blessed britons

The upshot [of the violence], clearly planned in advance, was the eviction of Greeks from Turkish areas in Nicosia and other cities, and the seizure of municipal facilities, to create self-contained Turkish enclaves: piecemeal partition, on the ground. Its organisers could be sure of British complaisance. The day before the rampage... the new governor, Labour’s future Lord Caradon, had assured its leaders that the Turkish community would enjoy ‘a specially favoured and specially protected state’ under future British arrangements. A few months later, the colonial secretary was publicly referring to Cyprus as ‘an offshore Turkish island’.

— Perry Anderson

The Divisions of Cyprus

mad world

In Cambodia, donors spent between $50m and $70m on 700 international consultants in 2002 - equivalent to the wage bill for 160,000 Cambodian civil servants. In other words, donor-financed consultants working in the Cambodian government are paid upwards of 200 times what their Cambodian counterparts receive.

— Action Aid

From Real Aid

I lie down and weep

Submitted by antarchi on September 16, 2007 - 02:31.

In Mauritius... the Sunday Times reported that migrant workers in factories supplying UK brands earn as little as 22p to 40p per hour, when the average local wage is 55p. One of them had supplied Sir Philip Green’s Topshop for the past ten years. “When I go to bed at the end of the day,” one woman told the paper, “I lay down and weep.” Another explained the conditions in which they work:
'We were put in dormitories – approximately 20ft-30ft, 40-50 workers huddled together in this room. There was no space to move around. For the 985 employees there were only 10 toilets and at least three of them did not work at any time. More often there was no water in the toilets. The food was so bad we could not consume it.'

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