There is a growing trend of Roma segregation in the Eastern European country of Slovakia, despite a landmark ruling last September that forced a junior-elementary school to integrate its students.
Category Archives: human rights
Wehrmacht Veterans Created a Secret Army in West Germany – SPIEGEL ONLINE
Newly discovered documents show that in the years after World War II, former members of the Nazi Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS formed a secret army to protect the country from the Soviets. The illegal project could have sparked a major scandal at the time.
via Wehrmacht Veterans Created a Secret Army in West Germany – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Chrissie Hynde’s ‘You or No One’ Video on Vimeo
Watch the music video for Chrissie Hynde’s “You or No One,” inspired by the love between people and dogs.
Gary Walkowicz for UAW President 2014 – Statement
At the UAW Convention in June 2014, I Will Run for President
Gary Walkowicz:
Bargaining Committeeman and Convention Delegate
Dearborn Truck Plant, Local 600
When I ran for delegate to the UAW Convention, I said that I believe the top leadership of the UAW has been taking the union in the wrong direction. I said that, if elected, I would speak out against their policies.
At the UAW Constitutional Convention in June, I intend to run for UAW President because I believe it is the best way to draw attention to the issues that people in the Dearborn Truck Plant, and other UAW members, are concerned with. I will run for President because it is the best way to speak for a different policy.
When the recent concessions began in 2005, the UAW leadership said that giving up concessions would save jobs. But in 2005, we had 598,000 UAW members. Today, we have 370,000. We gave up concessions and LOST over 200,000 jobs. And the answer of the leadership to this loss of jobs is to increase our union dues!
When the concessions began, the UAW leadership said that autoworkers should sacrifice until the corporations were more profitable and then we would get everything back. But when the auto companies got back their high profits, what did the autoworkers get?
- Seniority workers have not had a raise in 9 years and had one raise in the last 12 years.
- Entry-level workers, working for 2nd tier wages and 2nd tier benefits, face a worse-off future than their parents. Despite promises, not a single entry-level worker has been brought up to 1st tier wages. And UAW workers doing outsourced work get paid 3rd tier wages.
- With alternative work schedules, reduced break time and increased workloads, our bodies and our health are paying the price.
- Retirees face an increasingly worse off future, having to pay more and more out of pocket for their health care, due to an under-funded VEBA.
These concessions are a result of the “partnership” our top leadership forged with the corporations. We shouldn’t be “partners” with corporations who keep taking from us.
It is going to take a fight to get back the concessions we have lost!
I don’t know how things will be at the Convention. I don’t know how many delegates will be willing to speak up and say what they really think. I don’t how many votes I will get from the delegates. But I am going to run for President in order to speak for all the UAW members whose voices are usually not heard. I am going to run for President to say that what the UAW has been doing is not working and that the UAW needs to make a fight.
Gary Walkowicz
Bargaining Committeeman and Convention Delegate
Dearborn Truck Plant, Local 600
Gwalk32@att.net (313) 737-3166
May 12, 2014 labor donated
Sharp rise in French Jews leaving for Israel | Maan News Agency
Kandel told AFP that the reasons for the hike in numbers were a “climate of anti-Semitism” and the prevailing gloomy economic situation in France.
France’s Jewish community is one of the largest in Europe and pegged at around 500,000.
The number of French Jews leaving for Israel has been growing steadily. A total of 1,907 left in 2012 and it rose to 3,280 in 2013.
More than three million people have emigrated to Israel since 1948, including some 90,000 from France.
via Sharp rise in French Jews leaving for Israel | Maan News Agency.
More Lebanese women are choosing to emigrate – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
The excuse about “maintaining the reputation” has fallen. A newly graduated Lebanese woman faces great difficulties finding a job in Lebanon that provides her with a minimum salary. The excuse about the risks in a foreign country has also fallen, at a time when females face difficult challenges in a country where employment discrimination still exists between males and females.
If what people say annoys some parents who are trying to prevent their daughters from traveling, the difficult reality has made what people say not matter much. A Lebanese woman finds herself facing two choices: either to stay in Lebanon surrounded by her parents but often without work, or to take the harder choice and emigrate to a place that may appreciate her talents and capabilities and where she could gain the social and economic status she aspires to.
Unlike the traditional reasons for emigrating, such as following her husband, Lebanese women are emigrating to start their careers. Thus they leave Lebanon alone, in search of an alternative homeland that allows them to achieve their ambitions without worrying about social or employment discrimination.
via More Lebanese women are choosing to emigrate – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.
Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Don’t Hit Me Anymore
Don’t hit me anymore—I am your mother.
Untie the knot of violence;
leave the ancient custom behind.
Don’t hit me anymore—I am your sister.
My heart is soft, kind, like a kingdom.
Don’t hit me anymore—I am your wife.
Do not drag me in the soil.
Why do you blind me, spite me?
Can’t you see my wisdom?
Thirty years of war have hurt us.
You blame me.
Don’t hit me anymore—I am your daughter.
Can’t you, with your red eyes and angry face,
see my pain?
Don’t hit me anymore—I am your life partner.
Blind man, you can’t see anything.
Don’t hit me anymore—I am your mirror,
your success, your movement forward.
All your achievements are related to me.
When you cry, I wipe your tears.
When you fall, I lift you up.
Simple Man, you are a bird.
Your small eyes cannot see my strengths.
You would fly far away, not knowing
I am your wings.
Fighter man, don’t hit me anymore,
I am your crown,
the secret to your success.
This is your violence, Talib,
but you cannot take the right to my rights
because I am a woman—
the Mother of a Nation.
By Nelab
Photo: Nick Rain
Are You There, God? | Rebelle Society
Allow me to see Your hand in the face of all I meet today. As I lose faith in myself and this path, You as well as others — as we know damn well, God, I’m bound to do at least a few times today — please wrap me in Your compassion and remind me that all I must do is let myself be breathed.
Bundy Supporters Drove ATVs Through Native American Ruins – The Wire
Anti-Native American and Anti-Brains!
Both the BLM and the sheriff’s department came to the rally, but whatever skirmishes the ATV riders were anticipating/hoping for didn’t come to pass. The BLM simply recorded the proceedings to prosecute offenders later. The sheriff’s deputies said they were only there to keep the peace, and any punishment would have to come from the BLM, since “they’re the ones that closed the road.” Thanks, deputies.
Lyman won’t have to worry about any federal repercussions, as he ultimately did not drive on the trail. Bundy did ride on the illegal trail, but I guess he doesn’t think there will be consequences for his actions for some reason.
A Navajo Warrior ceremony for returning veterans was scheduled for the area that weekend, but the rally forced organizers to reschedule it for October. So the rally was a slap in the face of Native Americans from the past and the present.
“Damage to archaeological sites is permanent and the information about our collective past is then lost forever,” said Jerry Spangler, director of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance. “It is sad that irreplaceable treasures of importance to all Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of anti-government fervor. It is worse that protesters would be so blinded to their own insensitivity as to what others consider to be sacred treasures of their past.”
via Bundy Supporters Drove ATVs Through Native American Ruins – The Wire.
Long jail terms for three bloggers – Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the long jail terms that three Saudi cyber-activists received this week.
Blogger and human rights activist Raef Badawi’s sentence for “insulting Islam” was increased by a Jeddah criminal court on appeal on 7 May to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of 1 million riyals (200,000 euros).
“The severity of the sentence is shocking,” said Reporters Without Borders research director Lucie Morillon. “We urge the authorities to release Badawi and to quash his conviction, which is emblematic of the way freedom of expression and information are suppressed in Saudi Arabia.
via Long jail terms for three bloggers – Reporters Without Borders.







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