International
Migrants, cheap labor to work in the fields in the south of Rome
Before dawn, Shoda, a 29-year-old Indian, goes out by bike to go to work in the countryside in Latina, an important agricultural province in the south of Rome and one of the most productive in Italy. It is one of the many migrants exploited as cheap labor in the area, the vast majority, according to the unions.
This young Indian from the Punjab region – like a large part of the migrants in Latina – travels every day the 20 kilometers between his rural neighborhood of the town of Aprilia and the green fields of Latina, where he collects seasonal fruit and vegetables since his arrival in Italy two years ago.
Shoda, one of the 30,000 members of the Indian community in the area, claims to be happy with his work, although he only charges about 6 euros an hour – below the about 10 that the agricultural agreement marks – but is outraged by the death last week of his compatriot Satnam Singh after a serious accident on a farm in the region.
After being run over by a machine that cut his arm, Singh was abandoned on the street next to his member amputated by his boss, who let him die from a hemorrhage that would have been contained if he had received the necessary medical attention.
“They treated him like an animal,” he denounces to EFE Shoda, who in recent days went out to protest a tragedy that has once again focused on the labor exploitation of migrants, very common in Latina, an area with about 30,000 agricultural workers, 70% of them foreigners and many irregular and without a contract.
Andrea Coinu, a member of the CGIL union, the largest in Italy, leaves these early morning days to talk to the migrants who leave at dawn to go to work.
In a van with a dozen more trade unionists, he walks through the fields and villages full of fruit trees and crops to inform them of their labor rights in the face of the “extended impunity” of agricultural owners and entrepreneurs that, he says, culminated in Singh’s tragic death last week.
Since that incident, in the area “there is a lot of tension and fear, both on the part of workers and entrepreneurs,” says Coinu, who distributes pamphlets and talks to Indian day laborers of the Sikh religion with the support of a translator shortly before they are picked up to go to the countryside.
Even in the early hours of the morning, other vans with more workers pass by. According to the CGIL, they go to work accompanied by foremen, one more sample of the ‘caporalato’, a system very widespread in Italian agriculture – it would affect 40% of employees in the center and south of the country – and that has been prevailing in Latina despite being vetoed by law for years.
It is based on employing cheap labor through foremen – part of them from the migrant community – who choose the workers and keep part of the money that the employer offers as a daily wage.
Faced with the controversy over the death of the Indian day laborer, a new victim of the ‘caporalato’, the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni insisted in recent days on its rejection of that system, while unions, part of the migrant community and the political opposition accused the Executive of inaction.
“There are people who only charge four euros an hour despite the strenuous work in the countryside,” says Coinu, who hopes that, after Singh’s tragedy, “the authorities will really invest time in changing things” in a sector “very based on exploitation.”
According to the complaint, the bosses of Latina profit from all this, an area of fascist tradition populated by settlers from northern Italy in a project launched by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s.
The area has many water resources, which makes Latina one of the large areas of kiwi production in Europe, as well as vineyards and crops of melons, tomatoes or cucumbers.
“It’s a tiring job, but it needs to be done to support the family,” another Indian migrant of about 50 years old who goes by bike to work and complains about the bad conditions.
As he explains, he changes crops and pattern according to the seasonal harvest, although unlike many others who must work clandestinely, he has a work permit and a stable situation.
That’s what three young Tunisians are looking for, hoping to improve their future in Italy, while the sunlight rises and they wait on the corner of a rural road for a vehicle to pick them up to go to work on a foreign land.
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.
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.
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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