Six In The Morning Sunday December 22

Conditions for Abu Dhabi's migrant workers 'shame the west'

Calls for urgent labour reform after Observer reveals construction workers face destitution, internment and deportation

• David Batty
• The Observer, Sunday 22 December 2013

Trade unions, human rights activists and politicians have called for urgent labour reforms to protect the thousands of migrant workers building a complex of five-star hotels and museums on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates, including a new Louvre and the world's largest Guggenheim.

The International Trade Union Confederation and art activism group Gulf Labor have urged the western institutions involved in the project, including the British Museum, to take active steps to address the workers' welfare and press the UAE government to improve their conditions.

The calls come as an Observer investigation found evidence that the emirate's tourism development and investment company (TDIC), which runs Saadiyat, is failing to uphold its own employment policies, with workers left destitute, confined to their quarters and sent home for taking strike action. Migrant labourers building New York University's Abu Dhabi campus on the island were found to be suffering even worse mistreatment.

PATRICK COCKBURN

Sunday 22 December 2013

Middle East leader of the year?

World View: In a period of failure for many, one man is on the up and up. And he's no friend of the West

Who was the most successful leader in the Middle East in 2013? It is a hoary tradition of newspapers and magazines to produce end-of-year league tables listing the successful and the unsuccessful. The results are often anodyne or quirky, but in the Middle East over the past 12 months such an approach has the advantage of cutting through the complexities of half a dozen distinct but inter-related crises by focusing on winners and losers.

In this year of turmoil, a shortlist is not so difficult to draw up, because so many leaders were in more trouble at the end of the year than they were at the beginning. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, would have been an easy winner in previous years for his undoubted success in ending the era of military coups and for presiding over unprecedented economic prosperity.

Friendly Fire: How GCHQ Monitors Germany, Israel and the EU

By Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark

Documents from the archive of whistleblower and former NSA worker Edward Snowden show that Britain's GCHQ signals intelligence agency has targeted European, German and Israeli politicians for surveillance.

The American spy stayed in northern Cornwall for three weeks. He was delighted with the picturesque setting, with its dramatic cliffs and views of the Atlantic.

In a classified report, the NSA employee also raved about the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ's field of antennas, located high above the Atlantic coast, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of London. Her Majesty's agents have been working at the site, where 29 satellite antennas are aimed skyward, for decades. The Cornwall intelligence base, once part of the Echelon global signals intelligence network, was previously known as "Morwenstow." Today the site is known as "GCHQ Bude."

22 December 2013 Last updated at 05:49 GMT

South Sudan rebel Riek Machar 'controls key state'

Former South Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar has said rebel troops have captured the key oil-producing state of Unity and control much of the country.

Mr Machar also confirmed to the BBC that the forces fighting the government were under his command.

The country has been in turmoil since President Salva Kiir accused Mr Machar a week ago of attempting a coup.

The BBC's former Sudan correspondent James Copnall says the situation now looks very much like civil war.

At least 500 people have been killed since the fighting began with the government struggling to keep control of the capital, Juba.

Thai opposition to boycott 2014 election

Democrat Party calls for another huge rally against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Sunday. Last updated: 22 Dec 2013 04:58 Thailand's main opposition Democrat Party has announced that it will boycott February's general election, deepening the country's political crisis. The party's leader, former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, announced the boycott after a meeting on Saturday with party executives. "The meeting of party executives and former party lawmakers resolved that the Democrat Party will not send candidates to contest in the February 2, 2014 general election," he said in a press conference. He said the decision was made to try to ensure political reforms are implemented. Embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who called the elections in an effort to cool tensions, has insisted the polls will go ahead regardless of the Democrat decision.

22 December 2013 Last updated at 01:33 GMT

Mexico's indigenous languages get nod from the Church

By Will GrantBBC Mundo, San Cristobal de las Casas

As the bells toll at the church of Templo la Caridad in the picturesque colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas, the local bishop leads a group of indigenous teenagers on the next step in their religious instruction.

Confirmation is an important rite of passage for any devout Catholic.

It is the moment in which they repeat the commitments and promises to God made on their behalf when they were baptised.

But for these young people, the spoken word in the ceremony is particularly resonant. It is being conducted in Tzotzil, the main Mayan language in this part of Mexico.
For centuries, the Catholic Church in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas has only officially delivered church services in either Latin or Spanish.