Via LabourStart, news from that workers’ paradise Dubai, where 45 Indian construction workers have been imprisoned for:

illegal gatherings, vandalism, and violating public security following their participation in a strike last year for better working conditions.

In Jordan, 176 Vietnamese garment workers have been attacked by police for striking to protest against their exploitation:

The workers were promised wages of 220 USD a month in Jordan, but once they arrived, their employer confiscated their personal documents, forced them to work for up to 16 hours a day, and paid them between 80 and 150 USD per month.

To force the workers to return to their jobs, the company cut off food and offered compensation only to those who were the most productive. Ten days later, while the majority of the workers were still on strike, the employer called the police. Many workers were injured during the assault.

Meanwhile Indian workers are seeking action against traffickers:

The workers are demanding that the U.S. Department of Justice open a criminal investigation against their traffickers and that it act to ensure that future workers and their families do not face the same modern-day slavery. Reportedly, on the same day a law suit has been filed on behalf of about 500 Indian dock workers. The 82-page complaint accuses Signal International, a marine construction company, and American and Indian recruiters Malvern Burnett and Dewan Consultants respectively, of subjecting over 500 Indian workers to forced labour, trafficking, fraud and civil rights violations.

To return briefly to Tibet, in Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens writes of:

[T]he unashamed recommendations of the mindless […] offered to us every day. In place of honest disputation we are offered platitudes about ‘healing’. The idea of ‘unity’ is granted huge privilege over any notion of ‘division’ or, worse, ‘divisiveness’. I cringe every time I hear denunciations of the ‘politics of division’–as if politics was not division by definition.

On cue, the god-king-in-exile of Tibet pops up and utters blandishments of the ‘why can’t we all get along’ variety, and says Tibetan independence is ‘no option’, offering to resign ‘if violent protests in Tibet get out of hand’.

Quick! Somebody give him a pen and paper.

His concilliatory approach to China has been criticised by Tibetans, who have condemned his ‘middle way’, demanding nothing less than full independence. In fact those of a cynical bent might think the Dalai Lama was manouevring for something.

The Dalai Lama can stick his ‘middle way’ up his jumper! Independence and self-determination for Tibet!