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Year before Qatar World Cup, Amnesty urges end to labour abuses

AFP

A year before the World Cup in Qatar, Amnesty International Tuesday urged the energy-rich emirate to end abuses against migrant workers, many of whom built the tournament’s infrastructure.

“The daily reality for many migrant workers in the country remains harsh, despite legal changes introduced since 2017,” the London-based human rights group said.

It urged Qatar to abolish the so-called kafala sponsorship system which bonds foreign labourers to employers, making them more vulnerable to abuses such as late- and non-payment of wages.

“Apparent complacency by the authorities is leaving thousands of workers at continued risk of exploitation by unscrupulous employers, with many unable to change jobs and facing wage theft,” said Mark Dummett, Amnesty’s global issues programme director.

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“They have little hope of remedy, compensation or justice. After the World Cup, the fate of the workers who remain in Qatar will be even more uncertain.”

Amnesty also said “authorities have done little to investigate the scale of unexplained deaths” arguing there was evidence of links to unsafe working conditions.

It charged that foreign labourers have scarce access to justice and are banned from organising to fight for their rights.

Qatar has previously faced criticism for its treatment of migrant workers, with campaigners accusing employers of exploitation and forcing labourers to work in dangerous conditions.

– ‘Work in progress’ –

Qatar authorities insist they have done more than any country in the region to improve worker welfare, and reject international media reports about thousands of migrant workers’ deaths.

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“Qatar rejects Amnesty’s assertion that labour reforms have not translated into changes on the ground for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers,” its Government Communications Office said in a statement.

More than 240,000 workers had successfully changed jobs since barriers were removed in September 2020, and more than 400,000 had directly benefited from a new minimum wage, it said.

Qatar pointed to other reforms, including new visa centres in countries of origin, that had “significantly reduced exploitative practices”, and an extended ban on summer working “to minimise the effects of heat stress”.

“Qatar has never shied away from acknowledging that its labour system is still a work in progress,” it added.

Amnesty acknowledged that Qatar had made positive reforms since 2017, also including limits on working hours for live-in domestic workers, labour tribunals and a fund to support payment of unpaid wages.

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But the rights group charged that “a failure to implement” some of the reforms “means exploitation continues”.

“Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world, but its economy depends on the two million migrant workers who live there,” Dummet said.

“By sending a clear signal that labour abuses will not be tolerated, penalising employers who break laws and protecting workers’ rights, Qatar can give us a tournament that we can all celebrate. But this is yet to be achieved.”

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International

China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”

The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.

That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”

“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.

Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”

In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”

This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.

The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.

Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.

For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.

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International

Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants

The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.

According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.

The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”

The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.

The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”

These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.

Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.

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International

Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”

“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.

The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.

“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.

Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.

“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.

The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.

Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.

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