A 48-hour national strike, the first to hit Sebastian Piñera's government, was called by Chile's leading labor union, the 780,000-strong Confederacion General de Trabajadores (CGT), in support of university students, who have been holding weeks of smaller protests in the run-up to Wednesday's bigger protests. The students are demanding far-reaching reforms of the education system that would eliminate a voucher system that supports private universities and provide free, higher quality university education at state schools. The protests Wednesday and Thursday also include demands for improved working conditions for hospital and emergency services workers. - Photos by AFP.