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offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

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Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link The Renewable Industry?s Dirty Little Secret Has Just Been Exposed Sat Jul 05, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
The cat is out of the bag, says Diana Furchtgott-Roth. The vitriolic reaction to Congress?s plans to cut tax credits for renewables lays bare how 'cheap' wind and solar really are, and how subsidies are never enough.
The post The Renewable Industry’s Dirty Little Secret Has Just Been Exposed appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Britain is Turning into a Hotel for the World?s Criminals Sat Jul 05, 2025 13:00 | Will Jones
Britain risks becoming a hotel for?the world's criminals, warns Guy Dampier in the Telegraph, as new analysis?reveals that illegal small boat migrants are 24 times more likely to go to prison than the average Brit.
The post Britain is Turning into a Hotel for the World’s Criminals appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Germany is Not Being Honest About Who is Assaulting Children at Swimming Pools Sat Jul 05, 2025 11:00 | Eugyppius
In the last 10 years, Germany has welcomed a lot of ill-behaved young men for no discernible reason, and along the way citizens have had the dubious privilege of discovering whole new categories of crime, says Eugyppius.
The post Germany is Not Being Honest About Who is Assaulting Children at Swimming Pools appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Defunding Gavi is Good for Public Health Sat Jul 05, 2025 09:00 | Dr David Bell
The Left is in a panic over the defunding of the Gavi 'Vaccine Alliance'. But while the global vaccine industry has been lucrative, the biggest drivers of improved health are sanitation and nutrition, says Dr David Bell.
The post Defunding Gavi is Good for Public Health appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Pet Hates: Are Muslims in Britain Really Trying to Ban Dogs? Sat Jul 05, 2025 07:00 | Steven Tucker
Are British Muslims trying to ban dogs? It's a rumour that's been swirling for years ? and it's true that in Iran hardliners occasionally moot the idea. But in this case the rumour seems to be false, says Steven Tucker.
The post Pet Hates: Are Muslims in Britain Really Trying to Ban Dogs? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

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Ireland in breach of UN Forced Labour Convention

category national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Saturday February 20, 2016 10:07author by Vince McGreal Report this post to the editors

In 1932, Ireland ratified the United Nations’ Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (1930). The Convention defines forced labour as "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”
Eighty-four years later, Ireland is in breach of that convention.

In 2012, Pathways to Work policy statement, largely copied from the UK, was adopted and signed, among others, by Enda Kenny and Joan Burton. Apart from providing training and education for the unemployed, which have been available long before 2012, the activation system offers them not real jobs but year-long JobBridge “internships” and “apprenticeships” as cleaners and porters. Such offers of practically unpaid (a little more than one euro an hour) work disguised as training now cannot be refused, because they are backed up with sanctions: it can be either a cut of €44 from the weekly €188, or even the suspension of payments for up to nine weeks, which exposes people to starvation, hypothermia and debt. These are the penalties for not volunteering to do unpaid work for businesses, or an analogue of community service on the Gateway and Tús schemes that include cleaning and renovating council-owned buildings and parks. One previously had to commit an offence to be sentenced to this!

Incredibly, this matter hasn’t yet become a major issue in the general election campaign. The mainstream politicians are seemingly happy to allow such treatment of their own countrymen to continue. We are about to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising, but the society plagued with forced labour is not exactly what the heroes of 1916 fought for. Officially, people pressed into doing unpaid work are classed as employed, so the unemployment rate falls. One may think that we are trying to imitate the Roman Empire where all were happily employed – as either slave owners or slaves.

Related Link: http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/the-complications-and-myths-surrounding-unemployment-and-social-welfare-356528.html
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