News
Carbon emissions boom
The latest evaluation of humanity's carbon budget for 2010 released by the IEA was not good. The poor global economy had meant that 2009 had seen a rare drop in CO2 emissions compared to the year before. But in 2010, carbon emissions roared back to set a new record.
South Korea: Hyundai strike hit with police repression
Riot police have broken up a strike and occupation of Yoosung Enterprise factory in Asan, south of Seoul. Around 3000 riot police have attacked 500 strikers staging a sit-in at the factory, which manufactures piston rings for Hyundai, Kia, Renault and General Motors in South Korea. The majority of occupiers have been arrested, with the remaining strikers and their supporters being dispersed by the police.
Possible large scale uk strikes?
More than 250,000 civil servants are to vote on staging a national strike in protest at government cuts to jobs, services and pensions.
The nationwide ballot was approved by delegates at the annual conference of the Public and Commercial Services Union in Brighton.
Voting will start next week and the result will be known by mid-June.
It has been timed to coincide with industrial action by other workers, including teachers, who are set to walk out on June 30.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka told the conference that 750,000 workers could be involved in strikes next month, a figure that could rise to millions later in the year.
Spain - unemployment up
El desempleo en España subió a 21,3% en el primer trimestre de 2011, el mayor nivel en los últimos catorce años. Los datos oficiales demuestran que la inflación también subió en abril a 3,5% desde el 3,3% de marzo. Las cifras reflejan una débil actividad económica y una alta deuda pública.
Unemployment in spain rose to 21.3% in the first quarter of 2011, the highest level in the last 14 years.
Official figures also show inflation rose in April to 3.5% from 3.35 in March.
The figures reflect weak economic activity and a high public debt.
Portuguese Socialist Party spearheads the cuts
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates (s0 caled Socialist Party) has threatened to resign if his minority government's latest austerity plan is rejected by parliament, a defeat that could force Lisbon to seek an international bailout.
The measures, presented on March 11, include further spending cuts and structural reforms aimed at bringing Portugal's budget deficit down to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2011 from around 7 percent last year.
The ruling Socialists (sic) adamantly oppose requesting external help, saying Portugal can solve its own problems through tough austerity measures.
China economic giant to military superpower?
- China will increase military budget by 12,7% en 2011.*Li Zhaoxing said this will take it to US$91.500 millones.The 2010 increase was 7.5%. For the first time it is preparing aircraft carriers and isdevelopping advanced combat aircraft and missiles.According to BBC mundo, many observers think it will be much higher.Japanese say it is worrying.Tense relations between Japan and China over large petrol and gas reserves in China sea.(Brief version of original spanish -bbc.co.uk)
Strikes continue in Egypt despite military threats
Despite threats from Egypt's new military government that the wave of strikes which has swept the country will no longer be tolerated, 15,000 workers at Misr Spinning and Weaving in Al-Mahalla al-Kubra are continuing a strike and sit in.
Tunisia, Egypt, the crisis is everywhere....
LONDON (Reuters) - European shares fell in early trade on Monday, on concern that unrest in Egypt could spread to other parts of the Middle East, and cause oil prices to jump further.
102,289 jobs will be lost at 131 councils across Britain
A union is claiming over 100,000 jobs in local councils are under threat, as the Prime Minister hosts a jobs summit at Downing YAHOONEWSGLOBALS.financeQuotesURL = 'uk.api.news.yahoo.com-';
The GMB union says 102,289 jobs will be lost at 131 councils across Britain.
It says that in nearly all those councils a 90 day consultation period is underway on how to deal with the losses.
Cuban Commpitalism
Pivotal to the changes is cutting more than a million government jobs, or 20 percent of Cuba's entire work force, over the next three years -- including 22,000 jobs in the health sector. Castro said 500,000 jobs would have to go by March 31 of this year.
The first culling of so-called "bloated payrolls" dragging down the Cuban economy began Tuesday in the sugar, farming, construction, health and tourism sectors, as announced by Salvador Valdes, the head of Cuba's only labor union CTC.
"We're not nervous, but certainly worried. It's not something you can just ignore... nobody knows who it's going to touch," said Yanelys Coello, a cashier at the El Escorial cafe, in Havana's historical center, where nobody so far has been fired.
Welfare cuts + unemployment ... 2+2 = 5?
Pay as you don't earn
The Tories' ambition to lower the welfare bill by 6% is almost certainly going to be undermined by their determination to sack 600,000 public sector workers. Roughly six million households in the UK have a primary or secondary breadwinner employed by the state - you do the math (because I can't.) Either way, George Osborne's sums don't seem to add up. Either pay people to work - they pay tax and have a life - or you end up paying them to sit about indoors eating family-sized bags of crisps on their own and watching Jeremy Kyle.
Jim Crow
More African Americans are under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. As of 2004 more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race. During the Jim Crow era, African Americans were denied the right to vote through poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, felon disenfranchisement laws have accomplished what poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not. Prisoners are excluded from poverty and unemployment statistics, thus masking the severity of black disadvantage. But if you take them into account, then more than half of working-age African American men in major urban areas have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. In fact, in Chicago -- if you take into account prisoners -- nearly 80 percent of working age African American men have criminal records.
Great Britain is 'worst place to live in Europe'
Research by uSwitch has revealed that high living costs, below average government spending on health and education, lack of holidays and late retirement have contributed to a bleak picture for Brits. To make matters worse, the UK no longer enjoys the highest net household income in the continent. Last year it was £10,000 above the European average, whereas now it is just £2,314 ahead, slipping below Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark.Britons in search of quality of life might want to move to France, as it held on to the top spot in the index for the second year in succession.Spain came second, while Denmark, Poland and Germany helped to make up the top five spots, with all these countries offering more days of holiday and a lower retirement age than the UK and Ireland.Recently, a study by Aviva and accountants Deloitte found that the UK has the biggest pension gap in Europe, with Britons needing to increase the amount they save each year to have a good retirement income.
UK - low wages, inequality
More than five million people in the UK earn less than a low pay threshold, highlighting the huge level of wage inequality in the country, according to a new report. The study showed that 5.3 million people - more than a fifth of all employees - fall below a low pay threshold put at £6.75 an hour for a single person, almost £1 more than the national minimum wage of £5.80.The number of people falling below the threshold is one of the highest in Europe, hitting the economy and fuelling wage inequality, said the report.Since 1997, the poorest 10% of households have seen their weekly incomes fall by £9 a week and as real wages have fallen, the gap between what workers earned and what they needed had been increasingly filled by debt, said the report.
End of the line for Cuban "Communism"
A million jobs could be axed in Cuba in the biggest shake-up of the country's economic system since the 1959 revolution.
The communist nation's perilous finances has led to the eye-watering public sector cuts which will fundamentally change its 5.1million-strong workforce.
Officials have laid out plans to slash 500,000 jobs by the end of next year, but the eventual figure could exceed one million.
They want private business to take on more employees as rules on non-state-run enterprise are relaxed.
It is the latest sign of the weakening of the communist state's economy, after Fidel Castro admitted its model was not working and that the 1962 Missile Crisis was a mistake.
Read more: dailymail.co.uk
USA - poverty
In a further setback to U.S. President Barack Obama's economic plans, new figures are set to show one in seven Americans is now living in poverty.
The increase in the number of people living below the poverty line is the sharpest since 1959, a new census will reveal.
The figures represent around 45 million people, out of population of 307 million, living in poverty and the situation is expected to get worse with the overall poverty rate potentially rising to 15 per cent.
One in five American children have fallen below the poverty line as America continues to struggle to recover from the recent global recession
Read more: dailymail.co.uk
drugs czar
The UN's prohibitionist drugs czar, Antonio Maria Costa, comfortably ensconced in Vienna, holds that cannabis is as harmful as heroin and cocaine, and wants to deny individual governments freedom over their drug policies. In eight years in office he has disastrously protected the drug cartels and their profits by refusing to countenance drug legalisation. He even suggested recently that the estimated $352bn generated by drug lords in 2008-09 helped save the world banking system from collapse. It is hard to know whose side he is on.
Castro admits Cuban model a failure
The ex president of Cuba Fidel Castro said in an interview given to a US journalist that the Cuban model "no longer works".
He said it was not fit to export to other countries nor did it work in Cuba.
Another nail in the coffin of Stalinism.
What is a job? Ever seen one?
Almost four million UK households have no adults in work after a huge increase over the past year. The Government said the fact that no one worked in almost one out of five households was a "shocking reflection" of the scale of the problem it had inherited.
A report also showed that 1.9 million children lived in workless households.
The ONS said there were a total of 3.9 million UK households where no adults worked, an increase of 148,000 on last year.
The North East has the highest percentage of workless households at one-in-four, followed by inner London and Wales at 22.9%.
The report showed that lone parent households with dependent children had the highest percentage of workless households at 39.7%, followed by one-person households at 36.8%
War against Iran? - Tony Blair
IRAN AND THE BOMB: 'It is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability. We've got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily'
On Wednesday night, he was attending a banquet before the first face-to-face talks between Israel and Palestinian leadmoreers, which start tomorrow in Washington.
His statements will strengthen the case of Israeli and U.S. hard-liners who believe an air strike against Iran will be necessary during the next year. Read more: dailymail.co.uk
Imperialist rivalry heating up
In its annual report to Congress on China's military, the Defense Department said that the People's Liberation Army is advancing across the board commensurate with China's burgeoning economic power. Coincidentally, the report was issued a day after China's economy was recognized as the world's second biggest, eclipsing Japan's in size during the second quarter of this year.
China broke off most military ties with the United States this year after the Obama administration approved the sale of $6.4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan. Since then, high-ranking Chinese military officers have lambasted the United States and its policies in Asia in unusually harsh language.
Extracts from washingtonpost.com
Tony Blair - man of the people
The Mail on Sunday newspaper claimed the former Labour prime minister's team of bodyguards cost the taxpayer more than £250,000 per year on expenses alone.
An investigation by the paper revealed details on the cost of providing round-the-clock protection for Mr Blair as he took holidays and international business trips.
The paper reveals claims of more than £1,200-a-night for accommodation in hotels, limousine hire and thousands of pounds in cash for overseas trips.
The investigation lists a series of holidays including a two-week break Blair took in Borneo, where officers ran up a bill of more than £20,000
Greece: metro strike
Metro workers in Athens have decided to strike for a third continuing day in response to the lay-off threat to 286 colleagues last week. Meanwhile the Greek government is unveiling labour relations sweeping changes.
Chinese Honda workers threaten more strikes
Honda Motor Co employees in China on Thursday threatened another strike over a salary dispute. The staff temporarily returned to work on Wednesday at the plant in Foshan, southern China, after a strike that had halted Honda production in the country.
Cut backs and fight backs - Spain
Spain's civil servants have gone on strike to protest at salary cuts as part of a plan to rein in a ballooning public deficit that has rattled global financial markets.
Unions for more than two million public workers, ranging from doctors to street cleaners, called the strike after plans to save another 15bn euros (£12bn) were unveiled
The austerity measures - intended to avoid an international rescue package like the one provided to Greece - include average cuts this year to public workers' salaries of 5%.
They are on top of 50bn euro cuts in January designed to slash the public deficit from 11.2% last year - the third largest in the eurozone behind Greece and Ireland.
Protesters attempt to storm Irish parliament
Protesters angry at Ireland's multi-billion efforts to bail out its banks have tried to storm the entrance of the Irish parliament and several have been injured in scuffles with police.
Mexico - military training for drug cartels
The Mexican Ministry of defense says over 100 000 soldiers have deserted from the army in recent years.
They do not know how many have joined the drug gangs.
Gangs like the Zetas, who began when between 31-67 soldiers from the Army special Forces joined the Gulf Cartel, offer well paid employment to the soldiers asigned to the US-Mexica border.
Deaths related to the drugs trade are officially recorded at over 22 700 since December 06 when the current President Felipe Calderon came to power.
Algeria: Wildcat General Strike Paralyzes Ports, Auto, Steel Plants
A massive wildcat general strike of nearly 20,000 auto, steel, port and public health workers is in its twelth day and is spreading across Algeria, amid repeated pitched battles with thousands of cops and security forces. Workers are also defying the ban on public rallies and demonstrations, stemming from a “state of emergency” declared by the government in the early 1990s. Strikers are demanding a wage hike and changes in the minimum wage and tax laws. They’re also denouncing the sweetheart deal signed by their unions which raises the retirement age from 50 to 60 for workers doing difficult and dangerous work, some of whom began working at age 17.
Unemployment in UK
Thousands of jobs losses were announced by UK companies today, underscoring fears that British households will continue to suffer the repercussions of the recession for years to come.
Global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca unveiled plans to cut another 8,000 jobs on top of the 15,000 already announced, but would not say how many will go in the UK. At the same time, the home retail group Shop Direct outlined plans to cut 1,500 jobs in Sunderland, Burnley and Newtown in mid-Wales and carmaker Toyota aims to axe up to 750 jobs at its main UK factory.
The news of thousands of job losses follows a stark warning from a group of labour market experts earlier this month that unemployment may continue to rise for years after the recession ends.
Unequal Britain: richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest
The gap between Britain's richest and poorest is wider than ever before, according to the Hills report.
A detailed and startling analysis of how unequal Britain has become offers a snapshot of an increasingly divided nation where the richest 10% of the population are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10% of society.
The new findings show that the household wealth of the top 10% of the population stands at £853,000 and more – over 100 times higher than the wealth of the poorest 10%, which is £8,800 or below (a sum including cars and other possessions).
When the highest-paid workers, such as bankers and chief executives, are put into the equation, the division in wealth is even more stark, with individuals in the top 1% of the population each possessing total household wealth of £2.6m or more
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