Construction for Qatar World Cup Will Kill 4,000 Migrant Workers
A new Guardian report details the life-threatening conditions faced by migrant laborers in Qatar as the country prepares to host the World Cup in 2022. This summer, Nepalese workers reportedly died at a rate of one per day in Qatar. Many were young men who had sudden heart attacks. Workers in Qatar fall ill from squalid living conditions and are denied wages and access to drinking water by employers who routinely confiscate their passports. The Guardian found evidence of forced labor at a World Cup-related construction project which is being managed by a California-based firm. According to the International Trade Union Congress, construction for the World Cup will leave an estimated 4,000 migrant workers dead. Qatar has the world’s highest proportion of migrant workers with 90 percent of the workforce coming from outside of the country.
US soldiers suicide one each day
New figures show this year’s military suicide rate is on pace to reach a record high. The Pentagon says there have been at least 154 suicides among active-duty troops through last Thursday, a rate of nearly one each day. The figure marks an 18 percent increase over the same period a year ago. More U.S. soldiers have died by taking their own lives than on the battlefield.
At war for 10 years. 2.5 million Americans who have served in these wars. About a million of them are still in the military, and a million and a half of them are out of the military and are now veterans. 18 veterans who commit suicide every day in this country. A million people who have been through the wars who are still in the military. You have 90,000 people who are still in Afghanistan fighting this war. It’s not surprising that the suicides would be higher than the battlefield deaths at this point.
Hot and snow-free winter
Cornell University has just released some data from its Northeast Regional Climate Center, and what it reveals should surprise precisely no one who lives in the region: The winter of 2011-2012 has so far been one of the warmest and least-snowy on record. The winter of 2001-02 registered at most stations as being warmer, and the warmest on record was 1931-32. Nonetheless, this winter is indeed abnormally hot and snow-free.