27개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
From K. Times' latest edition:
Second Round of Candlelit Rallies Looming
Thousands of civic group members held a candlelit rally in downtown Seoul, Saturday for the first time in two months, hinting at a fresh round of rallies going forward.
Unlike past rallies against U.S. beef imports, they were protesting the conservative President Lee Myung-bak administration's key policies.
Some 3,000 members of online communities and civic groups, including the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, staged the demonstration at Cheonggye Plaza.
The candlelit protests against the resumption of American beef imports, which started in early May, stopped after the 100th rally on Aug. 15.
The groups plan to hold another gathering next Saturday and form a new civic coalition for democracy and public welfare. It is yet to be seen whether the rally will be the start of a second round of candlelit protests.
The participants denounced government policies, which they say oppress democracy and favor only the rich.
Demonstrators claimed the government's plan to ease rules on property taxes will only benefit the rich, while ordinary people are becoming impoverished amid the economic slump.
They also criticized the law enforcement authorities' investigation into candlelit demonstration organizers and bloggers who campaigned against conservative newspapers, calling their punishment "anti-democratic oppression.''
"We urge National Police Agency Commissioner General Eo Cheong-soo and Prosecutor General Lim Chae-jin to resign, as they infringed on the freedom of assembly,'' the groups said in a joint statement.
Lawmakers from progressive parties, including Democratic Labor Party leader Kang Ki-kab and New Progressive Party co-leader Shim Sang-jeong, joined the rally to denounce public officials and politicians who illegally pocketed subsidies meant for rice producers.
No clash took place between demonstrators and police.
In the meantime, police arrested the leader of an online community that led the anti-American beef import protests.
The leader, Baek Eun-jong, who took refuge at Jogye Temple in downtown Seoul to avoid arrest for organizing ``illegal and violent'' street rallies, was caught around 4:40 p.m. Saturday while sneaking out of the temple compound.
Baek reportedly attempted to participate in the candlelit rally nearby.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/10/117_32925.html
Related stuff:
☞ KCTU Report
Dubai: Inside the Labour Camps
A hidden "army" of extremely exploited migrant workers (tens of thousands!!)...
..are building Dubai's skyscrapers (*)
Every day in the early morning they are brought by bus into the city from their camps
Six days a week: working like slaves for at least 12 hours up to 18 hours daily
At the end of long days they are taken back to the camps..
..where they've to "live" like.. ANIMALS!! Up to 20 men share a room
A "washing machine"
"Dinner" is prepared in grease-blackened pans..
A typical daily meal: few chillies, an onion and three tomatoes, fried with spices..
Dining on a floor lined with newspapers advertising luxury watches, mobile phones..
Photos by G. Abdul-Ahad
* Many of the projects, like the Burj Dubai, were/are realized under the leadership of S. Korean construction companies (i.e. the S.K. Construction Mafia!!!), such as Samsung, Daewoo, Posco, Hyundai..
A related report - MUST READ!!:
☞ 'We need slaves to build monuments' (Guardian, 10.8)
Kiryung Trade Union Office Brutally Attacked!
The Hankyoreh (10.16): Yesterday, October 15, in front of Kiryung Electronics in Guro-dong, Seoul, approximately 70 employees of Kiryung Electronics and a security company (*) remove a shipping container as 10 irregular workers attempt to deter them. The container has lodged the members of the irregular workers union of Kiryung Elcetronics during a struggle that has lasted for over three years. After the container was removed, Kim So-yeon, the head of the union, was hospitalized for exhaustion.
A witness to the conflict said that a security company employee trampled on the head of a female irregular worker who had fallen down, but that police did not restrain (**) the employee in question.
Mobsters (with the gloves), hired by the Kiryung management, attacking labour union activists
Bae Yeong-hun, the chairman of Kiryung Electronics, said, “We had no choice but to remove the container because we have to complete the move to our new office building in Sindaebang-dong, Seoul, by October 25.”
He added that he thinks a compromise between the company and irregular workers will be impossible if irregular workers fulfill a plan to go to the U.S. to urge Kiryung Electronics’ clients to discontinue their orders.
In response, the irregular workers’ union said that the company had not given them any information about the impending container removal, adding that the company does not have the right to remove the container because it was located in front of the company and not inside.
Yu Heung-hui, a member of the irregular workers union of Kiryung Elcetronics, said they had already died two deaths because of their 94-day-long hunger strike and being fired, but resolved to continue their struggle with determination.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_entertainment/316314.html
* In reality: criminal gangs, hired by the Kiryung management! It's very usual for S.K. companies, but also city governments etc., to hire such gangs (용역깡패) to smash workers' protests or public resistance activities..
** Usually the riot cops are backing such "activities"!!
Defending the labour union/strike office..
More reports by:
☞ VoP
☞ KCTU
☞ OMN
Considering the current "finanicial crisis" the governments of the USA, UK and Germany are planning to subsidize the main "suffering" banks with 2,2 trillion dollars..
$ 2,200,000,000,000!!!
At the same time, according to International Food Policy Research Institute/IFPRI ("The Challenge of Hunger 2008") almost 1 billion..
1,000,000,000!!!
..people worldwide have not enough to eat..(*)
Alone in Afghanistan, according to Oxfam, in the coming winter likely 1 million..
1,000,000!!!
..children will starving to death!
Yeah, that's exactly the reason why the "Capitalism has to survive!" (^^)
* Related:
☞ The Fury of the Poor (Spiegel, 4.14)
Well, the current S.K. (LMB) gov't is still searching for a way(^^) how to convince(^^) Pyeongyang about its best(^^) intentions to create a "peaceful, ceconciled and unified Korean Peninsula"...
But - surprise, surprise!! - somehow all the efforts are failing! No wonder when you read following stuff, published by the media of the S.K. ruling class:
Yesterday Korea Times reported that.. "The (S.K.) Army is revising its contingency plan against North Korea, with a focus on improving the commands' precision strike capabilities against key targets in the North... The plan is aimed at infiltrating the North and neutralizing key targets in North Korea..."
And just one week ago the same newspaper wrote that.. "North Korea and other terrorist groups could have the capability by 2015 to build electromagnetic pulse (EMP/"E-bomb'') weapons.."
Oops.. the emphasis lies on: "North Korea and other terrorist groups.."!!
Meanwhile the N.K. propaganda is permanently repeating its fantasy/irrational "doctrine" about a "Federal Formula for Reunification" (Rodong Shinmun/KCNA)..
But - very likely(^^) - the reality is complete different, as A. Lenkov wrote in his interesting article:
☞ The facts and fables of a unified Korea (A. Times, 10.7)
From Hankyoreh (10.13):
100 Days of Protest
Park Won-seok, second from right, the co-director of current affairs of the People’s Counter Measure Council against Mad Cow Disease, and Lee Seok-hang, second from left, the chairman of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, sing with their families at a rally marking the 100th day of a sit-in at Jogye Temple in downtown Seoul on October 11.
For the past 100 days, eight activists wanted by police for their alleged involvement in organizing this spring and summer’s candlelight demonstrations have sequestered themselves inside Jogye Temple in protest against the investigation into their activities.
Songs sung at the candlelight demonstrations were heard again as 300 supporters, including family members of the eight activists, joined the eight people inside the temple to express their solidarity.
Park said, “There will be no compromise with this government because they have weakened the democracy of our country and ruined our economy.” Park indicated that civic organizations intend to continue the fight as those in the crowd pledged to participate in another round of candlelight demonstrations.
Related reports:
☞ 조계사 농성 100일...그리고 '촛불 시즌2' (VoP)
☞ 조계사농성수행 100일 촛불문화제 열려 (NewsCham)
☞ 다시 꿈틀대기 시작한 촛불, "시즌2 시작" (Tong-il News)
☞ 조계사 농성수행 100일 촛불문화제 (OhmyTV)
"THE CAPITALISM HAS TO SURVIVE"
While stock markets are crashing and the world is facing a crisis, CNN Int'l is still talking about the Global Economic Crisis/GEC (and - what a surprise!! - there's no end in sight..) Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, much celebrated in the international "left-alternative" movement demanded (in an interview with the German bourgeois Spiegel magazine, 10.10): "Capitalism, with all its market mechanisms, has to survive!"
Noam Chomsky - the "guru" of the "radical left", "anti-capitalist", anti-globalization movement - said about the "current crisis of capitalism" (in the USA) following in an interview with Spiegel Online (10.10):
SPIEGEL: Professor Chomsky, cathedrals of capitalism have collapsed, the conservative government is spending its final weeks in office with nationalization plans. How does that make you feel?
Chomsky: The times are too difficult and the crisis too severe to indulge in schadenfreude. Looking at it in perspective, the fact that there would be a financial crisis was perfectly predictable, its general nature, if not its magnitude. Markets are always inefficient.
SPIEGEL: What exactly did you anticipate?
Chomsky: In the financial industry, as in other industries, there are risks that are left out of the calculation. If you sell me a car, we have perhaps made a good bargain for ourselves. But there are effects of this transaction on others, which we do not take into account. There is more pollution, the price of gas goes up, there is more congestion. Those are the external costs of our transaction. In the case of financial institutions, they are huge.
SPIEGEL: But isn't it the task of a bank to take risks?
Chomsky: Yes, but if it is well managed, like Goldman Sachs, it will cover its own risks and absorb its own losses. But no financial institution can manage systemic risks. Risk is therefore underpriced, and there will be more risk taken than would be prudent for the economy. With government deregulation and the triumph of financial liberalization, the dangers of systemic risks, the possibility of a financial tsunami, sharply increased.
SPIEGEL: But is it correct to only put the blame on Wall Street? Doesn't Main Street, the American middle class, also live on borrowed money which may or may not be paid back?
Chomsky: The debt burden of private households is enormous. But I would not hold the individual responsible. This consumerism is based on the fact that we are a society dominated by business interests. There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.
SPIEGEL: How does it benefit politicians when the populace drives a lot, eats a lot and goes shopping a lot?
Chomsky: Consumption distracts people. You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption. The business press has been quite explicit about this goal...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,583454,00.html
And while the Washington Post (10.10), has been asking if this will be "The End Of American Capitalism?"...
..the Palestinian "people's restistance" (according to SWP/UK, SAV/Marx21/D, All Together/ROK..etc...) organisation Hamas, one of the main subjects of solidarity for the int'l "anti-imperialist" movement, tells us the "truth" who's really behind the GEC and/or at least the financial crisis in the USA in following "analysis" (Caution! That's - really, believe me! - not an article from the 1929/30 edition of Der Stuermer!):
☞ When Will America wake up from her slumber? (PIC, 10.4)
PULGASARI ('DPR'K 1985):
For more about the movie:
☞ A Kim Jong Il Productio (The New Yorker, 2005)
☞ Pulgasari (StompTokyo, 2001)
Today's Korea Times (see the article below) reported that an overwhelming 84 percent of the S.K. police chiefs (very likely inspired by some new ideas of the LMB gov't/the ruling class!!??) said they preferred an aggressive crackdown on protesters..
What?? More aggressive crackdown??
That's not enough for them(??):
Police Chiefs Positive About Teargas Use
Nearly 80 percent of police stations across the nation believe they should be allowed to use teargas to quell protesters if necessary. This shows that many are negative about the ``no-teargas'' policy that has been kept over the last decade.
During a parliamentary audit of the National Police Agency, Rep. Won You-chol of the ruling Grand National Party said that 79 percent of 192 police chiefs responded that the government should permit the use of teargas against protesters. Of those favoring teargas use, 42 percent said, ``It's absolutely necessary.'' The lawmaker conducted the survey Oct. 1-6.
An overwhelming 84 percent said they preferred an aggressive crackdown on protesters to the current somewhat defensive mode.
"..the current law.. is.. so generous to protesters.."
About 60 percent of respondents were negative about the candlelight protests against the import of American beef in terms of both content and the way it was conducted. About 27 percent answered that they sympathized with why candlelight protesters demonstrated but did not agree with the way they protested.
Sixty-seven percent of the respondents said the current law on assembly and demonstration is so generous to protesters that riot police have great difficulty suppressing violent protesters. They said the government needs to revise the law to more effectively control protesters and ensure the safety of police officers.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/10/116_32431.html
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