A newly formed Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists issues a call for civil struggle against the ayatollahs, regional strongmen like Assad and Erdogan, and the jihadists alike.
by David L. Wilson, MR Zine
On April 24, 2013, some 1,134 people died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex outside Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The building housed factories where low-wage workers, largely women, stitched garments for the U.S. and European markets.
For several years before the disaster a number of U.S. opinion makers—notably New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof—had been arguing that assembly plants like those at Rana Plaza were crucial to the development of economies in the Global South and therefore a boon to the world’s most impoverished. The media’s efforts to promote sweatshops suddenly slowed down after the collapse in Bangladesh, but they seem to be reviving now, just as we approach the third anniversary of the disaster.
The occasion for the new pro-sweatshop campaign is Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders‘ opposition to trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Senator Sanders has made criticism of the trade deals a key part of his bid for the Democratic nomination.
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Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled that Australia's detention of refugees on Manus Island is illegal—but Canberra stood by its policy of intercepting migrants at sea.
More than 3,000 members of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities have been displaced as Colombia's Chocó department is convulsed by conflict with the ELN guerillas.
