Six In The Morning

Two years after the earthquake, Haiti is trying to clear tent cities



By William Booth, Monday, February 20, 11:29 AM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — International aid worker Emmett Fitz­gerald has to get 20,000 very poor people squatting in front of the National Palace to pack up their tarps and tin, their plastic buckets and soiled mats — to empty the most notorious camp in Haiti and go home. There is not enough money, there is not enough time to build the cities of tomorrow in Haiti today. So the 4,641 families that have been living for the past two years in the Champ de Mars park in downtown Port-au-Prince will be given $500 to return to the kind of desperate housing they lived in before the earthquake. In Haiti, that is considered good news.

Foxconn lifts wages for workers 25% as Apple lets ABC News into plants
Pay rise for staff comes as company says it will limit workers' hours at huge plants where products are assembled for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Hewlett-Packard

Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 February 2012 07.23 GMT
Foxconn, the Taiwan-owned manufacturer with giant assembly facilities in mainland China which is one of Apple's main contractors, says it has raised wages by up to 25% in the second major salary hike in less than two years. As the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, it has come under intensive scrutiny after a spate of suicides last year and reports of long hours for the hundreds of thousands of staff. Its facilities are scheduled for inspection by a team from the US Fair Labor Association, at the prompting of Apple.

France and Germany 'to blame for Greece crisis'
Countries encouraged profligate spending on arms that Athens could not afford, say critics

Athens Monday 20 February 2012
As Greeks wait for a second eurozone rescue package to finally be agreed in Brussels today, many are blaming Germany and France for encouraging and benefiting from some of the much-criticised profligate spending which reduced Greece to near bankruptcy. About 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the Greek Parliament in central Athens yesterday afternoon while riot police waited to see if there would be a fresh confrontation. But in general, Greeks are resigned to the new package of austerity measures that will cut jobs in public service and slash pensions and the minimum wage.

China's promise of easier living herds Tibetan nomads into jobless penury


Philip Wen February 20, 2012
LOSANG, a dark, stocky man, with wavy, jet-black hair, is known as the happiest man in his village. It is easy to see why; the former nomad cackles with infectious laughter even when telling of his own misfortune. Chinese authorities told him that if he gave up herding yaks and sheep in exchange for a house in a Tibetan nomad resettlement camp, he could buy a car, open a business and get government support. He now has the house - two rooms, each about three metres across and four metres long - but not much else. ''We were happy to move, but now there is nothing,'' Losang, 46, says, laughing loudly.

Senegal protesters and police clash just before vote
Senegalese riot police fired volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets at stone-throwing demonstrators after prayers at a mosque in Dakar on Sunday

DAKAR, SENEGAL
Rescue workers took away one man who was unconscious after being hit by a rubber bullet, an Agence France-Presse journalist witnessed. It was the latest violence in days of urban clashes between police and protesters trying to defy a ban and hold demonstrations against 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade's plan to run for a third term in office. Sunday's clashes erupted outside a mosque, which demonstrators said had been "profaned" when it was hit by tear gas grenades thrown by a police officer on Friday.

S Korea holds military drills despite North's threats
South Korea has held live fire military drills from islands near disputed sea borders with the North, despite threats of retaliation from Pyongyang.

20 February 2012
The drills, which North Korea has called "premeditated military provocation", lasted two hours. There was no reported action from the North, which warned on Sunday that it would retaliate for any attacks. The drills took place in an area where four South Koreans were killed in 2010 in a North Korean artillery attack. Two civilians and two military personnel died in the November attack on Yeonpyeong Island, which lies west of the Korean Peninsula close to the disputed maritime border.