This is a Reuters’ video about Greek workers striking.
Reuters reports:
ATHENS, Feb 10 - Greek public sector workers will strike on Wednesday in the first major test of the government’s commitment to push through austerity plans and tackle a debt crisis which has shaken the euro zone.
The 24-hour strike will ground flights, shut government offices and schools and leave public hospitals operating only with emergency staff, a day before EU leaders discuss Greece at a special economy summit in Brussels. …
Unions oppose plans to freeze public wages, slash the salary supplements many Greeks get on top of their base pay, and replace only one in five people leaving the civil service. They say tax reforms, which are also part of the EU-backed plan to shore up Greece’s finances, hurt the poor.
The strike comes a day after the socialist government announced fresh measures to further cut the public wage bill and hike taxes, defying unions with plans to save the state 800 million euros ($1.1 billion) this year.
“They had promised the rich would pay but instead they take the money from the poor,” said Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of the public sector umbrella union ADEDY. “This is the policy we are fighting, not the effort to get out of the crisis.” …
“The measures regarding civil servants are simply unjust,” said 65-year-old civil servant Panayotis Daskalakos.
“We will strike even if we don’t believe this battle will be won,” he said. “We know that the government is taking these measures to satisfy Brussels but they are not thinking about us.”
ADEDY, which represents half a million workers, said on Tuesday it was likely to join a Feb. 24 private sector strike or stage another strike in March.
The Human Rights Campaign, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lobbying group and political action committee, recently released the findings from its 2010 Corporate Equality Index.
In what the organization says has become “the premier benchmark for businesses to gauge their success on LGBT inclusion against competitors,” the annual survey assesses corporate treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees at hundreds of the largest and most successful American companies. The major criteria included in the evaluation include whether discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited and whether same-sex partners are eligible for health insurance benefits. The index also considers diversity training, in-house LGBT resource groups and company advertising and marketing campaigns.
This year, the HRC says a record 305 businesses, representing over 9.3-million full-time employees, earned perfect scores in the index. But not all of the companies surveyed displayed a high level of fairness and inclusiveness, and some earned scores in the index that were downright dismal.
Check out the companies that scored the worst in the HRC survey of corporate LGBT policy below:
Exxon Mobil tied for worst in the Corporate Equality Index with a score of 0. The energy giant does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and does not provide spousal health benefits to same-sex partners.
The Laclede Group, the St. Louis energy company, tied for worst in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Laclede does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender, does not provide partner health benefits, and provides no diversity training that includes sexual orientation. …
Cracker Barrel ranked third worst in the Human Rights Campaign Index with a score of 15. …
Meijer tied for fourth worst in the corporate equality index. The Michigan-based grocery chain does not require employees to complete diversity training that includes sexual orientation, does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and does not provide partner health benefits.
Lear, the automobile-interiors manufacturer, tied for fourth worst in the study. …
Dana Holding Corp., which manufactures structural components for vehicles, tied for fourth worst in the index. …
The railway company recently purchased by Warren Buffett, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, tied for fourth worst with an equality index score of 20. The company was docked points for not prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and not extending health benefits to same-sex partners.
Baldor Electric Company tied for fourth worst on the list. …
AutoZone, which placed ninth-worst in the survey, is another company that lost major points for not prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression and for not providing same-sex partners with health insurance coverage.
YRC Worldwide, the shipping company, tied for tenth worst in the corporate equality index. The company does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and does not allow its employees’ same-sex partners to qualify for health benefits.
With an index score of 30, Vertis Communications tied for tenth on the list. …
Ryland Group, the home construction company, tied for tenth worst in the survey. …
Arizona-based Avnet, the computer products distributor, tied for tenth-worst in the study with an index score of 30.
Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, released figures last week for the 2009 business year, showing a massive net profit of €5 billion: here.
USA: Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, the largest Wall Street banks, announced multi-million-dollar year-end payouts for their chief executives on Friday: here.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered the elimination of 1,000 city worker jobs in order to close the city’s $218.5 million budget deficit: here.
This video is called Haiti Quake Victims Protest Slow Aid Handout.
On Sunday, Haiti saw one of its largest protests since the January 12 earthquake, as four weeks after the disaster, frustration with continuing hunger and homelessness mount: here.
This afternoon, I read my poems at a cafe not far from the early nineteenth century corn market bridge in Leiden.
I was first on stage. The presenter asked me for my Iraq war poem. However, this time I had just brought two poems: a short one on various things called “new”. And a long one, about Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet.
After me, Joost van Gijzen; with short poems on subjects like gym teachers and girls.
Then, Ton Jansen, about subjects like getting older.
During the break, there was supposed to be live music by Olav Quist en Lucien van Dalen. However, they did not turn up, so during pauses there was recorded Nina Simone music.
As his daughter ’squirmed’ to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.
Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.
Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was arrested after being seen walking around his neighbourhood wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows.
Police discovered the alleged waterboarding when they went to his home in the Tacoma suburb of Yelm and spoke to his girlfriend.
She told them about the alleged torture and the terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.
Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: ‘Daddy did it.’
During a police interview Tabor allegedly admitted grabbing his daughter, placing her on the kitchen counter and submerging her face into a bowl of water.
Sergeant Rob Carlson said the punishment was carried out because the girl would not recite the alphabet.
Police have not revealed Tabor’s military service, but his base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tabor has been charged with assault and ordered to remain on his base and have no contact with his daughter or girlfriend, who has not been named. He is due to appear in court this week.
The girl has been taken into care. Her natural mother lives in Kansas but Tabor had been granted custody by a court.
Joshua Tabor, Who Served in Iraq, Accused of Waterboarding Daughter: here.
The CIA is under fire following the news its allowing active-duty operatives to work for private companies on the side. The previously undisclosed “moonlighting” has granted wealthy private entities such as financial firms and hedge funds access to top-level intelligence officials: here.
A British contractor said recently that the Americans, the British and other armed forces were in Afghanistan to win the war, but for his firm, the more the security situation deteriorated the better: here.
David Price: “The CIA Is Welcoming Itself Back onto American University Campuses”: here.
The statistics show that seven women out of 1,000 serving in the Army, Navy and RAF suffered some form of mental disorder – including depression, anxiety or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
More than 6,000 Canadian Forces members and discharged veterans who are receiving physical or psychiatric disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada have either served in Afghanistan or have a disability that has been related to their service in Afghanistan, the department says: here.
The Montréal-based antiwar collective Échec à la guerre (which translates roughly as “Stop war”) is organizing a People’s Summit Against War and Militarism to be held March 19-21 in that city. Featuring workshops and panels as well as a plenary session that will issue a Joint Declaration, the People’s Summit promises to be an important step in creating an understanding of the underlying issues that alone can sustain and build an ongoing movement against war and imperialism in this country [Canada]: here.
They says the temperature rise was caused by climate change.
Experts say it is the first time that Galapagos sea lions have set up a colony outside the islands.
The monitors say the water temperature in Piura, off the coast of northern Peru, has risen from 17C to 23C over the last 10 years.
The temperature is much closer to the sea temperature around the Galapagos Islands, which averages about 25C.
Now that the conditions of the sea around northern Peru are so similar to the Galapagos, they say, even more sea lions and other new marine species could start arriving.
Like so many native species in the Galapagos Islands, the sea lions are unique to the archipelago, located about 600 miles west of continental Ecuador.
Ever since the English naturalist, Charles Darwin, first visited the islands more than 150 years ago, they have become known as a living museum of evolution.
Now, thanks to global warming, that unique ecosystem could face unprecedented changes.
