The exploitation of migrant workers is turning into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis.
Dawlat Khan has worked as a health and safety officer for the construction firm Saudi Oger in Saudi Arabia for nearly eight years, but his experience took a turn for the worse 8 months ago when his monthly salary of US $2000 abruptly stopped.
According to The Middle East Eye (MEE) Khan is only one of some 50,000 Saudi Oger employees who have not been paid since last summer. The kingdom’s largest private company reportedly owes employees US $800 million in back pay.
Living in a work camp where rent is US $133 per month, Khan has to rely on friends for food and accommodation costs. Most crucially, like many migrant workers in the country, Khan’s family is reliant on his earnings in the kingdom.
Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Defend the ZAD – a Call for International Solidarity
For over 50 years, farmers and locals have resisted the building of a new airport for the French city of Nantes (which by the way already has one). Now in these rich fields, forests and wetlands, which multinational Vinci want to cover in concrete, an experiment in reinventing everyday life in struggle is blossoming.
Radicals from around the world, local farmers and villagers, citizen groups, trade unionists and naturalists, refugees and runaways, squatters and climate justice activists and many others, are organising to protect the 4000 acres of land against the airport and its world.
A private security firm guarding the highly controversial construction of $3.8 billion oil pipeline turned mercenary on Saturday, unleashing vicious attack dogs against a sizable crowd of peaceful protesters — including women and children.
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and at least 100 other Native American nations as well as activists and advocates peacefully chanted“water is life” while guards held dogs nearby to intimidate the crowd. Without warning, these security henchmen showered the demonstrators with pepper spray and released the dogs — at least six people were bitten, including a young child.
Called the Dakota Access Pipeline by those responsible for its construction — and an evil, immoral usurpation and exploitation by those who know better — the project is slated to span four states, stretching 1,172 miles, but threatens the reservation’s water supply and would invade sacred land.
Yes, that is the blood of peaceful protestors on this dog’s mouth.
At least six peaceful water protectors were bit by dogs and dozens were pepper sprayed today by private security at a Dakota Access pipeline construction site. One horse was also bit in the attack.
Despite the attack the water protectors pushed onward until construction on the site was shutdown for the day. …See More
For months, the Standing Rock Sioux have camped in the pipeline’s proposed path, halting construction at least temporarily as Energy Transfer Partners, the firm responsible, continues to intimidate, harass, and now attack protesters attempting to protect their own land.
Although tribe spokesman Steve Sitting Bear said 30 people had been pepper-sprayed and six suffered dog bites, Morton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Donnell Preskey claimed law enforcement had received no reports of protesters being injured, according to the Wall Street Journal.
As an example of the dangers: Aug 10th. 5 children and 5 adults were burned alive while camping in New Mexico when a pipeline of frack-gas exploded like a giant flamethrower and incinerated them 200 yards away.
Preskey also claimed no law enforcement personnel were present when the attack occurred, but video shows a North Dakota State Patrol helicopter hovering overhead while dogs attacked.
Video of the moment of attack has, in fact, been difficult to obtain, since cell reception at the site frequently cuts off in what many suspect is a law enforcement attempt to cover up the company’s vicious quashing of the protest.
The security guards used dogs and pepper spray as the police looked on.
Immediately before video of the skirmish cuts out, a panicked protester can be heard screaming, “They’ve got trucks behind us, too!”
Sacred Stone Camp, the water protectors’ defensive encampment, posted a picture of a female security guard holding a choke-chain wearing dog to Facebook with the alarming description, “Yes, that is the blood of peaceful protestors on this dog’s mouth.”
Dogs indiscriminately bit anyone and anything in their path — including a horse — and at one point, in seeming karmic retribution, even turned on their handlers.
One day prior to the violent incident, the Standing Rock Sioux filed court documents stating they found several sites of “significant cultural and historic value” directly in the proposed path of the pipeline — a discovery made only recently when the tribe was finally allowed to survey the area.
According to tribal preservation officer Tim Mentz in court documents cited by the WSJ, burial rock piles and other significant discoveries were found by researchers.
Tragically, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II described in a statement that construction crews had callously removed topsoil in a 150-foot wide area stretching for two miles.
“This demolition is devastating,” Archambault said, as quoted by the WSJ. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.”
By the end of August, at least 4,000 protesters had converged on the site to help defend the land from pillaging by construction crews — who, incidentally, were recently revealed by the Army Corps of Engineers not to have obtained the mandatory easement necessary to proceed.
Also in late August, at the behest of North Dakota homeland security Greg Wiltz, state officials removed the demonstrators’ water supply — despite sweltering late summer heat — due to alleged disorderly conduct, including a laser aimed at a surveillance aircraft.
“The gathering here remains 100 percent peaceful and ceremonial as it has from day one,” LaDonna Allard, director of one of the prayer camps said after the removal of water. “We are standing together in prayer … Why is a gathering of Indians so inherently threatening and frightening to some people?”
Indeed, as video from the protest repeatedly proves, demonstrators have remained peaceful, only protecting themselves from brutal force and intimidation by the security firm and law enforcement when no other option but self-defense exists — as in the case of Saturday’s attack.
Despite this evidence, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier claimed in a statement cited by the WSJ that “individuals crossed onto private property and accosted private security officers with wooden posts and flagpoles […] Any suggestion that today’s event was a peaceful protest, is false.”
Viral video of the violent confrontation — which clearly shows protesters forced to defend themselves from the vicious animals and callous guards — was, of course, glaringly omitted from the Wall Street Journal’s report.
Mainstream media has all but ignored the ongoing protest, despite both its ballooning size and pertinence in the continuing struggle for Native Americans fighting naked government and corporate exploitation.
Challenges to construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline will be ruled upon by a federal judge sometime before September 9.
“This is nothing but repression of our growing movement to protect our water and future generations,” Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth, aptly summarized in August.
As one tribe member described, in a sentiment shared by most protesters, of Saturday’s mercenary attack in a post to Facebook:
“My daughter was bitten by one of the contractor’s vicious dogs today in direct action that once again stopped construction of their evil and immoral pipeline.
“No father has ever been prouder of one of his children then I am tonight for her being wounded battling for the future of her son and my grandson and for your children and your grandchildren.
“She is strong and as determined as ever to be remembered as one of her generation who courageously took a stand to kill their black snakes.”
Zika is a mild virus that’s been around for years. half of us don’t even have symptoms and the rest are no worse than the common cold.
Now Brazil has admitted it does NOT cause birth defects, due to the fact that the excess cases of microcephaly are all in one district, and the cases in the rest of Brazil aren’t more than normal. Similarily in Colombia (and other countries) there have been thousands of cases of Zika with ZERO cases of microcephaly. (Later 2 cases were found to have Zika without symptoms, but that’s not more than you’d expect by chance).
People don’t understand statistics.. You may tell me the chance of my baby being deformed by Zika is one in 100 million, but when I see the video of a microcephaly baby and read scary reports daily (fomented by the media and US pharmaceutical and insecticide corporations) … I would demand they give us the vaccine.
Vaccinate NOW or risk a horror and being blamed and saddled for life with a deformed child!!
The vaccine could bring in $20 billion to start with. That’s 400m people at $50 a shot, paid from the cash strapped public health budgets of mainly latin American countries to the US corporation that gets the patent. And of course the vaccinations will likely need repeating and topping up indefinitely
The Butantan Institute is one of 18 agencies and companies around the world that are developing Zika vaccines. Its experimental product is an “inactivated” vaccine, based on killed, purified Zika virus, that could be tested in people by 2018 or 2019. At least four other groups are pursuing this strategy.
How many times will they play the same song with a new title?
If you’re over 30 years old and have a few working brain cells, surely you’ve noticed the pattern?
SARS will kill us all! We need money to protect you.
Bird Flu on a rampage! We need money to protect you.
Swine flu pandemic! We need money to protect you.
Ebola ravishing Africans! We need money to protect you.
Chikungunya virus! God help us all, We need money to protect you.
Zika! We need…Well, you know… millions of dollars are shoveled to Big Pharma (usually Monsanto) in the name of FEAR!
The Miami Herald reports that, “A total of four people in South Florida have acquired the virus from local mosquitoes, FOUR PEOPLE! marking the first locally spread Zika cases in the continental United States.”
Health officials are responding to this so-called “CRISIS” by spraying boat loads of pesticides (from Monsanto) in the area.
Your town is next.
On Saturday morning, the Miami-Dade mosquito inspector had a five-liter drum of pesticides strapped to her back and a fanny pack brimming with jars of chemicals,” writes Miami Herald.
Guess who gets paid?
Monsanto and Big Pharma
Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Kary Mullis, has already come forward to speak out on the phony tests used to stage “outbreaks…” Zika is no different. This was conveniently missed by millions who can’t read beyond headlines.
The Zika virus only exists in the news!!
Was it the cause of all the horrific abnormalities among newborns? Of course not!
Does it rationalize the use of cancer causing pesticides?
Get real.
In 1995, the World Health Organization commented on the insecticide pyriproxyfen. They warned that, “As pyriproxyfen is a relatively new pesticide, few environmental data have been collected to date.
However, there is potential for direct exposure through drinking water when pyriproxyfen is directly applied to drinking-water storage containers.”
To test safe upper limits, Monsanto began adding it aggressively to drinking water in Brazil. A side effect of the insecticide? Encephalitis.
Think about it…
If Zika caused the horrific abnormalities among newborns in Brazil, then that the insecticide failed miserably despite the heavy doses in drinking water…
It’s more likely that mom and baby were poisoned courtesy of Monsanto testing their relatively new insecticide.
Out of hundreds of millions of citizens in the U.S., FOUR people in Florida were infected with the so-called Zika virus.
This warrants a national freakout?… plus a shit load of pesticides being sprayed into the air? Gimme a break.
This is just more drug company hype to get everyone vaccinated out the @ss, and to give chemical manufacturers a raise.
Wake the fuck up!!
Zika: Brazil Admits It’s Not the Virus causing Microcephaly
Amidst growing fear-based propaganda warning of the threat of Zika virus comes a quiet admission from health officials in Brazil: Zika alone may not be responsible for the rise in birth defects that plagued parts of the country.
While there is some (limited) evidence suggesting Zika virus may be linked to the birth defect microcephaly, and the virus has been spreading throughout Brazil, rates of the condition have only risen to very high rates in the northeast section of Brazil…..
12,000 Zika Cases Confirmed in Pregnant Colombian Women — Zero Microcephaly Cases
According to a report by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), there are serious questions about whether Zika virus is the cause of microcephaly. They cite the preliminary results of a New England Journal of Medicine study, which followed nearly 12,000 pregnant Colombian women infected with Zika virus.6
Data Is Lacking to Confirm Zika-Microcephaly Link
It’s also been suggested that microcephaly may be the result of Zika virus occurring alongside other infections, such as dengue and chikungunya. The Brazilian doctor who first reportedly established the link between Zika virus and microcephaly is even considering whether another disease, Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), may be involved, as BVDV proteins were also detected in the brains of three fetuses with microcephaly.
WHO Expert: Zika Response ‘Completely Hysterical’
Florence Fouque, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert on animals that carry viruses, called the public response to the Zika virus “completely hysterical.”11 She blamed the hysteria on the findings that the virus affects pregnant women and can be sexually transmitted.
National Institutes of Health Launches Trial for Experimental Zika Vaccine
The U.S. is among those ignoring data and rushing to launch a vaccine against Zika virus before it’s even known whether it’s causing birth defects. What is known, however, is that experimental vaccines have real risks, which are often downplayed in the wake of perceived global “emergencies” such as Zika. In August 2016, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it launched a clinical trial of an experimental Zika vaccine — again, before there is conclusive proof that Zika causes microcephaly.
Even mosquito experts are questioning the extent of emergency that actually exists. Chris Barker, Ph.D., a mosquito-borne virus researcher at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, told WebMD:21“I think the risk for Zika actually setting up transmission cycles that become established in the continental U.S. is near zero.”
As Miami sprays Naled over its own populations, and GM mosquitoes are poised to be launched over parts of Florida, let’s pause to reflect on the sober realities about what we really know about Zika…. …..How much sense can it possibly make for the the US govt to drench parts of its own population with Naled, a compound that is known to cause, amongst other things,reduced-brain-size in unborn foetuses, in order to kill mosquitoes that might be carrying a virus that might be linked to a small risk of – reduced brain size in unborn foetuses?
and a new atrocity..Turkey kills 2 and wounds 80 when youths demonstrate against a new border wall in Kobane which will divide Kurdish communities and families. see two-kurdish-civlians-killed-at-kobane-border/
Reports have just emerged of unarmed civilians (including children) being killed in Dandania, Syria, by the Turkish military. This comes just a week after Turkey invaded Syria (with US air support) in order to push back one of the most effective forces currently fighting against Daesh (Isis/Isil) on the ground.
Esta primavera, los IWW (los legendarios anarquistas ‘wobblies’) y grupos comunitarios aliados organizaron huelgas en las carceles de miles de trabajadores encarcelados en Alabama, Wisconsin, Texas, Mississippi y Ohio, todos exigiendo el derecho a formar un sindicato. El Comision Organizador de Trabajadores Encarcelados del IWW ha llamado a una huelga nacional de las/los presos desde el 9 de septiembre 2016 con motivo del 45 aniversario del levantamiento de la prisión de Attica y afirma que tiene el apoyo de miles de prisioneros en los Estados Unidos.
El 9 de septiembre, los presos en los Estados Unidos comenzarán una huelga que será un paro general contra la esclavitud en la carcel. En resumen, los presos se niegan a trabajar; se niegan a mantener las prisiones que se cuidan por sus propios esfuerzos.
Los presos se luchan, no sólo por mejores condiciones o cambios en las reglas de libertad condicional, pero en contra de la esclavitud en la prisión. Los presos afirman que la Enmienda 13, que abolió la esclavitud racial, al mismo tiempo permitió que los seres humanos pueden ser forzados a trabajar de forma gratuita o casi nada, siempre y cuando fueran prisioneros.
The Free 
