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Post by visa on Dec 6, 2011 13:23:46 GMT -8
Foreign students walk off Hershey’s factory job in protest Thu, Aug 18, 2011
The 400 students employed at a Pennsylvania factory that makes Hershey's candies told The New York Times that even though they make $8.35 an hour, their rent and program fees are deducted from their paychecks, leaving them with less money than they spent to get the visas and travel to the country in the first place.
Some of the students were assigned night shifts, and said they were pressured to work faster and faster on the factory lines.
Hershey's said they didn't hire the students when the Times asked:
A spokesman for Hershey's, Kirk Saville, said the chocolate company did not directly operate the Palmyra packing plant, which is managed by a company called Exel. A spokeswoman for Exel said it had found the student workers through another staffing company.
Last December, the AP revealed that federal immigration officials were investigating two human-trafficking abuse cases related to J-1 visas. Strip clubs openly solicited J-1 visa holders in job listings, and some foreign students told the AP they were forced into sexual slavery when their passports were confiscated by a ring of criminals. About 150,000 J-1 visas were given out in 2008. Businesses save about 8 percent by using a foreign worker because of Social Security and other taxes they do not have to pay. news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/foreign-students-walk-off-hershey-factory-job-protest-214310205.html APNewsBreak: Clinton orders review of visa program Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 | 12:41 p.m. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered an "extensive and thorough review" of a foreign exchange program that has been used by U.S. businesses as a source of cheap labor and exploited by criminals to import women to work in the sex industry. In the latest debacle for the J-1 Summer Work Travel visa, a federal indictment unsealed last week accuses the mafia of using the cultural exchange program to bring Eastern European women to work in New York strip clubs. www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/dec/05/us-student-visa-abuses/
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Post by penn state on Dec 15, 2011 8:28:47 GMT -8
Penn State Urged to Avoid Tainted FBI Officials NWC Demands Holder Investigate FBI Failures in Child Sex Crime Cases Bookmark and Share Washington, D.C. November 22, 2011. Today, the NWC issued a letter calling for an independent investigation of child sex abuse cases that were mishandled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Additionally, the NWC called upon Penn State to ensure that former FBI agents involved in the misconduct in the handling of child sex crimes within the FBI are explicitly barred from any involvement in the Penn State investigation and that former Director Louis Freeh be questioned as to his knowledge of the FBI's failures. Former FBI Agent Jane Turner's well-documented www.whistleblowers.org/storage/whistleblowers/docs/PennState/turner-childabuseletter-1.pdf and highly credible allegations that the FBI did not properly act to protect young children from rape and sexual abuse on Native American reservations and in Minot, North Dakota, between 1998 and 2002 were never properly investigated by the FBI or the Department of Justice. www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1307&Itemid=71
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Post by clone on Dec 16, 2011 10:11:37 GMT -8
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Post by netherlands on Dec 17, 2011 22:05:05 GMT -8
Institutional Dutch Catholic abuse 'affected thousands' 16 December 2011 Last updated at 09:45 ET The report estimates that 10,000-20,000 minors were abused in the care of Catholic institutions between 1945 and 1981, when the number of Church-run homes dropped. In the years between 1981 and 2011, several more thousands suffered at the hands of priests and others working for the Church. Most of the cases involved mild to moderate abuse, such as touching, but the report estimated there were "several thousand" instances of rape. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16216174
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Post by clone on Dec 31, 2011 9:05:29 GMT -8
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Post by more bball on Dec 31, 2011 9:09:34 GMT -8
Basketball rocked by new child sex abuse claims By AFP November 18, 2011 Syracuse University has placed longtime assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine on administrative leave "in light of the new allegations and the Syracuse City Police investigation." ESPN is reporting that police are investigating Fine on allegations of child molestation. ESPN says Fine is accused of molesting a former Syracuse ball boy, who is now 39. The alleged victim told ESPN the abuse occurred at Fine's home, at Syracuse basketball facilities and on team road trips, including the 1987 Final Four. www.canada.com/sports/Basketball+rocked+child+abuse+claims/5731995/story.htmlAnother coach accused: 'Sick' head of Amateur Athletic Union 'sexually abused boys and kept souvenirs' Last updated at 4:36 PM on 10th December 2011 Two former players say the longtime CEO of the Amateur Athletic Union, which oversees more than half a million children, sexually abused them when they were teenage boys... Later, as Dodd worked to build the trust of Mr West's family, the teen found a trove of photos of boys' clothed crotches and backsides, underwear apparently taken from boys Dodd coach and a collection of hair pulled from children's heads. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072466/Bobby-Dodd-CEO-Amateur-Athletic-Union-sexually-abused-boys.html
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Post by netherlands on Jan 29, 2012 9:13:35 GMT -8
Child Abuse inquiry reveals at least 105 pedophile priests exist in Netherlands: Global Alert! Sunday, January 29, 2012 On December 16, 2011, NOS News broadcasted the official and final Deetman report that was published by the Commission of Inquiry into Sexual Abuse of Minors within the Catholic Church in the Netherlands. After the world has learned of the organized crime schemes orchestrated by the Vatican through its priests and nuns in Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, and Spain , now the world has learned that Holland was no exception. News reports show evidence of the abuse and torture that took place behind the doors of the corrupt and criminal Catholic institutions between 1945 and 1985, as revealed by this inquiry led by its Chairman Wim Deetman, Former Minister. This report indicates that of the 800 pedophile priests identified as abusers, 105 are still alive. Beware of the Catholic Salesian Order and all of its other priests: The investigation was initiated since when a stream of complaints got underway about the Salesians Fathers in Heerenberg, after unrest that already existed abroad, reached the Netherlands. After the reports of the Salesians priests surfaced, an alarming 1,500 testimonies further came forward. It turned out that priests systematically abused children in the Catholic institutions, just like in other nations. more: www.vaticancrimes.us/2012/01/child-abuse-inquiry-reveals-at-least.html
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Post by clone on Feb 3, 2012 16:23:09 GMT -8
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Post by NS on Feb 23, 2012 10:29:26 GMT -8
A place called Home - December 08, 2005 The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children opened in 1921. It was big, a house, really, three floors and lots of bedroom windows, on Main Street, in what is now Dartmouth. Back then it was Preston. The children it took in were orphans, mostly, and not allowed in any of the local orphanages or schools set up for other children in need. Eighty-eight years ago this week, the north end of Halifax was flattened in the Halifax Explosion, and the number of orphans skyrocketed. There was nowhere for black children to go. In Shattered City, Janet Kitz writes that a committee set up after the explosion felt “‘Coloured or feeble-minded orphans constituted a special problem that would have to be dealt with.” www.thecoast.ca/halifax/a-place-called-home/Content?oid=958363____________________________________ Class action gives voice to ex-residents February 21, 2012 - 4:31am Horrifying affidavits filed in court Friday allege a long history of abuse at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. Nearly a decade after lawsuits filed in court have failed to yield results, 63 former residents joined together to apply for a class action against the home and the provincial government. Wagners, a Halifax law firm, will represent the group in court this fall in an effort to have the action certified. thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/65298-class-action-gives-voice-ex-residents
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Post by fishing vessels on Feb 29, 2012 6:39:48 GMT -8
The Fishing Industry's Cruelest Catch By E. Benjamin Skinner on February 23, 2012 <snip> The last line of the contract, in bold, warned that Yusril’s family would owe nearly $3,500 if he were to run away from the ship. The amount was greater than his net worth, and he had earlier submitted title to his land as collateral for that bond. Additionally, he had provided IMS with the names and addresses of his family members. He was locked in. What followed, according to Yusril and several shipmates who corroborated his story, was an eight-month ordeal aboard the Melilla 203, during which Indonesian fishermen were subjected to physical and sexual abuse by the ship’s operators. Their overlords told them not to complain or fight back, or they would be sent home, where the agents would take their due. Yusril and 23 others walked off in protest when the trawler docked in Lyttelton, New Zealand. The men have seen little if any of what they say they are owed. Such coerced labor is modern-day slavery, as the United Nations defines the crime. (The South Korean owners of the Melilla ships did not respond to requests for comment.) www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-23/the-fishing-industrys-cruelest-catch________________________ Alleged labor abuses put New Zealand in spotlight 22 February, 2012 - Reaction is pouring in to an investigative report into slavery and indentured labor aboard foreign charter fishing vessels operating in New Zealand waters. Conducted by Benjamin Skinner, a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University, and published in Bloomberg Businessweek on Tuesday, the report “Fishing as Slaves on the High Seas” focused on Indonesians working on the South Korean-flagged vessel Melilla 203, which was seized in Christchurch, New Zealand, last December. Catches from Melilla were bought and processed by Christchurch’s United Fisheries, which then sold the same species in the same period to U.S. seafood importers and distributors. A subsequent report revealed that Walmart and Safeway, two of the United States’ largest retailers, are now investigating the situation. www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=14351
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Post by TRC Interim Report on Mar 6, 2012 16:40:49 GMT -8
Igloolik seeks healing at truth commission hearing Last Updated: Mar 23, 2011 1:30 PM CT The national Truth and Reconciliation Commission is in Igloolik, Nunavut, where many Inuit are expected to give emotional testimony not just about the residential school system, but about more recent trauma as well... About 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were placed in more than 130 residential schools across Canada from the late 1870s until the last school closed in 1996. Some children sent awayThe schools were part of the federal government's plan to force the assimilation of young aboriginal people into European-Canadian society. Many students were forbidden to speak their native languages or otherwise engage in their culture at the schools, which were run by churches. Reeling from priest's returnBut Quassa said former residential school students are not the only ones in Igloolik who are coping with past trauma. Some residents are reeling from the recent return of Eric Dejaeger, a Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting children while he was a priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/03/23/trc-igloolik-hearings.htmlActivists on two continents want priest extradited 01 November 2010 The 63-year-old is facing three counts each of buggery and indecent assault for incidents alleged to have occurred between Sept. 26, 1978 and Aug. 9, 1982 at or near the hamlet of Iglulik, according to his arrest warrant issued April 22, 2002. www.theinquiry.ca/wordpress/charged/dejaeger-2/belgian-priest-faces-sex-related-charges-in-iglulik/Documents for download: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Interim Report 39 pp They Came For The Children (Historical Document) 124 pp www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=580
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Post by visa on Mar 7, 2012 22:54:23 GMT -8
Foreign students walk off Hershey’s factory job in protest Thu, Aug 18, 2011
The 400 students employed at a Pennsylvania factory that makes Hershey's candies told The New York Times that even though they make $8.35 an hour, their rent and program fees are deducted from their paychecks, leaving them with less money than they spent to get the visas and travel to the country in the first place.
Some of the students were assigned night shifts, and said they were pressured to work faster and faster on the factory lines.
Hershey's said they didn't hire the students when the Times asked:
A spokesman for Hershey's, Kirk Saville, said the chocolate company did not directly operate the Palmyra packing plant, which is managed by a company called Exel. A spokeswoman for Exel said it had found the student workers through another staffing company.
Last December, the AP revealed that federal immigration officials were investigating two human-trafficking abuse cases related to J-1 visas. Strip clubs openly solicited J-1 visa holders in job listings, and some foreign students told the AP they were forced into sexual slavery when their passports were confiscated by a ring of criminals. About 150,000 J-1 visas were given out in 2008. Businesses save about 8 percent by using a foreign worker because of Social Security and other taxes they do not have to pay. news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/foreign-students-walk-off-hershey-factory-job-protest-214310205.html APNewsBreak: Clinton orders review of visa program Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 | 12:41 p.m. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered an "extensive and thorough review" of a foreign exchange program that has been used by U.S. businesses as a source of cheap labor and exploited by criminals to import women to work in the sex industry. In the latest debacle for the J-1 Summer Work Travel visa, a federal indictment unsealed last week accuses the mafia of using the cultural exchange program to bring Eastern European women to work in New York strip clubs. www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/dec/05/us-student-visa-abuses/Hershey's Not as Sweet as We Thought Posted: 02/28/2012 9:02 pm Of course, Hershey wiped its hands clean of the whole affair, claiming they had no knowledge of how Exel ran the operation. This "veil of ignorance" nonsense is reminiscent of American sportswear and sports equipment companies who claim not to know that their products -- the ones being sold for top dollar on American shelves -- are being manufactured in Central American sweatshops where near slave-labor conditions exist, and where union activists are regularly threatened, beaten and, on occasion, murdered. Unfortunately, this "ignorance plea" has become the default position of both business and politics. Take Iraq for instance, where, by its own admission, the U.S. Government had no clear idea of who answered to whom. The U.S. didn't always know what Halliburton and Blackwater were doing, and Halliburton and Blackwater didn't always know what their subcontractors were doing, which meant, conveniently, that no one could be held accountable. Say what you will about the "enemy," but the only guys in Iraq who seemed to know who answered to whom were the insurgents. As to the safety aspect of the Hershey fiasco, let's be clear about something: There's no way this could have happened in a union shop. No way, no how. Not only would a union facility have department shop stewards, union safety coordinators, and ergonomic analysis committees, (not to mention a hotline directly to OSHA), the company would never dream of concealing it. Blatantly concealing the injury/accident would never occur to them. Which raises several questions. For one, what sort of "international cultural exchange program" involves the participants doing manual labor in a factory? What is so "culturally" beneficial about lifting cases of Kit-Kats on the graveyard shift at a Hershey plant? And if it's an "exchange" program, does this mean it's a two-way street? Are an equal number of Americans traveling to foreign countries to do this kind of work? Are American students volunteering to spend summer vacations working in Ukrainian salt mines? If so, it's the first we've heard of it. And not to sound mean-spirited or xenophobic, but with unemployment hovering around nine percent, why aren't American workers being offered these jobs? If there's a genuine need for this lifting and hoisting, there are American workers willing to do it. Alas, no matter how strenuous the work, if you pay anything approaching a decent wage you'll find a long line of applicants waiting outside the hiring hall. www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/hersheys-not-as-sweet-as-_b_1307092.html
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Post by netherlands on Mar 20, 2012 7:27:54 GMT -8
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Post by clone on May 16, 2012 17:48:35 GMT -8
Calgary law firm accused of shortchanging residential school victims November 13, 2011
VANCOUVER — A Calgary law firm is being investigated for shortchanging victims of residential school abuse who were awarded financial compensation by the federal government.
Blott & Company is accused of withholding money from clients’ settlement packages to pay off loans they helped secure for them at interest rates in the 20-plus percentage rage. The firm is also accused of not properly representing some of its 3,000 clients.
- He cited the example of a claimant whose payout was in excess of $100,000 but who ultimately received less than $30,000. The client was invoiced for two loans that totalled approximately $70,000, but claims “she didn’t receive that amount of the loan.” -
Zivot said in another example the client was asked directly by Blott, after her successful hearing, whether she wanted a loan before the compensation had been paid. Read more: www.vancouversun.com/Calgary+firm+accused+shortchanging+residential+school+victims/5704453/story.html
An independent court observer appointed for the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement is investigating allegations that Blott and Company, which represents about 3,000 claimants, arranged loans for some clients at interest rates approaching 30 per cent. www.cbc.ca/m/rich/news/story/2011/11/25/calgary-residential-schools-loans.html Duncan ducks questions as corruption allegations swirl around residential school compensation payouts National News | 15. May, 2012 by APTN National News | View Comments Tweet APTN National News OTTAWA–Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan avoided questions Tuesday on an issue that threatens to derail the multi-billion dollar residential school settlement agreement over corruption allegations against lawyers handling thousands of claims. Already one Winnipeg lawyer has been disbarred for pocketing $1 million from over 50 residential school survivors and a Calgary law firm handling nearly 4,000 claims is facing serious allegations it wrongfully took money from residential school student clients. Following up on a year-long investigation by APTN Investigates, APTN National News has also learned that concerns have now spread to British Columbia and Ontario, threatening to derail the $5 billion residential school settlement, the largest settlement in Canadian history. more: aptn.ca/pages/news/2012/05/15/duncan-ducks-questions-as-corruption-allegations-swirl-around-residential-school-compensation-payouts/Calgary-based law firm defends high-interest loans to residential school survivors Thursday, May 10, 2012 Gavel A lawyer for a Calgary-based law firm that allegedly arranged loans at "criminal interest" rates to victims of residential schools on Wednesday defended the job done by the company. An investigation into the conduct of Blott and Co. revealed that rates of between 20 and 60 per cent were being charged to some clients for no-risk loans. The clients received the loans prior to receiving financial compensation from the federal government arising from abuse suffered at the residential schools. The law firm represented 4,100 victims. www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/iphone/news/latest/story.html?id=6601377
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Post by clone on May 28, 2012 15:51:00 GMT -8
Former gangster says mob kidnapped daughter of Vatican employee - CWN - May 16, 2012 An admitted Italian gangster has said that the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee was killed in 1983 because a criminal gang was irate over the loss of funds deposited in the Vatican bank. www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14330Pope’s Butler Arrested for Exposing Cronyism and Corruption - Last updated Monday, May. 28, 2012 1:00PM EDT The Vatican faces a widening scandal that in one short week has seen the butler of Pope Benedict XVI arrested, the president of its bank unceremoniously dismissed and the publication of a new book alleging conspiracies among cardinals. It was a poisonous Pentecost Sunday for the Pope, who likely had the tumultuous events of the past week on his mind as he celebrated a mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the day regarded as the birthday of the church. www.darkgovernment.com/news/popes-butler-arrested-for-exposing-cronyism-and-corruption/
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