What do Chinese migrant workers do on break?
By By Carol Huang | 01.27.09
At the sweater factory I toured in Dongguan, to report a story on Chinese migrant workers, everyone broke for lunch soon after I arrived. They got 1 ½ hours – a helpful respite for those nine-hour days, plus overtime.
Most hurried to the canteen, where cooks scooped veggies and tofu onto rice bowls, which they ate with friends in a big cafeteria, a TV playing in the background. Employees higher on the totem pole ate in a separate room, and got meat.
After lunch many workers retreated to their dorms. A few sunned themselves just outside the company gates, leaning sleepily against the pink-tiled walls.
Some workers caught up on chores, hanging sheets and clothes on the roof of their dorm. Chinese New Year is a common time for “spring cleaning,” the manager showing me around explained.
One woman sat outside her room – knitting, of all things. An odd hobby for workers who make sweaters all day long, I thought to myself. But this person worked in the kitchen, I was told.
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Egypt, Hamas welcome US Middle East envoy
By Ilene R. Prusher | 01.27.09
Cairo – In Egypt and in the Gaza Strip, the enthusiasm is definitely palpable over the arrival of George Mitchell, President Obama’s new envoy to the Middle East.
He’s not a stranger. Many in the Arab world gained respect for Mr. Mitchell following his report on the al- Aqsa Intifada, which broke out in 2000. The report on the conflict was viewed as balanced, placing the blame at the feet of leaders on both sides.
Hamas officials, however, say they are disappointed that Mitchell has no plans to meet with them on this trip, and say they won’t be left out of the loop. Naturally, they say, any extension of the cease-fire depends on Hamas.
And that cease-fire was looking increasingly shaky on Tuesday after an incident in which one Israeli soldier and one Palestinian were killed. It started after an Israeli patrol along the border with Gaza was hit, probably by a roadside bomb.
Mitchell is in Cairo today and will be in Israel Wednesday. But there’s some Arab dismay that Mitchell will not be seeing the worst of the 22-day war: He will almost definitely not be stopping in Gaza. No American official has been permitted to travel to the Gaza Strip since a convoy carrying senior US intelligence officials was attacked in 2003. A roadside bomb was also behind that attack.
We wrote last week about Mitchell’s track record as the man who brokered peace in Northern Ireland after decades of hatred and violence.
Mr. Obama gave Mitchell a boost this morning on Arab TV (click here for excerpts and video), saying that he has “enormous stature” as an international negotiator. “What I told him is, start by listening,” said Obama. “All too often, the US starts by dictating.”
There is a sense in many corners of the Arab world of “Let’s give Obama a chance.”
Mohammed Essam Derbala, one of the leaders of al-Gama’a al-Islamiya (The Islamic Group) in Egypt, has called on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to declare a unilateral four-month cease-fire with the United States.
It’s an appropriate nod toward Obama, Mr. Derbala indicated, following the new US president’s pledge to turn a new page in America’s relationship with the Muslim world and to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center, where the US has been holding enemy combatants from Muslim countries since 9/11.
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On Arab TV, Obama lays out US approach to Mideast
By Christa Case Bryant | 01.27.09
After weeks of Arab grumbling about Barack Obama’s silence on Gaza, the newly inaugurated American president has spoken. And his message is this: “We are ready to initiate a new partnership.”
But perhaps the biggest statement the president made was to choose the Dubai-based Al Arabiya network as the conduit for his first televised interview since taking office. It aired this morning. (You can view video highlights of the interview at the end of this post.)
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Bolivian hospitality: Best in the world
By International Editor | 01.26.09
Reporters on the Job: Bolivians have got to be the nicest people in the world. They are always helpful, and it is the one country in Latin America where I do not have to fight for fair cab fares because I am a gringa.
My first day in La Paz I went to a local gym. And while I was using a StairMaster, I noticed that a little baby was wandering around, getting in the way of people exercising. But instead of getting upset, everyone (men and women alike) was gushing over him, picking him up, putting down their weights to pat his head.
On the day of the referendum, I stopped an old man on the street to ask his opinion about the election. He told me he would talk to me as we walked. About 15 minutes later, we approached a house, he opened the door, and introduced me to his wife, who, without knowing what I was doing there, shuttled me to the kitchen table where they proceeded to feed me a delicious three-course meal. It was referendum day, so all restaurants were closed and there are no cars allowed on the streets.
As I left, the wife told me: “We cannot let you go hungry. Come back for dinner!”
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EU fails to agree on who will host Guantánamo prisoners
By Matthew Clark | 01.26.09
Criticize? Mais, oui! Help? Ehh … peut-être.
After spending the past few years lambasting the Bush administration for holding suspected terrorists at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba without charge or trial, European leaders now find themselves in a quandary.
Now that President Obama has ordered Gitmo shut down, he needs allied countries to volunteer to host the former detainees.
Trouble is, few European countries have made concrete offers to help.
European Union (EU) member states met today on the issue, but (surprise!) failed to come up with a joint plan of action.
Der Spiegel reported that France had floated a proposal that EU countries offer homes to about 60 inmates who were deemed innocent but would risk persecution or torture if sent to their home countries.
‘It’s a legal thing’
Karel Schwarzenberg, foreign minister from the Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, cited legal reasons as the main impediment to coming up with a joint statement, reports Bloomberg.
“We can’t give a quick answer,” Schwarzenberg told reporters after the meeting.
European leaders have had contrasting positions about what they’re ready to offer. Portugal, France, and non-EU member Switzerland have said they’ll consider taking prisoners on a case-by-case basis, while Italy is open to the idea but wants a common EU position. …
Germany hasn’t decided whether to take prisoners, while the Dutch government has refused on the grounds that the U.S. should handle the situation. The U.K., which has accepted six of its nationals and four residents since 2004, will “offer our experience” to EU allies, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.
EU leaders “stressed that American authorities must show ex-inmates pose no security threat before they can be resettled,” reports the Associated Press.
But therein lies the rub.
If the detainees are deemed too dangerous to be hosted on European soil, should they then be set free to attack from somewhere else? If not, where then should they be held if the US detention facility in Cuba was so bad?
“Not our problem,” say the Europeans.
“There is no question that chief responsibility to do with solving the problem of this detention center lies with those who set it up, the Americans themselves,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “But it is also a question of our credibility – of whether we support the dismantling of this American camp or not.”
Like herding cats?
If that credibility is really at stake, the EU will have to overcome long odds to salvage it, given that the 27-member EU has a hard time agreeing on most issues.
Here’s how the Monitor’s Europe Bureau Chief Robert Marquand put it in a recent article: “In an EU that is often characterized as divisive and dissembling on hard national problems, and that could not agree this freezing winter on how to collectively deal with gas shut-offs in the Russia-Ukraine dispute, the Obama team may have to be patient [when it comes to who will host Gitmo prisoners].”
That virtue of Obama’s may well be tested soon.
As Monitor correspondent Caryle Murphy reports today, “two Saudis formerly jailed at the US prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have joined Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, and authorities here worry that two other ex-Guantánamo inmates may have strayed back to militancy because they have recently disappeared from their homes.”
Gunmen opened fire Monday night at a checkpoint outside the US embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, the BBC quoted Yemeni officials as saying.
The clock is ticking.
