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On Domestic Workers Day, Millions of Indian Women Continue to Work in the Shadows

Sindhu Menon Equal Times
Domestic work is one of the few areas of work available for unskilled women workers in India -- the overwhelming majority of whom are illiterate or educated only up to the primary level. They frequently work seven days a week, enduring poverty wages [despite often working in multiple households], no paid leave, zero maternity or social protection, violence and unhygienic living and working conditions.

Tidbits - June 18, 2015 - Bernie Sanders, Tamir Rice, Kalief Browder, Ella Baker, BDS, Low-Income Schools, Paul Robeson, and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Bernie Sanders; Tamir Rice; Kalief Browder; Ella Baker; BDS; Low-Income Schools; Rachel Dolezal; TPP; Edward Snowden; Greece; Bessie; Okinawa; Puerto Rico; Jazz; Watts Rebellion; Immigration; Announcements: March to Shut Down Rikers; Detroit Tribute to Paul Robeson and His Work for Peace; Solidarity Delegation of 20 US Activists to Visit Venezuela

Immigrants' Lawsuit Over Post-9/11 Detention Is Revived; Ashcroft and Mueller to be Deposed

Adam Liptak The New York Times
The case, filed in 2002, was the first broad legal challenge to the policies and practices that swept hundreds of mostly Muslim men into detention on immigration violations in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. The defendants include John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller III, the former F.B.I. director. Orders came from officials at the highest levels of government. Now we have the chance to ensure that they are held accountable.

Enforcement is Not the Answer to Europe's Migrant Crisis

David Bacon The Reality Check
The migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has captured the global spotlight. The EU response has focused on enforcement and a crackdown on traffickers. Some European political leaders propose using their navies to stop boats, returning the refuge-seekers to their points of origin, and then sinking the craft. This enforcement-based approach ignores the primary drives of migration but also jeopardizes millions of people who are seeking refuge from repressive regimes.

Preliminary Report of Greek Parliament Debt Truth Committee - Debt Cannot and Should Not Be Paid

Debt Truth Committee, Hellenic Parliament Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt
The Hellenic Parliament established the Truth Committee on Public Debt mandating the investigation into the creation and growth of public debt, and the impact the conditionalities attached to the loans have had on the economy and the population. All the evidence we present shows Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt because the debt is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece

The Charleston Massacre - A Hate Crime

Greg Grandin; Bill Fletcher, Jr.; Tom McCarthy
The massacre took place at the oldest black church south of Baltimore, and one of the most storied black congregations in the United States, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church's history is deeply intertwined with the history of African American life in Charleston. Among the congregation's founders was Denmark Vesey, a former slave who was executed in 1822 for attempting to organize a massive slave revolt.

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past

Charles S. Weinblatt New York Journal of Books
In these days of heightened discussion about "race" and racism, it is useful to keep reminding ourselves about the contingency of racial categories. Jennifer Teege is a German author who is the daughter of a Nigerian father and German mother. In her search for origins, she found that her grandfather was an officer in the SS who ran a World War II concentration camp. Charles S. Weinblatt reviews this harrowing tale of cross-racial family discovery.

Bernie, GE & Uber

Bernie Sanders wins backing of South Carolina AFL-CIO EBoard; Negotiations with General Electric continues with GE demanding concessions from workers; A judge rules that an Uber driver is an Uber employee, not a freelancer!

The Walmart Web: How the World’s Biggest Corporation Secretly Uses Tax Havens to Dodge Taxes

Americans for Tax Fairness Americans for Tax Fairness
Most people know that Walmart is the world’s biggest corporation. Virtually no one knows that Walmart has an extensive and secretive web of subsidiaries located in countries widely known as tax havens. Typically, the primary purpose for a corporation to set up subsidiaries in tax havens where it has little to no business operations and few, if any, employees is to pay little, if any, taxes and to maintain financial secrecy.

Argentine Women Call Out Machismo

UKI GOÑI The New York Times
The term “femicidio,” which encompasses the murder of women by domestic violence, in honor killings and in other categories of hate crime, has now entered our everyday language in Argentina. “The cause is our country’s macho culture,” said Fabiana Tuñez, executive director of Casa del Encuentro, a women’s shelter. Women’s rights advocates like her see a continuum between the deadly violence and supposedly harmless everyday sexism.