During the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha (last week), thousands of animals are slaughtered & now is the busy season for the tannery industry to process the hides. Leather tanning is done in many countries but at least 60 percent is done in “developing countries” as Bangladesh is called–a political misnomer since the economic value of working people in those countries is not based on backwardness but on super-exploitation. There’ll be no “developing” going on–except in the number of Bangladeshi millionaires profiting from dirt cheap labor costs & no labor or environmental protections. That’s what sweatshop economics are all about.

These young men work in a tannery in Hazaribagh, a section of Dhaka, which has about 95 percent of the tanneries in Bangladesh’s growing, lucrative leather industry. Leather & leather good (shoes, handbags, suitcases, belts) exports ballooned from USD $663 million to 70 countries a few years ago to over $1 billion in 2014.

The government provides millions in incentives & subsidies to tannery owners without requiring them to enforce environmental or labor laws. There has been international exposure of conditions in the tanneries by human rights groups but no improvements.

Environmental depredations include unregulated daily efflux of at least 75 metric tons of solid waste (containing animal flesh, dissolved hair, fats) & liquid waste (a toxic potpourri of dyes, chemicals, pesticides, lime, formaldehyde, bleach, heavy metals, sulfuric acid, lead). Not a single Hazaribagh tannery has an effluent treatment plant to process waste which flows through open gutters (where people live & children play) & into Dhaka’s main river, the Buriganga.

Labor law violations include child labor & lack of any safety protections. As a result, tannery workers suffer many debilitating health conditions–particularly skin & respiratory ailments & disfigured or amputated limbs. They endure discolored, itchy, peeling, acid-burned, & rash-covered skin; fingers corroded to stumps; aches, dizziness, nausea. According to the World Health Organization, half of Hazaribagh’s tanning workers have respiratory disease, including the children, & 90 percent will die before they turn 50. What kind of crap is that!

Contaminated leather waste products are processed into feed for the growing poultry industry in Bangladesh. It doesn’t require a single epidemiological study to understand that feeding animals chemical, contaminated offal will compromise animal & human health, yet there is no government monitoring of poultry feed production.

How has it happened that human beings have become not just the chattel but the offal of the global production system? But Bangladeshi workers are standing up by the thousands against these conditions despite massive labor repression. International solidarity is required not to take away their jobs but to enforce the highest standards of protection.

Photo is tannery workers in Hazaribagh working with several toxic chemicals but completely unprotected.

(Photo by Abir Abdullah/EPA)

Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa mosque are an extremely threatening provocation & a call to arms for Palestinian supporters around the world. Emergency rallies at Israeli embassies should be considered.

Here in McAllen, on the US border with Mexico, we are assembling local activists for a rally next week. We have no Israeli embassy so will be protesting at the US federal building.

It only takes a placard & commitment. My introduction to Palestinian solidarity was during the 1967 war. I was troubled by the pro-Israel hysteria in media & when I saw a lone Palestinian picketer in front of the student union at the University of Minnesota, asked him why he was picketing. He answered–probably afraid of being attacked–that “they stole our land.” I knew something was off in media & his picket prompted me to seek out answers.

Media reporting of what’s going on at Al-Aqsa mosque takes the cake for lying-assed journalism. That’s nothing new; it’s gone on for 67 years twisting colonialism into an epic Exodus myth. We can thank our lucky stars the Palestinians called for BDS, the boycott of Israel, which has broken through the propaganda wall & allowed humanity to see the truth of apartheid Israel.

According to media reports, which are based on Israeli police statements, Palestinian youth have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque & are lobbing firebombs, rocks, & other projectiles at Israeli police. They’re not supposed to be there, according to the police, since males under 50 have been banned for months. Media can’t even report that fact honestly–let alone condemn it as an abridgment of religious freedom. They claim Israel imposes that ban “at time of unrest,” though it’s been in effect for nearly a year. They also say women of all ages are allowed, ignoring that just a few weeks ago Israel imposed a blacklist on certain Palestinian women entering the mosque.

The police spokesperson claimed the security guards of the mosque (associated with the Jordanian trust that governs the mosque, not with the Israeli police) allowed the “desecration of the sanctity of the place.” They didn’t say if the mosque guards are armed but we know the Israeli police are shooting off rubber-coated metal bullets, stun grenades, pepper & tear gas with no regard for the sanctity of human life let alone the mosque.

In what seems like a non sequitur, police report that Monday was the first day of Sukkot, a week-long Jewish holiday about the exodus. What the hell does that have to do with the mosque since Jews & all other religions are forbidden to worship there by agreement between Israel & the Jordanian trust? All the reported clashes going on in alleyways leading to the gates of Al-Aqsa are because Israeli police are allowing political extremists, religious nut-cakes, & Israeli “tourists,” to enter the Noble Sanctuary to provoke & cause trouble. They are waging a campaign to destroy the mosque & reclaim the site for Zionism–the only religion they swear fealty to. Prayer is the last thing on their mind but if they feel the need to talk to God, they can walk around the compound to the Wailing Wall & pray up a storm in the plaza Israel built where Palestinian homes used to stand.

According to Haaretz, Israeli police ushered in 729 visitors, including 592 Israeli “tourists,” while Palestinian protesters are being arrested all over East Jerusalem. How stupid do they think we are!? This is nothing but a provocation.

This is a very serious situation. Israeli provocations at the mosque caused the second Intifada, a period of intense conflict between Palestinians & Israel that lasted from 2000 to 2005. Is that what Israel is trying to provoke in order to massively increase violence against Palestinians?

Calling emergency protests at Israeli embassies in defense of Al-Aqsa is certainly in order. Build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel & demand no aid of any kind to apartheid Israel.

Photo is Israeli police patrols in the alleyways of the Old City where protesters like this woman stand steadfast.

(Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

Kenye West will perform in Tel Aviv tonight despite appeals from Palestinians to honor the cultural boycott. That he’s a punk is not news–especially since he visited Israel just a few months ago with his family. You always hope for the best in people, even those certain to disappoint you.

There’s big money invested in getting performers to ignore BDS but on top of that West appears to be an incorrigible meathead. Put him on your punk-list.

The lawyer for Kentucky country clerk Kim Davis, who denied marriage licenses to gay couples, reported yesterday on CBS news that his client met with Pope Francis at the Vatican embassy in Washington, DC, during his recent visit. A Vatican spokesperson initially dodged questions about the visit but told the NY Times he “did not deny that the meeting took place, but I have no other comments to add.”

According to the lawyer, the pope thanked Davis for her courage & told her to“stay strong.” They exchanged embraces, felicitations, & the pope gave her a rosary–even though she’s protestant.

The young mother weeping & holding her children just spent five hours on a dinghy crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. The man with his child was injured when Hungarian riot police attacked refugees with tear gas, water cannons, & truncheons. The traumatic stress parents & children sustain dodging border patrols, crossing oceans in flimsy boats & enduring violence from criminal gangs & police must rearrange the brain cells in their heads.

Media, at the service of the European Union, would very much like to portray the refugee crisis as hordes of young men entering Europe–which is very much how they portray African refugees. It panders to the lowest levels of racism inculcated by colonialism & inflames ultra-right nationalists. But because of the nature of war & neoliberal colonialism, immigration & the refugee crises today are a family affair. The crisis on the US southern border is also very much women with children.