This week's stories: Invasion of Iraq to Reward American Oil Companies...Call Centres Get Worse...Insane Prisoner Can Be Forcibly Medicated then Executed...Gap Between Rich and Poor Not Wide Enough Say Employers...NSW Education Department Just Knew It Was Going To Fail, Didn't Bother Turning Up To Test...Quotes of the Week.
The Iraqi dissidents chosen by the United States government to head a new regime in Iraq say they will cancel all oil contracts given to companies from countries who don't help in the invasion of Iraq. US oil companies would be expected to win most of the contracts. Many of these companies are linked to senior officials in the Bush regime, including President Bush himself.
(The Nation (US), October 7).
Conditions in the Australian call centre industry are bad and getting worse. A Primus Telecommunications employee has been fired for taking a non-business-related phone call, and claims that 50 staff have left AAPT in recent months with stress-related illnesses. The chief executive of research group callcentres.net, Martin Conboy, said the call centre industry's workforce was growing at about 10 per cent a year - but transaction volumes were increasing by more than 30 per cent per year. Although some of this increase is handled by increased automation, Mr Conway said that "all those people are working harder". Mr Conboy said that, while mundane tasks had been taken away from agents, they were now expected to offer a higher grade of customer service, which put more pressure on staff. Australia's call centre industry consists of approximately 3850 call centres and 22,000 staff.
(Australian Financial Review, February 7).
An American court has ruled that an insane prisoner can be forcibly given anti-psychotic drugs to improve his condition, and then executed once he becomes legally sane. Judges ruled that the drugs were 'generally beneficial to the prisoner'. "Eligibility for execution is the only unwanted consequence of the medication," they wrote.
(New York Times, February 11 and 12).
Unions are seeking an increase of $24.60 per week for low paid Australian workers. Unions say the pay increase last year for Australia's top 100 CEOs was enough to pay the minimum wage increase for 59,000 low-paid workers. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is opposing the claim.
(Australian Financial Review, February 6).
The New South Wales State government scrapped a review of Aboriginal education before the State election. The Minister for Education, John Watkins, said that he stopped a review because he already knew that the State's education policy had failed Aboriginal children. The New South Wales Teachers Federation says that they believe the review was cancelled because of damaging results that would've come out before the State election.
(Sydney Morning Herald, February 17).
Quotes of the Week:
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street".
(Major-General Smedley D. Butler).
"Tony Blair is no longer Prime Minister of Britain, he is the foreign minister of the United States".
(Nelson Mandela).
Global Politics Quiz
1) Which is the only country in the world to have dropped bombs on over twenty different countries since 1945?
2) Which is the only country to have used nuclear weapons?
3) Which country was responsible for a car bomb which killed 80 civilians in Beirut in 1985, in a botched assassination attempt, thereby making it the most lethal terrorist bombing in modern Middle East history?
4) Which country's illegal bombing of Libya in 1986 was described by the UN Legal Committee as a "classic case" of terrorism?
5) Which country rejected the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua in 1986, and then vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law?
6) Which country was accused by a UN-sponsored truth commission of providing "direct and indirect support" for "acts of genocide" against the Mayan Indians in Guatemala during the 1980s?
7) Which country unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in December 2001?
8) Which country renounced the efforts to negotiate a verification process for the Biological Weapons Convention and brought an international conference on the matter to a halt in July 2001?
9) Which country prevented the United Nations from curbing the gun trade at a small arms conference in July 2001?
10) Aside from Somalia, which is the only other country in the world to have refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?
11) Which is the only Western country which allows the death penalty to be applied to children?
12) Which is the only G7 country to have refused to sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, forbidding the use of landmines?
13) Which is the only G7 country to have voted against the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998?
14) Which was the only other country to join with Israel in opposing a 1987 General Assembly resolution condemning international terrorism?
15) Which country refuses to fully pay its debts to the United Nations yet reserves its right to veto United Nations resolutions?
Answer to all 15 questions: The United States of America.
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