Russia’s plumbers sent to fight in Ukraine - just when they are needed to fix boilers at home

Daily Telegraph UK
By James Kilner
4 Dec, 2022 


The freezing winter could be very difficult for Russia, as well as Ukraine. Photo / Getty Images

Call-up to fight in Vladimir Putin’s war means repairmen are not available for residents facing -40C freeze with broken heating.

As Moscow bombards Ukraine’s power grid, leaving millions of households without power and heating, many ordinary Russians are facing a bleak winter of their own - because central heating repairmen have been mobilised to fight on the front lines

In Astrakhan, near Russia’s remote Caspian Sea coast, residents complained on social media that maintenance workers had been sent to fight in Ukraine with an engineering unit, even though they were needed to keep the central heating running.

“We turned to the military registration and enlistment offices and officials, explaining that the heating season is coming soon and we need people, but we never received a clear answer,” one resident told the ‘We can explain’ Telegram channel.

Built by the Soviet Union, polluting city power stations produce hot water and then pump it to apartment blocks through massive pipes that thaw out the frozen ground they run over or under.

Temperatures can drop to -40C in Siberia, which means that broken heating systems can be deadly.

The Kremlin’s mobilisation order in September drafted 320,000 men into the Russian army, but three or four times that number fled abroad. This has left Russia with a shortage of labourers.

Keep up to date with the day's biggest storiesSign up to our daily curated newsletter for the day's top stories straight to your inbox.
SIGN UP
By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
I’m not interested in Top News Stories newsletter. Please don’t show me this again.

A survey by the Gaidar Institute in Moscow said that a third of Russia’s industries are now short of workers. Plans have been made to draft in extra workers from Central Asia to plug the shortfall, but until then many households will face freezing temperatures.

It comes as Russia has inflicted “colossal” damage to Ukraine’s power grid, said officials, causing rolling blackouts that could last until March.

An estimated 70 per cent of Ukraine’s power-generating capacity has been destroyed, the World Health Organization has said, with 10 million people in Ukraine living without power.

To conserve energy, Ukrainian authorities have asked relatively wealthy people to travel to Europe. They have also set up thousands of tents in cities with generators for people to charge their mobile phones, warm up and eat a hot meal.

AUSTRALIA

Authorities reveal why a Sydney school science experiment went horribly wrong

NO HAZARD ASSESSMENT, NO FIRE EXTINGUISHER

news.com.au
By Madeleine Achenza

The "black worm" science experiment likely got out of control due to gusty winds. Photo / VisioNil/ Nine

First responders have revealed the likely reason a science experiment at a Sydney school ended in an explosion and led to a 10-year-old girl being flown to hospital with severe burns.

Eight ambulances and two helicopters, one with a specialist medical team on board, rushed to the incident at Manly West Public School in Balgowlah at about 1pm on Monday.

11 children around the age of 10 and one adult were impacted by the “Hazmat incident”, reportedly caused by a science experiment gone wrong.

Wellbeing support was offered to students. Photo / NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

It’s understood the incident occurred during a “black worm” experiment, which involves using an accelerant to set baking soda and sugar alight.

New South Wales Ambulance said Monday’s high winds were partially to blame for the Year 5 class’ experiment going wrong.

“We received multiple triple-zero calls reporting that a number of children had sustained burns during a science experiment, which was being conducted outside,” NSW Ambulance Acting Superintendent Phil Templeman said.

Police and Safe Work NSW staff near an empty bottle of flammable liquid at the scene. Photo / NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

“Today’s high winds have impacted the experiment and blown some of the materials around.”

Keep up to date with the day's biggest storiesSign up to our daily curated newsletter for the day's top stories straight to your inbox.
SIGN UP
By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
I’m not interested in Top News Stories newsletter. Please don’t show me this again.

The most seriously injured child, a young girl, suffered multiple burns to her body and was flown to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in a stable condition after receiving treatment from CareFlight’s specialist doctor and a NSW Ambulance critical care paramedic.

N. Korea’s government is still earning foreign currency through overseas workforce

The estimated 80,000 North Korean workers in Dandong alone are sending home millions of US dollars in so-called “party funds” every month

By Seulkee Jang
2022.11.22 

FILE PHOTO: North Korean women leaving a customs office in Dandong, Liaoning Province, China. (Daily NK)

North Korean authorities have sent even more workers outside the country than international estimates suggest. Accordingly, a significant amount of foreign currency may be entering North Korea in the form of contributions to the Workers’ Party of Korea. 

Daily NK recently reported that up to 80,000 North Korean workers currently reside in the Chinese city of Dandong, Liaoning Province. Chinese quarantine authorities confirmed this figure as they were administering PCR tests to all residents of the city.

According to a source in China on Wednesday, the 80,000 figure takes into account only North Korean workers communally living at local clothing companies and electronics factories, and excludes North Korean trade representatives and consulate staff.

An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 staff members of the North Korean trade delegation reside in Dandong.

If trade delegation staff and cadre-level individuals are included, more than 80,000 North Koreans may be residing in Dandong.

In particular, the 80,000 North Korean workers in Dandong alone are sending home millions of US dollars in so-called “party funds” every month.

North Korean workers overseas pay at least 50% of their monthly salary in party funds, which are contributions to North Korea’s communist party. Additionally, they send home a significant part of their salary in the form of various “taxes,” including Socialist Women’s Union of Korea dues and funds for various construction projects.

Given that factory workers in China have made an average of RMB 2,200 to 2,500 a month over the last three years – if we assume that each worker is paying at least RMB 1,100 in party funds a month – this means RMB 88 million in party funds are being sent to Pyongyang on a monthly basis.

Converted into dollars, this comes out to USD 12.28 million a month and USD 147.36 million a year, meaning North Korea is earning a huge sum of money through the workers it sends to China.

However, because this estimate is based on the bare minimum North Korean workers pay in party funds, North Korean authorities may be acquiring much more foreign currency in the form of party funds.

Meanwhile, with word spreading that 80,000 North Korean workers are in Dandong, local Chinese are saying that North Korea “can fire off missiles just from the money they are making by sending workers to China, and still have some left over.”

Meanwhile, North Korean authorities have concluded a new labor contract with Chinese companies that includes a plan to raise the wages of North Korean workers to RMB 3,300 to 3,700 a month. This means that North Korean authorities will likely make even more foreign currency, despite UN Security Council sanctions on the country. 

UN Security Council Resolution 2397, adopted in December 2017, called on UN member states to repatriate all North Korean workers who are earning incomes in their countries by 2019.

Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

Freedom of Press is Dealt Deadly Blows by Modi's Proto-Fascist Regime in India

By C. J. Polychroniou - 
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS


The Wire case is yet one more example of Modi's regime trying to undermine the media landscape and, indeed, destroy dissenting media.

Since the end of the Cold War, hybrid political regimes have been steadily gaining ground across the world. Hybrid regimes rest on a form of governance which, as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way pointed out in a 2002 essay in the Journal of Democracy, is essentially authoritarian in nature while "using formal democratic institutions" for "obtaining and exercising political authority." The term used for this type of political regime is competitive authoritarianism. In popular literature, the term "illiberal democracy" is encountered more frequently for the hybrid regimes that have emerged in the post-Cold War period, but an argument can be made against the use of such term as it weakens and stretches the definition of democracy.

In competitive authoritarian regimes, elections are held, but the electoral process is characterized by large-scale abuses of power, harassment and intimidation of opposition candidates and activists, and pro-government bias in public media. With regard to the latter aspect, comparative authoritarian regimes systematically dismantle media independence, freedom, and pluralism.

Narendra Modi's India is a classic example of a comparative authoritarian regime, though it tends to receive far less attention in western media than Hungary under Viktor Orban's rule. Modi, who has been the head of an elected government for over 20 years, has in fact turned India into an autocracy under the aegis of an extremist nationalist/racist/fascist ideology, Hindutva, which seeks to transform a secular state into an ethno-religious state. Modi's government has centralized power to an extraordinary degree, practices systematic discrimination against Muslims, stigmatizes critics of the government, and engages in constant press freedom violations. Arrests and physical attacks on journalists have increased over the last few years, while several journalists were assassinated in 2021 alone for their work.

Unsurprisingly, in the 2022 edition of the Press Freedom Index, India ranked at the 150th position, its lowest ever, out of 180 countries. So much for the world's largest democracy being actually democratic!

The latest independent media venue in India to be under government attack is The Wire, an independent media outlet "committed to the public interest and democratic values." Its office and the homes of several editors were raided by police late last month on account of a criminal complaint filed by Amit Malviya, a political figure of the ruling party. Based on an internal Instagram document, the publication had recently run a story—which later retracted—that the political figure in question "wielded special privilege to censor social media posts." The publication retracted the story, and a few follows ups, after it established that its coverage had been based on falsified documents and issued an official statement announcing that "lapses in editorial oversight" are under review. Moreover, the publication has filed a complaint against a freelance researcher, Devesh Kumar, for allegedly fabricating the details of the story with intent to harm The Wire.

The raids have been criticized by journalists and opposition politicians in India as a form of "veiled intimidation." However, the deeper concern is that the publication's editors may face long-term prison sentences by being charged with forgery and criminal conspiracy. Note that Amit Malviya has filed not a civil suit but a criminal complaint against the editors of The Wire.

The Wire case is yet one more example of Modi's regime trying to undermine the media landscape and, indeed, destroy dissenting media. The international community must pay attention to the crackdown on free press in India. A global outcry at Modi's autocratic/ proto-fascist state is long overdue.


C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His latest books are The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (A collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky; Haymarket Books, 2021), and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (Verso, 2021).

This was first published on Common Dreams (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Image: Jhon Don via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Wanted for War Crimes in Argentina, Hiding in Plain Sight in Israel

סיפור של Judy Maltz 

Some 3,000 Jews disappeared without trace during Argentina’s ‘dirty wars’ in the 1970s and ’80s. A new documentary, ‘Bronca!,’ following a father-and-son team seeking justice for at least one of themOctober 15th, 21PM October 15th, 21PM

Ten years ago, Tomer Slutzky was gearing up for what has become a rite of passage for many young Israelis: a post-army trek through South America.

His plans were upended, however, when his father Shlomo convinced him to join him on a different sort of adventure – coincidentally, in the same part of the world.

Instead of packing up his hiking gear, Tomer would end up stuffing a camera into his bag and following his father on what he describes as a “documentary journey.”

Their mission: seeking justice for a relative whose partly cut-off face appears in a photo taken at Tomer’s grandparents’ wedding.

That relative was Samuel Slutzky, a 41-year-old physician last seen in 1977 when he was arrested by the Argentine military junta during the so-called “dirty wars.” He was taken to a torture center in the Buenos Aires suburb of La Plata, never to return.

Samuel’s son, Mariano, would end up testifying at the trial of the officers and officials who ran this notorious detention center, known as “La Cacha,” where 128 prisoners died during Argentina’s seven-year military dictatorship.

Shlomo Slutzky, a journalist and documentary filmmaker who had immigrated to Israel in 1976 (soon after the right-wing coup), had come to cover the trial, which opened in 2013 and concluded in October 2014.

His cousin Samuel was among an estimated 3,000 Jews who disappeared without trace during those years. Two dozen officers and agents would eventually be convicted, many of them sentenced to life in prison.

 

Why FBI Investigation Of Israel Is Important – OpEd

By Ramzy Baroud

This month’s decision by the US Department of Justice to open an investigation into the May killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is not a game changer, but it is important and worthy of reflection.

Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for its illegal occupation of Palestine, one can confidently conclude that there will not be any actual investigation.

A real investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh could open up a Pandora’s box of other findings pertaining to Israel’s many other illegal practices and violations of international — and even US — law. For example, the US investigators would have to look into the Israeli use of American-supplied weapons and munitions, which are used daily to suppress Palestinian protests, confiscate Palestinian land, impose military sieges on civilian areas and so on. The US Leahy Law specifically prohibits “the US government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”

Moreover, an investigation would also mean accountability if it concluded that Abu Akleh, a US citizen, was deliberately killed by an Israeli soldier, as several human rights groups have already concluded.

That, too, is implausible. In fact, one of the main pillars that defines the US-Israeli relationship is that the former serves the role of the protector of the latter on the international stage. Every Palestinian, Arab or international attempt at investigating Israeli crimes has decisively failed simply because Washington systematically blocks every potential investigation under the pretense that Israel is capable of investigating itself, even alleging at times that any attempt to hold Israel accountable is a witch hunt that is tantamount to anti-Semitism.

According to Axios, this was the gist of the official Israeli response to the US decision to open an investigation into the murder of the Palestinian journalist. “Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any other foreign country or entity,” outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, adding: “We will not abandon our soldiers to foreign investigations.”

Though Lapid’s is the typical Israeli response, it is quite interesting — if not shocking — to see it used in a context involving an American investigation. Historically, such language was reserved for investigations by the UN Human Rights Council and by international law judges, the likes of Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone and Michael Lynk. Time and again, such investigations were conducted or blocked without any Israeli cooperation and under intense American pressure.

In 2003, the scope of Israeli intransigence and blind American support of Israel reached the point of pressuring the Belgian government to rewrite its own domestic laws to dismiss a war crimes case against then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Moreover, despite relentless efforts by many US-based rights groups to investigate the murder of American activist Rachel Corrie the same year, Washington refused to even consider the case, relying instead on Israel’s own courts, which exonerated the Israeli soldier who drove a bulldozer over the 23-year-old for simply urging him not to demolish a Palestinian home in Gaza.

Worse still, in 2020, the US government went as far as sanctioning International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other senior prosecution officials who were involved in the investigation of alleged US and Israeli war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.

Bearing all of this in mind, one must ask questions regarding the timing and the motivation of the US investigation.

Axios revealed that the decision to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh was “made before the Nov. 1 elections in Israel, but the Justice Department officially notified the Israeli government three days after the elections.” In fact, the news was only revealed to the media on Nov. 14, following both the Israeli and US elections on Nov. 1 and Nov. 8, respectively.

Officials in Washington were keen on communicating the point that the decision was not political, nor was it linked to avoiding angering the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington days before the US elections or to influencing the outcome of Israel’s own vote. If that is the case, then why did the US wait until Nov. 14 to leak the news? The delay suggests serious backdoor politics and massive Israeli pressure to dissuade the US from making the announcement public, thus making it impossible to reverse the decision.

Knowing that a serious investigation will most likely not take place, the US decision must have been reasoned in advance to be a merely political one. Maybe symbolic and ultimately inconsequential, the unprecedented and determined US decision was predicated on solid reasoning.

First, US President Joe Biden had a difficult experience managing the political shenanigans of then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time as vice president in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2017. Now that Netanyahu is poised to return to the helm of Israeli politics, the Biden administration is in urgent need of political leverage over Tel Aviv, with the hope of controlling the extremist tendencies of the Israeli leader and his government.

Second, the failure of the Republican so-called red wave to marginalize the Democrats as a sizable political and legislative force in the US Congress has further emboldened the Biden administration to finally reveal the news about the investigation — that is if we are to believe that the decision was indeed made in advance.

Third, the strong showing of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian candidates in the US midterms — in both national and state legislative elections — further bolsters the progressive agenda within the Democratic Party. Even a symbolic decision to investigate the killing of a US citizen represents a watershed moment in the relationship between the Democratic Party establishment and its more progressive grassroots constituencies.

Though the US investigation of Abu Akleh’s murder is unlikely to result in any kind of justice, it is a very important moment in US-Israeli and US-Palestinian relations. It simply means that, despite the entrenched and blind US support for Israel, there are margins in American policy that can still be exploited; if not to reverse the US backing of Israel, at least to weaken the supposedly unbreakable bond between the two countries.

Ramzy Baroud

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com

 November 22, 2022 

Child Rights Balochistan demonstrates at Quetta Press Club to uphold rights of children


Balochistan [Pakistan], November 22 (ANI): On the occasion of International Children's Day, a demonstration was organized in front of the Quetta Press Club under the sponsorship of Child Rights Balochistan to uphold the rights of children.

Mir Bahram Lahri, Abdul Hai Bangalzai, and other speakers addressed the protesters and stated that children's laws are not being implemented, reported Pak vernacular media, Urdu Point.

About five lakh children are subjected to physical assaults every year in Pakistan, according to a report released by child experts.

The report is a grim reminder of Pakistan's human rights situation and rampant prevalence of child abuse in the country, reported Pak vernacular media, Sindh Express.

According to the report, around 46 lakh girl children are married at less than 15 years of their age, and about 1.90 crore children are married even before they are 18 years of age.

"We think the federal government should go for a crackdown against such malpractices; also those pressurizing children for begging be immediately arrested and be it, parents or guardians," said the report.

Mir Bahram Lahri stated that they have been struggling for the last ten years regarding the child marriage bill and they are failing because of the lack of interest of their representatives, reported Urdu Point.

November 20 is celebrated across the world as Universal Children's Day with various pledges to make the world a better place for children.

On 20 November 2022, it will be thirty-three years since the countries of the world, including Pakistan, came to a historic decision and recognized, for the first time in human history, that children have special rights and needs.

The members of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Pakistan ratified it a year later, on 12 December 1990.

Pakistan at present has the highest percentage of children ever recorded in history. Pakistan falls behind in almost all child rights indicators whether health, education, child marriages, protection from violence, child labour etc, reported Pak Observer.

The experts' report further directed the government to take immediate concrete measures and to set up institutions or set up committees to deal with issues, reported Pak vernacular media.

Earlier, Pakistani newspaper The News International reported that the data revealed that during the past six months nearly 2,211 child abuse cases with both boys and girls were registered.

Notably, the data on the sexual abuse of children was collected from 79 newspapers. The majority of the cases can be categorised as rape, sodomy and abduction for sexual abuse, The News International reported.

Moreover, as per gender split analysis, the female reported cases of child sexual abuse are more in number than male cases.

Out of the total of 2,211 children, 1,004 were boys and 1,207 were girls, according to data collected by the publication.

The report further stated that nearly 803 boys and girls were kidnapped, and among them, 298 were boys and 243 were girls, who were allegedly either raped or sodomised, while numbers of gang rape/sodomy cases were also very high as 128 children were subjected for the physical abuse and among which 41 were girls and 87 were boys.

As many as 1,564 cases in Punjab, 338 cases in Sindh, 199 cases in Islamabad, 77 cases in KPK, and 23 cases in Baluchistan as well as 10 cases in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, were reported, the report stated.

Nearly 52 per cent of cases were reported from urban areas and 48 per cent of cases were reported from rural areas, it added.

The Human Rights Watch in its Annual World Report 2022 cited allegations of extensive rights abuses against women along with children in Pakistan, which ranks 167 out of 170 countries on the Global Women, Peace and Security Index. 

(ANI)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCH 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCHISTAN 

HAND OF GLORY

Dog Leads Searchers to Mass Grave in Mexico

A dog carrying a human hand has led to the exhumation of a mass grave in Mexico, where searchers have uncovered 53 bags of human remains.

By Nick Koutsobinas |

According to The Daily Star, Bibian Mendoza followed the dog during an international arts festival to the mass grave in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. The uncovering is believed to have stemmed from a years-long war between the Jalisco cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel.

"While people from all over the world were celebrating the Cervantino festival (an international arts festival in the area), we were digging up bodies, and at the same time I thought it was useless because they were burying more people elsewhere," Mendoza, the founder of a women's collective searching for missing persons, said.

Both the festival and the grim discovery took place in October. The remains have been exhumed and analyzed. But it is not known how many of the bodies have been identified.

As the Star says, while citing unnamed officials, "most of the issues ... in Mexico, are focused around cartels — are actually drug-related."

Security expert David Saucedo says the city is part of the "fentanyl and cocaine routes."

Mendoza adds that while many politicians have promised to make the area safer, "seeing bodies lying in the streets with messages is something new for us."

"I hate hearing the [state] governor say that he is going to deliver a safer Guanajuato," she added. "I hate hearing the president [Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador] say that what is happening is not his fault.

(Newsmax) Monday, 21 November 2022 

The World Cup and the world economy

Jim O'NeillNovember 22, 2022 09:34

The 22nd World Cup is under way, but who at the beginning of this century would have thought it might be hosted by tiny Qatar? Yet here we are, and the only surprise is that it doesn’t feel all that surprising.

For a large part of my professional career, I explored the links between the beautiful game and the global economy. At Goldman Sachs and, before that, at the Swiss Bank Corporation, I indulged my dual obsessions by presiding over special one-off publications for each World Cup from 1994 until 2010. After one, I received personal messages from senior central bankers around the world. Some told me it was the best publication we produced, which, given how frequently we published on economic events and markets, was both amusing and something to ponder. We persuaded national leaders and major football figures to guest write for us. On one occasion, Alex Ferguson, the legendary Manchester United manager, selected his all-time top world team.

I have, to date, managed to attend six World Cups, hosted by the United States, France, South Korea and Japan, Germany, South Africa, and Brazil. From these experiences, I can add my voice to those who describe the event as one of the most beautifully inclusive meetings of many different nationalities and cultures. The advent of the Fan Zones, which really took off following the 2006 World Cup in Germany, embodied this spirit, though I experienced it most intensely in Seoul in 2002.

The link between football and the state of the world economy is apparent in the choice of tournament hosts. I think it is an inescapable fact that FIFA’s selection of South Africa in 2010, Brazil in 2014, Russia in 2018, and now Qatar, was based on the steady rise of so-called emerging economies during the first two decades of this century. I have long thought that the other two BRICS countries (a group comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) might well join the small group of hosts in the future.

But given many major countries’ inward turn in recent years, are the days of even wanting to host the event numbered? Will aspiring emerging-market countries find it increasingly difficult to succeed in staging the world’s most watched tournament? Or, to the contrary, could the world soon shift back to a more contented, globalizing, and inclusive international order? One might even ask a deeper question: is FIFA a leading or a lagging indicator of the world economy and the degree of globalization?

I suspect that how the competition progresses over the next four weeks and, crucially, how many of us watch the matches, might be the clearest early sign of the broader significance of this year’s World Cup. The competition has been the backbone of FIFA’s revenues. There is already talk – probably motivated by professional clubs’ desire for even stronger revenues – of turning the tournament into a biennial event, or supplementing the current quadrennial format with a quadrennial club-based competition.

If the global economy’s future is very different from the past 20-30 years, this will be reflected in FIFA’s decision-making. It is hard to imagine FIFA being enthusiastic about future competitions in emerging-market countries if these countries contribute less to world economic growth than the tournament hosts since 2010.

In the 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s, and 2011-20, global real GDP growth averaged, respectively, 3.3%, 3.3%, 3.9%, and 3.7%. The acceleration in the most recent two full decades was clearly due to stronger growth in the emerging world, and it coincides with the period when FIFA began selecting hosts from outside the traditional football strongholds. It currently looks as though this trend could be reversed this decade, even with eight years still to go.

And what about the winners this time? I learned through the popularity of the publications I produced in the past to go no further than predicting the four semi-finalists. For one thing, the same realism with which one must approach economic forecasting applies to the World Cup as well; for another, the leaders of countries we didn’t tip to win often didn’t take it very well.

I start with history. Only eight countries have won the World Cup. Brazil, having won five times, is always one of the favorites, and this year’s squad seems to be one of the tournament’s strongest. Argentina, Uruguay, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and England are the other previous winners. Even though Italy failed to qualify this time around, the winner is likely to be one of the others.

One of these years, England will win it again, but it could easily be any of the previous winners. Among the rest, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal usually punch above their economic and population weight. Whoever wins, I will be watching for all sorts of signals about the future – just as I have always done.

Copyright: Project Syndicate

JIM O'NEILL
Jim O’Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a former UK Treasury Minister, is Chair of Chatham House.

Cambodia Rights Report Reveals Government Crackdown on Trade Unions

 A police officer blocks workers from the NagaWorld casino holding placards during a protest outside the National Assembly building after several union members were arrested, in Phnom Penh, Jan. 4, 2022.

Tommy Walker

November 21, 2022

BANGKOK —

A new human rights report released Monday said authorities in Cambodia used the COVID-19 pandemic as a distraction to crack down on independent unions and activist workers.

The 97-page report by Human Rights Watch, titled "Only 'Instant Noodle' Unions Survive," documents how authorities in Cambodia allowed employers to bypass labor regulations and commit unfair practices that are illegal in Cambodian and international law. The advocacy group headquartered in New York City interviewed over 30 independent union leaders and members in Cambodia's garment and tourism sector to compile the report.

Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia director Phil Robertson talks to reporters in Bangkok, Thailand, Oct. 18, 2017.

"The Cambodian government and unscrupulous employers used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to further restrict independent unions instead of protecting worker welfare and rights at a desperate time," Phil Robertson, deputy Asian director of HRW, said in a press release sent to VOA.

During the pandemic, hundreds of thousands from Cambodia's garment and tourism sectors were laid off, leading to desperate times that included financial uncertainty, mass relocation and struggles for daily necessities including food, the report said.

But little was done to support these workers by unions registered under Cambodia's Trade Union Law, it added.

Trade unions controlled by employers or linked to the Cambodian government were able to register under Cambodia's Trade Union Law with ease, while on the contrary for independent unions, the process of being approved is tiresome and often includes lengthy requirements for registration.

"Only Instant Noodles Unions Survive," is a nickname given by independent unions, implying it is as easy as making instant noodles for the approved unions to be registered.

VOA contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cambodia requesting comment on the HRW report but has gotten no response so far.

Robertson slammed the suppression of independent trade unions during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Thailand, Bangkok.

"These are the unions that didn't lift a finger to protect workers during that time of crisis," he said, adding, "yet, it was precisely the independent unions who were trying to actually help, bore a brunt of a crackdown led by the Cambodia government or employers, who cynically saw the COVID pandemic to crush and get rid of independent unions once and for all."

Tourism sector crackdown

A crackdown at NagaWorld casino, run by Hong Kong-listed Nagacorp in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, also saw workers go on strike after the casino laid off 1,329 workers during the pandemic. However, authorities soon designated the demonstrations as "illegal" for breaking a curfew imposed to social distance and other COVID-19 measures at the time, as the reason to remove people protesting and confine them for virus testing.

NagaWorld casino workers hold up placards during a protest outside the National Assembly building after several union members were arrested, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 5, 2022.

Chimm Sithar, the president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees, protested the dismissal of hundreds of workers at the NagaWorld casino. But she says she was arrested by authorities and charged with "incitement to commit a felony" and was held in pre-trial detention for 74 days. Now she has been released on bail, but her charges are still pending.

"The authorities try to scare us. I am not scared to be rearrested. Even when I am not in prison, I cannot freely exercise my right to be a union leader. I cannot give up because of the threat of prison. I have to stand up for workers' rights," Sithar said in April 2022.

Garment industry

Cambodia relies heavily on its garment industry, accounting for around 80% of the country's exports, with the industry making up of approximately 16% of the country's GDP in 2016.

 Employees work at a garment factory in Kandal province, Cambodia, Dec. 12, 2018.

But the industry has been hit hard in recent years.

The EU, Cambodia's biggest trading partner that accounted for 45% exports in 2018, partially withdrew its agreement with Cambodia under the "Everything but Arms," tariff-free trade agreement, accounting for a 20% loss for Cambodia. This came after the EU cited the country's poor human rights record and lack of democratic progress, including the participation ban on Cambodia's main opposition party leading up to the General Elections 2018. This led to a victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen's long-ruling Cambodian People's Party in every contested government seat.

Cambodian Garment Workers Struggle After EU Withdraws Trade Perks

Labor standards

Cambodia has long been criticized for its poor labor standards and human rights violation. But strikes over conditions and pay often have been met with violence and clashes with police.

In recent years, global fashion brands that operate in Cambodia, including Adidas and Puma, have urged Prime Minister Hun Sen to amend its trade union law and drop charges against union leaders.

Cambodia's garment industry is worth around $7 billion, with over 700,000 workers, the vast majority of whom are female, and earn a basic wage of $190 per month.

In September, the Cambodian government has increased the country's minimum wage to $200 a month. But Yang Sophorn, the president of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, or CATU, told Radio Free Asia that she was sad that the increase didn't match the rise in inflation.

"As labor rights in Cambodia backslide, the European Union, United States, and other trade partners should use their leverage and increase their pressure on the