The flooding continues in Iraq. Alsumaria notes that the dams in Gazzanh and Mandall are reaching their max with an estimated two million cubic meters of water having been added in the last days. Today a helicopter attempting to evacuate families trpped by the floods has crashed in Wasit Province. KUNA notes that the helicopter "hit a communication tower." Yesterday the Iraqi Red Crescent Society announced that in addition to food, over 1200 hot meals, and other forms of relief including putting up 650 tents for families in the provinces of Maysan and Wasit. In this video, Alsumaria reports on the flooding and that fifteen villages are trapped by the floods. Dhi Qar's government announces that 300 homes have been destroyed.
Along with the immediate impact of the floods, there are other impacts that we'll be felt in the coming weeks and months. Alsumaria notes that Diwaniyah Province asserts that the floods are leading to the loss of 150,000 acres of wheat and barley. All Iraq News explains Iraiqya MP Raad al-Dahlaki is stating that all sides of the government are responsible, "All sides hold the responsibility over damaging the crops due to the lack of the real infrastructures. The floods are expected to happen and their should be plans to face such a disaster."
Through yesterday, Iraq Body Count counts 136 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month. Today? National Iraqi News Agency notes 1 rebel was shot dead in Mosul, a Mosul armed clash has left 1 bystander dead and another injured,and Nouri's forces shot dead a Mosul suicide bomber. Alsumaria notes the suicide bomber claimed 3 lives (plus his own).
As the land of widows and orphans continues to be the birth of the never-solved crises under Nouri, Murtaza Hussain (Al Jazeera) offers this on Iraq:
Away from the focus of major news media - numbed as it has become to stories of unconscionable Iraqi suffering - Iraq this past April recorded its deadliest month in five years, with over 700 killed in sectarian violence throughout the country. Describing the aftermath of a deadly car bombing in his neighbourhood, school teacher Ibrahim Ali gave voice to the dread and foreboding felt by many Iraqis for their country:
"We asked the students to remain inside the classrooms because we were concerned about their safety… [they] were panicking and some of them started to cry…. We have been expecting this violence against Shiites due to the rising sectarian tension in the country."The unacknowledged truth behind the past decade of bloodletting in Iraq is that the country itself effectively ceased to exist after the 2003 US invasion. The northern province of Iraqi Kurdistan is today an independent country in all but name and is increasingly moving towards formal recognition of this fact - while Sunni and Shia Iraqis have come to see themselves more as distinct entities than as part of a cohesive nation. Iraqi Sunnis, a once-empowered minority, have taken up arms in recent months against the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki and have staked their terms in a manner which acknowledges the irredeemable nature of a continued Iraqi state. In the words of Sunni cleric Mohammad Taha at a rally in Samarra:
"Al-Maliki has brought the country to the abyss... this leaves us with two options: Either civil war or the formation of our own autonomous region."There is evidence to suggest that this state of affairs was not an unintended consequence of the 2003 invasion. The American architects of the Iraq War - while couching their justifications for war in the rhetoric of liberation - had for years previously openly acknowledged and predicted that an invasion would result in the death of Iraq as a cohesive state. In a follow-up to their 1996 policy paper"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" - a report published by leading neoconservative intellectuals, including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, which advocated a radical reshaping of the Middle East using American military power - the report's authors acknowledged the inevitability of Iraq's demise post-invasion.
Finally, David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. We'll close with this from Bacon's "LAUNDERING THE PUBLIC IMAGE OF WORKER-KILLING SWEATSHOPS" (Truthout):
At the Ali Enterprises garment sweatshop in Pakistan in 2011, 300 people burned
to death - the largest factory fire in world history. Last year in Bangladesh
workers jumped from the windows of the burning Tazreen factory because the doors
were locked, falling to the pavement below as their sisters had done in the
notorious Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City in 1911. In the Foxconn
plant in China, where the iPads and iPhones are assembled, workers were pushed
so hard that they began to kill themselves in 2010.
And during the week of April 21, over 350 workers were killed when the Rana Plaza building collapsed. Factory owners refused to evacuate the building after huge cracks appeared in the walls, even after safety engineers told them not to let workers inside. Workers told IndustriALL union federation representatives they'd be docked three days pay for each day of an absence, and so went inside despite their worries.
Not good for the corporate image of WalMart, whose clothes were sewn at Tazreen, or Apple, whose iPads and iPhones are put together at Foxconn. Not good for J. C. Penney, Benetton or the Spanish clothing brand El Corte Inglés, whose labels or cutting orders were found in the rubble at Rana Plaza. According to the International Labor Rights Forum, "one of the factories in the Rana complex, Ether-Tex, had listed Walmart-Canada as a buyer on their website."
And during the week of April 21, over 350 workers were killed when the Rana Plaza building collapsed. Factory owners refused to evacuate the building after huge cracks appeared in the walls, even after safety engineers told them not to let workers inside. Workers told IndustriALL union federation representatives they'd be docked three days pay for each day of an absence, and so went inside despite their worries.
Not good for the corporate image of WalMart, whose clothes were sewn at Tazreen, or Apple, whose iPads and iPhones are put together at Foxconn. Not good for J. C. Penney, Benetton or the Spanish clothing brand El Corte Inglés, whose labels or cutting orders were found in the rubble at Rana Plaza. According to the International Labor Rights Forum, "one of the factories in the Rana complex, Ether-Tex, had listed Walmart-Canada as a buyer on their website."
When workers started committing suicide at Foxconn,
protestors held signs with their names in front of Apple's flagship store,
demanding better conditions. But the strategy employed by most large
manufacturers is not to improve the conditions that kill workers. They are
especially unwilling to recognize workers' unions that would act as monitors and
enforcers of signed agreements guaranteeing livable wages and safety procedures
that wouldn't put lives at risk.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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