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• ECUADOR: Doctors protest and step up strike

  12 July 2010 Hits: 3107

  Ecuador's medical association (FME) held a large demonstration in Quito yesterday to mark the 32nd day of the national doctors' strike, which has shut outpatient clinics and surgery theatres throughout the country's state healthcare system.

  Around 2,000 doctors, health ministry officials and hospital workers from across Ecuador participated in the protest. FME president Marcelo Silva said the government owed health workers around US$6 million in unpaid salary increases.
  
  The Ecuadorean government has asked doctors to suspend their strike for a month to give the authorities time to organise payments. But Silva said doctors had waited long enough and that unless the government responded immediately, they would 'radicalise' the strike.
  
  The FME launched its five-week strike to demand the payment of salary rises, which it claims the government agreed to introduce. Last year, the FME claims, the Ecuadorean authorities agreed to set the standard length of a doctor's shift at four hours per day. 
  
  This agreement meant that those doctors who work eight-hour shifts deserve a pay rise of at least 50%, the FME argues. The striking doctors are demanding that the government introduce the new pay scale across the board as well as making the payments retrospective to the start of the year.
  
  The FME strike has received the backing of rural health workers, who are also demanding higher salaries. The average rural health worker earns just US$63 per month, despite working in extremely difficult conditions, a spokesperson for the group said.
  
  
  

• VENEZUELAN: National assembly rejects court verdict

  12 July 2010 Hits: 287

  Venezuela's national assembly yesterday rejected a decision by the supreme court (TSJ), which on Monday gave the assembly just 10 days in which to designate the members of the country's electoral council (CNE). If the assembly fails to meet the deadline, the TSJ will itself take responsibility for the appointments.

  The assembly's leadership rejected the decision on the grounds that it disagreed that the assembly had failed in its democratic duty by previously failing to reach agreement on the appointments. The statement was read at a plenary session of the legislature.
  
  The electoral council's directors will have direct responsibility for designing and organising the proposed referendum on the government of President Hugo Chávez . Both pro- and anti-government deputies have repeatedly blocked the appointment of directors who could favour their opponents, leading to deadlock in the national assembly.
  
  But the assembly's vice-president, Ricardo Gutiérrez, said that the court did not intend legislators to stop trying to reach agreement once the 10-day limit is reached. Gutiérrez said the assembly would continue to discuss compromise appointments 'because the TSJ verdict is clear that even when they proceed to designate the members of the CNE, it will be provisional in character and will not suspend the ability of this national assembly to designate members at any point. When this occurs, the people the TSJ have appointed will cease to hold office.'
  
  The assembly vice-president also said he respected the court's decision, but disagreed that the assembly had failed in its duty. 'This is not due to any lack of political will,' he said.
  
  It is nonetheless improbable that the national assembly will ever reach agreement on the CNE appointments, however long the discussions continue. Government loyalists hold a small majority within the 165-seat national assembly, but it is extremely unlikely that any candidate proposed will receive the two-thirds' majority needed for the appointment to be approved.