Chinese police have been beatings workers protesting over working conditions and pay at the biggest factory for iPhones.

The protest in Zhengzhou began Tuesday and lasted through to Wednesday morning as thousands of workers gathered outside dormitories.

 Thousands of employees walked away from the factory last month after complaints about unsafe working conditions. Replacement workers who had travelled long distances to take jobs at the factory complained that the company changed the terms of their pay.

“Foxconn released very tempting recruiting offers, and workers from all parts of the country came, only to find they were being made fools of,” one protester said.

Foxconn said that a “technical error” was responsible for the confusion over pay.

Police beat protesting iPhone workers as Covid cases hit record high in China | Foxconn | The Guardian

 More than five women and girls were killed every hour by a family member in 2021, according to new UN figures on femicide.

A report, published on Wednesday, showed that 45,000 women and girls – more than half (56%) of the 81,100 murdered last year worldwide – were killed by their husband, partner or other relative.

The true number of femicides – where women are killed because of their gender – is likely to be much higher. Roughly four in 10 deaths in 2021 were not counted as femicides because there was insufficient data. 

The overwhelming majority (81%) of homicides worldwide are committed against men and boys, but they are most at risk of being killed by someone outside their family. Out of all male homicide victims in 2021, only about 11% were killed by a partner or relative.

Estimated 45,000 women and girls killed by family member in 2021, UN says | Women’s rights and gender equality | The Guardian

 Much of Argentina is currently caught up in “Messimania.”

A few people refuse to be part of this huge wave of euphoria such as Gabriel Salvia, a former journalist, who heads Argentina’s Cadal human rights agency.

“Argentines are only interested in sporting success, they see the World Cup as a welcome change from everyday life with its economic misery and high inflation…”

Cadal drew attention to the situation of migrant workers in Qatar ahead of the World Cup. Salvia approached soccer associations around the world in the name of his “La pelota no se mancha” (“Football will not be soiled”) initiative — including AFA, the Argentine Football Association. The outcome was disappointing.

“As a symbolic gesture,we proposed that all the players wear a black armband to commemorate the many people who died during the construction of the stadiums,” he says. “The European federations responded to us, the Netherlands even did so in great detail — while the AFA didn’t deign to write us a single line.”

At the World Cup 44 years ago, the Argentine junta tortured and disappeared members of the opposition. Some were thrown out of planes above the Atlantic.  The biggest torture center, the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), was just a stone’s throw from the River Plate stadium. Some prisoners heard every single goal cheer before being tortured with electric shocks by their tormentors.

“The junta used the World Cup as a tool of international propaganda, while state terrorism disappeared people,” Salvia says, arguing that Argentina should be much more aware of human rights violations.

 The situation of migrant workers, the LGBTQ+ community, and of women in Qatar are not a top priority in other Latin American World Cup countries, including Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Costa Rica. 

Gabriel Salvia is not supporting Argentine or Lionel Messi.

“I was born in Buenos Aires, but as a defender of human rights I feel that the world champion should be a team that is in some way committed to human rights and has addressed the situation in Qatar…” 

Argentina: More interested in Messi than human rights – DW – 11/22/2022

 Qatar directed $220 BILLION to stage a spectacle of young men running around a field, kicking a ball. In the meantime, children are starving to death in Somalia.

The UN has raised only half the funds it needs to help, with $1 billion (€971,345 million) more needed to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe

The worst drought in 40 years is devastating Somalia with the fear of a fifth failed rainy season. 

More than 7 million people are in need of food assistance.

“We have half a million children that are severely acutely malnourished, which means that if they don’t receive timely assistance they are just simply going to die,” says Wafaa Saeed, the UNICEF representative for Somalia.

Mayor Abdullahi Ali  Watiin of the Somali city of Baidoa, explains he’s tired of short-sighted solutions: 

“Somalia is one of the most affected areas by climate change. What will happen after this drought ends? Do we wait until another famine comes or will we come up with initiatives that we need to mitigate future shocks?”

Somalia’s food crisis claims young lives – DW – 11/22/2022

COP Out

Conference Of the Parties being fossil fuelled

Might be better known, to meet its function,

As COP, that’s Continue Oil Production.

Significant change will be overruled

To favour those whose intent is to foil

Advocates who would convince the meeting

Of perils of global over-heating

From continued use of coal, gas and oil.

Delegates jet in for a jamboree,

To be feted by lobbyists who insist

Temperature targets can be safely missed

A while yet; it’s all a matter of degree.

Certainly, emissions might be reduced,

Just as long as profits are still produced.

D. A.

Of all the people who leave for work on any given day, about 1000 do not return home—they die in workplace accidents. 

This is stated on the basis of the total number of occupational accident fatalities in a year, the WHO/ILO estimate for which is 360,000 in a year.

Deaths in a year from occupational diseases are over four times higher (1.54 million) than the fatalities caused by occupational accidents.

The ILO says over 600,000 workers die due to exposure to hazardous substances in a year. 

Long hours spent in unhealthy, stressful work conditions are another factor of serious concern, with excessive working time being a cause of as many as 750,000 or almost one-half of the total number of occupational disease fatalities in a year, WHO/ILO estimates.

Worldwide about 300 million occupational non-fatal accidents take place in a year while about 150 million contract work-related diseases. 

Levels of workplace violence are also very high in several countries.

 According to the European Working Conditions Survey, 6 million workers are exposed to workplace violence in a year in the European Union.

 If verbal violence is included, this number rises to 30 million.

 In the USA on average, about 670 workers die and 106,000 have to be taken for hospital emergency treatment due to workplace violence a year.

In the USA and Europe, various surveys reveal that in the course of their career, over 50% of women and over 15% of men are exposed to sexual harassment.

In the USA 76% of workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition (anxiety, depression), an increase of 17% in just 2 years, and 84% of respondents reported at least one workplace factor that had a negative impact on their mental health. 

Although an average employee spends 81,396 hours at work, adequate efforts do not appear to have gone into making working time healthy, friendly, involving and creative. 60 per cent per cent of the workers are emotionally detached while 19 per cent are miserable, while only the remaining 21 per cent can be stated to be engaged. 

 In Europe those engaged are only 14 per cent. 

If the survey asked did you feel worried at work yesterday, 56% are likely to say yes.

 If asked did you feel stressful at work yesterday, 59% are likely to say yes. 

When asked if the worker felt physical pain a lot of the day, 33% will say yes.

 31% would admit to have been angry. 

Few would venture to call this happy or creative working environment.

Jobs Without Joy| Countercurrents

The G20 represent two-thirds of the world’s population and four-fifths of the world’s economic power.

 G20 world leaders have failed to take definitive action to tackle poverty, hunger, climate, debt and deprivation that is crippling millions of people around the world, says Oxfam.

“In the midst of a debt, austerity and inequality crisis we expected far more from the world’s largest economies, especially given the meteoric rise of billionaire wealth in their backyards,” said Oxfam’s  Joern Kalinski. “The world needs concrete action to avert economic disaster for poor people and countries, but all we were left with was recycled assurances, a simmering debt crisis and vaccine and health steps as useful as putting a band-aid on a broken leg.” Kalinski continued, “There was no sign of a collective resolve to address the world’s problems including climate crisis, growing hunger, rising poverty figures and gaping economic and social inequality.” 

Oxfam’s press release states, “The G20 reiterated often-heard promises of addressing world hunger but makes no new funding pledges to match that ambition nor commitments to support a shift to a more local and sustainable food production. Our food system has for years perpetuated inequality, impoverished small-scale farmers while wreaking havoc on the climate…The world continues to slide towards uncontrollable catastrophic warming which is exacerbating poverty, hunger and injustice worldwide.”

“The G20s theme was “Recover Together, Recover Stronger” but how can that be realized when this summit did nothing to bolster public goods like public health systems or make tangible new commitments to fix all the breakages in nations’ education systems?” said Kalinski. “…The G20 has shown an unfathomable ability to forget the scale of the economic, social and health crisis caused by the neglect and under-resourcing of health systems which are now more geared towards eyewatering profits over patients.”

 “…With so much at stake, this G20 summit finished largely empty and bereft,” said Kalinski.

G20 verdict: Oxfam criticizes G20 for lack of action to tackle extreme inequality | Common Dreams

Environmentalist Naomi Klein this week urged civil society organizations to boycott the 2023 COP 28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates — one of the world’s largest oil producers.

She pointed to the failure of COP27 and its “weak climate agreement that protects polluters”

Klein argues that “now is the time to decide not to do this all over again next year when the summit will be in the UAE. Of all places.”

“Civil society should announce a boycott and instead hold a true people’s summit…Let’s try something new.” Klein wrote.

At COP27, civil society was suppressed, spied upon, and sidelined by Egypt’s authoritarian government while lobbyists from Exxon, Chevron, and other fossil fuel giants, responsible for record-high greenhouse gas emissions fought off efforts to include a fossil fuel phase-out in the summit’s final text.

‘Let’s Try Something New’: Naomi Klein Calls for Boycott of Next COP Climate Summit (commondreams.org)

 Texas Governor Greg Abbott is seeking President Biden to invoke the invasion clause of the US Constitution to protect Texans from refugees and migrant workers.

Abbot wants the president to treat poor people without weapons as a military invasion.

On November 16 Abbot wrote a letter to Biden informing him that he has not lived up to the promise of Article IV, § 4, that the federal government “shall protect each of them against Invasion.”

Since, according to Abbott, the federal government isn’t treating poor immigrants like an invading army, Abbott will now invoke Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, which allows states to “engage in War” when they are “actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

 Last year, Texas passed Operation Lone Star, which militarizes the border by giving Abbot authority to deploy the national guard.

Thanksgiving food for thought: Immigrants are not ‘invading’ the United States – Alternet.org

 As Saudi Arabia celebrates victory over Argentine in the World Cup, praised by the football pundits, none  mentioned that on the very same day of the match Saudi Arabia football executed two Saudi citizens for drug offences

It brought the total number of executions in the past fortnight to 17 (10 being foreigners).

Saudi Arabia has executed 130 people this year.

The next victim may be Hussein Abo al-Kheir, a Jordanian, who was arrested in 2014 for smuggling narcotics when crossing the Jordan border into Saudi, and says he only confessed when he was tortured, including being suspended from his feet and beaten on his stomach and legs. 

An appeal court acquitted Kheir in March 2017, but the government ordered a retrial six months later, leading to a guilty verdict and he was re-sentenced to death in November 2017.

Much has been said about Qatar and its dismal human rights records regarding homosexuality. Iran’s team members were rightly applauded for their solidarity with their nation’s protests but silence on Saudi Arabia and other countries involved in authoritarian and totalitarian behaviour. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/22/saudi-execution-spree-continues-as-fears-rise-for-jordanian-on-death-row