The Chilean anti-riot police detained 101 students Monday after expelling them from three secondary schools in the center of the capital.

The students occupied those schools in the morning, demanding an education reform and reduction of public transportation fees. They were peacefully dislodged by the police upon mayor Pablo Zalaquett's request.

This was the second of its kind in less than one week.

Students representatives said they will not give in.

The spokeswoman for the Middle School Students Coordination Assembly, Victoria Riquelme, said on Monday the occupation of schools will take place in all of Santiago and spread to other regions as well.

Secretary General of the Student Center of the Middle School "Confederacion Suiza" Damian Contreras said the students had demanded secular, free and quality education, as well as free meals, health services and transportation for all the students in the country.

One Struggle! One Fight! Education Is A Right!
We, the members of the Student Worker Action Team, the Academic Workers For A Democratic Union, the Third World Assembly, and the Graduate Student Organizing Committee at University of California, Berkeley, as well as the members of Student Unity Power and International Socialist Organization at Laney College and Stanford Labor Action Committee, Stanford Stands Up!, and MEChA de Stanford, send our fullest solidarity with the mobilized students of Puerto Rico, who are entering into their fifth week of continuous strike and walk out of their universities against the privatization of public education.

After more than four hours of discussion, student leaders from the National Bargaining Committee and the University of Puerto Rico administration signed and certified the final agreement which could soon bring an end to  the 55-day strike at the UPR.

The NBC leadership achieved the four fundamental claims the students had continuously insisted on.  The students at all 11 campuses must still ratify the agreements.  The issue of penalties for the striking had been the stalemate that impeded the agreement.

Wednesday, after a heated debate among  members of the Board of Trustees, a consensus on language was finally reached.
 
INS learned that the intervention of trustee and UPR ex President Norman Maldonado, was key in convincing Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees Ygrí Rivera, to drop her consistent hard line regarding the application of penalties to the strikers. Maldonado had not previously intervened because he was off the island.

“Maldonado and Rivera had strong encounters; he favored the student’s language, while she maintained her position of not bargaining,” a source told INS.

WE SUPPORT CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT!

First Middlesex, now Goldsmiths; UK philosophy is under threat. We, the undersigned, perceive the announced cut of Howard Caygill's excellent Contemporary Thought seminar and MA Cultural History from the History Department syllabus at Goldsmiths to be part of the more widespread attack on philosophy and the humanities so recently denounced by the UCU Congress, and as exemplified by recent, disastrous events at Middlesex.

We recognise Howard Caygill's Contemporary Thought as world-class. The loss of this MA seminar, which draws students from across the Humanities (and indeed the world) and also serves many PhD students would wreak immeasurable damage to Goldsmiths' global standing and reputation, not to mention educational standards; and, like the closures at Middlesex, it cannot be allowed to stand.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-goldsmiths-contemporary-thought.html