Daily Archives: October 20, 2015

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Nigeria: At last a cabinet, and now for the policies

Africa Confidential

After balancing political interests and restructuring ministries, the most urgent issue facing President Buhari is economic strategy

At his self-imposed eleventh hour, President Muhammadu Buhari submitted his list of 21 ministerial nominees to the Senate on 30 September. On 8 October, the Senate was to start vetting the names but it will not know the portfolios that Buhari intends to give to his nominees. That means that most of the questions will be about personal integrity and political loyalties rather the technical competence required in a specific portfolio (AC Vol 56 No 9, APC to lead with a leaner team).

The list is the outcome of a tricky political balancing act which has taken far too long – he was inaugurated on 29 May – but has at least succeeded in not alienating critical constituencies in the political and business worlds. In addition to the complexity of mediating among and sifting through the myriad interest groups which descended on Abuja to press their claims to run ministries, Buhari has been trying to restructure the government at the same time. Not only does he want a leaner government – the 21 nominees are likely to be the substantive ministers and the next 15, so far unnamed, will be the deputy or state ministers – he also wants to cut the ministers’ scope for patronage. Continue reading Nigeria: At last a cabinet, and now for the policies →

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Renewable s Can Create Jobs and Heal the Planet: Report

Common Dreams

“The Clean Energy Future represents a pathway away from climate destruction…. Should we let greed and inertia prevent us from taking it?’

A clean energy future is possible. (Photo: Labor Network for Sustainability)
A clean energy future is possible. (Photo: Labor Network for Sustainability)

The U.S. can reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050, while creating half a million jobs a year and lowering energy costs for consumers, simply by limiting use of fossil fuels and allowing the renewable sector continue to grow at its current pace, according to a new report published this week.

The report, The Clean Energy Future: Protecting the Climate, Creating Jobs and Saving Money (pdf), refutes claims that meeting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions would take a toll on the economy and introduces an energy platform that would:
• Transform the electric system, cutting coal-fired power in half by 2030 and eliminating it by 2050; building no new nuclear plants; and reducing the use of natural gas far below business-as-usual levels. Continue reading Renewable s Can Create Jobs and Heal the Planet: Report →

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I’m a sex trafficking survivor. America’s laws won’t let me leave my past behind

The Guardian

Sex work criminalization means potential employers and landlords treat me as a person who was arrested for prostitution, not a survivor

Photograph: Alamy
Photograph: Alamy

I am a survivor of sex trafficking in America. I’m also a former sex worker. Because of the latter and despite the former, the legal system views me more as a prostitute who deserves to be punished than a victim in need of assistance. And, until we decriminalize sex work, it always will.

Criminalization contributes to our inability to exit sex work or end trafficking, rather than helps us. Whether sex workers or sex trafficking victims, thousands of women and men are arrested on charges of prostitution, trespassing, curfew violations and all sorts of crimes, limiting our ability to support ourselves in less dangerous or stigmatized ways when we so choose.

We are, instead, pushed underground, where we are forced to engage with pimps for protection because the police don’t protect us. Many of us want a different life, but don’t know a way out, while others have decided this is our path in life. None of us deserve abuse or arrest; we should have the right to decide how to use our bodies, and we don’t need more abuse and fear when we’re already on the streets in what is inherently a violent industry. Continue reading I’m a sex trafficking survivor. America’s laws won’t let me leave my past behind →

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Son of Immigrants Provides Hopeful Message on Immigration

Pope Francis’ Visit to U.S.

Just South Monthly

Photo Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Photo Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

After the “Summer of Trump,” when the immigration debate reached new lows for rancor and resentment, Pope Francis’ remarks on immigration during his six day visit last month to the U.S. were a welcomed call to compassion and solidarity.

He began his first speech in the United States, held at the White House on Wednesday morning, September 23, by immediately identifying himself with our nation’s immigrant past: “As the son of an immigrant family I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families,” adding that, “American Catholics are committed to building a society which is truly tolerant and inclusive, to safeguarding the rights of individuals and communities, and to rejecting every form of unjust discrimination.”

During the motorcade on Constitution Avenue following his White House visit the pope was reminded how urgent the need for a just resolution to our nation’s immigration crisis is to millions of American families. Seeing a five-year-old girl trying to get his attention, he waved her over. When she was lifted up to receive his kiss, Sophie Cruz handed the pontiff a letter she had written asking him to urge the President and Congress to pass immigration reform so her undocumented parents could remain in the U.S. Continue reading Son of Immigrants Provides Hopeful Message on Immigration →

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Lord Alton: ‘Syria and Iraq – a genocide that dares not speak its name’

Independent Catholic News

This genocide – which was named as such by Pope Francis – but which western political leaders refuse to speak its name – is part of a wider picture.

Lord Alton of Liverpool gave the following statement at a meeting held in the House of Lords on October 13th 2015, organized by the charity Aid to the Church In Need for the launch of Persecuted and Forgotten – a Report on Christians Oppressed for their faith. The full text follows:

Syria and Iraq “a genocide that dares not speak its name.”

Masking itself in the cover of conflict, and no doubt fortified by the world’s silence, in Syria and Iraq a genocide of Christians is underway.

With its echoes of the genocide launched against Armenian Christians one hundred years ago, in 1915, other defenseless ethnic-religious minorities, such as the Yazidis, are also victims of this Islamist genocide. Continue reading Lord Alton: ‘Syria and Iraq – a genocide that dares not speak its name’ →

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‘Out of Control’ Inequality: Global One Percent Owns Half of World’s Wealth

Common Dreams

The Credit Suisse report shows worldwide inequality growing even faster than experts had predicted

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

Credit Suisse estimates that the number of global millionaires will probably increase 46 percent to 49.3 million over the next five years. (Photo: epSos.de/flickr/cc)
Credit Suisse estimates that the number of global millionaires will probably increase 46 percent to 49.3 million over the next five years. (Photo: epSos.de/flickr/cc)

The top one percent of households “account for half of all assets in the world,” according to a new report from a leading multinational bank.

The 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report puts worldwide wealth inequality at a level “possibly not seen for almost a century,” the researchers write. The data also reveals a declining middle class and that the poorest half of the world’s population owns just one percent of its assets. Meanwhile, the number of “ultra-wealthy” people continues to climb.

Credit Suisse’s analysis is in line with a warning from the international humanitarian group Oxfam, issued earlier this year, that the richest one percent of people on the planet would own at least half of the world’s wealth by 2016.
“The ‘trickle up’ economic model is working its magic for the super rich at the expense of the rest.”
—Claire Godfrey, Oxfam Continue reading ‘Out of Control’ Inequality: Global One Percent Owns Half of World’s Wealth →

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Teen sex workers rescued by FBI in pan-US operation

BBC

An officer with the Alexandria, Virginia, Police Department monitors an undercover sting operation in a hotel room during Operation Cross Country.Image copyrightFBI
An officer with the Alexandria, Virginia, Police Department monitors an undercover sting operation in a hotel room during Operation Cross Country.Image copyrightFBI

The FBI has broken up several sex trafficking rings across the US, uncovering more than 100 sexually exploited teenagers in a nationwide operation.

Agents arrested more than 150 people on sex-trafficking charges in dozens of cities including Atlanta, Denver and Seattle.

The youngest victim found was 12 years old, the FBI said.

The FBI targeted hotels, casinos and lorry stops to find underage victims.

The majority of the teens found were girls. Agents also found three boys and three transgender teens.

The FBI worked with local police departments and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help the teenage victims to find shelter and get medical attention.

The agencies want to ensure the teenagers do not return to prostitution.
“When kids are treated as a commodity in seedy hotels and on dark roadsides, we must rescue them from their nightmare and severely punish those responsible for that horror,” FBI Director James Comey said in a statement.

The raids involved about 500 local police departments from across the country. A similar FBI-led campaign carried out last year uncovered about 160 teenagers working as prostitutes.

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The Problem with Saving the World

Jacobin Magazine

The UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals aim to save the world without transforming it.

by Jason Hickel

Land cleared for palm oil plantations in Tasmania. Mattias Klum
Land cleared for palm oil plantations in Tasmania. Mattias Klum

The United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are about to replace the previous Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), are getting a lot of hate these days.

The Economist recently called the 169 proposed targets “sprawling and misconceived,” “unfeasible expensive” at $2–3 trillion per year, and so unlikely to be realized that they amount to “worse than useless” — “a betrayal of the world’s poorest people.” An article in the Humanosphere reports that the SDGs were ridiculed as “No targets left behind” during a high-profile meeting of Gates Foundation partners. One development expert I know likens the SDGs to “a high school wish-list for how to save the world.”

These critics accuse the SDGs of being vague and inspirational, and of trying to cover too much ground; they prefer the old MDGs, which were more focused on absolute poverty. Continue reading The Problem with Saving the World →

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Farrakhan ‘Justice or Else’ rally reaches beyond ‘Black Lives Matter’

National Catholic Reporter

Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service

Attendees are led in prayer at a rally convened by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and billed as “Justice or Else” to mark the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March on the National Mall in Washington, Oct. 10, 2015. The original Million Man March took place on Oct. 16, 1995. (Reuters/James Lawler Duggan)
Attendees are led in prayer at a rally convened by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and billed as “Justice or Else” to mark the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March on the National Mall in Washington, Oct. 10, 2015. The original Million Man March took place on Oct. 16, 1995. (Reuters/James Lawler Duggan)

WASHINGTON Facing throngs of people on the National Mall, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan called for justice Saturday, Oct. 10, as he rallied African-Americans, Latinos and others during an anniversary protest at the U.S. Capitol.

In a speech that lasted more than two hours, Farrakhan said the United States was hypocritical for insisting other nations were violating human rights, all the while describing its own misconduct as something that causes Americans “dissatisfaction.”

His “Justice or Else!” event came 20 years after hundreds of thousands of black men came to the same stretch of lawn between the Capitol and the Washington Monument to rededicate themselves to being better fathers, sons and citizens.

Farrakhan’s remarks were preceded by supporters of the “Black Lives Matter” movement along with Latino, Native American and Palestinian activists who took turns at the microphone urging better treatment.

The sunny fall day brought out hundreds of thousands, according to organizers, though no official estimates were available. The crowd was predominantly black, ranging from millennials in “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts to Nation of Islam adherents with women in brown headpieces and matching garments. Continue reading Farrakhan ‘Justice or Else’ rally reaches beyond ‘Black Lives Matter’ →

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South Africa’s sick miners take gold mines to court

Deutche Wella

South Africa has always been known for its lucrative gold mines. In the process Johannesburg even became known as the City of Gold. But not all that glitters is gold, as miners have found out at a cost.
South Africa has always been known for its lucrative gold mines. In the process Johannesburg even became known as the City of Gold. But not all that glitters is gold, as miners have found out at a cost.

The case of South African current and ex-mine workers who contracted tuberculosis (TB) and silicosis–a degenerative lung disease linked to exposure to silica dust in gold mines–working in the country’s gold mines, resumed at the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Monday. The case was first filled in 2012. 56 of the estimated 100,000 miners are persuading the court to allow them to institute a class action lawsuit against 32 gold mining companies. On Monday, legal representatives of the miners addressed the court, while those representing the gold mines will state their after the 14th of October.

Mining came at a huge cost for mine workers. Over the years, 100,000 of them contracted silicosis, TB and other respiratory diseases. Miners in South Africa are said to have the highest rates of TB infection in the world, ranging between 3,000 and 7,000 per 100,000 people. This is four and seven times higher than the general population of South Africa, the country with the second highest TB rates in the world. Continue reading South Africa’s sick miners take gold mines to court →