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olivialum

Welcome to Italy: this is what a real immigration crisis looks like » The Spe... - 2 views

www.spectator.co.uk/...the-invasion-of-italy

shared by olivialum on 16 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Well, Italy has been invaded in just this way, by migrants from many nations all coming over here from Libya. And Italy’s unelected government has agreed to take them all. This makes the Italian people — who are among the least racist in Europe — very angry. It’s hard to blame them.
  • This hugely expensive operation — ‘Mare Nostrum’ — ran until October last year and rescued nearly 190,000 people.
  • ‘They don’t want to be identified here — otherwise, under the Dublin Accords, they would have to stay in our country. So when a police officer is in front of an Eritrean who is two metres tall who doesn’t want his fingerprints taken, he can’t break his fingers, but must respect his human rights.’
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Last year, most were from sub-Saharan Africa.
  • It’s worth remembering here that the majority of the boat people are Muslims and reports suggest that a small number are Islamic terrorists. The terrorists of ISIS are, we know from their Twitter feeds, obsessed with taking their crusade to Rome.
  • no intention of staying in Italy
  • has been mired in recession for most of the past six years, with an official unemployment rate of 13 per cent (the real rate is probably 20 per cent) and the youth unemployment rate at a staggering 43 per cent.
  • A couple of months ago, there was much talk about UN sanctioned military action by the EU to stop the smugglers’ boats putting to sea from the Libyan coast.
  • The French have ‘closed’ their border with Italy on the Côte d’Azur in defiance of the Schengen Agreement, which guarantees free movement within member nations. They are rigorously checking trains, cars and even footpaths across the mountains, and sending any illegal migrants back to Italy; they say they have sent back 6,000 this year. The justification is simple: the Italians are failing to identify these people and distinguish economic migrants from refugees. Who can argue with that? The Austrians are doing the same at the Brenner Pass in the Alps.
  • ‘an attack against life’ akin to abortion
  • All of us feel it to be our moral duty to save lives where we can. Yet it cannot be our moral duty to ferry such vast numbers across the Mediterranean into Italy and Europe for ever, unless they are genuine refugees.
  • Prime Minister Renzi tried to pretend that the migrant crisis did not exist, but now that it has turned into an emergency he can remain silent no longer. He blames other EU countries for putting the nation before the union — in this latest meltdown of EU collective responsibility — and the British and the French in particular for getting rid of Muammar Gaddafi and turning Libya into a failed state.
  • ‘Plan B’
Kay Bradley

The Story of Catherine's iPod on Vimeo - 3 views

www.vimeo.com/17384632

shared by Kay Bradley on 03 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Kay Bradley on 03 Dec 10
     
    "The Story of Catherine's iPod"
  • ...10 more comments...
  • Curtis Serrano on 03 Dec 10
     
    I had heard about the conditions at foxconn, but I was surprised about how bad conditions are for the extraction of raw materials like tungsten.
  • Matthew Schweitzer on 03 Dec 10
     
    I would say that I was equally shocked to learn that the conditions for workers mining the metals put into the our Ipods; as I discovered while researching about flags, the products that have become quintessential parts of our consumer society harm those in other, less powerful countries.
  • Samantha Bishop on 05 Dec 10
     
    I was very surprised to find out about the rape attacks that are happening in congo in connection to the mines. The fact that our materials are coming from the places, I feel that in some way we are supporting these actions. These conditions are terrible and something needs to be done to improve them, but I don't see anyone working on this.
  • Harrison Lee on 05 Dec 10
     
    I had no idea that the minerals needed for Ipods were mined in the Congo, and I was appalled at the militarization of the area. This just shows how sensitive the corporations are about protecting their businesses. This ties in to the fact that the corporations make it impossible to accurately trace the materials to its exact source in the Congo. I am also wondering if mining has negative health impacts on the workers and to the manufacturers in China.
  • Arshia Surti on 05 Dec 10
     
    In response to Catherine's essential question, often we feel powerless to stop such things. A few people boycotting Apple products isn't going to change anything. Education, really, is the best way to combat the terrible effects our consumer economy has on the world. If enough people are made aware of the conditions and care enough to give a voice to those workers in China and the Congo, then only will change occur.
  • Amara Plaza-Jennings on 06 Dec 10
     
    What really struck me after watching Catherine's video was the inescapability of these problems. I may not need an Ipod, but to get by in school I certainly need to use a computer. And even if this computer isn't made by Apple, the same problems still apply. I agree with Arshia that education is the best way to try to eliminate terrbile practices such as those that happen in the "rape capitol." Many people at the diversity conference I just attented agreed that education was the best way to solve those problems as well.
  • Nick Petru on 06 Dec 10
     
    I had absolutely no idea conditions for the "3 t's" mining was so awful and that the congo was such a hostile environment for women. This part of the video really puts an emphasis on how different our worlds are. I really like Arshia's point- I definitely agree- education is the key.
  • larkin smith on 06 Dec 10
     
    It was disturbing to learn that all the mines in Congo are militarized. Also, the crazy stickness of the factory in China struck me as disturbing.
  • anonymous on 06 Dec 10
     
    I, too, agree with Arshia on using education to help solve this problem and one's similar. Reading all the comments to this video, it's obvious that most of us had no idea of the brutal rape in the congo-- most of us probably also didn't know the details of China's brutal labor conditions before taking this class. It's scary to think that people are so obsessed about getting the newest gadget, but generally don't know about all the horrible practices that go into making it.
  • Gregory Freiberg on 06 Dec 10
     
    I was pretty shocked to hear about the origins of what you called the "Three T's." Like you, until you read the article in the Huffington post, i had no idea about where the IPod came from (i just assumbed "assembeled in china") but really, also like the Prius, much more of the world is involved. Great Video!
  • Heather Anderson on 07 Dec 10
     
    The disconnect here is so weird. It begins with people digging in the mountainside with sticks, and ends with a tiny, sleek, lightweight computer that makes images flick past at the swipe of your finger and makes music. It's like magic, except instead of the instead of using "toe of newt and eye of frog" the world is making these products by allowing people to be greatly mistreated. Beyond educating people, as Arshia and Alison said, it seems we must either: find other materials to make electronics out of (although that doesn't strike me as very likely?) or pressure companies (who have the money and the leverage) to enforce better regulation. To follow up on Catherine's video, I put three t's into google and got an article about an investigation into the mining in the Congo (maybe Catherine has already seen this): http://africarising2010.blogspot.com/2009/11/tracing-3-ts-from-congo.html. It says: "Even though they found that it is relatively easy to determine the source of minerals based on different coloration and texture based on the source mine, there is insufficient regulation to make this work....Export companies are required to register with the government, but their method of determining the source of minerals they buy is to merely ask the seller whether their goods are from conflict mines. There is no system of confirming what the seller says."
  • Rebecca Heller on 07 Dec 10
     
    This presentation kept shocking me. I was surprised to hear that basic parts of the iPod (the Three Ts) originate in the Congo rather than China. I was then shocked (and horrified) by the rape statistics. I had heard the statistics before, but not in relation to the acquisition of the Three Ts and production of products that we use. The story about the woman whose brother was ordered to rape her and then stabbed to death when he refused was particularly awful. I was also In summary, I was appalled at all the crimes that took place in the Congo- before the Three Ts even got to the factories in China that Catherine talked about. When Catherine started talking about the factories in China, I was again shocked at the working conditions- 100 workers sleeping to a room and clothes locked in a bucket with no visitors allowed (to protect the secrecy of Apple's product plans) while workers worked 15 hour days. The suicide reports from the FoxCon (spelling) factories were also shocking, as was the revelation that workers make just half of what they did in the 1800s. It was sad that the factory earns only $4 per iPod sold- while Apple earns $80. This presentation was very thought provoking- I had never assumed that Apple would be one of the "bad" companies with very questionable labor and humanitarian practices (a la Wal-Mart). Thanks for bringing it up, Catherine. I'm now thinking about it in a whole new light.
maxdewit

U.S. Airdrops Weapons and Supplies to Kurds Fighting in Kobani - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-kurds-fighting-in-kobani.html

ISIS Weapons Kurds USA War why is the obsessed with war! violence

shared by maxdewit on 20 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • maxdewit on 20 Oct 14
     
    This article is about the US giving weapons to the Kurds to help them fight ISIS. It talks about how the US faces no threats while dropping the weapons and that they supplies dropped were highly needed. The Kurds are resisting ISIS from conquering their land. ISIS has sent in many troops into areas around Kurdish territories in an attempt to seize the land.
Kay Bradley

Opinion | Who Killed the Knapp Family? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...deaths-despair-poverty.html

shared by Kay Bradley on 10 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • The United States wrested power from labor and gave it to business, and it suppressed wages and cut taxes rather than invest in human capital, as our peer countries did. As other countries embraced universal health care, we did not; several counties in the United States have life expectancies shorter than those in Cambodia or Bangladesh.
  • A low-end worker may not have a high school diploma and is often barely literate or numerate while also struggling with a dependency; more than seven million Americans also have suspended driver’s licenses for failing to pay child support or court-related debt, meaning that they may not reliably show up at work.
  • If we’re going to obsess about personal responsibility, let’s also have a conversation about social responsibility.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • First, well-paying jobs disappeared, partly because of technology and globalization but also because of political pressure on unions and a general redistribution of power toward the wealthy and corporations.
  • Second, there was an explosion of drugs — oxycodone, meth, heroin, crack cocaine and fentanyl — aggravated by the reckless marketing of prescription painkillers by pharmaceutical companies.Third, the war on drugs sent fathers and mothers to jail, shattering families.
  • Both political parties embraced mass incarceration and the war on drugs, which was particularly devastating for black Americans, and ignored an education system that often consigned the poor — especially children of color — to failing schools. Since 1988, American schools have become increasingly segregated by race, and kids in poor districts perform on average four grade levels behind those in rich districts.
  • we should be able to agree on what doesn’t work: neglect and underinvestment in children.
  • Job training and retraining give people dignity as well as an economic lifeline. Such jobs programs are common in other countries.
  • The United States focused on money, providing extended unemployment benefits. Canada emphasized job retraining, rapidly steering workers into new jobs in fields like health care, and Canadian workers also did not have to worry about losing health insurance.
  • For instance, autoworkers were laid off during the 2008-9 economic crisis both in Detroit and across the Canadian border in nearby Windsor, Ontario.
  • Another successful strategy is investing not just in prisons but also in human capital to keep people out of prisons.
  • Women in Recovery has a recidivism rate after three years of only 4 percent, and consequently has saved Oklahoma $70 million in prison spending, according to the George Kaiser Family Foundation.
  • We need the government to step up and jump-start nationwide programs in early childhood education, job retraining, drug treatment and more.
  • Nicholas Kristof
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