British labor unions on Thursday agreed to support a boycott of some Israeli goods in response to the offensive in Gaza last winter.
The boycott, proposed by the Fire Brigades Union, calls for a ban on importing goods produced in some Israeli settlements, an end of arms trading with Israel and disinvestment from some companies.
Interview with Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch. Broadcasts from Beirut VIII.
Photo: Airport in Middle East. Interview produced by Lillian Boctor.
In Lebanon, between 150,000 to 300,000 women work as migrant domestic workers, with approximately 100,000 having legal status in the country. In August 2008, Human Rights Watch released a report covering the period of January 1, 2007 to August 15, 2008 revealing migrant domestic workers had extremely high death tolls due to unnatural causes.
Migrant domestic workers experience harsh working conditions and consistent workplace abuse, and currently many migrant domestic workers can be found sleeping under cars or on the ground surrounding their respective countries’ embassies in Lebanon, searching for assistance for their situations. Nadim Houry is the senior researcher at Human Rights Watch covering Lebanon and Lillian Boctor from Tadamon spoke with Houry about the situation.
An interview with author Mike Davis.
Dubai is famed internationally for lifestyles and modern monuments etched by extreme wealth, a city state in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that has become an unlikely hub for international finance. In a region bombarded by the chaos of the U.S.-driven ‘war on terror’, Dubai a small city state located on the edge of Iran and Iraq has become a city of glamor and glitz, a striking paradox that has enchanted many around the world.
Dubai’s shining exterior is quickly becoming world famous, including a series of three-hundred constructed islands mapping out the shape of world, an indoor ski mountain in the boiling temperatures of the Persian Gulf and the soon to be completed Burj Dubai, now the tallest man made structure in the world.
La Presse. Jooneed Khan.
Photo: la bande de Gaza.
Les Palestiniens, qui subissent les privations quotidiennes dues au siège de l’armée israélienne, sont très durement frappés par la flambée des prix des aliments, qu’ils doivent importer en grande partie.
C’est ce qu’a indiqué le syndicaliste Manawell Abdul-Al, dirigeant de la Fédération générale des syndicats palestiniens (FGSP), hier à La Presse.
Middle East Times by John Zarocostas.
Photo: Israeli military demolishing Palestinian homes in Gaza.
Geneva: The economic and social situation of workers in the occupied Palestinian territories has deteriorated alarmingly, with the Gaza Strip the most severely affected, according to an International Labor Organization report published Thursday.
Haaretz. April 20th, 2008.
Photo: Egypt/’Israel’ border.
Egyptian police shot and wounded two Africans, from Mali and Kenya, who tried to slip over Egypt’s desert frontier into Israel on Sunday, security sources said.
Escalating police violence at the Egypt-Israel border has left 11 would-be infiltrators dead since the start of the year, while scores of others, mostly from Africa, have been detained. Police killed an Eritrean migrant at the border on Thursday.
Daily Star by By Anthony Elghossain. Saturday, April 5th, 2008
BEIRUT: Nearly 300 people have been killed or injured in South Lebanon by unexploded ordnance dropped by Israel just before the cease-fire that halted the 2006 summer war, and more than half of the areas originally contaminated by cluster bomblets have yet to be fully cleared, according to the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center for Southern Lebanon (MACC).
The results of a new MACC overview of its functions in Lebanon were released to the public Friday in order to mark, in part, International Mine Action Day. MACC field officer Dalia Farran discussed the results of the study, noting that “since the 2006 [summer war] cease-fire, 965 locations contaminated by unexploded ordnances have been identified throughout the 39 million square meters that constitute South Lebanon.”
New York Times. By Jason DeParle, August 6, 2007
About 1.2 million migrant workers, many of them South Asian,
build the towers that dot Dubai’s skyline.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — They still wake before dawn in desert dormitories that pack a dozen men or more to a room. They still pour concrete and tie steel rods in temperatures that top 110 degrees. They still spend years away from families in India and Pakistan to earn about $1 an hour. They remain bonded to employers under terms that critics liken to indentured servitude.
But construction workers, a million strong here and famously mistreated, have won some humble victories.
Palestinian women stopped at Qalandia checkpoint on their way to work.
Original copy of the declaration and report from the press conference available from, the Stop the Wall Campaign, Palestine .
Today, 11th of February 2007, we, the Palestinian labour federations, vocational and professional trade unions, and the grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, have convened a press conference to announce a call for solidarity with our workers and the Palestinian people endorsed by the General Union of Palestinian Workers, Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, the Coalition of Independent Democratic Trade Unions and other professional unions.
This call addresses the Arab and International Trade Unions and, in particular, the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, the Arab League, the Arab Labour Organization, the International Labour Organization, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Organization of African Trade Union Unity, the Palestinian people and the international community.
We call upon all the above to:
* Boycott and divest from Israel;
* Work towards sanctions upon Israel. (more…)
