Category Archives: Profiteering

Jimmy Carter’s Call to Action – Women, Religion, Violence and Power – Look to the Stars

“It’s kind of a subtle thing that men enjoy their superiority in getting the best jobs, the best opportunity to go to university and that sort of thing,” says Carter. “Two of the most revered institutions in the United States of America is our university system and our military. Sexual abuse or assaults on campuses in our major universities, like Harvard and Yale and Emery University where I teach, is really horrendous and only four percent of the rapes on college campuses are reported. There are about six times as many reported in civilian life outside of universities, and this is primarily because presidents of colleges and universities and deans and so forth don’t want to bring discredit or a bad reputation on their own institution. So they encourage girls not to report.

“And soon, a few boys on the campus who are students realize that they can commit these crimes with impunity. So they become serial rapists and get away with it. The department of defence found that in the US military alone, 26 thousand sexual assaults took place, and only about 300 actually resulted in anybody being punished. That’s about one percent.

“You see, there’s an aversion to admit what goes on even in our most cherished institutions.”

via Jimmy Carter’s Call to Action – Women, Religion, Violence and Power – Look to the Stars.

Rupert Murdoch paper prints picture of Duchess of Cambridge’s bare bottom | Media | theguardian.com

Sick, sick, sick – Rupert Murdoch paper prints picture of Duchess of Cambridge’s bare bottom

Sydney Daily Telegraph criticises ‘ridiculous’ UK media ban as it follows German tabloid Bild in printing controversial image

Daily Mail follows Bild in racing to the bottom

via Rupert Murdoch paper prints picture of Duchess of Cambridge’s bare bottom | Media | theguardian.com.

Seasonal Agricultural Workers Left Out of Chilean Boom – Inter Press Service | Inter Press Service

Tens of thousands of women employed as seasonal workers in rural areas of Chile suffer high levels of poverty and poor working conditions, even though their labour generates huge profits for agricultural exporters.

In 2013, Chile’s agro-exports amounted to nearly 11.6 billion dollars. But most seasonal workers earned less than the minimum monthly wage of 380 dollars a month.

Chile is ranked by international consultants as one of the world’s 25 fastest-growing countries and the second-fastest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which it joined in 2010 to become the only Latin American member along with Mexico.

And according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), it is the country with the lowest proportion of informal labour in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Nevertheless, there are still casual and seasonal workers employed in precarious conditions, without basic labour rights.

“In Chile there is a large number of workers, and women in particular, suffering precarious working conditions characterised by low wages, a lack of job stability and a lack of legal protections because they are subcontracted or outsourced, etc,” the minister of the National Women’s Service (SERNAM) Claudia Pascual acknowledged.

And the situation is especially bad for women from poor urban neighbourhoods or rural areas, the minister told IPS.

“It’s not the same thing to be a poor woman, a Mapuche, Aymara or Quechua [indigenous] woman, a rural woman, as it is to be a professional,” Pascual added.

The amount of work done by seasonal workers skyrocketed in the 1980s when fruit plantations and exports grew exponentially in Chile.

via Seasonal Agricultural Workers Left Out of Chilean Boom – Inter Press Service | Inter Press Service.

‘WTF’? Republicans and Summer Lunch Programs for kids – City vs Rural | The Last Of The Millenniums

Wait a second.

Wasn’t it just a month ago that the Republican Wonk Wizard Paul Ryan was complaining about the lack of work ethic in urban inner cities?

So now the House Republicans want to cut ALL of the money for summer lunch programs in the cities and instead spend it ONLY in rural areas.

So yeah.

WTF?

What this amounts to is rewarding Republicans who are the majority in rural America while punishing urban voters who are a Democrat majority.

via ‘WTF’? Republicans and Summer Lunch Programs for kids – City vs Rural | The Last Of The Millenniums.

Left Cincinnati, now Leaving Charlotte – Why believe anything he says? Chiquita in talks with government officials about incentives promises after move to Charlotte – Charlotte Business Journal

“We don’t expect anything that we don’t deserve,” Lonergan said during a session after today’s Chiquita shareholders meeting in the NASCAR Plaza building. Otherwise, the company has “over delivered” on promises to bring Chiquita employees to town as a part of the move, Lonergan says. As a part of the deal, the company plans to bring a total of 400 jobs to Charlotte as a part of the relocation.

“We’re committed to the city,” he adds. The North American headquarters for a merged ChiquitaFyffes would remain in Charlotte, including many of the C-level executives, Lonergan says. David McCann, the Fyffes chairman who will become chief executive of the combined, would also have an office in Charlotte but will be based in Dublin, he says.

via Chiquita in talks with government officials about incentives promises after move to Charlotte – Charlotte Business Journal.

A Republican World – ‘Waiting lists at the Veteran’s Administration is a moral outrage; which is why Republicans are willing to block the opening of 27 new clinics until they get new sanctions against Iran’* | The Last Of The Millenniums

A Republican World – ‘Waiting lists at the Veteran’s Administration is a moral outrage; which is why Republicans are willing to block the opening of 27 new clinics until they get new sanctions against Iran’*

via A Republican World – ‘Waiting lists at the Veteran’s Administration is a moral outrage; which is why Republicans are willing to block the opening of 27 new clinics until they get new sanctions against Iran’* | The Last Of The Millenniums.

McDonald’s Has Its Own Employees Arrested In Hamburger University Wage Increase Rally – The Wire

Uber-Throwback Thursday – in 1930’s style union busting move – McDonald’s employees were among the over 100 people arrested for criminal trespass during a protest against the company’s wages.

Anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people showed up to the protest outside the fast food giant’s Hamburger University campus in Illinois, including 325 employees in uniform. They “stormed through the company’s campus entrance,” Bloomberg reports. About 110 of them were arrested, including several employees, by police wearing riot gear. Also arrested was Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which has underwritten the employees’ efforts.

The protest was for increased wages, an issue employees have been trying to organize around (at McDonald’s and other chains) since at least 2012. One employee told Bloomberg that she wanted to earn $15 an hour and be able to join a union. She currently makes $7.50 and is on food stamps (something McDonald’s recommends its employees sign up for). Full-time fast food employees earn a wage of $9.08 an hour and $18,880 a year on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson earned a base salary of nearly $1 million in 2013. His total compensation was worth $13.8 million.

via McDonald’s Has Its Own Employees Arrested In Hamburger University Wage Increase Rally – The Wire.

GM adds 218,000 older small cars to growing recall list | Reuters

{Maybe GM should jut put out a list of which cars and trucks it has sold in the last ten years are safe? Well, maybe not since it would probably be too short a list to bother with?}

Wednesday’s two recalls add to a string this year that covers almost 11.8 million vehicles in the United States, topping the previous full-year high of 10.7 million vehicles that the company recalled in the U.S. market in 2004. It pushes the number of vehicles that GM has recalled globally this year to about 15.6 million.

via GM adds 218,000 older small cars to growing recall list | Reuters.

Stop Making Sense – House GOP: Schools Can Opt Out of Unprofitable Healthy Food Programs

GOP against healthy poor children?

House Republicans are proposing to let some schools opt out of healthier school lunch and breakfast programs if they are losing money.

A GOP spending bill for agriculture and food programs released Monday would allow schools to apply for waivers if they have a net loss on school food programs for six months in a row.

Championed by first lady Michelle Obama, the new standards have been phased in over the last two school years, with more changes coming in 2014. The rules set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on foods in the lunch line and beyond.

via House GOP: Schools Can Opt Out of Unprofitable Healthy Food Programs.

Army surrounds Tamil daily’s headquarters in Jaffna – Reporters Without Borders

No peace, no reconciliation, just more conquest and ethnic oppression – Members of the intelligence services were seen among the soldiers who continued to block the Kannarthiddin Road and Navalar Road access to the newspaper until this morning. Some of the intelligence officers carried guns while others noted who was entering and leaving the newspaper.

The military operation appeared to be a response to Uthayan’s publication yesterday of a supplement entitled “Mullivaikkal Thuyar Malar – May 18,” consisting of poems and accounts by survivors of the Sri Lankan army’s massacre of thousands of Tamil civilians in 2009, in the final stages of the civil war between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

via Army surrounds Tamil daily’s headquarters in Jaffna – Reporters Without Borders.