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These artists and activists want the EU to speed forced labour ban

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These artists and activists want the EU to speed forced labour ban

Artists and human rights activists this week referred to as on the European Union to hurry up laws towards compelled labour. 

In response to the Worldwide Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN company, this type of fashionable slavery affected round 27 million individuals globally in 2021.

Style is likely one of the industries most reliant on these employees.

Designer Louise Xin highlighted the difficulty with a trend present for members of the European Parliament. 

“I believe that artwork can transfer individuals in a means that politics cannot. It’s a very direct, heart-to-heart, efficiency that I all the time attempt to do. I actually consider that the easiest way to get change is to vary ourselves,” she instructed Euronews after the occasion on Tuesday.

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The anti-forced labour campaigner and Sakharov Prize fellow — the EU’s highest distinction for human proper work — is likely one of the civil society voices that the legislators wished to listen to, now that they’re starting to analyse the proposal by the European Fee on prohibiting merchandise made with compelled labour on the EU market, offered final September.

The legislative work and public opinion consciousness campaigns ought to go hand in hand, Xin stated.

“If we need to change the world, we’ve got to start out with ourselves first, by being extra acutely aware about the best way we behave, the best way we work, the best way we use our platform, and likewise our skill to take duty.”

The Asia-Pacific area has the best variety of individuals in compelled labour (15.1 million), in accordance with the ILO. Though nearly all of compelled labour takes place within the personal economic system, some is imposed by states.

Some of the debated instances is in China’s western Xinjiang area. Pressured labour in cotton fields and textile factories are a part of the measures imposed by the Chinese language authorities on members of minority teams, particularly Muslim Uyghurs.

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“The Chinese language authorities deliberately put a couple of million individuals, yearly, into so-called vocational trainings and calls it poverty alleviation programmes,” researcher and activist Jewher Ilham, the daughter of imprisoned Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti, the 2019 Sakharov Prize laureate, instructed Euronews.

The United Nations Particular Rapporteur on up to date types of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, confirmed in a report final August, that “it’s cheap to conclude that compelled labour amongst Uyghur, Kazakh and different ethnic minorities in sectors comparable to agriculture and manufacturing has been occurring within the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Area of China.”

As Pressured Labor Undertaking Coordinator at Employee Rights Consortium, Jewher Ilham has been engaged on information that features interviews with those who witnessed the circumstances of the employees.

“I’ve discovered that they work greater than 12 hours, don’t receives a commission a penny and undergo all varieties of abuses, from gender-based sexual harassment to fixed surveillance, separation from their relations and even the essential proper to get a meal was a luxurious for them, oftentimes all day they’d get a half glass of water,” she stated.

Garments factories in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey have additionally been accused of this follow. Mining, agriculture and providers are different industries by which abuses are reported.

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Underneath the EU’s proposed laws, corporations that need to promote merchandise on the bloc’s market should perform due diligence to make sure no compelled labour was used at any level within the manufacturing course of. The Fee in the meantime plans to help them with a brand new database of compelled labour dangers primarily based on civil society investigations.

Contemplating the human rights affect that compelled labour has world wide, these two activists hope that members of the European Parliament will strengthen the deliberate laws’s provisions.

“I’m very hopeful, if the regulation is enforced very rigorously, and (that) the phrases launched within the laws are efficient and robust. For instance, it wants to incorporate transparency on import information and calls for for high-level diligence,” Jewher Ilham stated.

In response to the Fee’s proposal, member states’ authorities should “order the withdrawal of the merchandise already positioned available on the market, and prohibit to put the merchandise available on the market, and to export them” if compelled labour is discovered to have been used. Corporations may even be required to get rid of the products.

For Louise Xin, regardless of what’s out right here out there, customers have to revise their behaviour.

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“People have been carrying garments endlessly, we’ve got been producing it in completely other ways and we’ve got proven completely different ranges of respect for the supplies and the stuff we’ve got in our lives. I believe it is a matter of adjusting our hearts and our values as nicely”.

The proposal has been referred to the Committee on the Inside Market and Client Safety, and the rapporteur appointed is the Portuguese Maria-Manuel Leitão-Marques, from the S&D political group.

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Cambodia's prime minister bans musical horns on vehicles to curb dangerous street dancing

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Cambodia's prime minister bans musical horns on vehicles to curb dangerous street dancing
  • Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Mane has issued a ban on musical horns after videos on social media depicted people dancing on roadsides.
  • Mane instructed the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation and police nationwide to remove tune-playing horns from vehicles.
  • The ban has already been put into effect by provincial authorities, and Hun Manet voiced its nationwide enforcement.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Mane has ordered a ban on musical horns, after videos posted on social media showed people dancing on roads and roadsides as passing trucks blasted rhythmic little tunes.

Hun Manet, who last year took over the wheel of government from his father, Hun Sen — who led Cambodia for 38 years — called on the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation and police across the country to immediately take action against any vehicle whose normal horn has been replaced by a tune-playing one by ripping it out and restoring the standard honking type. 

He said the measure has already been implemented by provincial authorities, but he wanted to announce it publicly to make sure it was enforced nationwide.

CAMBODIA’S PIONEERING POST-KHMER ROUGE ERA PHNOM PENH POST NEWSPAPER WILL STOP PRINT PUBLICATION

He commented on his Facebook page on Monday that recent social media posts had shown “inappropriate activity committed by some people, especially youth and children, dancing on the roadside to the musical sounds from trucks’ horns.”

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet greets garment workers on Aug. 29, 2023, at Prey Speu village outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Mane has ordered a ban on musical horns, after videos posted on social media showed people dancing on roads and roadsides as passing trucks blasted rhythmic little tunes. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith, File)

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Hun Manet said such dancing affects public order and poses a traffic hazard that is a threat to life and limb, not least of all to the dancers themselves. 

2 ANTI-GOVERNMENT ACTIVISTS IN CAMBODIA CHARGED WITH INSULTING KING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

One video shows three young people dancing in the middle of a road while a large trailer truck coming their way lays down a beat.

For Cambodians, there will be no more dancing in the street.

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Biotech strategy launch, Newsletter

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Biotech strategy launch, Newsletter

Key diary dates

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Tuesday 19 March: European Parliament’s committee vote on the reform of EU pharmaceutical rules.

Wednesday 20 March: Presentation of the European Commission‘s first ‘EU Biotech and Biomanufacturing Initiative’.

Tuesday 19-Friday 22 March: European Commission organises Digital Markets Act workshops with gatekeepers.

In spotlight

This Wednesday (20 March) the European Commission is expected to unveil a new ‘EU Biotech and Biomanufacturing Initiative’ .

Despite half-hearted attempts at regulatory simplification in the sector in the past, life science technologies are increasingly drawing attention from policymakers.

Last month Euronews first reported on the health component of this initiative based on a leaked draft document that highlighted a focus on the vibrant biopharmaceutical sector – responsible for providing breakthrough messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules playing an essential role in COVID-19 vaccines.

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But biotech applications are not limited to the health sector, ranging from sustainable sourcing of advanced materials to climate-smart production and other components essential to a fossil-free and circular economy.

A ‘blue’ biotech is also emerging, with new research on aquatic organisms and microalgae fermentation ready for commercial exploitation – not to mention the potential of new genomic techniques (NGTs) for food production, already under discussion by EU lawmakers.

The main goals of this initiative will be to survey the status quo and track future challenges facing the biotech sector to orientate policy efforts in readiness for the next legislative mandate.

Some policy ideas are likely to be proffered, such as a one-stop shop to permit and authorise biotech manufacturing – while a controversial proposal for an R&I tax credit for biotech companies is rumoured to have been shelved for the moment.

This first dedicated attempt to address the sector won’t be the last, with economic security and strategic autonomy likely to be key buzzwords for the next commission.

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Biotech is expected to be a new beat to keep a close eye on and it has already been listed as a critical technology for the continent, together with semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

The defence imperative dominating current commission thinking involves European independence from military aircraft to sourcing these critical new technologies.

Policy newsmakers

@Hahn                                                                                                                   @Wiewiórowski

Commission under data notice

The European Commission was ordered last week to bring its use of Microsoft 365 office programs in line with its own rulebook, after European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Wojciech Wiewiórowski found following an investigation that the commission breached EU rules on transfers of personal data outside the EU. The commission now needs to suspend all data flows resulting from its use of Microsoft 365 to Microsoft and to its affiliates and sub-processors located in countries outside the EU/EEA that are not covered by a data transfer agreement. The commissioner responsible for admin, Johannes Hahn, will have to demonstrate compliance with the orders by 9 December 2024.

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Subscribe here to see the results of last week’s poll and stay informed on the latest EU policy developments with our weekly newsletter, “The Policy Briefing”. Your weekly insight on European rulemaking, policy issues, key events, and data trends.

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Reuters Institute: Research shows women only make 24% of news top editors / FIP

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Reuters Institute: Research shows women only make 24% of news top editors / FIP

New research by the Reuters Institute analyses the gender representation of senior editors in major news outlets across five continents, recording that women fill only 24% of senior editorial roles in the markets surveyed. The findings highlight how gender inequalities can reinforce misperceptions, imbalances, and perceived differences both within journalism and as covered by journalists.

The research “Women and leadership in the news media 2024: Evidence from 12 markets” took examples from five continents, and analysed the gender breakdown of editorial leaders.  Two hundred and forty major online and offline news outlets provided data. 

According to the factsheet, among the 33 news top editors appointed across brands covered this year and last, 24% are women. In some of these countries, however, women outnumber men among working journalists.

Reuters contrasts its new findings with data from the past five years. The proportion of women among the top editors has increased by only 2% since 2020, going from 23% to 25% in 2024. The Institute’s analysis anticipates that, at this pace, gender parity will be reached in such positions only by the year 2074.

Change is not consistent throughout countries, however. If the percentage has increased relative to 2020 in six countries (name them all), it has decreased in Germany by 2% and it has highly decreased in South Africa, from 47% to 29%. 

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Reuters Institute makes clear that “top editorial leadership matters both in terms of how journalism is practised and how it appears in society,” insisting on  how top editors represent the wider public “in all its difference and diversity.”

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