Nearly 60 percent of Qatar's population, 1.4 Million people live in 'work' camps.

Nearly 60 percent of Qatar's population, 1.4 Million people live in 'work' camps. (AA).

Almost 60 percent of Qatar's 2.4 million population live in "labour camps", the country's latest census has shown, highlighting the emirate's huge migrant workforce.

Around 1.4 million Qatari residents live in what are officially designated as "labour camps", according to figures from the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS).

The overwhelming majority - 1.34 million - were male, the statistics found.

Since the census began, Qatar's population has grown further to just over 2.5 million.

The accommodation of migrant labourers working on Qatar's numerous infrastructure projects has long been a contentious issue.

Qatar, which will host the football World Cup in 2022, and has been condemned by human rights groups - including Amnesty International - for providing "squalid and cramped accommodation" to blue collar workers, usually from the Indian subcontinent.

There have also been concerns about safety on construction camps and even in the camps themselves.
Last week, 11 people were killed and 12 injured when a fire ripped through a camp housing labourers working on a tourism project in the southwest of the country.

Qatar has responded to the criticism by building new workers' housing complexes, including the $825 million "Labour City" south of the capital Doha, which incorporates shops, cinemas and a cricket stadium.

The complex can house up to 70,000 foreign workers and is one of seven workers' "cities" being developed which will accommodate almost 260,000 people in total.

The population of gas-rich Qatar has soared over the past three decades as it has imported a huge migrant workforce to develop its infrastructure. In 1986, just 373,000 people lived in the emirate. Hmmm......somehow i feel that the Pope did not mind.

Vatican to digitalise Gulf documents after Qatari royal visit

30 million people living in slavery globally: WFF Report.

30 million people living in slavery globally: WFF Report.(Presstv).

A report by an international foundation on modern slavery has revealed that nearly 30 million people are enslaved across the globe.

The index released by the Walk Free Foundation (WFF) on Thursday said the slaves are either trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labor, fall victims to debt bondage, or are even born into servitude.

Almost half of these people are in India, where "by far the largest proportion of this problem is the exploitation of Indian citizens within India itself, particularly through debt bondage and bonded labor," the survey found.

The index also showed that aside from India, the problem is most rampant in the West African country of Mauritania, where four percent of the population is estimated to be held in slavery.

The report by the Australian-based group described Mauritania as a nation with "deeply entrenched hereditary slavery," where "people in slavery may be bought and sold, rented out and given away as gifts."

Benin, Gambia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Haiti and Nepal are among other countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery, the report said.

The WFF index ranked 162 countries on the number of people living in slavery, the risk of enslavement, and the strength of government action to counter the illegal activity.

Figures indicate human trafficking along with arms dealing is the second largest industry in the world after drug dealing.

The countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery were Mauritania, Haiti, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Moldova, Benin, Ivory Coast, Gambia and Gabon. Moldova - once part of the Soviet Union - was the only European nation in the top 10.

Grono said the inherited slave status was "very shocking"."In Mauritania, kids are born into slavery," he explained."Women and men are enslaved and their children are often forced into a situation of domestic servitude or forced to work in the fields."

Russia came 49th, China 84th, United States 134th, France 139th and Britain joint bottom on 160.

In terms of total numbers, the countries with the most people in modern slavery were estimated to be India (13.95 million), followed by China (2.95 million) and Pakistan (2.1 million).

The report estimated that 72 per cent of people in modern slavery live in Asia. In India, "by far the largest proportion of this problem is the exploitation of Indian citizens within India itself, particularly through debt bondage and bonded labour", the report said.

The estimated 2.9 million people in modern slavery in China "includes the forced labour of men, women and children in many parts of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and forced marriage," said the report.

Among the top 10, the WFF said Moldova and Ivory Coast were working hard to address the issue, but efforts in the top three -- Mauritania, Haiti and Pakistan -- are "token at best and non-existent at worst", the report said.Read the full story here.

Jordan - Syrian refugees 'sold for marriage'.

Jordan - Syrian refugees 'sold for marriage'.(BBC).

Before the war began, Kazal was in love with her neighbour in Homs. "He was 20 years old and I dreamed of marrying him one day," she says. "I never thought I would marry someone I didn't love, but my family and I have been through some hard times since coming to Amman."

Kazal says she is 18 but looks much younger. She has just got divorced from a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia who paid her family about US $3,100 (UK £2,000) to marry her. The marriage lasted one week.
"I lived with my husband in Amman, but we weren't happily married. He treated me like a servant, and didn't respect me as a wife. He was very strict with me. I'm happy that we're divorced."

Her huge, blue eyes fill with tears when she talks about the marriage."I agreed to it so I could help my family. When I got engaged I cried a lot. I won't get married for money again. In the future I hope to marry a Syrian boy who's my own age."

'Survival sex'

Andrew Harper, the Representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Jordan, is concerned that some of the 500,000 Syrian refugees in the country are increasingly turning to such desperate measures.

"We don't have enough resources to give aid to all those who need it. The vast majority of refugees are women and children. Many of them are not used to going out to work, so survival sex becomes an option."

His office in central Amman is surrounded by hundreds of newly arrived refugees, waiting in long lines to register for aid. He says the UNHCR has intervened with some families who have been offering their daughters up for early marriage.

"I can't think of anything more disgusting than people targeting refugee women… You can call it rape, you can call it prostitution, you can call it what you want but it's preying on the weakest."

"The government and people of Jordan are doing what they can but people are poor and we have to get more resources into the community so families aren't forced into something that deep down I believe they don't want to do."

Short-term marriages between men from the Gulf and Syrian girls reportedly happened before the war began. But Kazal's mother Manal, who dresses conservatively like her daughter in an abaya and headscarf, says she would have never considered such an arrangement in the past."Life here is very hard and we receive very little aid. We have a baby who needs lots of milk every day, and we can't afford to pay the rent. So I had to sacrifice Kazal to help the other members of the family."

She says that the marriage was arranged by an Amman-based NGO called Kitab al-Sunna, which gives cash, food and medicines to refugees. It is funded by donations from individuals across the Arab world.
"When I went for help at the NGO they asked to see my daughter. They said they would find a husband for her."
Um Mazed is a 28-year-old Syrian refugee from Homs who has started earning money by arranging marriages between Syrian girls and Arab men."The men are usually between 50 and 80, and they ask for girls who have white skin and blue or green eyes. They want them very young, no older than 16."

She says she has presented more than a hundred Syrian girls to these men, who pay her a fee of US $70 for an introduction, and about US $310 if it results in a marriage."If these marriages end in divorce after a short time, that's not my issue, I'm just the matchmaker. As far as I'm concerned it's not prostitution because there's a contract between the groom and bride."Read the full story here.

Goldman Sachs proposes to lower French workers their salary ...by 30%.....Yes Thirty percent.

Goldman Sachs proposes to lower French workers their salary ...by 30%.....Yes Thirty percent.(EgaliteEtReconciliation).Google Translate.When Goldman Sachs bankers give their opinion on solutions to provide miracle solutions to France to stem the crisis, IT ... Hurts!
Huw Pill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, one of the investment banks most prestigious and world-sulfur is not for nothing that it is called the "devil of finance" - was interviewed by The Huffington Post . According to him, they must simply reduce the salaries of all the French about a third. Nothing less!
To begin with, " Mr. Europe "of Goldman believes that, compared with Greece, France " has it all ", but it has two (small) problems: its" lack of competitiveness "and" imbalances in its accounts ".
Hold it! What's 'sriking' the finances? " The public sector ", accused of being" too important ". Officials enjoy. That said, the operating expenses of the State in fact represented 34.7% of total expenditure in 2010 (against 41% in 1960!), Is the second largest expense behind social benefits (45.3% in 2010 ).
So, in order to get out of the 'swamp' in which the hexagon is sunk, the economist has an idea: " lower general wages "to" regain competitiveness . " 3%, 5%, 10% ... ? No! " It is estimated that France should reduce its average salary by about a third , "says one who works in a company where, as pointed out Time to sign off , the bonus shares granted to the twelve members of the management team have exceeded $ 102 million in 2012, and where the average annual salary exceeded 410,000 dollars ... an increase of 9% in a year!
However, Huw Pill said he was " convinced that France can reform "in" three to five years , "and to" take the right direction . "
As for the euro area, he said it should " see a contraction less "this year than in 2012, but, he warns, the aftermath will not sing on. 2016, it was not until 2016 he estimated " to find modest growth . " Patience, then! " Europe is going to come out slowly but surely . " If an expert Goldman Sachs says, we are reassured.....Hmmm.....The US next?Read the full story here.

Russian activists say have freed 12 human "slaves" from shop.

Russian activists say have freed 12 human "slaves" from shop.(Yahoo).MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian human rights activists said on Friday they had freed 12 Central Asians held captive as modern-day slaves in the basement of a Moscow food store, some of them for as long as a decade.
The allegations - which are being investigated by the authorities - could not immediately be confirmed independently, but activists said they were consistent with reports of hundreds of thousands of such "slaves".
"Six years ago, a survey on human trafficking was conducted at the U.N.'s request and said that there are half a million to one million people in Russia who are practically living as slaves here," said rights activist Danila Medvedev.
Activists said they had handed in statements on the case to investigators, but that no one had yet been arrested.
Witnesses said a child of four had been among those rescued from the store on the outskirts of the Russian capital, which attracts many migrant workers from former Soviet republics in Central Asia such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
A total of three young children, five women and four men had been freed in the raid, which took place on Tuesday, said activists.
Another woman was not freed, however, and a 14-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy who had ran away earlier were still missing, they said.
Two of the female rescued workers said they had been held captive for more than 10 years and forced to work in the shop. They said they had been regularly beaten and threatened to prevent them escaping.

Leila Ashirova said she thought many people were aware of their fate.
"I think in the area, everybody was in on it," she said. "I think they were given bribes to stay quiet".
The captives tried to escape several times and begged customers to help but people pretended to help only to call their captors instead, the freed workers said.
Kasimova said she had been raped and claimed they had witnessed one woman being beaten to death after she had tried to escape.
Activists said the captives included related family members, and children who were born into forced labor. Two children had allegedly been taken away by their captors, who later claimed they had died. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
Rights activist Danila Medvedev said the Russian authorities were unwilling to face the fact that there might be slavery in Russia.
"There might be 50,000 or 100,000 such slaves in Moscow, but as our law enforcement agencies are totally censoring the word 'slavery' and are denying that this problem exists, we don't know how many of them there are in reality," he said.
The shop's owners had several other stores, he said, saying between 20 and 40 women could still be imprisoned by them.Read the full story here.

Video - Allen West - Obama Wants Americans To "Be His Slave".

"He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning, and having that title of American. He'd rather you be his slave," Rep. Allen West.