June 2003

THE International Labour Organisation (ILO) has just published a report (1), largely ignored in the press, claiming that every year 270 million employees are injured worldwide in accidents in the workplace and 160 million affected by work-related illnesses. The report reveals more than 2 million workers die on the job each year - 5,000 people killed by their work every day. These statistics, the report makes clear, are an underestimate (2).
In France, according to the Caisse nationale (...)

For those with a long memory and an understanding of the ambitions and history of previous empires - and their inevitable decline - the present behaviour of the United States is familiar and yet unprecedented. It may lead to the militarisation of the US, the destabilisation of the Middle East and the impoverishment, in every way, of the rest of the world.

Relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia have been tense since 11 September 2001, and were not improved by last month’s suicide bombings in the heart of Riyadh, which killed some 40 people, mostly residents in foreign compounds. Saudi rulers are facing a radicalised Islamist current in society and also demands for reform within the country.

Many Iraqis are more tolerant of the dubious motives of the United States for invading their country than are Western protesters. The Iraqis wanted to be free, and not merely liberated from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein: they have expectations of improved living conditions and a genuine democracy involving local people. And they feel US troops and the government that backs them are doing nothing to change Iraq for the better. What happens when the Iraqis’ patience finally runs out?

There was unanimous and universal praise for those (unionised) ordinary people of the United States who had died doing their jobs on 11 September 2001. And then the Bush administration returned to its policy of stripping workers of their rights and de-unionising whole zones of employment.

This month the Federal Communications Commission, despite sharp party-affiliated divisions, voted to relax key media ownership restrictions in the United States, permitting greater concentration of companies. The once admired standards of American journalism have been shamed by scandals at the New York Times and by over-close, compliant relationships with political power before, during and after the war in Iraq.

During Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency of Nigeria (he was re-elected in April) there has been economic meltdown and a national identity crisis, now both exacerbated by tense relations with the United States.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia reaffirmed his policy on Chechnya in May despite suicide attacks that killed 75 people in the space of a few days. The responsibility for policing will be handed to local militias; a president and parliament will be elected; a treaty will set out the powers of the Russian Federation and the Caucasian republic; and an amnesty will be declared. He said nothing about abuses by Russian soldiers that provoke demands for vengeance now and possibly by future generations.

After decades of amateurish movies screened in church halls, Christian production companies in the United States have gone professional and their films are being screened alongside mainstream studio pictures.