Culture

Minimum Wage An Elusive Promise

By |

South Africa introduced its first-ever minimum wage July 1 in a bid to improve the state of its hospitality industry, and public image, ahead of its turn as World Cup host in 2010. Currently, most restaurants employ “casual workers” who often earn nothing more than tips. BuaNews — a government agency — said the move was to “avoid being embarrassed before international visitors,” and that improved working conditions would be a boon for he whole industry. But even having a minimum wage law on the books doesn’t mean it will be enforced. In the United States, a study has found that thousands of New York City service-industry workers aren’t earning minimum wage or overtime pay, although the law requires it.

Culture

Poverty is a Plague for Africa's Children

By |

A gangrenous affliction of the face called noma is surging among impoverished, malnourished children in West Africa, and now appears to infecting HIV-positive adults as well. Aid workers told the U.N. news agency that the disease is not transmitted, and could be prevented with improved nutrition and improved living conditions. Niger and Burkina Faso, the centers of the African surge, have the world’s highest rates of underweight and undernourished children. The disease, which is not yet taught in medical schools, rots facial tissue, causing the skin to scab off all the way to the jaw. Health workers are only now beginning to recognize the symptoms; survivors are disfigured for the rest of their lives.

Culture

Trade Bolsters Myanmar Junta

By |

Another birthday of imprisoned dissident Daw Aung Sung Suu Kyi has come and gone, and the plight of Burma slips again to the back burners of the highest-profile international press. But dig into local and regional media, and you’ll find a wealth of coverage of the repressive junta that took control of Burma and renamed it Myanmar in 1989. More than a million refugees have fled the country since the coup, many to India and Bangladesh, where dissidents publish newspapers and Web sites about their homeland. Inter Press Service reports that forced labor on a mass scale persists despite agreements with the International Labor Organization to monitor and register complaints directly within the country. The agreements have fallen by the wayside since an internal coup replaced the ruling military faction with another, less accommodating group.

Culture

The Slums: A Boom in Urban Poor Defies Solutions

By |

Experts predict that by 2030 two billion people will live in urban squatter and slum communities with no services, sanitation or running water. The growth of slums and economic disparaties are spurring poitical debate and legal crackdowns, even as new social movements emerge within the communities themselves. Forbes.com reports that today 80 percent of Nigerians — that’s more than 40 million people — live in slums, as do 158 million Indians, or 56 percent of the population. The Economic Times in India puts that sum closer to 70 million, accounting for 45 percent of Delhi’s population, and more than 50 percent of Mumbai’s. In an editorial, the newspaper says that the huge influx of rural poor to cities has changed voting patterns, which are now divided along economic rather than caste lines.

Culture

Newspapers Sell the Farm, Give up the Goat

By |

Across the country, falling newspaper circulation and the flight of ad dollars to the Web have caused publishers to fire employees, sell their buildings and outsource their ad and subscription departments to India. The San Jose Mercury News is the latest to do so; it follows other newspapers across the country, including the Columbus Dispatch and the Los Angeles Times. Ad production isn’t the only job papers are outsourcing. Columnists and reporters across the country were shocked when a news site in Pasadena hired two reporters to cover the news from their computers in India. But the editor says it’s the start of a new trend and a way to save money.

Culture

Mining in South Africa: Apartheid’s Legacy

By |

Two Italian companies are suing South Africa over a law that requires firms to sell to black investors to redress abuses of black laborers under the apartheid system. The companies say that their purchase of granite operations there occurred in 1994, after the fall of apartheid. The legacy of institutionalized racism has also taken a particularly bitter turn in the struggle over South Africa’s diamond mines, where the ethnically mixed residents of the diamond-rich Richtersvelders province are enraged by a government deal to sell mine holdings there to de Beers. The land, which was appropriated by the state in the 1920s, is claimed by residents in lieu of a $26 million settlement. But South Africa’s public enterprises minister says his primary concern is the well-being of the government-owned Alexkor mining company.

Culture

Record Earnings From Endangered Ocean Harvest

By |

The fishing industry brought in a record $71.5 billion last year, most of it from ocean fisheries that lack ecological oversight. Now, a new report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization finds that 25 percent of ocean fisheries are virtually depleted, and 52 percent “fully exploited.” This comes on the heels of a study last year that predicted a complete collapse of ocean fisheries worldwide by 2050 without reform of fishing practices and curtailing pollution. Fish Farmer Magazine reports that with the record harvest, wild fisheries have “levelled off” even as aquaculture becomes the “world’s fastest growing food production sector.” Sources:
“Record high for global seafood trade”
Fish Farmer Magazine, March 5, 2007
“Ocean fisheries maxed out”
Inter Press Service, March 5, 2007

Culture

Immigrant Labor: California’s Undocumented Economy

By |

The coastside town of Pescadero worries that new immigrant restrictions will stifle the economy, and cost its schools as much as 60 percent of their students. Family farmers there are already losing workers to the higher- paying construction industry, the San Mateo County Times reports, and fear the new rules will put them out of business. In San Diego, competition is stiff for a pool of up to 400,000 undocumented workers in restaurants, construction, agriculture and childcare. The underground economy produces affordable services and housing, KPBS TV reports, driving a regional biotech and telecom boom. And at nearby Pitzer College, protestors say the arrest of 761 immigrants under “Operation Return to Sender” unjustly targets “good people” who contribute to the community, according to the San Bernardino County Sun.

Culture

Bought It for a Song / Online Music Earns, But Can’t Beat P2P

By |

Newsdesk.org Staff Report

Legal online music services are gaining a larger share of the music market, but are having only a minimal impact on illicit peer-to-peer file sharing. According to Mac News World, since 2004, legal music downloads brought in over $1 billion yearly to over 300 different music download services. The week between this past Christmas and New Year’s saw record sales from legal music sites, due largely to the popularity of MP3 players as stocking stuffers. A recent E-Commerce Times article cites the music-retail tracking company Nielsen SoundScan reporting 20 million tracks downloaded during the last week of 2005. This figure more than doubled the 9.5 million-song pinnacle reached the previous week and helped push total downloads for the year to 352 million, a 147 percent increase from 2004.

Culture

Selling Weapons to the World

By |

Newsdesk.org staff report
A new report claims that America’s commitment to peace and security is belied by its status as one of the world’s leading arms dealers. “U.S. Weapons at War,” a study released this month by the New York City-based World Policy Institute, an affiliate of the New School University, finds that American weapons were sold to 18 nations currently involved in “active conflicts” — from U.S.-backed operations against Islamists in the Philippines and narco-militarists in Colombia, to regional power struggles in Angola, Nepal, Algeria, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. This comes in the same breath as a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which finds that in 2004 the nations of the world gave $1.035 trillion to the global arms industry — up 25 percent from 2003. The “primary driver” was the U.S., according to the BBC, which spent $235 billion on the war on terror from 2002-2004. The United States is also one of the leading sellers of weapons.