5 December 2014 Last updated at 08:05
Poorly paid Indian tea workers and their destitute families are a major source for human traffickers who lure away mainly women and children with promises of a new life but who end up enslaved in factories and households, human rights organisations say.
The Hunger Games are real in Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud
I could have never imagined myself drawing parallels between my refugee camp, Nuseirat, in the Gaza Strip, its heroic people, and a Hollywood movie; the struggle of my people is too sacred for that. But I couldn't help it as I watched the latest from The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay.
A feeling of anger initially overwhelmed me when I saw the districts destroyed by the heartless rulers of the Capitol. As I watched the movie, not only resistance of Palestine, but particularly that of Gaza, was on my mind.
The Capitol - with unmatched military technology and access to
an enormous media apparatus - was unstoppable in its brutality. Its rulers, who claimed to have superiority over all the inhabitants of the dystopia of Panem, had no moral boundaries whatsoever.
Powerful Typhoon Hagupit nears Philippines
Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter as powerful Typhoon Hagupit heads towards the Philippines.
Hagupit, or Ruby in the Philippines, has gusts of up to 250km/h (155mph) and is due to hit land on Saturday evening.
It is on course for the Eastern and Northern Samar provinces and the city of Tacloban, where thousands were killed by Typhoon Haiyan a year ago.
Local residents, many of them still living in temporary shelters, are moving away from coastal areas.
Haiyan - known as Yolanda in the Philippines - was the most powerful typhoon ever recorded over land. It tore though the central Philippines in November 2013, leaving more than 7,000 dead or missing.
Hagupit, which means "smash" in Filipino, is not expected to be a powerful as Haiyan but could bring storm surges up to one storey high, a well as heavy rain and the risk of landslides.Xi Jinping urges faster development of China’s advanced weaponry
President calls for escalation of army modernisation plans amid regional tensions in East Sea and South China Sea
China’s president has called for advanced military equipment to be developed faster to help build a strong army, state media has reported, as the country escalates an ambitious modernisation plan that has rattled nerves across the region.
Xi Jinping told a two-day conference of the People’s Liberation Army that military reforms should be “guided by the objective of building a strong army”, the official Xinhua news agency said.
“Advanced weaponry is the embodiment of a modern army and a crucial support for national security and rejuvenation,” it quoted Xi as saying. “Equipment systems are now in a period of strategic opportunities and at a key point for rapid development.”
Munich debate over plaques for Holocaust victims continues
Support has grown for the city’s ‘Stolpersteine’ campaign
Derek Scally
When 91-year-old Peter Jordan returned this week to Munich it was in spite of, and because of, his past.
He was just 15 when, in the summer of 1939, he fled the Bavarian capital and Nazi persecution of Jews to live in Britain. His parents Siegfried and Paula stayed on and were deported and murdered in the Kauen concentration camp in Nazi-occupiedLithuania on November 25th 1941.
A decade ago Jordan returned from his adoptive home in Manchester as two brass plaques, dedicated to his parents, were laid in the pavement before their former home in the Mauerkircherstrasse.
Tea workers in India falling prey to human traffickers
December 5, 2014 - 2:29PM
Jason Koutsoukis
South Asia correspondent at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
Poorly paid Indian tea workers and their destitute families are a major source for human traffickers who lure away mainly women and children with promises of a new life but who end up enslaved in factories and households, human rights organisations say.
Last month, a group of workers at a West Bengal tea estate wedged between Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh abruptly ended wage negotiations with their boss, dragged him outside and beat him to death.
The victim was Rajesh Jhunjhunwala, 54, the owner of the 174-hectare Sonali Tea Estate in India's far northern reaches that is considered small in a country where tea is the largest private-sector employer, providing work for over 1 million permanent workers and up to 2 million seasonal labourers.
I was never paid. Nothing. I was made to work until late at night and I had to get up very early in the morning.Elena
How Chester the puppet sparked battle over race and free speech in South Africa
A case involving a right-wing singer and a puppet raises the question of how a 'rainbow nation' just two decades removed from a system of rigid segregation balances free speech with a persistent need to heal racial divides.
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — Small and thin, his head hunched, Chester Missing listened wide-eyed to the man laying out the legal charges against him — defamation, harassment, inciting death threats.
Then again, wide-eyed is just about the only look Chester Missing is capable of — because Chester Missing is a South African puppet.
But that detail mattered little to the team of lawyers who gathered inJohannesburg last week to defend his right to lob “robust criticism” at a prominent right-wing musician. Nor did it appear important to the white-separatist activist delivering an impassioned plea for Chester to be legally silenced.
Middle EastThe Hunger Games are real in Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud
I could have never imagined myself drawing parallels between my refugee camp, Nuseirat, in the Gaza Strip, its heroic people, and a Hollywood movie; the struggle of my people is too sacred for that. But I couldn't help it as I watched the latest from The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay.
A feeling of anger initially overwhelmed me when I saw the districts destroyed by the heartless rulers of the Capitol. As I watched the movie, not only resistance of Palestine, but particularly that of Gaza, was on my mind.
The Capitol - with unmatched military technology and access to
an enormous media apparatus - was unstoppable in its brutality. Its rulers, who claimed to have superiority over all the inhabitants of the dystopia of Panem, had no moral boundaries whatsoever.
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