The US flexes its military muscle.

Having recently committed a 100 combat troops to Uganda to help the Ugandan army track the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group in Congo the US are now rumoured to be sending soldiers to Nigeria to help fight the Boko Haram terrorist group..

"You'll Be Fired If You Refuse"

Chinese-run copper mines in Zambia are dangerously unsafe and owners routinely flout the rights of workers, says a report by Human Rights Watch. Chinese mines were worse than at other foreign-owned mines. Pay at the Chinese-run mines was higher than Zambia's minimum wage, but much lower than that paid by other multinational copper mining firms. Also miners are threatened with dismissal if they became involved in union activities.

"Sometimes when you find yourself in a dangerous position, they tell you to go ahead with the work," one miner told HRW. "They just consider production, not safety. If someone dies, he can be replaced tomorrow. And if you report the problem, you'll lose your job."

Miners had to work 12-hour shifts often in fume-filled tunnels. Sometimes shifts were 18 hours long. Zambian law limits shifts to eight hours. Miners in Chinese-run companies have been subject to abusive health, safety and labour conditions and longtime Zambian government indifference.

Many of the poor safety practices in Zambia's Chinese-run mines were strikingly similar to abuses at mines in China. Currently dozens of miners have been trapped in a coal mine in China. Four miners were killed and 50 more are missing after the accident, which happened late on Thursday in the city of Sanmenxia in Henan province.

Hundreds of Chinese miners die every year in pit accidents. The industry is one of the most dangerous in the world, and is notorious for its lax safety standards. Earlier this week a gas explosion at a mine in neighbouring Hunan province killed 29 people.

Land Guidelnes Delay

The adoption of international guidelines to regulate so-called land grabs has been pushed to next year after negotiators failed to agree on conditions for large-scale land investments and enforcement. Once in place, the United Nations’s Committee on World Food Security guidelines are meant to protect people, mainly in poor countries such as Sierra Leone, from “land grabbing”. Olivier De Schutter, the U. N. special rapporteur on the right to food, said in an email following the meetings that details of conditions for large-scale investments remained an unresolved sticking point.

”In general, the development of plantations increases inequality, instead of decreasing it,” said De Schutter. ”The majority will not benefit.” The guidelines on the security of tenure of land, fisheries and forests “could be a significant advance,” said De Schutter. “It can make it more difficult for governments to ignore the demands of the local community.”

http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/23067

Socialist Banner views the success of regulation as unlikely.