31/03/2014
By Human Rights Watch*, London, March 31, 2014 – Migrant domestic workers accompanying their employers to the United Kingdom are being subjected to serious abuses including forced labor, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The UK government is doing far too little to protect vulnerable workers, and recent changes to UK immigration rules make it harder for workers to flee abuse, the report found.
A domestic worker holds up her UK Overseas Domestic Worker visa. Following changes to the immigration rules in April 2012, workers entering the UK on this visa are not permitted to change employer, making them more vulnerable to abuse. © 2014 Jutiar Salman
“It’s scandalous that in modern Britain migrant domestic workers are subject to such appalling abuses,” said Izza Leghtas , Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But instead of protecting these workers, the system makes it harder for them escape.”
The 58-page report, “Hidden Away: Abuses against Migrant Domestic Workers in the UK ” documents the confiscation of passports, confinement to the home, physical and psychological abuse, extremely long working hours with no rest days, and very low wages or non-payment of wages.
read more »
Posted in Africa |
3 Comments »
29/03/2014
By Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND* — Protest, dissent and terrorist wars are obviously very distinct forms of expressing opposition and bringing about change.
The Obama-Kerry regime claim that the opposition in Venezuela is a “protest movement” a “peaceful democratic opposition” expressing discontent with economic conditions and that the democratically elected Maduro Administration is an ‘authoritarian regime’ violently repressing dissent.
Washington claims to play no part in the action of the opposition and that its pronouncements are directed at furthering democratic freedoms.
![U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry departs the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in a U.S. military Blackhawk helicopter on March 26, 2013. [State Department Photo/Public Domain] Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/8591480059/sizes/o/in/photostream/. Author;U.S. Department of State](https://baherkamaleng.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/450px-secretary_kerry_departing_u-s-_embassy_kabul.jpg?w=159&h=184)
**John Kerry departs the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in a U.S. military Blackhawk helicopter on March 26, 2013. [State Department Photo/Public Domain]
The overwhelming evidence speaks to the contrary. By every measure, the opposition has engaged in prolonged and extensive violent activity, including terrorist acts, assassinations, arson, destruction of public property including the murder of military officials and civilian supporters of the government.
Widely circulated photographs, even in media outlets backing Washington, show opposition activists throwing Molotov cocktails and building barracades for street warfare.
The Obama-Kerry Administration is in total denial of each and every violent act by the opposition; it unconditionally defends the opposition; it forcibly attacks and demonizes each and every effort by the Government to defend the rights of its citizens, uphold the Constitution and enforce law and order.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
1 Comment »
29/03/2014
“The production of opium increased by 102% and cocaine by 20% from 1998 to 2007, despite efforts to destroy crops around the world; in the US close to 500,000 people are in jail for drug offenses, compared with 41,000 in 1980; the US spent 93% of its resources on cocaine for law enforcement and only 7% on treatment programmes; more than 30 countries impose the death penalty for drug-related crimes; over 70%of HIV infections in Russia are due to injecting drugs… The list goes on and the casualties of the drug wars mount.”
Photo: Obinna Anyadike. The war on drugs isn’t working: 10am, Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town | Source: IRIN
These are some of the figures and data provided by the
Open Society Foundation’s (OSF) Global Drug Policy Program, which hosted a panel discussion in New York on 25 March.Humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs IRIN* on 28 March 2014 reported from New York, “Despite growing acknowledgement that the war on drugs has failed, global consensus on the way forward remains elusive. Nevertheless, some detect a “paradigm shift” among many players at the forefront of the debate.”
read more »
Posted in Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
2 Comments »
28/03/2014
By Baher Kamal*
Cairo, 26 March 2014 – “If you cannot win them, join them” seems to be the old British political principle that Washington has been applying to its plans to re-design the Arab region, always under the recurrent public pretext of the “war on terrorism.”
World War I Uncle Sam recruiting poster | Date: 1916-1917 |
Source: Library of Congress | Author: James Montgomery Flagg | Wikimedia Commons: No known restrictions on publication. No renewal in Copyright Office.
Specifically, since the U.S has failed to defeat “terrorism” through massive military and intelligence operations carried out after the September 11 attacks (see Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, among others), the American strategy has shifted towards engaging with what it considers as “moderate” Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
For this purpose, Washington has been relying on two key “agents” in the region: Qatar and Turkey.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
2 Comments »
28/03/2014
Rome, March 2014 – F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said “The rich are different from you or me”, yet in his days, in the early years of the 20th century, the rich were not subject to public scrutiny, and were generally an object of envy, not resentment.
Columbia reaching out to viewer. Original design for the “Be Patriotic” poster by Paul Stahr, ca. 1917-18 Gouache on paper, original is 27 7/8 ” x 20″. Date 1917 or 1918. Source: Herbert Hoover Library, National Archives and Records Administration Via [1]. Author: Paul Stahr | Wikimedia Commons.
Fast forward to the 21st century and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which first took to the streets in September 2011 in New York’s Wall Street financial district, on behalf of the 99 percent of Americans (who possess 60 percent of the national wealth) against the one percent that possess 40 percent, to denounce growing social inequality.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
3 Comments »
28/03/2014
By Human Rights Watch*, 25 March 2014 – The Ethiopian government is using foreign technology to bolster its widespread telecom surveillance of opposition activists and journalists both in Ethiopia and abroad.
Source: Flickr: Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 | Author: World Economic Forum | Wikimedia Commons
The 100-page report, “‘They Know Everything We Do’: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia,” details the technologies the Ethiopian government has acquired from several countries and uses to facilitate surveillance of perceived political opponents inside the country and among the diaspora.
The government’s surveillance practices violate the rights to freedom of expression, association, and access to information.
The government’s monopoly over all mobile and Internet services through its sole, state-owned telecom operator, Ethio Telecom, facilitates abuse of surveillance powers.
“The Ethiopian government is using control of its telecom system as a tool to silence dissenting voices,” said Arvind Ganesan, business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
1 Comment »
27/03/2014
A group of United Nations independent human rights experts on 26 March 2014 called on the Vietnamese Government to “intervene urgently” in a case of forced eviction of the last remaining residents of Con Dau, a small village located on the outskirts of Da Nang city in the centre of the country.*
Farmers’ protests. Photo: Via Campesina
“This appears to be a clear case of land grabbing for the benefit of private entrepreneurs and at the expense of local communities,” said Raquel Rolnik, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing.
According to a news release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in 2007, the local government of Da Nang city decided to expropriate the residential and farming land of Con Dau village, for the purpose of leasing it to a private eco-resort company called Sunland. Last year, hundreds of residents, who were opposed to the project, were forced to move out and some even watched as their homes were demolished.
read more »
Posted in Asia, Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
27/03/2014
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 26 March 2014 saw first-hand the impacts of climate change during a visit to Greenland, where the melting of ice sheets is accelerating.*
Human activity will further warm the Earth, with dramatic effects on weather, sea-levels and the Arctic. Photo: UNEP
“I am just overwhelmed by the majestic beauty of this great land, with over 2 million square kilometres of ice cap and with such vast land covered with snow and ice – this is majestic,” Ban said at a joint press encounter with the Premier of Greenland, Aleqa Hammond, and the Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
.
“At the same time, I am deeply alarmed by fast-moving glaciers and by the fast-melting ice cap which raises the sea level, which affects the whole international community’s environmental system,” he added.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
5 Comments »
25/03/2014
By Baher Kamal
Cairo, 25 March 2014 — “If we, the Spanish people, spoke only of what we know, an immense silence would be generated”. This statement was made by Manuel Azaña, Spanish politician and writer who served as prime minister of his country (1931-1933 , 1936) and, later on, as president of the Second Spanish Republic (1936-1939).
Wall art in France depicting [ousted] President Mohamed Morsi
Abode of Chaos/flickr | IFEX
The statement applies to the very subject of this report as it transcends the borders of a given country and a single historical moment.
That a politician says and does what he or she is mandated to do and say, is really a worrying fact, though this seems to be business as usual now-a-days. But that a journalist sitting in a South American capital analyses what happens 10,358 kilometres away in a country that he or she probably has never visited, is really a very serious matter.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
8 Comments »
24/03/2014
By Roberto Savio*
San Salvador, Bahamas, March 2014 — It is now generally accepted that the North-South divide created at the end of the colonial era and the coalition of New Countries against the powerful North of the world ended with the arrival of globalization. There are now areas of the Third World inside the North, and areas of the North inside the South.
“You should hope that this game will be over soon.” The Third Estate carrying the Clergy and the Nobility on its back. Date: 1789. Source: Bibliothèque national de France. Author: M. P. Permission: This image is in the public domain, with some restrictions**.
The world is no longer bipolar, with the two big powers creating the other divide, the East-West divide. We now inhabit a multilateral world, where a plethora of acronyms (such as BRICS, G20 and TTP) show how it is now fragmented into multiple layers.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
1 Comment »
![U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry departs the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in a U.S. military Blackhawk helicopter on March 26, 2013. [State Department Photo/Public Domain] Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/8591480059/sizes/o/in/photostream/. Author;U.S. Department of State](http://baherkamaleng.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/450px-secretary_kerry_departing_u-s-_embassy_kabul.jpg)
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 