- More than 100 demonstrators were detained Tuesday evening at a rally in downtown San Francisco held by hotel workers who have been without new contracts since August, police and rally organizers said. Unite Here Local 2 President Mike Casey estimated 1,300 demonstrators took part in yesterday’s action.
- More than 2,800 Chuquicamata and Mina Sur miners in Chile did not report to work on Monday to protest the wage and bonus package offered by Codelco, which is the world’s largest copper producer.
- In Manhattan yesterday, about 100 people protested the detention of Jean Montrevil, a Haitian who has had a green card since 1986 but, owing to a drug conviction for which he served time in the 1990s, has been subject to supervision and was detained by U.S. Immigration authorities on December 30. Ten protesters were arrested after failing to heed a police order to disperse as they blocked traffic.
- Angry farmers wearing broad-brimmed hats and cracking kangaroo-hide whips rallied outside Parliament in Canberra on Monday as one of their colleagues, sheep farmer Peter Spencer, entered his 43rd day on a hunger strike to demand compensation for Australian climate change policy.
- A two-day strike by Kenya’s matatu minibus taxis, which had stranded thousands of commuters, has been called off after government intervention. Matatu operators agreed to go back to work after the government promised to deal with their grievances.
- Virgin Trains booking office staff have gone on a 24-hour strike on one of Britain’s busiest rail lines, in protest of the company’s planned cutbacks.
- San Diego City College students were escorted out of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Front Street office Monday afternoon after they staged a sit-in during the morning to protest recent budget cuts in higher education.
- Anti-wall activists demonstrated outside Israel’s Ofer Prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday to demand the release of detained activist Jamal Juma to concide with the convening of his military court hearing.
