Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned as “slave labour” the conditions for hundreds of workers killed in a factory collapse in Bangladesh and urged political leaders to fight unemployment in a sweeping critique of “selfish profit”.
The pope said he had been particularly struck by a headline saying workers at the factory near Dhaka were being paid just 38 euros ($50) a month.
“This is called slave labour!” the pope was quoted by Vatican radio as saying in his homily at a private mass in his residence to mark May Day.
More than 400 workers have been confirmed dead and scores are missing in the collapse, which occurred in a suburb of the capital Dhaka last week in the country's worst-ever industrial disaster.
“Today in the world this slavery is being committed against something beautiful that God has given us — the capacity to create, to work, to have dignity,” the pope said at the mass.
No direct knowledge, but this is starting to come out as worthy of investigation.
From an experienced mortgage attorney specializing in helping those being foreclosed:
I have friend that has been on electronic intel side most of his career (Army, then contractor to one of the agencies) and he told me how many 3 ltr agency employees couldn't afford to live near D.C. during the false boom years, and most had to fall for those 3yr “option ARM's” just to swing the payment every month. (payments way below P&I, negative amortization)
They were all told by the complicit Realtors “don't worry, real estate always goes up, when the note resets you can refinance….”
You probably already know they were the highest profit “loans” to sell. All those guys with security clearances can't afford to “strategically default” or even to question the purported “debt” after the ARM's reset since their clearance/ job would be at risk.
This friend said he knows a ton of them that are working insane hours just to keep up with the adjusted payments, otherwise risk their career.
It's despicable how they were set up to keep them in that bondage to keep them in line.
Phi Beta Iota: Our understanding is that the security clearance process has improved dramatically in the past decade, and that short sales and foreclosures are not fatal if the 360 whole person otherwise passes muster. Both the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the adjudicating authorities appear to have risen to the challenge and are NOT holding well-intentioned individuals responsible for being victimized by mortgage fraud.
Christopher King has worked in residential and corporate real estate in various capacities for the past twelve years, clearing title, filing zoning applications and reviewing wireless tower contracts. He and his associates are now teaming to provide video coverage of America's imploding Mortgage market. All images video and text subject to copyright.
Moving coming soon! There is Attorney John Y. Lee. I don’t know what is in his trick bag today but yesterday, and several weeks ago he somehow managed to fit a Baltimore Circuit Court Judge in that bag: Today I attended what basically resembled a kangaroo court hearing that was orchestrated at the outset by Attorney John Y. Lee, when he hand delivered memoranda to Judge Norman….. before Norman was even assigned to the case.
Naturally Judge Norman became the Judge on the case. One must wonder why Lee picked Norman instead of, say, Judge King who found foreclosure mill attorney Thomas P. Dore to have violated several ethics rules. It was the second such determination that Dore has faced in connection with foreclosure cases in the past 3 years, for use of false documents and signatures.
One of the most unique large-scale international climate change projects is underway in Africa. A 4,000 mile “wall of trees” is being constructed across the east-west axis of the continent as a defense against rapid, expanding desertification of the Sahara.
11 nations — Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti — have agreed to participate in The Great Green Wall initiative (GGW), planting a contiguous “wall of trees” stretching 4,300 miles long and 9 miles wide, across the entire width of the African continent from Djibouti in the east to Senegal on the west.
The project was approved by the African Union in 2007, under the umbrella of the Community of the Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD). In 2008, the first trees were planted along the wall’s path.
Progress (and reporting) currently varies from nation to nation; the process is still in its infancy and will take several years to complete. Nevertheless, the project is already showing some success: a World Food Program (WFP) report from Senegal details how villages in Widou Thiengoli are now harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables from the dry desert sands, a by-product of the Wall initiative. Some 50,000 acres of trees have already been planted in Senegal, according to press reports.
Desertification has emerged as a “major planetary threat” with particularly daunting challenges for Africa. Climate change has led to prolonged periods of drought and other symptoms of desertification, which are being experienced by a growing number of countries. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that two-thirds of the African continent is classified as desert or dry lands. Rainy seasons and other weather patterns — long consistent – are now changing across the region. In Senegal, for example, the rainy season now begins in September — it traditionally started in July.
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The UN estimates that two-thirds of Africa’s arable land could be lost by 2025 if this trend continues.
According to the Great Green Wall website, the goal is to help mitigate the environmental effects of climate change, including the expansion of desertification. The trees will act as a barrier against desert winds, help to hold moisture in the air and soil, reduce erosion, enhance biodiversity, provide new grazing land and be a source of vegetation. The project is also recognized for the role it will play in local agriculture and employment.
“People used to go to towns to seek paid work during the lean season, but since the project started, that has changed,” says Papa Sarr, Technical Director of the Senegal National Agency of the Great Green Wall.
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The Great Green Wall initiative is supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Food Programme, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the UN-backed Global Environment Facility (GEF) – the largest public funder of UN environmental projects.
The Great Green Wall has received a total of $1.8 billion dollars from the World Bank and another $108 million from the Global Environment Facility.
Ulrich Apel, a forestry expert with GEF, said the program could serve as a model for similar projects around the world in areas, such as central Asia, which face similar challenges in adapting to a rapidly changing climate.
The Green Wall, said Apel, “is off to a promising start.” Standing near a row of waist-high trees in Widou village – one of Senegal’s Green Wall locations — he said: ”In 10 to 15 years this will be a forest. The trees will be big and this region will be completely transformed.”
Hundreds gathered in Dallas to reject the Bush Lie Bury, and three went to jail. I flew from Dallas to Syracuse, where hundreds protested Obama's drone-murder program, and 32 went to jail and are still there (and will stay until trial unless bail can be raised) — some of them risk major jail time because they violated a protective order that the commander of a U.S. military base gained to protect himself from nonviolent peace activists. Another drone protester in Missouri, Brian Terrell, is just finishing a six-month sentence. Climate activist Tim DeChristopher just got out. The people locked in Guantanamo are refusing to eat, and groups around the world are making plans to fast with them. The people of Vieques are rallying on May 1st to demand that the U.S. military truly depart their island. Big plans are being made to rally for Bradley Manning on June 1st. This week I'm heading to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's meeting in North Carolina, after which — just over in Tennessee — three courageous activists go on trial, facing major time in prison, for having entered and protested a nuclear weapons facility.
Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, began his seminal 1928 book simply titled Propaganda, with these ominous words:
‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.' — Edward Bernays, 1928, pg.1, Propaganda
Aldous Huxley, on the 30th anniversary of his own seminal 1931 allegorical novel Brave New World, made the following dreadful observations in the very opening segment of his talk on the Ultimate Revolution upon which mankind and modernity are perilously perched:
‘You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them! If you are going to control any population for any length of time you must have some measure of consent. It's exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion. An element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them. Well, it seems to me that the nature of the Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude! This is the, it seems to me the ultimate in malevolent revolution shall we say.' — Aldous Huxley, 1962 speech at UC Berkeley, minute 04:06
