#International Labour Conference

[socialjusticeday]

Closing of the 112th International Labour Conference.

- General Discussion Committee on Decent Work and the Care Economy 

- Committee on the Application of Standards

- Closing ceremony

– Approval of the report of the Committee on the Application of Standards – Closing ceremony

Watch the Closing of the 112th International Labour Conference!

[worldchildlabourday]

112th International Labour Conference.

The International Labour Organization will hold its 112th annual International Labour Conference in Geneva from 3–14 June 2024. Worker, employer and government delegates from the ILO's 187 Member States will tackle a wide range of issues, including: a standard-setting discussion on protection against biological hazards, a recurrent discussion on the strategic objective of fundamental principles and rights at work and a general discussion on decent work and the care economy. The Conference will also elect members of the Governing Body for the 2024-27 term of office

[indigenouspeopleday]

Advocating for the Visibility and Rights of Mobile Indigenous Peoples: The Dana+20 Manifesto (UNPFII Side Event).

This side event aims to amplify the voices of Mobile Indigenous Peoples and review the challenges faced by Mobile Indigenous Peoples to achieve rights, recognition and self-determination.

The side event will serve to disseminate the Dana+20 Manifesto of Mobile Peoples (2022) and will offer an opportunity to support the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples in his preparation for a thematic report on the situation of Mobile Indigenous Peoples to be submitted to the UN General Assembly in October 2024. This is a critical time to focus on the situation of Mobile Peoples, especially women and youth within these groups, and find avenues that affirm their rights and self-determination. The event will identify initiatives to recognize and respect the rights of Mobile Peoples including existing UN mechanisms, ILO instruments and their gaps.

Related Sites and Documents

Watch the Advocating for the Visibility and Rights of Mobile Indigenous Peoples: The Dana+20 Manifesto (UNPFII Side Event)!

[coopsday]

47th Regular Meeting of the United Nations Task Force on the Social and Solidarity Economy.

Led by the Co-Chairs of the UNTFSSE, Simel Esim from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Chantal Line Carpentier from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the virtual gathering brought together representatives from Members (UN Entities and the OECD) and Observer organizations to share international and regional updates to spur further collaboration on the SSE.

The call began with a welcome to the representatives of new Members, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) as an Observer.

Heidi Christ, lead of Made51 at UNHCR, expressed recommitment towards the task force, noting that, “Livelihoods for refugees is of primary concern to UNHCR, especially as the the refugee crisis deepens and longer-term solutions are needed. We are looking at the solidarity economy as way to offer solutions to refugees in a more protective environment”.

Leida Rijnhout, Chief Executive, WFTO, was appreciative of the positive response received from Members and Observers regarding their joining the task force. She highlighted the link between the SSE and the Fair Trade movement, sharing that “At the WFTO, we certify enterprises based on the fair trade principles. We are also a movement of entrepreneurial activists that promote people and planet over profit.”

Following introductions and general updates, the Co-Chairs presented the new UNTFSSE Action Plan, which details priorities and responsibilities for advancing the SSE agenda and implementing the UNGA Resolution A/RES/77/281. This plan, designed to foster policy coherence, drive capacity building, improve statistics, and increase access to finance, underscores the task force's strategic approach to mobilizing collective expertise and resources.

Further discussions focused on institutionalizing UNTFSSE governance through a newly drafted Terms of Reference and preparation of the Secretary General’s report for the UNGA 79th session. The Secretariat is currently collecting inputs from UN Entities, Member States, and Financial Institutions.

Technical Working Groups are currently being established on SSE Statistics and Financing. These groups will be composed of technical experts who will establish work plans and present updates to the task force at regular meetings. Highlights of recent and upcoming initiatives were shared by task force Members and Observers, including:

ILO’s Regional Conference on the Social and Solidarity Economy for Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia on May 14-15, 2024.

OECD’s Global Action on Mapping of Social Economy Ecosystems.

UNRISD’s four podcast episodes, interviewing authors from the SSE Encyclopedia.

Social Economy Europe’s EU Large Scale partnership for Skills of SE and Proximity Ecosystem.

DIESIS event on the Social Economy in the Western Balkans under the MESMER+ project.

CIRIEC Call for papers for a Special Issue of APCE on “Gender approaches of Social Economy and State-Owned Enterprises”.

EUCLID’s Women in Social Enterprise initiative.

Ms. Esim proposed to hold an online event to mark the occasion of the first year anniversary of the UN General Assembly resolution “Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy for Sustainable Development” on April 18, 2024. She suggested this would be an occasion to highlight progress that has been made in the one year since the adoption of the resolution at the international and regional levels. Her proposal was well received by Members and Observers of the Task Force. It was agreed that the webinar would take place on April 18, 2024 from 1:30 – 2:45 pm CEST with presentations followed by a brief discussion. The ILO offered to make simultaneous translation available for the event in English, French and Spanish. The UNTFSSE Members and observers agreed to share the announcement and the Zoom link for the event widely.

Led by the Co-Chairs of the UNTFSSE, Simel Esim from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Chantal Line Carpentier from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the virtual gathering brought together representatives from Members (UN Entities and the OECD) and Observer organizations to share international and regional updates to spur further collaboration on the SSE.

The call began with a welcome to the representatives of new Members, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) as an Observer.

Heidi Christ, lead of Made51 at UNHCR, expressed recommitment towards the task force, noting that, “Livelihoods for refugees is of primary concern to UNHCR, especially as the the refugee crisis deepens and longer-term solutions are needed. We are looking at the solidarity economy as way to offer solutions to refugees in a more protective environment”.

Leida Rijnhout, Chief Executive, WFTO, was appreciative of the positive response received from Members and Observers regarding their joining the task force. She highlighted the link between the SSE and the Fair Trade movement, sharing that “At the WFTO, we certify enterprises based on the fair trade principles. We are also a movement of entrepreneurial activists that promote people and planet over profit.”

Following introductions and general updates, the Co-Chairs presented the new UNTFSSE Action Plan, which details priorities and responsibilities for advancing the SSE agenda and implementing the UNGA Resolution A/RES/77/281. This plan, designed to foster policy coherence, drive capacity building, improve statistics, and increase access to finance, underscores the task force's strategic approach to mobilizing collective expertise and resources.

Further discussions focused on institutionalizing UNTFSSE governance through a newly drafted Terms of Reference and preparation of the Secretary General’s report for the UNGA 79th session. The Secretariat is currently collecting inputs from UN Entities, Member States, and Financial Institutions.

Technical Working Groups are currently being established on SSE Statistics and Financing. These groups will be composed of technical experts who will establish work plans and present updates to the task force at regular meetings. Highlights of recent and upcoming initiatives were shared by task force Members and Observers, including:

ILO’s Regional Conference on the Social and Solidarity Economy for Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia on May 14-15, 2024.

OECD’s Global Action on Mapping of Social Economy Ecosystems.

UNRISD’s four podcast episodes, interviewing authors from the SSE Encyclopedia.

Social Economy Europe’s EU Large Scale partnership for Skills of SE and Proximity Ecosystem.

DIESIS event on the Social Economy in the Western Balkans under the MESMER+ project.

CIRIEC Call for papers for a Special Issue of APCE on “Gender approaches of Social Economy and State-Owned Enterprises”.

EUCLID’s Women in Social Enterprise initiative.

Ms. Esim proposed to hold an online event to mark the occasion of the first year anniversary of the UN General Assembly resolution “Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy for Sustainable Development” on April 18, 2024. She suggested this would be an occasion to highlight progress that has been made in the one year since the adoption of the resolution at the international and regional levels. Her proposal was well received by Members and Observers of the Task Force. It was agreed that the webinar would take place on April 18, 2024 from 1:30 – 2:45 pm CEST with presentations followed by a brief discussion. The ILO offered to make simultaneous translation available for the event in English, French and Spanish. The UNTFSSE Members and observers agreed to share the announcement and the Zoom link for the event widely.

[safeday]

The constitutional principle of the protection of workers’ safety and health.

The fundamental conventions on occupational safety and health - ILO: An overview of the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155) and the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187)

[todayontumblr]

Monday May 1.

May Day.

Today is a day that requires little introduction. It is #may day, otherwise known as #international workers day or Labour Day. Celebrated every year on May 1, or the first Monday of May, it marks a day of celebration and solidarity between laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement. It is a national public holiday in many countries across the world and has a fascinating, inspiring history. The Marxist International Socialist Congress met in Paris in 1889, where they established the Second International as a successor to the International Workingmen's Association. It was here they established a resolution for a "great international demonstration" to support demands for an eight-hour working day from the working classes. Today's date, May 1, was selected by the American Federation of Labor to mark a general strike in the United States. This strike began on this date in 1886, and subsequently became an annual event. In 1904, the Sixth Conference of the Second International called for "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace". But it is not just consigned to history, by any means, because #may day continues to this day.

There are strikes, marches, rallies, and protests across the world today marking May Day. The struggle continues, but today is also the celebration. Wherever you are across the world, and however you're spending International Worker's Day 2023, we wish you love, light, and solidarity in the fight for better. 

[morbidology]

Iqbal Masih was born into a poor Christian family in Muridke, a small village in Pakistan. When he was just four years old, his family borrowed 600 rupees (about $12) from a local employer who owned a carpet weaving business. In exchange, Iqbal was forced to work as a bonded laborer to pay off the debt. This practice, known as debt bondage, was widespread in Pakistan's carpet industry, trapping many children in harsh working conditions.

For the next six years, Iqbal worked long hours in a carpet factory, often enduring physical and verbal abuse. He was chained, had very little to eat, and was denied an education. The brutal reality of child labor left Iqbal with a deep understanding of the suffering and injustice faced by thousands of children in similar situations.

Iqbal managed to escape in 1992 at the age of 10, inspired by stories of other freed children. He found refuge with the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF), an organization dedicated to ending child labor. Under the guidance of the BLLF, Iqbal received an education and quickly emerged as a passionate advocate for children's rights.

Despite his young age, Iqbal became an eloquent and determined spokesperson against child labor. He traveled extensively, speaking at rallies and conferences, and sharing his experiences. His speeches highlighted the plight of millions of children trapped in labor and called for global action to end this exploitation.

Iqbal's efforts gained international attention and earned him several awards, including the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1994. His advocacy contributed to increased awareness and policy changes. In Pakistan, the government began to take more stringent measures against child labor, and globally, organizations like UNICEF and the International Labour Organization intensified their efforts to protect children's rights.

Tragically, Iqbal's life was cut short on April 16, 1995. He was shot and killed while visiting relatives in Muridke. While the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, many believe he was targeted for his outspoken activism.

[nobbin0]

In the 1990s, John Williamson, a British economist and senior fellow of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, coined the term Washington Consensus to describe the neoliberal agenda to privatise state-owned enterprises (SOEs), commodify public goods, and liberalise capital accounts and trade. These policy choices, driven by the IMF and World Bank in alignment with the US Treasury, find much of their theoretical justification in neoclassical economics and the works of thinkers like Friedrich Hayek and those associated with the neoliberal Mont Pelerin Society. The Washington Consensus paradigm is perhaps most famous for its role in the so-called structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), which led to a lost decade on the African continent.

For the past several decades, the IMF has enforced a combination of austerity (what they call a ‘balanced budget’ agenda), privatisation, and trade liberalisation on decolonising nations. This has stripped states in the Global South of the capacity to drive their development processes and protect their infant industries. In order to deal with the resulting imbalances, the IMF has frequently encouraged underdeveloped countries to borrow from private capital markets, leading to more debt traps. Meanwhile, the World Bank has historically followed an agenda of recommending anything but large-scale industrialisation for the Global South. In the early post-World War II era, this manifested in its recommendations for countries to stick to their ‘comparative advantage’ in exporting raw materials. By the 1990s, the World Bank was promoting ‘financial deepening’, code for encouraging financial deregulation as a panacea for mobilising resources for development. More recently, the World Bank has shifted its focus to promote development in the service sector and investment in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), both recipes for continued debt bondage on the national and household level. The service sector is often dominated by multinational corporations (MNCs) with monopolistic structures, making states that focus their development on this sector susceptible to the whims of MNCs in the Global North. SMEs, which typically lack the resources (including government subsidies) to compete with MNCs and do not have the advantages of scale of MNCs, end up absorbed into these larger monopoly-dominated networks. Indeed, the combination of financial liberalisation and the promotion of SMEs locks countries into what Samir Amin called generalised monopoly capital, with both upstream (raw materials, technology, and capital) and downstream (distribution, marketing, and consumer access) networks of control.

One of the main outcomes of the Washington Consensus has been an almost religious belief in the power of foreign direct investment (FDI) to drive economic growth and structural transformation. The FDI mindset drives Global South states towards a narrow focus on opening up their labour and natural resource markets to Western monopolies, thereby linking their agendas to the rent-seeking needs of financiers rather than the developmental aspirations of their populations. Empirical evidence of FDI’s transformative capacity, however, is limited at best: this form of investment fails to promote integrative growth that could pave a pathway out of indebtedness and towards national sovereignty, instead promoting unproductive sectors of the economy. Three characteristics of FDI are important to note:

FDI flows are declining. FDI peaked in 2007, the year that the Third Great Depression took hold in the major capitalist countries, and has decreased in the years since. Indeed, according to the United Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), both FDI and project finance (long-term infrastructure or industrial funding) have experienced a gradual decline. From 2022 to 2023, for instance, developing countries saw a 7% decrease in FDI flows to developing countries.

FDI flows are non-productive. Over the past few years, UNCTAD’s annual investment reports have shown the changing character of FDI. While in the past it was concentrated in the manufacturing and industrial sectors as well as natural resource extraction, FDI has increasingly been channelled into the financial and service sectors, where it does not generate integrated or transformative development that could help transcend colonial underdevelopment.

FDI flows do not drive growth or investment. According to a 1999 UNCTAD report, large FDI inflows to developing countries in the 1990s had little impact on increasing investment patterns. More recent studies by UNCTAD have shown a clear divergence between FDI flows and GDP growth since the Third Great Depression. This means that economic growth is increasingly independent of FDI flows.

The Washington Consensus has only reinforced the colonial pattern of underdevelopment, producing debt burdens that cannot be easily serviced. With bondholders mercilessly seeking repayment and interest regardless of a country’s economic situation, the debt spiral eats into precious revenues that could otherwise be spent on health care, education, and productive industry and infrastructure. Countries borrow and go into debt. When they cannot repay their debt, they borrow more to pay off their existing debt, and the spiral continues. As Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s chief economist from 2003 to 2007, wrote in his book Fault Lines (2010), the IMF’s policies are a ‘new form of financial colonialism’.

[hussyknee]

Unrolled twitter thread by Progressive International (@ProgIntl)

30 Sept 24 • 4 minute read • Read on X

On 30 September 1965, the Indonesian military, working closely with the US government, initiated a coup that would depose President Sukarno and install the brutal, 30-year dictatorship of General Suharto.

In the dark years that followed, the dictatorship massacred over a million Indonesian communists, with the CIA and US diplomats drawing up “kill lists” for the Indonesian military. The operation would become a template for the US’s regime change operations for decades to come.

Major-General Suharto with Indonesian Army in 1966

In 1945, President Sukarno led Indonesia to independence from Dutch colonial rule. He championed the Non-Aligned Movement and hosted the historic Bandung Conference, a meeting of Afro-Asian states, in 1955.

First President of Indonesia Sukarno making a speech circa 1945

Opening the conference and forecasting what was to come, Sukarno said: “We are often told ‘Colonialism is dead’. Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that… Colonialism also has its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small, but alien community within a nation.”

Leaders attending the Bandung Conference 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. From left: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Ghanian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser, President Sukarno, and Yugoslavian Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito.

By 1965, Indonesia possessed one of the world's largest communist parties, the PKI. The PKI had a mass membership and mobilized vast numbers of people in the battle against Indonesia’s ruling class.

Campaign of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in September 1955.

Terrified by the strength and organization of Indonesia’s people, the Indonesian military’s 30th September Movement began to purge the PKI.

Men suspected of being IPK members being transported under guard by an armed Indonesian soldier

In the early hours of 1 October, a group of military conscripts murdered six high-ranking generals. Blaming the deaths on the PKI, Suharto used the attacks as a pretext to seize power. CIA communications equipment allowed him to spread false reports around the country and begin a long campaign of anti-communist propaganda.

The US had tried to overthrow Sukarno for years; in 1958, the CIA backed armed regional rebellions against the central government. In 1965, they did all they could to aid Suharto’s murderous power grab.

The campaign soon became genocidal. On islands like Bali, up to 10% of the population was massacred — and luxury hotels soon began to appear over the killing fields.

One US embassy staffer told the US press that Suharto’s military “probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad.”

Time Magazine referred to the killings as “the West’s best news for years in Asia”.

A cable from the US embassy’s first secretary, Mary Vance Trent, to the State Department referred to events in Indonesia as a “fantastic switch which has occurred over 10 short weeks”. It also included an estimate that 100,000 people had been slaughtered.

Cementing his power, Suharto became president in 1967. His ‘New Order’ policy allowed Western capitalism to exploit Indonesia’s cheap labour and plunder its natural resources. Civil rights and dissent were suppressed.

In one of the world’s most populous countries, any possibility for the emergence of a new, democratic political project was eliminated. Richard Nixon described Indonesia as “the greatest prize in Southeast Asia”. Suharto would not leave office until 1998.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan stands with Indonesian President Suharto in the White House South Lawn at the arrival ceremony for Suharto's State Visit. Oct 12, 1982

CIA officers described Suharto’s rise to power and anti-communist purge as the “model operation” and “Jakarta” soon became the codeword for anti-communist extermination programs in Latin America, where hundreds of thousands were massacred in regime change efforts engineered by Washington.

[whencyclopedia]

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg trials (1945-6), held in Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Germany, were a series of trials involving the senior surviving Nazis to hold them accountable for waging war and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Second World War (1939-45). 22 Nazis were tried, with 19 found guilty and sentenced to either death by hanging or lengthy prison terms.

The first Nuremberg trials were conducted from November 1945 to October 1946, and then, a second phase, which involved a much larger number of defendants, was conducted from November 1946 to April 1949. The Nuremberg trials were the first in history where the victors in a war sought to make senior figures from the losing side accountable for their actions. The trials were filmed and contributed greatly to our understanding of how WWII was conducted and revealed both the irrefutable evidence for and enormous scale of such atrocities as the Holocaust. The first month of the trials, the initial proceedings only, were hosted in the Supreme Court Building in Berlin, but they moved on 20 November to the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The Palace of Justice was selected because it had been the heart of Nazi show trials against enemies of the Third Reich, the city was the home of the Nuremberg Rally, the infamous annual Nazi Party congress, and the complex had the practical advantage of an adjoining prison where the defendants were detained.

The International Military Tribunal

At the close of WWII, the victorious Allies of France, Britain, the United States, and the USSR, as agreed by their respective leaders at a conference in Moscow back in October 1943, jointly formed an International Military Tribunal (IMT) to bring German Nazi war criminals to justice. There were some calls to have judges from neutral nations head the IMT, but the allied leaders were determined to be directly involved in getting their pound of flesh. The idea of the trials was supported by a number of other nations besides the four main powers.

The panel that would decide the fate of the defendants brought before the IMT consisted of one judge and one prosecutor from each of the four nations mentioned above. The judging panel was presided over by the British judge Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, described by one American lawyer as "like God...Hollywood would have cast him" (MacDonald, 23). The chief Soviet judge was I. T. Nikitchenko, the French lead judge was Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, and the US judge was Francis B. Biddle. The legal proceedings followed the common law practice applied in the United States and Britain. Translators worked in the courtroom, and everyone present had access to a set of headphones. There was a large screen to show the court relevant film clips and statistical information. 250 journalists attended the court sessions, and the whole proceedings were filmed and sound recorded.

Nuremberg Trials Judges

U.S. Army (CC BY-NC-SA)

In the closing stages of the war, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), and Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) had all committed suicide, but there remained 24 senior Nazi figures whom the Allies were determined to bring to justice. The group was selected not only for their individual roles but also as representatives of particular Nazi institutions. Before the trials could begin, Robert Ley (1890-1945), head of the German Labour Front, committed suicide, and Gustav Krupp (1870-1950), an industrialist who had used forced labour, was considered too physically frail to stand trial. The 22 remaining defendants faced four charges, as expressed in the Oxford Companion to World War II, they were:

Count 1: Contributing to a common plan or conspiracy to wage war

Count 2: Crimes against peace

Count 3: War crimes (e.g. violations of the Geneva Convention such as the abuse and murder of prisoners of war, use of prisoners for labour, destruction of private property, and devastation of property and places with no military justification)

Count 4: Crimes against humanity (e.g. the murder of civilian populations, use of slave labour, the forced deportation of civilians, and the persecution of specific social, political, religious, and racial groups)

Counts 1 and 2 proved problematic to define, and therefore it was difficult to find the defendants either innocent or guilty of them. This is hardly surprising considering the debate amongst historians ever since as to why and how WWII started and how far one should go back exactly in order to discover the causes of WWII, causes which could be attributed in some cases to both the victors and losers. The court essentially considered counts 1 and 2 as involving actions such as breaking international treaties and invading and occupying free countries. Much easier to establish were cases of counts 3 and 4, although even here there was the added complication that the victors had themselves been guilty of what would today be called war crimes, for example, the Allied bombing of Germany, submarine attacks on unarmed vessels, and the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish prisoners of war by USSR forces. Certain facts were taken as given, such as that Hitler had fully intended to start a world war. In addition, such Nazi organisations as the Gestapo (secret police), the SS (Schutzstaffel), and SA (Sturmabteilung) were condemned as criminal organisations.

Palace of Justice, Nuremberg

US Army (Public Domain)

The judges not only benefitted from the cross-examination of the defendants but also the testimony of around 360 witnesses (including both victims of and members of the Nazi regime) and a huge quantity of incriminating documents, official and otherwise, including indisputable photographs, sound recordings, and films, such as those taken at concentration and death camps. As noted by Dr Robert Kempner, a lawyer who had fled the Nazi regime:

One of the biggest helps to us was the German bureaucratic sense – they kept everything and they even made publications and films and lot of material had been discovered by our Allied search teams. Some of the people like General Governor Frank of Poland was so anxious to show his friend Hitler after the war what he has done that he kept diaries, volumes and volumes and volumes. In fact he had written his own indictment.

(Holmes, 593)

It is important to note, however, that the documentation for Nuremberg was compiled in order to support the legal case that the defendants were guilty of one or more of the four counts (and not to create a comprehensive reconstruction of past events as, say, a historian would do). There was, too, a degree of negotiation between the various national judges regarding particular defendants – the USSR judge, for example, wanted Rudolf Hess hanged while his fellow judges preferred a prison sentence – but there was a conscious effort on all parties to deliberate with as much fairness as possible given the seriousness of the trials and the world's scrutiny of them. To this end, the defendants were collectively represented by a legal counsel, Otto Kranzenbühler, and permitted individual lawyers to present their defence.

Camp Guard Giving Evidence at Nuremberg

Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)

Continue reading...

[metamatar]

Is that trans politician who wants to demolish mosques contesting the elections bc she thinks Modi isn't fascist enough? I thought Modi was the most fascist

about hemangi sakhi contesting from varanasi from the right of modi. fascists have internal disagreements too, and the sangh is quite frustrated by how the bjp has enriched itself while using the sanghs ground labour to win elections without offering little power in return. she is not the first or the last trans woman in india to run elections from the right. in ram rajya, we brutalise muslims first.

modi is not the most fascist in practice because he is prime minister and does lipservice to the notion of indian democracy and will say things like oppressing muslims is the real secularism bc they've had it to good instead of saying hindu rashtra 4ever. note that this is not because he's actually less fascist, its just a useful electoral tactic.

their are lots of middle class indians who like that thing bc it lets them pretend not to be what they think of as the degenerate khaki shorts fanatical fascism. modi for very long has functioned metonymically as the clean face of the sangh (the butcher of godhra indeed) in that he never outright says shoot those [slur] dead in public and has not been actually convicted of murder. in general the bjp fights does narrative building on several fronts, modi never holds press conferences, while amit shah is known to be his enforcer, local functionaries will do brazen things that the top level will walk back when there's a bit too much outrage (garlanding the rapists of bilkis bano, giving a bjp seat to the guy best known for pulling a gun on protesting muslim women) but not be disciplined etc. it gives every kind of fascist something to love and hate about the bjp.

sometimes people diagnose that the only reason the revolt against trump was so serious in us civil society was because trump embarassed everyone. modi is a far more sophisticated kind of fascist.

[socialjusticeday]

112th International Labour Conference of the ILO - Plenary debates – Morning sitting.

- Presentation of second Credentials report - Adoption of two committees outcomes

Presentation of second Credentials report and adoption of two committees outcomes.

Watch the 112th International Labour Conference of the ILO: Plenary debates – Morning sitting.

[worldchildlabourday]

Inclusive Labour Protection for All.

Labour protection is at the core of social justice and decent work. But what does that mean exactly and are labour protection systems fit for purpose in a rapidly changing world of work? To explore this, the ILO World of Work Show will explore the role of labour protection at a time of multiple crises. Join us as well to look back at the first week of the 111th International Labour Conference.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Palestinian people have tried every method to achieve some form of meaningful self-determination. ‘Renounce violence’, they were told. They did, apart from the odd reprisal after an Israeli atrocity. Among Palestinians at home and in the diaspora, there was massive support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: a peaceful movement par excellence, which began to gain traction worldwide among artists, academics, trade unions and occasionally governments. The US and its NATO family responded by trying to criminalize BDS across Europe and North America – claiming, with the help of Zionist lobby groups, that boycotting Israel was ‘antisemitic’. This has proved largely effective. In Britain, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has banned any mention of ‘Israeli apartheid’ at its upcoming national conference. The Labour left, scared of being expelled, has fallen silent on this issue. A sorry state of affairs. Meanwhile, most of the Arab states have joined Turkey and Egypt in capitulating to Washington. Saudi Arabia is currently in negotiations, mediated by the White House, to officially recognize Israel. The international isolation of the Palestinian people looks set to increase. Peaceful resistance has gone nowhere.   All the while, the IDF has attacked and killed Palestinians at leisure, while successive Israeli governments have worked to sabotage any hope of statehood. Recently, a handful of former IDF generals and Mossad agents have admitted that what is being done in Palestine amounts to ‘war crimes’. But they only plucked up the courage to say this after they’d already retired. While still serving, they fully supported the fascist settlers in the occupied territories, standing by as they burned houses, destroyed olive plantations, poured cement in wells, attacked Palestinians and drove from their homes while chanting ‘Death to the Arabs’. So, too, did Western leaders – who let all this unfold without a murmur. The age of political reason had long departed, as Qabbani would say. Then, one day, the elected leadership in Gaza begins to fight back. They break out of their open-air prison and cross Israel’s southern border, striking at military targets and settler populations. Palestinians are suddenly top of the international headlines. Western journalists are shocked and horrified that they are actually resisting. But why shouldn’t they? They know better than anyone that the far-right government in Israel will retaliate viciously, backed by the US and the mealy-mouthed EU. But even so, they are unwilling to sit by as Netanyahu and the criminals in his cabinet gradually expel or kill most of their people. They know that the fascist elements of the Israeli state would have no compunction about sanctioning the mass murder of Arabs. And they know this must be resisted by any means necessary. Earlier this year, Palestinians watched the demonstrations in Tel Aviv and understood that those marching to ‘defend civil rights’ did not care about the rights of their occupied neighbours. They decided to take matters into their own hands.   Do the Palestinians have a right to resist the non-stop aggression to which they are subjected? Absolutely. There is no moral, political or military equivalence as far as the two sides are concerned. Israel is a nuclear state, armed to the teeth by the US. Its existence is not under threat. It’s the Palestinians, their lands, their lives, that are. Western civilization seems willing to stand by while they are exterminated. They, on the other hand, are rising up against the colonizers.

[sourcreammachine]

holy shit

THE UK HOUSE OF COMMONS HAS ADVANCED A BILL TO ENACT PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION — seemingly by accident

the opposition liberal democrats’ bill passed the first reading by 138 votes to 136… there are 650 total members of the commons

the governing labour party, despite its internal conference binding it to support PR, does not support PR, due to the recent election delivering them a landslide of seats when they had not proportionally won enough support

the bill will almost definitely not succeed in the coming stages, but this is nonetheless a huge day for PR and will bump the issue of reform way up the agenda

the likelihood of the labour party supporting PR into the next election increases

[beardedmrbean]

Members of a Malaysian religious group accused of human trafficking and child sexual abuse continued committing crimes even after a large-scale police crackdown, according to authorities.

The Islamic Global Ikhwan Group (GISB) made international headlines in September after police rescued 402 minors suspected of being abused across 20 care homes.

Authorities arrested 171 suspects at the time, including teachers and caretakers - but hundreds more have been arrested since, as further details emerge of the group's alleged crimes.

Among those are allegations that, until 1 October, five GISB members trafficked people for the purpose of exploitation by forced labour through threats.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual and physical violence.

Two of the accused were managers of a GISB-owned resort in the southern state of Johor. They were charged on Sunday with four counts of human trafficking involving three women and a man aged between 30 and 57. The third, a worker at the same resort, was charged with two counts of sexually abusing a 16-year-old.

At least two other suspects in the incident, which took place between August 2023 and 1 October 2024, are still at large.

Hundreds of other victims, aged between one and 17, are said to have endured various forms of abuse at care homes linked to GISB, with some allegedly sodomised by their guardians and forced to perform sexual acts on other children, according to police.

In a press conference on Monday, lawyers representing GISB denied allegations of illegal business activities and organised crime, asking for a "fair investigation" as police investigations continue.

However, its CEO, Nasiruddin Mohd Ali, had earlier admitted there were "one or two cases of sodomy" at the care homes.

"Indeed, there were one or two cases of sodomy, but why lump them (the cases) all together?" Nasiruddin said in a video posted to the company's Facebook page.

GISB has hundreds of businesses across 20 countries, operating across sectors including hospitality, food and education. It has also been linked to Al-Arqam, a religious sect that was banned by the Malaysian government in 1994 due to concerns about deviant Islamic teachings.

Khaulah Ashaari, the daughter of Al-Arqam founder Ashaari Muhammad, is a member of GISB, and has denied that the group still follows her late father's teachings.

The lower house of Malaysia’s parliament on Tuesday held a special motion discussing issues relating to GISB, where government ministers flagged a number of findings made since the children were rescued from the care homes last month.

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, told the hearing that some children from as young as two years old were separated from their families and instructed to work under the pretence of "practical training".

He also said they were occasionally forced to perform hundreds of squats as punishment for "disciplinary breaches".

"If they did any wrongdoings, for something as simple as not queuing up properly, they would be punished with not 100 but 500 ketuk ketampi (squats)," Saifuddin said, according to a report by local outlet The Star.

"According to assessments by psychologists – either through the police’s D11 unit or the Welfare Department – these children missed their parents," he added. "Some don’t even know them."

To date, the police operation against GISB has resulted in 415 arrests and the rescue of 625 children, according to Saifuddin.

The Malaysian authorities have also expanded their investigations into GISB internationally, seeking the assistance of Interpol.