The publication last week of an independent audit carried out by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) will bring cheer to those who have long campaigned that Apple has ignored the working conditions of the Chinese workers who assemble their iPhones and iPads. Following publication of the report, Apple and Foxconn have together agreed to reduce working hours, improve health and safety conditions and ‘establish a genuine voice for the workers’.
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Yet again another Tibetan has set himself alight in protest at Chinese rule in Tibet. He ran 50 metres, ablaze in flames, in New Delhi, and collapsed outside the Indian parliament, in the week when the Chinese president Hu Jintao is to a visit India for a five-nation economic summit meeting of the BRICS nations
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Brazil is now the world’s 6th largest economy, having now officially overtaken the UK which is pushed down to 7th place. With its booming economy (though this year’s growth is a mere 2.7% compared to last year’s 7.5%) the Latin American powerhouse has also closed the gap on France in 5th place and Germany in 4th place.
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The Israeli secret service Mossad has this week opened up its archives surrounding the remarkable capture of the Adolf Eichamann, who was responsible for co-ordinating Hitler’s “Final Solution” which was designed to exterminate European Jews. Some six million Jews are believed to have died at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.
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The magnificent Torres del Paine national park in southern Chile, has been devastated by a wild fire. The environmental disaster began just two days after Christmas and it is reported that more than 21,000 acres of pristine habitat have been decimated. This represents about 6 per cent of the area of the park.
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Vaclav Havel, one of the most inspiring figures of the late 20th Century, has died aged 75 on Sunday morning after a lengthy period of ill health. Candles by their hundreds were lit in Wenceslas Square in Prague, the scene of those incredible and inspiring events in late 1989 which became known as the Velvet Revolution when the Soviet rule disintegrated in Czechoslovakia.
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The Global Buddhist Congregation, currently taking place in Delhi, has been hit with controversy. The entirely religious occasion, which this year is taking place 2,600 years since the enlightenment of Siddharta Gautama, has been overshadowed by Beijing’s insistence that the Dalai Lama not be allowed to speak at the event.
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About 40 gunmen attacked an indigenous tribe in southwestern Brazil on Friday morning, executing and dragging away its chief, a Brazilian government ministry said. Nisio Gomes, the 59-year-old leader of the Guarani tribe, was shot in the head in front of his community and then had his body taken away by masked attackers alleged to be Paraguayan last Friday, according to the Brazilian Ministerio Publico Federal.
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A visitor at the Sorocaba Zoo in Sao Paolo in decided that he wanted to play with a group of spider monkeys, so he took his shirt off, climbed over a fence and swam across a pool to join them. Stunned visitors and tourists watched, their cameras and videos to hand, as Joao Leite Dos Santos, a mechanic from Sao Paulo pulled his stunt. But he soon wished he hadn’t.
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Tibet’s desperate unrest grows with a tenth self-immolation. Dawa Tsering became the tenth young Tibetan to protest against China’s rule in Tibet by setting fire to himself (and in one case herself). The London based Free Tibet group confirmed yesterday that Dawa Tsering, a monk from Kandze Monastery, had self-immolated on 25th October in Kandze Town near his monastery. His well-being and whereabouts remained unknown.
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