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The Strike Committee and the Frente de Defensa de Espinar (Front for Defense of the Interests of Espinar District) did not accept the proposal made by the Prime Minister Javier Velásquez Quesquén, and resumed their strike, announcing they will take more radical actions, breaking the truce they had agreed  upon. The Espinar people do not agree with the projected usage of the waters of the Apurimac River in favor of draft-Siguas Majes II, so they are against the construction of the Angostura Dam, which (according to the villagers) would damage their water supply. Apart from halting activities in the city, protesters are taking control of bridges, and currently more than 3,000 people are blocking the road Arequipa-Juliaca, according to La Republica.

The history of Bertha Oliva de Nativi is the history of Honduras.  If the storyline of the past one hundred years of this continent has been ‘so few with so much, and so many with so little’, then Bertha has been the fearless protagonist racing to rewrite the chapters that will hence come.   In 1982 Berta’s husband, Professor Tomas Nativi disappeared.  One of hundreds of Hondurans and tens of thousands of Central Americans to lose their lives to state sanctioned violence, Tomas and all of those who have disappeared remain the most terrifying and silencing bootprint of the military regimes of the 1980’s.  The stories are all too common: "they came to our door in the middle of the night" or "he just never came home ever again."  Their families must find ways to grieve, to cope, and to say goodbye to their loved ones without the benefit of closure or resolution.  Some, however, began to demand answers.

As the debate in Congress continues over health care reform, activists are continuing to put the pressure on. In a new article at The Nation, Peter Dreier writes that momentum for reform is growing, with groups like Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and MoveOn having organized hundreds of protests in front of insurance company offices around the country, at the homes of insurance company CEOs, and at the annual conference for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) in Washington, D.C. over the last month, calling for a robust public option.Rather than simply providing an alternative to the private insurance, other organizations – like the California Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Mobilization for Health Care for All – have continued to fight for a universal single-payer health care system that would get rid of insurance companies altogether. Over the last month, more than 100 people have risked arrest at sit-ins at the offices of  insurance companies in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.

MADISON, W.Va. - A Climate Ground Zero activist has been sentenced to 20 days in jail for blocking a road to a Massey Energy office during a mountaintop removal mining protest. The group has been committing acts of civil disobedience all year, many targeting Virginia-based Massey. Twenty-two-year-old Joseph Hamsher is the first to get jail time instead of fines. Hamsher pleaded guilty to conspiracy and trespassing in Boone County Magistrate Court on Tuesday, and will serve 10 days on each charge. A court official said Wednesday he could have been fined more than $1,800.

Groups representing impoverished Cape Town communities have lashed out at President Jacob Zuma's warning that the government will not tolerate violent service delivery protests, and the accompanying destruction of property.Representatives of the Joe Slovo task team, the Landless People's Movement and Abahlali baseMjondolo defended these protests, saying they were the only way to get the government to pay attention."So-called democratic grievance routes," failed to get answers, they said.Zuma's comments came yesterday during his address to most of South Africa's 283 mayors and all its premiers. He told them there was "no cause in a democratic and free society, however legitimate, that justifies the wanton destruction of property and violence" that had been witnessed in the country.

People living in a slum district of the Algerian capital have taken to the streets for a second day to protest against job and housing shortages.Residents of the Diar Echams area, frustrated over high unemployment and inadequate housing, clashed with police on Wednesday having started their protest on Monday night.The police said at least 11 officers were hurt, although no figure of civilian casualties was given.Protesters had used high ground above the suburb to throw bricks, stones and petrol bombs at police in riot gear as they attempted to enter the area late on Tuesday, sources aid.

Honduran women continue their resistance to the de facto regime that kidnapped and ousted the democratically elected president in a coup d'état on June 28, 2009. In August an international delegation organized by JASS (www.justassociates.org), Petateras, Radio Feminista and allied organizations traveled to Honduras and accompanied Honduran Feminists in Resistance, an alliance of feminists and women's organizations. The delegation, together with the Feminists in Resistance, documented the impact of the current political crisis on women - in particular, the human rights abuses, sexual harrassment and rape committed against women who are resisting the coup and calling for a return to democracy.

About 200 citizens, including health care providers and patients, supported Medicare for All, a single payer plan, by marching to the Aetna office in New York City on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. This video shows some of the marchers on their way from the downtown office of Bristol-Meyers Squidb to the office of Aetna, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies.The marchers were in solidarity with 17 who were arrested at the Aetna office earlier in the day, staging a sit-in in the lobby of the building to call for an end to insurance abuse and support real health care reform, Medicare for All.

On September 27th, the Mobilization for Health Care for All launched a national campaign of "Patients Not Profit" sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care. We want the real "public option": Medicare for All, a single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first.Together, through this campaign, we can turn the tide and win the fight for health care for all. To succeed, we need to organize sit-ins in as many cities as possible in the month of October. The campaign began with the local leadership of Private Health Insurance Must Go (PHIMG) in New York City on September 29th and continued in Chicago on October 8th and in 9 cities across the country on October 15th. The next wave starts on October 28th and we will continue to organize actions in as many cities as possible until we win health care reform that ensures that the insurance companies no longer stand between the American people and the health care that we need. It's time to cut out the profit and put patients first with Medicare for All.

Sam Pullen, 31, was arrested on Thursday, October 15, in Los Angeles at a sit-in at the Blue Cross health insurance office. He is refusing to give information to police, vowing to stay in jail until Blue Cross stops denying care to those who need it most. He is being supported by the group Mobilization for Health Care for All, which coordinated sit-ins and rallies in nine cities across the country yesterday in which 54 people were arrested to end insurance abuse and win health care for all.Pullen was inspired to action by his mother, who was denied coverage for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant by Blue Cross when he was a teenager. Weakened by her cancer treatments, Pullen’s mother staged a one-woman sit-in at the insurance company office, resulting in the approval of the transplant that extended her life for years. Thanks to the transplant, she lived long enough to see Pullen reach 18 years of age.Here is Sam’s story.

The international community should strongly back the efforts of prosecutors in the human rights unit of the Honduras Attorney General's office to investigate army and police abuses in Honduras and to overturn a decree by the de facto government that severely restricts freedoms of speech and assembly, Human Rights Watch said.The organization also called on the international community to oppose any amnesty for human rights violations as part of the transition back to democratic rule. Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto government of Honduras are now engaged in negotiations about such a transition, and have announced that an agreement may be imminent.

South African police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators protesting against poor living conditions during a rally in the country's northeast.Riot police opened fire on Tuesday to disperse protesters who had torched a municipal office in the eastern town of Belfast, the Associated Press news agency said, quoting Captain Leonard Hlathi, a police spokesman.Two police officers were injured by stone-throwing demonstrators, the spokesman said.

The streets remained empty across Guinea on the second day of a general strike called to protest against a violent army crackdown last month in which at least 150 people were killed.Thousands of Guineans stayed indoors on Tuesday, a day after the strike began, bringing Conakry, the capital, to a standstill.Youssouf Bah, a journalist in Conakry, said security forces were out in force on Tuesday, patrolling the streets. "The country is in a standstill, everybody is indoors [and] there is no business. The strike is going to continue," Bah told Al Jazeera.

TEGUCIGALPA/MANAGUA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- At least 500 supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Thursday protested the martial law imposed by the post-coup government in this Honduran capital. The demonstration, gathering members of the union and peasants' groups, was staged outside the U.S. embassy, also calling for Zelaya's reinstatement. Participants told local media that the protest would continue until the martial law and curfew was lifted. There were also demonstrations outside the capital city.

Honduras's interim leaders suspended key civil liberties last night in response to "calls for insurrection" by ousted president Manuel Zelaya, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorised" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.The announcement came just hours after Zelaya called on supporters to stage mass marches today to mark the three-month anniversary of the 28 June coup that ousted him. Zelaya described the marches as "the final offensive" against the interim government.Zelaya, who surprised the world when he sneaked back into the country last Monday and holed up in the Brazilian embassy, is demanding he be reinstated to office, and has said that the government of interim president Roberto Micheletti "has to fall".

HAVANA TIMES, Sept.20 (IPS) - Shaded from the blazing sun by his straw sombrero, one of the principal leaders of the National Front Against the Coup d’état in Honduras declared, “The only solution to the political crisis is the return of Manuel Zelaya to the presidency before September 30.”“But this also requires the formation of a national constituent assembly to ratify a new Constitution to allow Honduras to be restructured as a progressive Central American nation,” added Rafael Alegría, leader of the Front. Alegria said a new Constitution must contemplate the end of ‘traditional groups of power’ through enacting deep reforms to the system of government, presidential reelections, the extension of that term of office to five years, the breakup of the armed forces and a total reorganization of the police. He spoke just prior to beginning a march through poor neighborhoods on the north side of Tegucigalpa on the 82nd day of protests against the Honduran coup d’état.

Argentine farmers marked on Friday the end of an eight-day sales boycott with rallies and marches promising to “keep fighting” in support of aid for peers suffering from the worst drought in decades and to eliminate the current export tariffs system which distorts production and threatens several crops.Farmers were particularly aggressive towards the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner attitude and members of Congress, described as “cowards and inept” which act with “total submission”.

Citizen Initiative for Constant Light mobilized 30 million people in Turkey to turn off and on their lights to demand that the government act against corruption. The action resulted from public outrage after a car crash openly revealed connections between government, police and the mob. Turkey is a secular nation with a tradition of democracy. But it also has a tradition of human rights abuse. The influence of corruption extends throughout society through local patronage systems undeterred by any investigative reporting from a mass media industry, which is itself complicit in the corruption. As a result, the corruption issue has historically sparked only apathy and hopelessness in Turkish civil society.

Doctors at Zimbabwe's state hospitals on Wednesday called off a crippling two-week strike, broken by the reality that the government had no money to meet their wage demands, their union said.The strike was called off after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai reassured doctors that the government was listening to them, and urged them to return to work after five children caught swine flu and new cholera cases broke out."We have called off the strike and we are now going back to work," Brighton Chizhande, president of the Hospital Doctors Association told AFP.

Thousands of striking South African workers brought mines and businesses to a halt yesterday across four provinces to protest against a jump in electricity, food and fuel prices."We are definitely saying we are tired of all this price fixing, price increases. All we want is stabilization in the pricing of all forms of commodities." The one-day walkout is part of a series of rolling strikes to protest against rising inflation, high interest rates and job cuts after a power crisis engulfed the country this year.