Agencia Salvadoreña de Prensa Socialista ( SALPRESS ) Solidarizando con la luchas de las Organizaciones de Masas de los pueblos del mundo. Nuestra solidaridad incondicional con el movimiento estudiantil de Canada y con la organizaciones estudiantiles y con la organizacion C.L.A.S.S.E

Agencia Salvadoreña de Prensa Socialista ( SALPRESS )

Solidarizando con la luchas de las Organizaciones de Masas 

de los pueblos del mundo.

Nuestra solidaridad incondicional 

con el movimiento estudiantil de Canada 

y con la organizaciones estudiantiles

y  con la organizacion  C.L.A.S.S.E 

 la Union Consecuente de Estudiantes Universitarios

Agencia Salvadoreña de Prensa Socialista

( SALPRESS  ). 

Several thousand brave rain at Montreal rally, promise more protests to come

By The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press – 29 minutes ago

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MONTREAL - Despite scattered showers, several thousand people marched through the streets of Montreal Saturday afternoon to voice their anger with the Charest government over its handling of the tuition fee dispute.

Quebecers young and old joined students at the festive rally, which featured protest songs blaring from a van and the clanging of pots and pans that has become customary at recent protests.

"This isn't a student strike, it's a society waking up," read a banner at the front of the march.

The latest demonstration comes after talks over tuition fees between student leaders and the Quebec government broke down on Thursday.

The event was a chance for supporters to gather in one spot to voice their displeasure with the lack of progress in ending a crisis that has gripped Quebec for nearly four months, and with Bill 78, the province's new emergency law that limits protests.

Gabrielle Nadeau-Dubois, a spokesman for the hardline student association CLASSE, which organized the demonstration, said it will continue to protest through the summer even if it means disrupting the tourist season.

"We are going to hand out information... so that tourists who visit Quebec will know what's going on here and so they understand why they see images of protests on television every day," he told reporters prior to the march.

Another protest was scheduled in Montreal for Saturday night, for the 40th night in a row.

Premier Jean Charest's Liberal government passed Bill 78 last month in hopes of calming student protests, which have at times turned violent. Student leaders can face stiff fines under the new law for supporting illegal demonstrations, and Charest said Friday that it is up to student leaders to establish the parameters of their protests.

Saturday's afternoon march was declared illegal as soon as it began because CLASSE hadn't provided a route. The demonstration was allowed to continue, however, and police kept their distance.

For many, the movement has become about more than just tuition fees. Mehmet Yayla, 40, an unemployed oceanographer who said he's still paying off his student debt after graduating two years ago, has been demonstrating for the last two weeks.

"This government is completely corrupted and everybody, whether you are from the right or the left or English-speaking or French-speaking, we should get rid of this government," Yayla said.

"It started with the tuition fees, but I think the population started to rise up because we were feeling the corruption in our lives. If you ask the Liberals, they don't have any answers, they still don't say it's not true."

The government initially tried to exclude the rally's student organizers from negotiations over its aggressive approach. Now it has pounced on CLASSE for invoking the possibility of using the impending Grand Prix race as a platform for the student cause.

Nadeau-Dubois said the group would use the event as a forum to raise its grievances with the province but would not prevent people from going to the race.

At the nightly demonstrations members of an anti-capitalist group have handed out pamphlets calling on protesters to make their presence known during Grand Prix weekend.

Charest has accused student groups of "hurting Quebecers" if they disrupt the international car race, which brings millions of dollars to the province each year.

He said students, who have spent months striking against a proposed tuition hike, should leave Grand Prix fans alone given the financial importance of the race.

Business leaders have weighed in, expressing fears that fewer tourists will come to Montreal this year after seeing footage of nightly marches and hundreds of arrests that have been made during the demonstrations.

Citizens also question whether the nightly police operations will end up costing more than would be realized from the proposed higher tuition fees.

Charest said it's fine to protest against himself and his government, but the protesters are ultimately hurting the people from whom they're seeking support.

"I think they have to examine their consciences when it comes to their acts," he said Friday while visiting a suburb west of Montreal.

Talks suspended with Quebec students;

no solution in sight to unrest

By The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press – 7 minutes ago

• Protesters march in the streets of Montreal to protest against tuition hikes and …

MONTREAL - An attempt to find a solution to the Quebec student crisis has fallen apart, opening up a vast range of potential implications that could be felt from the street to the ballot box.

After four days of negotiation, the provincial government and student groups announced Thursday that their talks had gone nowhere.

There had been speculation that if this latest attempt at negotiation failed the provincial government might call a snap election and ask Quebec voters to help settle a dispute that has made international news.

Premier Jean Charest said that day will indeed come — but he downplayed its imminence. The government is into the fourth year of its mandate and must head to the polls by late 2013.

"Ultimately there will be an election within 18 months," Charest told reporters. "It will happen in a democratic context that will allow us to state our case on these issues."

It would be Charest's fifth election as a provincial politician, if he ran again. He is already positioning the tuition hikes as a central issue of any future vote.

And he suggested that the voters of Quebec might not take their cue from the red-square-wearing protesters who have been in the streets every day for months, even inspiring fellow demonstrators outside the province and country to join their case.

"It's up to the silent majority to express itself," Charest said, before repeating: "There will be an election within 18 months."

One of his principal opponents, Francois Legault of the Coalition For Quebec's Future, suggested the premier should calm tensions by announcing plans to hold an election in the fall.

In the meantime, both the government and student groups said they were willing to speak again if the other side was ready to make an offer.

The students had issued a mild threat to walk away from the negotiating table early in the day Thursday. But surprisingly, it was Education Minister Michelle Courchesne who announced talks had been suspended because of what she described as an "impasse."

The students later confirmed to reporters that talks had broken off — against their wishes, they said.

They said the government had offered nothing except for a $35 discount on tuition hikes, and was unwilling to rescind a controversial law that sets limits on protests.

They said the government appeared more concerned with political optics than with finding a solution. However, they said they're willing to go back to the negotiating table whenever the government wants.

"We're still here. We're always ready to negotiate," said one of the four main student leaders, Martine Desjardins.

"We'll wait."

What's next: More street protests. The student leaders announced plans for a major weekend protest, more pot-banging marches, and said they would use high-profile international summer festivals starting with next week's Formula One car race to raise awareness of their cause.

Some protesters, supported by the online activist group Anonymous, have even announced plans to disrupt Montreal's Grand Prix; they appear to have already targeted its customers online. The city also hosts international jazz, comedy and francophonie festivals that drive the summer economy.

Quebec's student protests have lasted more than 100 days, caused social unrest, and made international news.

One prominent protester, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, said the government never wanted a deal: "It was bad faith from the start."

Opponents of the Charest government have repeatedly accused it of letting the protests fester for its own political benefit. Polls suggest the deeply unpopular government — now in the fourth year of its mandate — actually has considerable public support for its tuition hikes.

However, some of that advantage may have been blunted by the introduction of a controversial emergency law that has triggered larger protests, featuring older and more diverse crowds, that have spread outside Quebec into other Canadian cities and even abroad.