Free Republic

Aid workers under attack from militia in 'killing fields' By Adrian Blomfield in Bunia (Filed: 04/06/2003) Militia controlling the Congolese town of Bunia have attacked humanitarian workers and raped members of their families in the last few days and continue to execute members of other tribes during the night. At least five local aid workers have been badly beaten in their homes and a United Nations controlled refugee camp in recent days. UPC leader Lubanga The UN peacekeeping mission in Bunia said the militia were targeting humanitarian workers, the only people with large amounts of money in the pillaged town....

While Congress May Close Front Door on Intra-Company Transfer Visas, The Administration is Opening the Back Door and All the Windows (Washington, D.C. June 2, 2003) Legislation pending before Congress to curb the abuses in the L-1 visa program may be rendered moot by executive agreements being concluded by the Bush Administration. According to The New York Times, the L-1 visa program, which allows companies to transfer employees from overseas branches or subsidiaries to company offices in the U.S., "are now routinely used by companies based in India and elsewhere to bring their workers into the United States and then...

May 23 2003 at 11:57AM American 'Iraqi leader' axes public workers By Nadim Ladki Baghdad - The United States administrator in Iraq acted swiftly on America's overwhelming victory at the United Nations over its plans to rebuild the oil-rich country, dissolving several key Baathist ministries and bodies on Friday. Only hours after the Security Council voted to end 13-year-old crippling sanctions, Washington's man in charge of Iraq, Paul Bremer, sacked hundreds of thousands of public employees and soldiers by abolishing the defence and information ministries and military and security courts. The Bush administration, which is struggling to bring order to...

Freed aid workers tell of prison torture By Kim Sengupta 13 April 2003 Two members of Médecins Sans Frontières have returned to Baghdad after being arrested and held for eight days by Iraqi secret police, accused of being spies. François Callas and Ibrahim Younous were kept in some of the regime's most notorious prisons before being dumped on the streets in the city of Ramadi, in western Iraq, on Friday evening. The two men were among dozens of foreigners who were picked up by the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, in the dying days of Saddam Hussein's regime and then...

WASHINGTON -- The Socialist Workers Party, long allowed to keep its donors secret because of the danger of harassment, should continue to receive the special protection, Federal Election Commission lawyers say. The party asked the commission to extend its exemption from FEC reporting requirements that other political parties face, including identifying its contributors, the candidates it supports and the businesses it buys from. The exemption, given for six years at a time, was first granted by a court in 1979 and last renewed by the commission in 1996. The Socialist Workers Party advocates a Marxist revolution to overthrow the U.S....

<p>SACRAMENTO - In the four months since Gray Davis won re-election, the Democratic governor has rewarded at least 17 former campaign workers with state jobs -- many with generous raises -- even as California prepares to lay off hundreds of state workers.</p>

Fear grows in the company compounds of Riyadh after British worker is shot dead By Francis Field 22 February 2003 For many British expatriates in Saudi Arabia, the war on terrorism and the impending allied action against Iraq have had little effect on day-to-day life. But the fatal shooting on Thursday of Robert Dent, who worked in the capital, Riyadh, for BAE Systems, has caused widespread fear among expats. Although the Saudi authorities immediately arrested the alleged murderer, panic spread through British communities. "This changes everything," said a British worker in Jeddah. "We have had several warnings from the British...

<p>WASHINGTON -- About three-quarters of a million Americans are about to be cut off from a federal program designed to help unemployed workers weather the extended economic slowdown.</p> <p>And, despite encouraging words from President Bush, there's no indication when their benefits checks might return, or for how long.</p>

A broadly written Kentucky law is allowing government employees and elected leaders to retire, only to return a month later to their same jobs, often at the same pay, and collect retirement benefits on top of their salaries. ''It's happening, and it's happening quite often,'' said Bill Hanes, executive director of the Kentucky Retirement Systems. The state doesn't track how many people are ''double dipping,'' but the number likely is in the hundreds, Hanes said. The practice has had no impact thus far on the $11 billion in pension investments, Hanes said. But he warned that if many more workers...

Israeli helicopter attack on Gaza kills two UN workers By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem07 December 2002 Ten Palestinians were killed yesterday in an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Civilians were among the dead, although Palestinian sources said they believed the majority of victims were armed militants. The Israeli incursion appeared to have set off a three-hour gun battle in the alleys of the Bureij refugee camp, a densely populated civilian area. The Israeli army denied there were any civilian casualties. However, among the dead was one woman: Ahlam Kandil, a Palestinian teacher who worked in...

<p>Federal government workers who expected to get a snow day yesterday were unpleasantly surprised when several inches of snow failed to produce a paid day off.</p> <p>The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) opted to keep government offices open, angering some of the area's estimated 250,000 federal workers who said the decision created an unnecessary safety risk for commuters traveling slick, snow-covered roads.</p>

While American companies have flocked to do business in China, a state-owned Chinese company on Monday did just the opposite. It bought a Gainesville company it plans to turn into the world's fourth biggest battery manufacturer. Shanghai Huayi Group paid $20-million for the assets of Moltech Power Systems Inc. which will be lifted out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding. The new owners plan to use the deal to make a new brand of rechargeable batteries to compete with Rayovac, Energizer and Gillette in North America while bringing new technology to the Chinese consumer market. The venture is supposed to...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryOctober 19, 2002 Radio Address by the President to the Nation      Fact Sheet     Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I want to discuss with you steps we are taking to help strengthen the retirement security of America's workers. More than 40 million Americans save for retirement through 401(k) accounts, making regular contributions and building economic security over a lifetime. A 401(k) provides a chance to invest in the long-term growth of the American economy and an opportunity to build wealth and independence. Today's workers own more then $1.5 trillion in assets through their 401(k)s. Younger workers...

<p>IN HIS NEVER-ENDING quest for control of the workplace, Henry Ford confronted many foes, but none as wily or rebellious as the human digestive tract. Hoping to tame what he called the body's ''disassembly line,'' Ford wheeled lunch wagons into his auto plant in Highland Park, Mich., and forced workers to wolf down a 10-minute sandwich on the job. So industrialized was ingestion at the plant that workers growled about their ''Ford stomach.'' But where Ford sought to speed up the meal's entrance into the body, his successors - from store managers in the Midwest to fashion moguls in New York - have concentrated on slowing down its exit.</p>

[...] A study by Klinger's group last month found that CEOs at 23 companies under investigation for accounting fraud made an average of $62.2 million during 1999-2001, 70 percent more than CEOs at comparable companies with clean records. Last year the average CEO of a major company got 411 times the pay of the poorest-paid worker. Thanks largely to falling stock prices, and their impact on stock options, that's down from 531 times in 2000. But if the average annual pay of a production worker had grown at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, that worker would have...

Classic VersionThe ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool...(snip)Modern VersionThe ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool..(snip)..CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast...(snip)Click here for full article.

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) --  Federal agents arrested at least 60 airport workers, many with access to restricted areas such as planes and runways, for allegedly using false identification at Southern California airports.</p> <p>The raid Thursday, part of a national sweep started last fall known as "Operation Tarmac," uncovered immigration violations and document fraud, but found no connections to terrorist groups, authorities said.</p>

INS reports a growing number of illegal workers are paying smugglers to bring their families to U.S. He kissed his wife goodbye, hugged his children and headed north alone, one of thousands of Mexican men who leave their families behind to work in the United States. But after arriving in Houston, Angel realized he missed his wife's cooking. Back in Mexico, his daughters cried for him often, and the eldest one's grades slipped at school. So Angel did what so many illegal immigrants do these days: He paid a human smuggler $5,500 to bring his wife and two daughters, then...

U.S. Plans to Evacuate Workers in Case of Attack Sat Aug 17, 4:22 PM ET CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The Bush administration has approved plans aimed at speeding the evacuation of federal workers in the nation's capital in the event of an attack using weapons of mass destruction, officials said on Saturday. Under the plan the Office of Personnel Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the General Services Administration would have the authority to order an evacuation of up to 350,000 federal workers in the Washington, D.C., area and 1.8 million nationwide if an attack occurs or if one...

<p>NEW YORK — Labor groups usually fight for retirement and dental plans, but a group of Philadelphia workers want somewhere to hang their clothes while they work — in the nude.</p> <p>The Philadelphia Models Guild was established by art school models fed up with unacceptable work conditions. However, unlike blue-collar workers who block gates, picket and chant for rights, the guild is trying to open up communication lines between models and the schools where they pose for art students.</p>