An Attack on Grameen Bank, and the Cause of Women
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The Bangladeshi government's power grab for the world's biggest microlender hurts millions of poor, and threatens the gains made by the women who run it.
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Additional Restrictions on Internet Freedom |n Jordan
"After government's green light to block websites under very dubious "ethical" reasons, the Jordanian government approved today the new Publications Law, which gives authorities more power to control and censor the Internet in Jordan, Issa Mahasneh reports.
The Jordanian council of ministers approved today a new law amending the Publications and Press Law of 1998, making the new law, if approved by lawmakers, one of the biggest threats to Internet Freedom in Jordan.
"The draft law was needed to regulate work of electronic sites, make them accountable under the penal code and oblige the ones interested in covering Jordan's internal and external affairs to register and get license like the print press", our state-run news agency reported, although news websites were already included in the Press Law and classified as press publications in a 2010 Supreme Court decision, a decision met with fierce opposition from journalist, media organizations and, of course, by Jordan Open Source Association."
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The Emergence of a New Labor Movement in Jordan
"Perhaps most dramatic of all is the increase in labor protests, strikes and similar actions. In 2011 alone, Jordan Labor Watch, an initiative of the Amman-based Phenix Center for Economics and Informatics Studies, documented over 800 labor actions. The labor front began to heat up in 2006, but really did so with the Arab revolts, which have forced the regime to cede greater public space to political dissent. The scale of labor action is unprecedented, with workers from every sector, with the exception of security forces, engaged in some sort of protest. Teachers, bank tellers, imams, phosphate and potassium workers, university employees, journalists, taxi drivers, nurses and doctors at state-run hospitals -- the list goes on. Some of the labor actions also advance a political agenda that coincides to a large degree with that of the pro-reform protests."
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