437개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Peace in the M.E.? Forget it!
Two weeks ago, 13 Palestinians, ages 11 to 18, belonging to the Strings of Freedom Orchestra took a brief journey from a West Bank refugee camp in Jenin. Their trip brought them to Holon, Israel to perform a “Good Deeds” concert honoring 30 Holocaust Survivors. “We Sing for Peace,” was performed in Arabic and audience members reciprocated with an impromptu Hebrew song.
If there ever was an example of “the audacity of hope” - this was it. But the Palestinian Authority, backed by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad moved swiftly to quash a small initiative that for a few moments cracked carefully nurtured stereotypes of the Israeli enemy. The concert, insisted an official in Jenin, was a “dangerous matter” threatening the cultural and national identity of Palestinian children! The gesture to elderly Holocaust victims was denounced; the Holocaust, he warned, was “a political issue.” The orchestra was promptly disbanded, its conductor, an Israeli Arab woman, Wafa Younis, arrested and later barred from the camp and her apartment-studio boarded up.
Related articles in the Israeli media, e.g. Haaretz:
☞ Palestinian children sing for Holocaust survivors
Related article in PIC (i.e. Hamas "propaganda dept"):
☞ Shame on us!
Related int'l reports:
☞ Palestinian orchestra leader deported after death threats (UK)
☞ Strings of Freedom silenced (CN)
☞ Palestinian Youth Orchestra Is Disbanded Over a Holocaust Concert (USA)
It's likely wellknown that Germany is Europe's most powerful (of course capitalist!!) economy (the world's number 3, behind the USA and Japan)!!
Yesterday's frontpage of B.Z., Berlin's "famous" (and notorious!!) bourgeois mass-circulation newspaper:
Every 3rd child in Berlin
lives below the poverty line
Related article:
☞ Children Flock to German Soup Kitchens (Spiegel, 2.19)
So, what we've learned today?
Capitalism: simply the BEST!!
Today's TOP headline in Yedioth Ahronoth's online edition:
Exactly! As you can learn from other Israeli newspapers/online magazines, e.g. (the bourgeois-liberal) Haaretz:
☞ IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers
☞ IDF violated medical ethics in Gaza op
☞ 'Shooting and crying'
☞ IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism..
☞ Dead Palestinian babies/bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 MUST READ!!
Related article:
☞ Gaza war crime claims gather pace.. (Observer/UK, 3.22)
RUSSIAN WISHFUL THINKING
The U.S.A. as a "super power"? But not much longer! The U.S. Dollar? Soon needless! The economic crisis will break the backbone of the USA... The U.S. will split apart before 2011... And already before the end of 2009 Obama will order the martial law in the U.S.A.!!
That's the strange vision predicted by the "prominent scholar" (according to the int'l media) Igor Panarin, the Dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry Diplomatic Academy..
The Huffington Post (U.S., 3.04) published following story about Panarin's "mysterious prophecy":
Russian Scholar Predicts: US Will Collapse - Next Year
If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.
Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership.
"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy _ a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.
The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the U.S. that has been flowing from the Kremlin in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.
Putin, the former president who is now prime minister, has likened the United States to Nazi Germany's Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy.
Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources.
He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now.
But he said the recent economic turmoil in the U.S. and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End" _ when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control.
Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.
Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.
"I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream."
Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.
Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin's theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.
It wasn't clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country's demise.
Panarin dismissed that idea: "The collapse of Russia will not occur."
But Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center who did not attend the lecture, sided with the skeptical instructor, saying Russia is the country that is on the verge of disintegration.
"I can't imagine at all how the United States could ever fall apart," Malashenko told the AP.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/04/igor-panarin-russian-scho_n_171730.html
While the UK currently is supposedly (according to the bourgeois media) worst affected (in Europe) by the World Economic Crisis (*) the cops, as The Guardian (UK, 2.23) wrote in the following article, are predicting that..
Britain Faces Summer of Rage..
Middle-class anger at economic crisis could erupt into violence on streets
Police are preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.
Britain's most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming "footsoldiers" in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.
Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police's public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.
He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become "viable targets". So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.
Hartshorn, who receives regular intelligence briefings on potential causes of civil unrest, said the mood at some demonstrations had changed recently, with activists increasingly "intent on coming on to the streets to create public disorder".
The warning comes in the wake of often violent protests against the handling of the economy across Europe. In recent weeks Greek farmers have blocked roads over falling agricultural prices, a million workers in France joined demonstrations to demand greater protection for jobs and wages and Icelandic demonstrators have clashed with police in Reykjavik.
In the UK hundreds of oil refinery workers mounted wildcat strikes last month over the use of foreign workers.
Intelligence reports suggest that "known activists" are also returning to the streets, and police claim they will foment unrest. "Those people would be good at motivating people, but they haven't had the 'footsoldiers' to actually carry out [protests]," Hartshorn said. "Obviously the downturn in the economy, unemployment, repossessions, changes that. Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.
"It means that where we would possibly look at certain events and say, 'yes there'll be a lot of people there, there'll be a lot of banner waving, but generally it will be peaceful', [now] we have to make sure these elements don't come out and hijack that event and turn that into disorder."
Hartshorn identified April's G20 meeting of the group of leading and developing nations in London as an event that could kick-start a challenging summer. "We've got G20 coming and I think that is being advertised on some of the sites as the highlight of what they see as a 'summer of rage'," he said.
His comments are likely to be met with disappointment by protest groups, who in recent weeks have complained that police are adopting a more confrontational approach at demonstrations. Officers have been accused of exaggerating the threat posed by activists to justify the use of resources spent on them.
Police were said to have been heavy-handed at Greek solidarity marches in London in December and, last month, at protests against Israel's invasion of Gaza. In August 1,000 officers, helicopters and riot horses were drafted to Kent from 26 UK police forces to oversee the climate camp demonstration against the Kingsnorth power station. The massive operation to monitor the protesters cost £5.9m and resulted in 100 arrests. But in December the government was forced to apologise to parliament after the Guardian revealed that its claims that 70 officers had been hurt in violent clashes were wrong.
However, Hartshorn insisted: "Potentially there will be more industrial actions ... History shows that some of those disputes - Wapping, the miners' strike - have caused great tensions in the community and the police have had difficult times policing and maintaining law and order."
Both "extreme rightwing and extreme leftwing" elements are looking to "use the fact that people are out of jobs" to galvanise support, he said.
A particularly worrying development was the re-emergence of individuals involved in the violent fascist organisation Combat 18, he said. "They are using the fact that there's been lots of talk about eastern European people coming in and taking jobs on the Olympic sites," he said. "They're using those type of arguments to look at getting support."
Hartshorn said he also expected large-scale demonstrations this year on environmental issues, with hardcore green activists "joining forces" with middle-class campaigners over issues such as airport expansion at Heathrow and Stansted. With the prospect of angry demonstrations against the economy, that could open the door to powerful coalitions.
"All you've got to do then is link in with the environmentalists, and look at the oil companies. They're seen to be turning over billions of pounds profit in issues that are seen to be against the environment."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/23/police-civil-unrest-recession
* Of course, in the UK like everywhere: the worst affected is the exploited and oppressed class!!
Guadeloupe, the French Caribbean island, where last week the month-long general strike - led by the Collective Against Exploitation (LKP) - escalated into a widespread uprising, is 6,500 km away from Paris, but the demands of the strikers("rioters") in Pointe-à-Pitre are the same as those of Parisians, as the latest edition of The Observer (UK, 2.22) reported:
After squalls in the Caribbean, Sarkozy
faces a storm at home
This time nothing was left to chance. As he walked between the stands of farming produce yesterday, admired the prize bulls, stroked the noses of calves, nibbled a stick of cheese, Nicolas Sarkozy was followed not just by his minister of agriculture and security detail but by a group of well co-ordinated fans bellowing support. "Nicolas, Nicolas," they shouted as the diminutive president forged ahead through a chaos of outstretched hands, moustaches and oversized animals.
The care taken by the presidential staff to ensure an incident-free visit to the annual Farm Fair in southern Paris was due to more than a well-known preference for bling over bovines. Last year the fair saw one of Sarkozy's worst gaffes when he was filmed by an amateur telling a heckler: "Casse-toi, pauvre con" (roughly "get lost, loser"). Farmers are as anxious and angry as everyone else in the country and such a confrontation, eminently likely, could not be risked again.
Already the hyperactive French president's poll ratings, 36%, are at their lowest since he was elected nearly two years ago. "Sarkozy is playing with fire ... Can he prevent the explosion?" L'Express magazine is asking on its front cover this weekend.
Last week that explosion almost came. The country's worst violence since the riots of 2005 saw youths burning cars and charging police night after night. This time the riots were not in the rundown estates that surround many French cities but in the poverty-stricken alleys of Pointe-à-Pitre, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where per capita income is half that of mainland France and the unemployment rate three times higher.
The violence resonated with a tense and angry public in France itself. The 430,000 people of Guadeloupe are theoretically citizens of the republic like those of Lille, Lyon or Paris and, though many of the roots of the protests lie deep in the colonial past, the slogans and demands of the rioters were very contemporary, focusing on pouvoir d'achat, the famous lack of buying power in the face of high prices and stagnant wages that is the main grievance of all the French.
"Looking at Guadeloupe is like looking at France through a distorting magnifying glass," said Frédéric Dabi, public opinion specialist at pollsters Ifop. "There are things that are specific to Guadeloupe, and there is a sea between over there and France, but there are all the ingredients everywhere for a wave of social panic."
In an Ifop poll for regional newspaper Sud-Ouest last week, 63% of respondents thought similar violence could soon take place on the mainland - a view shared by their leaders. All eyes are now on the general strike planned for next month. An earlier strike and mass demonstration in January was widely supported and seen as a major shot across the bows of the rightwing Sarkozy.
Though trouble in the universities remains limited - French police on Friday removed students who briefly occupied the Sorbonne as part of a long-running dispute over the president's reform plans and perceived contempt for academics - it is nonetheless seen as "warning signs before the storm", according to one French parliamentarian.
In the face of recent protests in schools, ministers backed down from major reforms. "There's the feeling that Sarkozy has a bit too much on his plate," said Jean-Baptiste Prévost, president of France's biggest student union.
For Denis Muzet, a media and public opinion analyst in Paris, all Sarkozy's talk of "reform", the very slogans that got him elected, now scares people. "Even in September, when he spoke of accelerating reforms, it was only the left who worried. When he says it now, everyone is worried," said Muzet.
An indication of the tense atmosphere came when Sarkozy's closest friend said that anyone who didn't own a Rolex watch by the age of 50 was "a failure". The remark, by millionaire advertising tycoon Jacques Séguéla, caused outrage. One French news website called it "obscene", adding it they would like to shove Séguéla's Rolex down his throat. The daily France-Soir said that "in a global financial crisis [where] people are struggling to make ends meet ... most workers will find this highly offensive".
This weekend a fragile calm had been restored to Guadeloupe, the Caribbean island system that was annexed to the kingdom of France in 1674. Last week saw the fatal shooting of a union official in rioting and street battles so bad that 260 specialist police had to be flown in from France to flood the island with forces of order, in the words of the French minister of the interior. Tourists at the many luxury hotels that support the otherwise moribund economy in Guadeloupe fled and flights were cancelled when the airport was temporarily shut.
Despite Sarkozy's offer last week of measures worth €580m to help France's overseas regions, including aid to poor families, relief from social security contributions and price controls, there was still discontent among the protesters, who have organised a general strike that has now lasted for nearly a month. "There is nothing new in Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement. It's still far from what we are demanding, which is a €200 salary increase," said Elie Domota, the leader of Guadeloupe's mass protest movement, Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (LKP).
Negotiations between employers and the LKP, a coalition of unions and leftwing groups, were restarted on Friday but have been put on hold over the weekend. The sticking point is salaries, with bosses speaking of possible increases of between €35 and €120, depending on the sector.
The unrest has highlighted tensions reaching back to the colonial past of Guadeloupe, one of four overseas regions that are, as part of France, part also of the European Union. "The economy has kept the hierarchy of the 19th century, with all its flaws and injustices," said Nelly Schmidt, author and historian at the National Centre of Scientific Research. "There is a profound lack of understanding in France of its former Caribbean colonies. We know about the beaches, the palm trees and the rum and that's about it."
There is deep resentment of the economically powerful minority of béké, or white, families, often descendants of the slave-era colonists. After being abolished by revolutionary forces, slavery was bloodily reinstituted by Napoleon and only finally abolished in 1848.
"Guadeloupe has had a particularly bitter history of relations with the mainland," said Marc Semo, foreign editor of Libération newspaper. "That history has bred a tough and uncompromising claims culture."
Now the strike has spread to neighbouring Martinique and protests have broken out in French Guyana and the Indian Ocean island of Réunion. But it is the concern that the disruption on Guadeloupe might spread to the mainland that forced Sarkozy to act last week, meeting MPs from the dependencies and broadcasting a television address.
The latter was carefully timed to go out - on specialist channels for the overseas territories - after the main evening news bulletins on domestic TV had been broadcast. For the French government fears pressure to extend any pay increase deal in Guadeloupe to mainland France.
Last week, as Sarkozy met senior national union leaders in a social mini-summit, senior figures from the French hard left, such as the self-styled peasant leader José Bové, and the postman head of a popular new French Communist party, Olivier Besancenot, travelled to Guadeloupe. "Their fight is our fight - against capitalism, exploitation, the big supermarkets who make so much profit from us," said Anne Bronnec, 32, a shopworker handing out leaflets in the Bastille district of Paris.
Many analysts speak of a loss of direction at the highest levels of the French state. For Dabi, the pollster, Sarkozy is suffering the same fate as other European leaders who are trying to convince disoriented populations that they have an answer to the financial crisis. "There is a sense of incoherence and a sense that Sarkozy does not really know where he is taking France. But that's largely because there is an incoherence and Sarkozy doesn't know where he is taking France," Dabi said.
Last week Sarkozy unveiled proposals for tax breaks and social benefits he said were worth up to €2.65bn but ruled out raising the minimum wage or reversing key reforms such as plans to cut thousands of public sector posts. "We will beat the crisis through modernising France," the president said in a 10-minute televised speech. However, massive aid for ailing car manufacturers has already been agreed.
The nightmare scenario is that of 1995, when massive industrial action blocked the country for three weeks. The strikes at that time were led by the public sector, while this time it is the private sector that is most at risk from the looming recession. "The public sector can shut down the country, but the private sector can't," said Philippe Waechter, an economist with Nataxis Asset Management.
Equally, according to Dabi, Sarkozy has little to worry about from the left. "There are very few alternatives to Sarkozy right now. Besancenot is doing well with a message that attacks capitalism, neo-liberal economics, the rich and so on, but that's not going to cause too many problems for the president. His core support among traditional rightwing voters remains high."
For media analyst Muzet, there are two sides to the crisis: the pessimism and the worry, but also "the feeling that something is being born", a new solidarity and consciousness of the suffering of others, "in Guadeloupe today, elsewhere tomorrow".
France - whether in Pointe-à-Pitre or Paris - is more divided than ever.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/22/sarkozy-strike-france
Related articles:
☞ Strike in Guadeloupe escalates into rioting (IHT, 2.17)
☞ Guadeloupe - Collective against Exploitation - General Strikers (IWW, 2.17)
☞ General Strike Against the Economic Crisis.. (PA.N.W., 2.18)
☞ Guadeloupe: A Consciousness-Raising Movement (l'Humanite, 2.19)
☞ Guadaloupe riots turn paradise into war zone.. (Guardian, 2.19)
Since recently the World Economic Crisis (Well, it's not over, not at all!! Some analysts even forecasts an aggravation of the situation!!) is reaching the oil-rich monarchies on the Arab Peninsula.
And like everywhere the most affected are at first the poor and most exploited: hundreds of thousands of migrant workers (*) from South/South-East Asia, the poorer Arab countries and East Africa.
But there are also several thousands of Europeans affected: people with lacking job alternatives in the "own" countries (you can call them also "migrant workers", but well paid..) and many who just want to make remittance.
The following feature in last week's Guardian (UK, 2.13) describes very impressively the current situation in Dubai/UAE:
Dubai's six-year building boom grinds to halt
as financial crisis takes hold
• Expatriates flee as work dries up and visas are rescinded
• Migrant workers forced to leave with debts following them home
Arab tycoons wrapped in traditional headscarves sipped fruit juice cocktails as
they watched Russian models twirl in silk dresses.
It was the most exclusive ticket in town, a private catwalk show to which the
Middle East's biggest spenders had been personally invited.
But if the smiles at this week's Dubai fashion event looked more false than usual,
it was for a reason. The net worth of the VIPs in attendance today is a fraction of
what it was six months ago.
A six-year boom that turned sand dunes into a glittering metropolis, creating the
world's tallest building, its biggest shopping mall and, some say, a shrine to
unbridled capitalism, is grinding to a halt.
Dubai, one of seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is in
crisis.
So too are British expatriates. Many of the estimated 100,000-strong community
came here expecting to make millions in property, and to soak up a lavish lifestyle
living alongside footballers, actors and supermodels.
But the real estate bubble that propelled the frenetic expansion of Dubai on the
back of borrowed cash and speculative investment, has burst.
Many westerners are being made redundant or absconding before the strict legal
system catches up with them.
Half of all the UAE's construction projects, totalling $582bn (£400bn), have either
been put on hold or cancelled, leaving a trail of half-built towers on the outskirts of
the city stretching into the desert.
Among the casualties is the tower Donald Trump promised would be "the ultimate
in luxury", a $100bnresort complex by the beach, and four huge theme parks and
an artificial island developed by the state company Nakheel.
It is not all bad news: the building projects still in play are almost the equivalent of
the US stimulus package. And the city remains a haven for super-rich sheikhs,
billionaire hedge fund managers and Russian oligarchs.
But banks have stopped lending and the stock market has plunged 70%. Scrape
beneath the surface of the fashion parades and VIP parties, and the evidence of
economic slowdown are obvious. Luxury hotels are three-quarters empty.
Shopkeepers in newly-built malls are reporting a drop in sales. In Dubai you
expect to see a Ferrari parked beside a Rolls-Royce. But not, as is the case now,
with scruffy For Sale signs taped to the windows.
Living the dream
Nowhere sums up the fortunes of expatriates in Dubai quite like Palm Jumeirah,
an artificial island fanning out into the Persian Gulf, populated by residents
including the likes of David Beckham, Michael Schumacher and even, it is said,
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai.
At the top of the island stands the Atlantis, a garish $1.5bn hotel complex with
1,539 rooms and a whale shark swimming in a 1 million-litre fish tank.
The Atlantis's $20m inauguration celebration, where the world's A-list celebrities
were treated to 1.7 tonnes of lobster and 1,000 bottles of Veuve Clicquot, was
promoted as the world's biggest party.
For Palm residents, it was followed by an equally impressive hangover. The value
of their villas and apartments on the Palm fell by as much as 60% in just a few
months.
"Drink your last cocktail and get out of here," said Sasha Reynolds, a 33-year-old
airhostess. "My boyfriend is an engineer and work has dried up. He's been
offered work in Qatar but who wants to go there? People are still making money
here but the parties aren't quite the same. I'm lucky ‑ I didn't buy."
The exact number of unemployed is not known. The Dubai government does not
release figures, and prevents the press from running stories that damage the
economy, such as mass redundancies.
But there were sacked expatriates ‑ bankers, lawyers and architects ‑ in all but
one of the hotel bars visited in Dubai this week.
Employees who lose work in the UAE automatically have their visa rescinded,
generally giving them 30 days to leave.
"I look out of my balcony every day and I see Brits by the pool on their laptops,"
said Andrew Hillocks, 29, a sacked telecoms consultant whose passport has
been seized. He will be escorted to the airport next week. "They're looking for
work that just isn't there. I sold my car to cover my loan, but other people are
panicking."
Under Dubai's strict legal code defaulting on debt or bouncing a cheque is
punishable with jail. Any expatriate in financial difficulty knows the safest bet is to
take the next outbound flight.
At the airport, hundreds of cars have apparently been abandoned in recent
weeks. Keys are left in the ignition and maxed out credit cards and apology letters
in the glove box.
Officials put the number of vehicles at 11. "No one believes that. There are 11
cars abandoned just on my street," said Anne, 26, a fashion editor from London.
"Over the past two months I've been getting an email a day from people trying to
sell their stuff. 'New Jaguar – need to sell before the end of the week'."
In a world of self-made millionaires and property entrepreneurs, some remain
bullish. Simon Murphy, 42, runs the exclusive Crest of Dubai social club for Palm
residents. "My job is to keep people smiling," he said.
The former hedge fund adviser's apartment is a "boy's paradise". Beside the
snooker table and darts board are photos of him beside Richard Branson, Alan
Shearer and Pele.
"I have the beach there. My local is that bar a couple of yards away. That's the
pier where they're going to dock the QE2. People ask about the whole 'living the
dream' scenario? Ain't this it?"
Some people had to lose out, he said. "As they say: eagles fly with eagles. The
motivating factor to come here is greed. You have to be selfish, have minimal
social responsibility, and want to make money quick. Brits in Dubai are gamblers.
It's the nature of the beast that not everyone wins."
The invisible losers
In the Dubai however, the losers are the invisible majority.
Taxi drivers from Egypt, Yemen and Iraq compete for work. Their clients often
ask to go to hotel bars where, at night, they will find prostitutes from Eastern
Europe, Africa and Asia.
Expatriates from the developing world maintained Dubai's orgy of consumption
during the boom years. Now they too are being forced to leave.
Perhaps those who suffer most are the construction workers from the Indian
subcontinent, who have worked on perilous building sites earning as little as £70
a month.
The Indian embassy is reportedly anticipating an exodus with 20,000 seats on
flights to India already "bulk-booked" for next month.
Buses come to pick up 250 workers every night from one dusty street on the
edge of Sonapur, a labour camp on the edge of the desert.
As night falls, the gangly silhouettes of construction workers file out of the camp
gates. "There is no work," said Jasvinder Singh, 24, placing his suitcase in a pick
-up truck, the words "Dubai to Delhi" taped to the side.
"It has been such a drama. We came here to earn money. We are going home to
see our wives but our pockets are empty."
Sanjit, 44, another construction worker from Punjab, gestures angrily in the air:
"We were treated badly here. We were slaves to the Arabs."
But unlike their British counterparts, construction workers from India, Bangladesh
and Pakistan cannot abandon lives in the glove compartment of a 4x4. Most took
loans to pay agent fees to come to Dubai, and their debts will follow them home.
"I sold our land and took loans in the village to come here," said Imran Hassan, a
20-year-old Bangladeshi farmer. "I paid the agent £2,000 to bring me. He said I
would earn 1,500 dirham [£287] a month, but we are paid 572 dirham. When I
return people in the village will want their money but I have none."
A Welsh construction site manager said he had protested to his boss about the
treatment of labourers.
"We tell them to bring their clothes to work one day and then we send them
home. It makes me feel sick. I asked why it had to be done so quickly and I was
told a lot of them commit suicide and we don't want that on our hands."
Tale of two cities
Dubai's future will actually be decided well way from the shimmering skyscrapers.
To find out why, you need to drive along 90 miles south along the Gulf coastline,
past tiny Bedouin enclaves and shimmering desert mosques.
Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich capital of the UAE and the richest emirate, has opted for a
more conservative – and, some say – prudent approach to growth that contrasts
with Dubai's giddy expansion.
But it boasts 95% of the UAE's oil reserves and more than half of its GDP, and
regional experts predict it will overtake Dubai as the destination of choice for
westerners in the Middle East.
Dubai, which has barely a trickle of oil in comparison, is projecting a 42%
increase in public spending on infrastructure projects, to compensate for
vanishing private investment. But it cannot go it alone. Abu Dhabi is increasingly
expected to bail out its poorer neighbour, and the two ruling families are meeting
regularly to decide how to transfer cash into Dubai's ailing economy.
"The question is not if Abu Dhabi will come to the rescue, but how big it will be
and how public," a source with knowledge of the negotiations said. "Abu Dhabi
cannot let Dubai sink."
But Abu Dhabi has its own problems. The emirate's sovereign wealth fund – once
said to be worth $1 trillion – has taken a hit in the global recession, while the
lifeblood of the economy – the price of oil – is down more than 60%.
Thirty miles from the capital, dust rises from the barren horizon where a 10km-
long building site is being turned into al-Raha Beach, an $18bn waterfront city, a
joint venture between Aldar, Abu Dhabi's largest property developer, and Laing
O'Rourke, the UK's largest construction company.
"A lot of staff have been moved over here from Dubai," said Paul, 35, a Laing
O'Rourke project manager, raising his voice over the noise of JCBs.
"But it is all coming to a stop here too. There are mass redundancies now. We've
gone from an expat workforce of about 1,000 to about 400. There are more
waves of redundancies coming this week."
He said he could not be sure, but by his estimate more than half of the al-Raha
development had been quietly shelved.
"I've not been made redundant myself but I've decided to go home in April. The
wife and kids have already left. A lot of people are jumping ship beforethere are
no lifeboats left."
Back in Dubai the following day, a Mercedes Benz snaked along the city's main
street, Sheikh Zayed Road. Firas Darwish, 35, an Emirati property magnate
dressed in traditional Arabic clothing, sat in the driver's seat, listening as as
Veronica Chapman, 65, a real estate agent from Hull, recalled what the city was
like when she first arrived in 1980.
"No milk, no bread, no schools. It was a desert and a couple of buildings," she
said.
Darwish slowed the car to point out abandoned building sites where cranes stood
still in the baking heat. "Here we are completely reliant on foreigners," he said.
"Maybe Dubai grew too fast."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/13/dubai-boom-halt
Related contributions:
☞ Dubai: Inside the Labour Camps
☞ Dubai: Migrant Workers on Strike
Class Struggle: "That's Fun!"
Last year's fall French progressive/left activists have found a new way to grab the headlines in protest at the decreasing purchase power of the Euro in their pockets - the picnic protest. The collective "L'appel et la pioche", literally "The call and the pick axe" (a play on words - "Shovel and Pick"), use text messaging to organise flash mob gatherings in targeted supermarkets.
They spread out a picnic in one of the aisles using goods from the supermarket's shelves and invite shoppers to join them until the police or security guards arrive. The collective aim to publicise the situation of low income workers hit by the effects of the credit crunch and France's "Génération Y", possibly the first group of young people in centuries who are likely to face a standard of living lower than their parents'.
Low-income workers have a picnic among shoppers using food taken from the aisles a giant
super market in Bagnolet, near Paris, during a protest action last October..
..several dozen people from "L'Appel et la Pioche" entered a supermarket, selected food items
without paying, and ate a picnic amongst shoppers to protest rising food prices and low salaries.
Last month (1.25) The Observer (UK) published following report about the activities of "L'appel et la pioche":
French left pioneers a radical new tactic: the picnic protest
Activists take food off the shelves and invite shoppers to dine with them to highlight the plight of 'Generation Y'
In exactly a week's time, in a supermarket somewhere in or around Paris, a couple of dozen young French activists are going to choose an aisle, unfold tables, put on some music and, taking what they want from the shelves, start a little picnic. The group "L'Appel et la Pioche" (The call and the pick axe) will have struck again - fruit and veg, dairy or the fish counter will have been transformed into a flash protest against global capitalism, rampant consumerism, bank bail-outs, poor housing, expensive food, profit margins and pretty much everything else that is wrong in the world.
The "supermarket picnic" will go on for as long as it can - before the security guards throw the activists out or the police arrive. Shoppers will be invited to join in, either bringing what they want from the shelves or just taking something lifted lightly from among the crisps, sweets or quality fruit already on the tables.
"L'Appel et la Pioche" have struck four times so far and have no intention of stopping what they claim is a highly effective new way of protesting.
"Everyone is bored of demonstrations. And handing out tracts at 6am at a market is neither effective nor fun," said Leïla Chaïbi, 26, the leader of the group. "This is fun, festive, non-threatening and attracts the media. It's the perfect way of getting our message across."
Linked to a new left-wing political party committed to a renewal of politics and activism, Chaïbi's group represents more than just a radical fringe and has been gaining nationwide attention.
A veteran of fights to get pay and better conditions for young people doing work experience, Chaïbi claims to represent millions of young Frenchmen and women who feel betrayed by the system.
"We played the game and worked hard and got a good education because we were told we would get a flat and a job at the end of it. But it wasn't true," said Victor, 34, another member of the group. "We have huge difficulty getting a proper job and a decent apartment."
Chaïbi, who works on short-term contracts in public relations and is currently looking for work, told the Observer that the group's aspirations were limited. "I am not asking for thousands and thousands of euros a month as a salary or a vast five-room apartment. Just something decent."
In recent years, the problems of France's "Generation Y" or "babylosers" have made headlines. As with many other European societies, after decades of growth, this is the first set of young people for centuries who are likely to have standards of living lower than their parents. According to recent research, in 1973, only 6% of recent university leavers were unemployed, currently the rate is 25-30%; salaries have stagnated for 20 years while property prices have doubled or trebled; in 1970, salaries for 50-year-olds were only 15% higher than those for workers aged 30, the gap now is 40%. The young are also likely to be hard hit by the economic crisis.
New ways of working mean new ways of demonstrating, too. "We are already on precarious short-term contracts, so there's no point in going on strike," said Chaïbi. "But a supermarket is very public and we make sure the media are there to cover our actions."
So far reactions have been good, the group claims. In one supermarket in a suburb of Paris, the activists say they got a spontaneous round of applause from the checkout workers. Elsewhere, security guards have been "friendly". Everywhere in France, the problem of a weakening "pouvoir d'achat" - the buying power of static wages - is a cause for resentment.
The economic crisis is further fuelling anger. Though not yet as badly hit as the UK, thanks to tighter regulation and much lower levels of personal borrowing, French businesses have still been laying off staff amid predictions of a massive rise in unemployment this year. Unions have been largely passive in the face of threatened redundancies, accepting go-slows to preserve jobs.
With the French Socialist party in disarray, alternative forms of political protest on the left, particularly a breakaway communist faction led by charismatic postman Olivier Besancenot, have made inroads. Protests about the homeless or against the expulsion of immigrants have largely taken place independently of the Socialist party, which is mired in feuds and ideological incoherence.
One new group is the Jeudi Noir, which organises heavily publicised squats of vacant buildings in Paris. Named Black Thursday after the day classified advertisements for flats appear, activists recently took over a clinic that has lain empty at the heart of the Left Bank for nearly five years.
"This is not just about finding myself somewhere to live," said Julien Bayou, 28, who is now living in one of the former clinic's offices. "We are making a political point. We just think it is wrong that a building in perfect condition should be empty for years when so many people need somewhere to live."
Chaïbi sat in the kitchen of the former clinic. "It's not just about the supermarkets," she said. "It's about fighting the system."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/25/france-picnic-protests-appel-pioche
From NepalNews (2.03):
Maoists for establishing communism through socialism
United CPN (Maoist), whose top leaders have time and again repeated their commitments for multi-party democracy, has said its ultimatum mission is to establish a communist system in Nepal.
A meeting of the Maoist parliamentary party held at Singh Durbar Monday passed its statute deciding to work for establishing communism through socialism.
The statute has been revised after unification with CPN Unity Center (Masal). The statute outlines the dos and don'ts for the party leaders.
It mentions that new constitution will be pro-people which the party believes will help attain communism in the long run.
The Maoist ministers attending the meeting briefed the lawmakers regarding the achievements of their ministries and the future plans.
As per the statute, parliamentary party leader and deputy leader can be removed through the vote of no-confidence. The party must call the parliamentary meeting within fifteen days if one fourth of the MPs make such a demand.
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2009/feb/feb02/news13.php
Wow, what a scandal: The United CPN (M) wants to achieve "communism through socialism"!!^^
Hmmm.. But isn't it the ultimate goal of a ("truly") communists party??
So if the United CPN (M) wants to be/remain a communist party(*) it's just their duty to struggle until the achievement of communism(**)!
* Contrary to the revisionism, represented by the former "communist" parties of the one-time Eastern bloc (incl. Albania), the majority of the former "communist" parties in the capitalist states, the countries of the so-called "Third World" and - last but not least - the still ruling "communist" parties in Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea(!!!)..
** I.e. the classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life (Marx/Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party).
Related:
☞ 공산당 선언
Israel's war against Hamas/Gaza. The 21st day:
Israel said today its 'Gaza offensive' could be "in the final act" and sent envoys to discuss truce terms after Hamas made a ceasefire offer to end three weeks of fighting that has killed more than 1,130 Palestinians and wounded at least 5,200 (according to Gaza medics).
However, Israel rejected at least two major elements of the ceasefire terms outlined by the Islamist movement, and fighting continued, albeit with less intensity than yesterday.
Meanwhile Haaretz and y.net (IL) are reporting that Hamas will not accept the Israeli conditions for a cease-fire in Gaza and would continue the "armed resistance until the end", Khaled Meshal, the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist group, said today afternoon (*).
His comments came following a report in the Arab daily as-Sharq al-Awsat earlier today, claiming Hamas is prepared to accept a conditional cease-fire with Israel starting on Saturday.
Simultaneously the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said today, at the Arab Summit in Doha/Qatar, that "The Arab peace initiative (with Israel) is dead… we must respond to Israel on the basis of an eye of an eye."
* Related:
☞ The road of "negotiations" is closed.. (P.F.L.P.)
So it seems that - unfortunately (especially for the 'ordinary' people in Gaza) - "the show must go on"! (at least for the next 48 hours!)
► German (bourgeois) newspapers today look at the prospect for a cease-fire wonder if Hamas won't come out of the violence with a stronger image on the Arab street:
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"It doesn't take a prophet to predict that Israel's attack on Gaza is in its final stages. There are reasons for this: Hamas is decisively weakened, which has reinstated the deterrent effect of the Israeli military in the Middle East. In a few days a new American president will take office; Israel will hardly want to do him the injustice of making him cut through the oldest and thorniest knot in the Middle East conflict. The public pressure on Israel is getting stronger because the destruction in the Gaza Strip is growing, including so-called collateral damage. (German) Foreign Minister Steinmeier, on his second trip to the Middle East in a few days, warned that Israel was losing international support. He didn't need to go to the conflict zone to make this assertion, he could have voiced it to Ms. Livni over the telephone -- never mind that the Israelis know it already. Otherwise the journey was unnecessary. It won't bring results, only images for the (German) election campaign."
The center-'left' Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"The Islamists are continuing to fight. They think they can defy the overwhelming power of the Israeli army for a while longer -- even if this is borne by (Gaza's) civilian population. Hamas is waiting for a halfway acceptable offer to end the war."
"The Israelis don't want to give up the economic blockade of Gaza. They want the border with Egypt used by weapons smugglers to be overseen by international monitors. And any reconstruction funds for the destroyed Gaza Strip should be distributed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. ... Apparently new elections in Gaza are also being considered. Hamas won a clear election victory over Abbas' Fatah party in 2006. On the other hand, Abbas' mandate as president ran out five days ago."
"In short: Part of the cease-fire agreement is obviously intended to deprive Hamas of power. Is the intention to bring Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah back into Gaza? Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has often said that the war cannot result in a 'return to the status quo.' However, this kind of cease-fire model is hardly going to push Hamas toward a speedy capitulation."
The (former) 'left-alternative' daily Die Tageszeitung writes:
"Hamas' strength is still not broken. If it survives - and there is every indication that it will - then it will celebrate its strategy of digging in as a heroic victory over Israel. And on 'Arab street' it will enjoy a revival. It has held out for three weeks against the overwhelming Israeli firepower … The political compromises that they will have to make for a cease-fire will only damage them marginally if the reward for an effective border control and the halt to rocket fire into Israel is the opening of Gaza's borders."
"Fatah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been wrong-footed. Both have been marginalized in this conflict. Abbas was too quick to blame Hamas for the outbreak of the war and so was suspected of collaboration with Israel. Even if this is ridiculous, the accusations of deserting their own people could cost Abbas and Fatah dearly."
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