South Africa Investigates Slaughter of Miners
An official commission appointed by the South African government started on Monday investigations to establish responsibilities in connection with the death of 34 workers in Marikana mine last August.
The group, chaired by Judge Ian Gordon Farlam, former magistrate of the Supreme Court of Appeal, will investigate the tragic events in Lonmin mine, Marikana, on the north of the African country.
In a period of four months, the commission should give the conclusions on the case of miners’ death by the police, who fired at close range against them while participating in a strike.
According to police reports, employees from the mine, of British property, were claiming wage increases and refused to disperse. Several of them were killed.
During the strike and in an inter-union dispute, another 10 miners were killed before. Horrific images of the miners’ slaughter from Marikana were seen, and repudiated all over the world, which compared them with the brutal methods used against the South Africans at the time of the racist apartheid regime.
Spain: New Public Transportation Strike to Protest Rajoy”s Cuts
Metro and bus workers in Madrid began a new day of strikes today against the reduction of wages and the excessive increase in fares for this public service.
The partial strikes in bus transportation in Madrid – the fourth called by employees in less than a month – from the Municipal Transport Company (EMT) coincide with peak times and passenger traffic during the morning and afternoon.
While subway trains are at 53 percent of normal in the capital during the morning shift and at 42 percent in the afternoon, bus service is at 40 and 50 percent of usual, following a minimal schedule.
For two hours during the morning shift, there was a total strike on bus service and 97-98 percent on subway service, according to the CCOO and UGT, the two major unions of Spain.
This is the fourth strike since September 17 and was called to protest the wage cuts for workers, the abolition of Christmas bonuses and the increase in fares.
The unions state called the strike due to social and labor cuts imposed by the central and regional governments, both governed by the right-wing Popular Party, measures that they denounced and said will affect the quality of services.
Massive March in France Considered a Warning to the Government
Many analysts now believe the mass march against austerity European treaties held on Sunday in this capital was a severe warning to the government of French President François Hollande.
According to the latest report released this Monday by the organizers, nearly 80,000 people attended the protest, which covered several avenues for hours between Plaza La Nacion and Plaza Italia.
Just four and a half months since taking office at the Elysee Palace, Hollande is facing the first major display of popular rejection of his policy priorities: the ratification of agreements on fiscal austerity in the eurozone.
“The president is mistaken if he considers this march to be a transient episode of anger,” said the editorialist for Le Républicain, Lorrein Pierre Fréhel.
He added that the president awakened the population’s dreams during his campaign, but is now beginning to pay the costs of his ambiguous promises.
In the race, Hollande promised his voters that if he became president, he would renegotiate treaties promoted by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
However, he only included a clause to boost economic recovery in the region while agreeing to the rest of the original text.
This Tuesday, the French National Assembly will begin the process to ratify these instruments, which protesters are reporting cause unemployment, poverty, rising living costs and economic recession.
Also in October, the parliament must approve the national budget for 2013, which contains stringent adjustment measures of 30 billion euros, 10 billion of which are cuts in social spending.
According to the analyst Nicolas Demorand, during the protest, tens of thousands of people driven by a growing sense of frustration said no to government policies.
Via PL