 Hello and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes, a show by People's Dispatch, where we bring you stories of struggle against oppression and injustice from around the globe. At a session in the National Assembly on March 1st, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced that within 10 days he would present a bill to decriminalize abortion in the country. This is the first time that Argentine had a state will present a bill of this nature, which will be a significant breakthrough for the long pending demand for abortion rights in the country. A state which cares should accompany all the women in all the processes with full access to the health system, he said. Current legislation on abortion is not so effective in the country. Since 1921, Argentina has criminalized the voluntary termination of pregnancy in the majority of cases Fernandez pointed out. He added that in the 21st century every society needs to respect an individual's decision to make choices over their bodies. The proposed legislation will allow voluntary termination of pregnancy and help women access the health system when they make the decision to abort he added. The president will also send a project that will guarantee integral care and support to mothers and newborns, as well as ensure effective sexual education in schools to prevent unwanted pregnancies and guarantee the women's right to self-determination. Abortion is illegal in Argentina except in the case of a rape where it is permitted after 24 weeks or if the life of the women is at risk. This does not mean that abortions do not happen in Argentina. More than 500,000 such operations are performed every year with the majority of them being unsafe and clandestine. The fatality rate from a clandestine abortion is very high due to the poor sanitary conditions in which it is performed. The majority of women affected by these unsafe and clandestine abortions are the most marginalized. Poor women, peasant women, indigenous women, afro-descent women, sex workers, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender and queer people. Even in cases where abortion is legal, despite the law, the right to a legal and safe abortion is not often guaranteed as different provinces, health centers and professionals refuse to comply with it due to religious and moral objections. In 2018, when the far-right government of Mauricio Macri was in power, Argentina witnessed several rounds of protests demanding the legalization of abortion. In July 2013, the bill for voluntary termination of pregnancy was approved by the House of Representatives with 129 legislators supporting it and 125 opposing it. However, in August 2018, the Senate rejected the bill by a margin of 38 to 31, denying hundreds of thousands the right to legal, safe and free abortion. However, this year, with the progressive president in power and his support for this integral right assured, the determination of Argentine women, lesbians, non-binary people, feminist movements and organizations to fight for the right to choose for their bodies and their lives has been strengthened. This March 8, Argentine feminist movements and social organizations, such as the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion and the Ni Unaminos, Not One Women Less Collective, will mobilize across the country, along with citizens, to demand the approval of the new voluntary termination of pregnancy bill. They also seek the implementation of the law on comprehensive sexual education and an end to gender-based violence. In our next story, on March 1, Sunday, tens of thousands of Belgians participated in a march of anger in the capital city of Brussels. The march was called by the Workers' Party of Belgium to demand that a federal government implement pro-worker policies. Some of these demands and policies include a minimum pension of 1,500 euros per month, the imposition of a millionaire tax and the end of divisive forces in the country. The Workers' Party reported in more than 10,000 people marched on Sunday through the streets of Brussels. People from various social and economic sectors in Belgium, including teachers, doctors, students, the young and the senior citizens, decided to the capital to address a political elite that has been refusing to hear them. The march also comes as a response to attempts by right-wing parties to sow divisions in the country. Workers' Party President Peter Mertens said that the problem is that we are led by a cast of politicians out of touch, increasingly arrogant and who do not even realize it. He condemned politicians who say that there is no money for our pensions, but who let big companies carry out a holdup of up to 172 billion euros against the state by placing these billions in tax havens. He also added that the politicians are working for big business, big pharma, the diamond business and others by passing either favorable law or giving custom tax benefits. On January 28, thousands of workers in Belgium had taken part in a national strike in defense of social security on the call of the Socialist Trade Union, General Confederation of Belgium. And finally, despite a violent crackdown by the Delhi Police, thousands of students and youth of more than 100 organizations from across India mobilized at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on March 3 in rejection of the Discriminatory Citizenship Act. They also gave an appeal for peace and a call to ensure justice to the victims of the right-wing Hindu violence in the country's capital. They demanded that the perpetrators of this violence be brought to light and punished. The Delhi Police withdrew the permission they had earlier given for the rally at the last minute and detained hundreds of protesters who were assembled at Jantar Mantar. They also diverted buses in which the protesters were going to the side of the protest as well as intimidated bus drivers and detained them. The protesters were also detained and attacked across the city. Despite all this, the youth and the students came together to show their strength as well as their anger at the ruling far-right dispensation of Narendra Modi. Let's see what these protesters had to say. This morning, the 3rd of March, there was supposed to be a march from Ramleela Medan to Jantar Mantar from all over the country with young people marching for peace, justice, and democracy. And to say that what happened in Delhi in the last few days, this anti-Muslim program, this must not be repeated anywhere else. This brutality, this killing, this must not be repeated anywhere else. But the Delhi Police, which did not act against people like Kapil Mishra who asked for the violence, who called for the violence, who orchestrated and led the violence. Those who did not act against people setting, you know, burning people alive, shooting people dead, you know, creating all this mayhem in the Muslim localities of northeast Delhi. The Delhi Police, which did not act against all that, which in fact became a part of the mob, is very eager to stop the students from marching for peace. So they have in fact picked up busloads of people from Ramleela and taken them off to some Thana Farwe Bhawana and civil lines and so on. They have stopped, they have arrested detained bus drivers in Delhi University Jamia area to prevent them from coming. But in spite of that, as you can see, students and youth are irrepressible. So they are still coming in such large numbers here and there's a lot of energy here and a lot of hope that you can derive from being here. So please do join them here because here the students and youth are here to say, look, we know that even the Delhi government has let us down. The relief work and everything is actually being done mainly by students, youth and common civil society persons. So join students here in saying out loud that we will not allow this to be repeated. We will not allow the anti-NPR, NRCCA protests to be derailed because those protests are for peace. They are for harmony because those are violent anti-constitutional laws. It is those laws that you are seeing in action in the killings in Delhi. And so we need to again focus our attention on building up that movement and in demanding peace and justice, demanding justice. You can't have peace without justice. And so they're demanding justice and punishment for all those who led, orchestrated and were involved in the violence, including the Delhi police personnel who were involved in the violence themselves. That's all we have for this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. To know more about these stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for watching.