Hong Kong-based business executive Bruce Rockowitz told the New York Times recently that consumers are ultimately the ones responsible for dangerous conditions in garment assembly plants in the global South.
The problem is that improved safety would raise the price of clothing, according to Rockowitz, who heads Li & Fung Limited, a sourcing company that hooks up retailers like Macy鈥檚 and Kohl鈥檚 with suppliers in low-wage countries like Bangladesh.
鈥淪o far鈥, he said, 鈥渃onsumers have just not been willing to accept higher costs鈥.
982
Ahmad Qatamesh is a 62-year-old Palestinian University academic, writer and political activist who has been held in an Israeli jail under administrative detention for more than two years.
Under Israel鈥檚 policy of administrative detention, people can be held without charge or trial for indefinite periods.
Florida medical examiner claim prosecution threw Zimmerman case
鈥淚n a bombshell allegation, Florida medical examiner Dr Shiping Bao claims that Florida state prosecutors were biased against Trayvon Martin [an unarmed Black teenager shot dead by George Zimmerman] and purposely threw the case [in which Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges], and he is suing the state for $100 million ...
A terrible disaster unfolded in 2010 in the Hunza Valley in Gilgit Baltistan (a formerly self-governing territory occupied by Pakistan since 1948). For protesting for people's rights in the aftermath of this disaster, three left-wing activists have been sentenced to 10 years jail.
In July 2010, a huge landslide blocked the Hunza River and formed a gigantic 19 kilometre-wide lake, which submerged four villages. About 25 people lost their lives and 6000 people were displaced.
The school year should have already begun on the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula), but it hasn鈥檛. Since September 16, high school and primary teachers have been on an indefinite strike.
In Palma, capital of Mallorca, up to 6000 teachers have been demonstrating daily outside the main government building. When the ceremony marking the start of the Balearic Islands鈥 university term was held, a swathe of lecturers walked out to express their solidarity with the thousands of teachers protesting outside.
Bolivian President Evo Morales plans to file a lawsuit against the US government for crimes against humanity, on September 20. Morales criticised the US for its intimidation tactics and fear-mongering after a plane carrying Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was blocked from entering US airspace.
New at聽聽International Journal of Socialist Renewal.聽World's longest running strike sets example 补苍诲听Capitalism, sexual violence and sexism.
Threats of a new United States-led war in the Middle East abated, at least for now, on September 20 when Syria met a deadline set in a September 14 agreement between the US and Russia.
As part of the deal, Syria submitted details of its chemical weapons to Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
The US threatened military action against Syria after an August 21 sarin gas attack killed 355 people in the East Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
Clive: The Story of Clive Palmer
Sean Parnell
HarperCollins, 2013
328 pages, $39.99 (hb)
When the local council denied planning permission for the Queensland National Party鈥檚 media director, Clive Palmer, to build a 66-story townhouse development on peaceful rural land in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast in 1984, Palmer鈥檚 party and state government mate, Russ Hinze, helped the rich guy out by overturning the council decision.
Two related anniversaries were marked this September.
The first was the collapse five years ago of Lehman Brothers, which came to symbolise the financial crisis, the subsequent Great Recession, and the anemic recovery.
The second was the upsurge of the Occupy movement two years ago in response, which popularised the idea that the richest 1% are the enemy of the rest of us. This slogan has taken hold in mass consciousness 鈥 an enduring legacy of Occupy.
Venezuela has rejected the United States鈥 version of events in the dispute over Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro鈥檚 passage through US airspace on September 19.
The diplomatic fallout reached media attention when Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jaua told reporters that Maduro had been denied permission to fly through US airspace.
Venezuelan officials said the presidential flight was prohibited from passing over Puerto Rico, a US colony in the Caribbean. Maduro considered changing the flight path to reach Paris, France.
About 1000 protesters marched through the streets of Melbourne on September 21, in opposition to the Coalition government鈥檚 attacks on refugees. It was the first refugee rights rally since the election of Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
The rally heard from several speakers, including Bishop Philip Huggins, from the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Ingrid Stitt from the Australian Services Union, Janet Rice, newly elected Greens Senator for Victoria, and Karen Jones from the Refugee Action Collective.
- Page 1
- Next page