University of the Streets Caf

On Monday morning the United States House of Representatives narrowly defeated what would have been the largest government economic intervention in the country's history. News of the $700 billion bailout's failure sent shockwaves throughout the financial world with stock markets tumbling in New York, Tokyo, London and Toronto.

Canadian scholar Himani Bannerji, an associate professor of Sociology at York University was invited by the women's studies department to give a lecture on "The Rhetoric of freedom: Women and Nationalism in the Works of Rabindranath Tagore", to a packed house last week at Concordia.

Wednesday's general assembly in H-110 of the Hall building started civilly enough. Students streamed in and took their seats, holding a yellow "yes" card and a pink "no" card for the voting. The auditorium filled to capacity, and at around 2 p.m. the proceedings to decide whether or not to strike began.