REDEYE 4/6/16

U.S.  Ignored Argentine Junta
El Pais (Spain) 3/22—“I believe we will see much repression, and probably a lot of bloodshed, very soon in Argentina.  I believe they will not only harshly punish terrorists but, also any opposition in unions or politics”, warned an aide to US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on March 26, 1976, a few days after the military coup in Argentina.
…(Kissinger) didn’t pay heed to the warning…(responding)… “They will need a little encouragement, I want to encourage them.  I don’t want to give them the impression that the US is harassing them.”  
The conversation above is found among the more than 4700 documents from the US Department of State that were declassified in 2002…
The following day the IMF extended a $127 million credit to the argentine military junta of Jorge Rafael Videla.  
…Months before the coup…Kissinger requested a credit increase for the purchase of arms from 34 to 50 million dollars for the argentines for the year 1977 with the objective of: “ adapting a modernization plan for the armed forces and maintaining relations with a country where the military is playing an ever greater role in government”.  
China’s Workers: “We who refuse to be slaves!”
NYT, 3/15 — GUANGZHOU, China — For nearly seven years Li Wei rise before dawn seven days a week fir his 10-hour shift at the steel plant, returning home each night soaked in sweat, the clank of heavy machinery still ringing in his ears. But last month the 31-year-old welder stood outside the plant with hundreds of co-workers, picketing against pay cuts….
…The authorities declared their strike illegal, threatening fines and imprisonment. The police descended on the plant…tearing down signs and ordering the protesters…back to work….
…Strikes and labor protests have erupted across the country. Factories, mines and other businesses are withholding wages and benefits, laying off…or shutting down altogether….Workers are fighting back with unusual ferocity….
…Thousands of angry employees of the state-owned Longmay Mining Group…staged one of the most politically daring protests over unpaid salaries…,denouncing the provincial governor….
China Labor Bulletin…recorded more than 2,700 strikes and protests last year, more than double…in 2014. The strife…[has] intensified,…with more than 500 in January alone.
Most demonstrations have…focused on…wage arrears, unpaid benefits like pension contributions and unsafe working conditions.
President Xi Jinping…has responded with a methodical crackdown, quashing protests, dismantling labor rights organizations and imprisoning activists….
The [“]Communist [”] Party…has continued to portray itself as a socialist guardian of worker’s rights even as it has embraced capitalism and welcomed tycoons into its ranks….More than three million workers could lose their jobs in the next two years….
China trimmed the state sector of more than 30 million workers during a wave of privatization….
Here in…Guangdong Province…several hundred workers at the state-owned…steel plant went on strike…in response to a…decrease in wages by as much as half and extend[ing] the workday to 12 hours…
“Toward the sun, toward freedom!” the workers chanted…reciting a World War II-era army song….
…The authorities…tried to stop them from playing the…anthem…[whose] first line is, “Rise, we who refuse to be slaves!”
…Last year the province averaged more one labor dispute a day….Most…protests…were against private employers….But…the unrest could spread to government-owned businesses.
Obama continues sexist deportations
NYT, 3/10 — The Obama administration is moving ahead with deportations of migrants fleeing from…violence-racked countries in Central America….120 migrants were arrested…in a round-up in early January….
Since Oct. 1,…28,808 people…have been sent back to Central America….
Most…arrested…were women and children. Fewer than half of the, including young children, have been represented by lawyers in their asylum cases.
Beyond Flint: lead poisoning a racist attack on kids
NYT, 3/4 — CLEVELAND — …The residents of Flint, Mich., are still reeling from the drinking water debacle that more than doubled the share of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood…7 percent of all children tested.
Clevelanders’…comparable number…is 14.2 percent.…Too much lead in children’s blood has long been an everyday fact in Cleveland and scores of other cities ….
“…This problem [is] going to persist for years to come,” said…a…professor of preventive medicine and pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine….
…Even vanishingly small amounts of it have a pernicious impact on young brains, stunting intellectual growth and affecting cardiovascular, immune and hormone systems….
By the most recent estimate, about 37 million homes and apartments still have some lead paint on walls and woodwork, 23 million with potentially hazardous levels in soil, paint chips or household dust….
…Four million of those most dangerous households have children….But in most cities, the lead threat is confined largely to poor neighborhoods….There is little official urgency — and increasingly little money — to address it….
A 2005 study of Chicago elementary school students concluded that blood lead concentrations…explained up to 15 percent of failing grades in reading and math….The C.D.C. [Center for Disease Control] has cut state grants for lead poisoning prevention by more than half since 2009, and the share of children younger than 6 who are tested has fallen by more than 40 percent….
In 2012, federal officials withdrew Cleveland’s multimillion-dollar grant for addressing lead in homes because the city’s track record was so poor….
…The city has found…$30 million for a 2013 renovation of its National Football League stadium — while lead abatement languished.
“A lot of folks failed,” said…the director of Environmental Health Watch….You have a lot of folks affected who are people of color or low-income people. And honestly, people are not as concerned about them.”

….And judge says toddlers can represent themselves in court
NYT, 3/8 — …A federal immigration judge insists that toddlers can represent themselves in immigration court.
The judge, Jack Weil,…told a lawyer…“I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds….
…Thousands of Central American children…have been detained…in recent years….
…The Obama administration…has been rushing their cases through the clogged immigration courts…and has recently been conducting raids to round up immigrants who have not responded to deportation orders….
…The administration…refuses to acknowledge the injustice of having children too young to understand the legal process fending for themselves in deportation hearings….
…These children face…violent death in being returned to their home countries.