and demanded a stop to 1,840 redundancies.

The Greek fascist party, the Golden Dawn, have received significant fire damage to their offices in central Athens following an attack by unknown individuals.

The offices are on the fourth floor of a tower block, and were empty at the time.

I shall not vote in the coming general election.
I am fully aware that this will be of little consequence so far as the result of the contest is concerned, and that is one of the reasons for not voting.
But I have other reasons, chief among them being that I do not believe in government by the majority, nor the minority either.
I do not believe in government at all.

Summary:

It was announced this week that there was a 15,000 drop in applicants to HE institutions. Most notably this drop in numbers was centred on England, because the £9,000 cap on tuition fees does not affect Welsh or Northern Ireland students who will pay the £3,465 agreed base rate. Scottish students attending Scottish university are further exempt from fees entirely.

Siemen’s workers in Pittsburgh who recently joined the United Steelworkers (USW) have become targets for Siemens and their anti-trade union attitudes.

Siemens have hired a man called Ken Cannon, who is an anti-union consultant. He proudly advertises himself as having -“40 years of experience supporting management’s efforts to remain union free”.

Between 2008 and 2011, General Motors in Columbia fired many workers who sustained injuries during the course of their work.

Work related injuries were widespread throughout the factory. Workers developed repetitive strain injuries, affecting hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders – as well as spinal injuries due to heavy lifting, and hands being ripped off in machinery.

In Milwaukee, around 75% of workers at Palermo’s Pizza’s organised a meeting in which they all signed a petition saying that they wanted to unionise. They then handed the petition to the company management.

I'm dealing here only with direct allegations Hoffman has been making over the last couple of weeks, in an effort to clarify matters.

The U.S. government increasingly promoted collective bargaining in the early part of the 20th century. To take one important example: In 1919, economically disruptive disputes escalated between the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and capitalists in the textile industry.