ONLY A SHORT SEGMENT IN THE BEGINNING HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES, THE REST IS SPOKEN ENGLISH* SANTA'S WORKSHOP takes you to the real world of China's toy factories. Workers tell us about long working hours, low wages, and dangerous work places. Those who protest or try to organize trade unions risk imprisonment. Low labour costs attract more and more companies to China. Today more than 75% of our toys are made in China. But this industry takes its toll on the workers and on the environment. The European (and American) buyers blame bad conditions on the Chinese suppliers. But they say that increasingly hard competition gives them no option. Who should we believe? And what can you do to bring about a fairer and more humane toy trade.
The Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California Berkeley is pleased to present President Bill Clinton, Founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation and 42nd President of the United States of America. In his second visit to campus President Clinton speaks to Students, Faculty, and Staff about "Global Citizenship: Turning Good Intentions Into Positive Action.
Sichuan, China. In the aftermath of the massive earthquake that rocked this central region of China, several communities are in mourning for the children they lost. At Fuxin Primary School, where 127 students died, families place framed photographs of dead boys and girls in a makeshift memorial next to the rubble, burning incense and symbolic paper currency to honor them. A boy survivor cries, remembering his lost classmates. A father tells us how his son was the top student in four subjects. A mother wipes the glass on her portrait inside the memorial, explaining, "I have to clean your face before I leave."
At Hanwang Primary School, 317 students died. Standing amidst the ruins, a father still hasn't found his daughter: "After ten days I haven't seen her face." Another man explains that local leaders said "we weren't hit hard, we can handle ourselves." Young voices that cried out from under slabs of concrete are silent now, as heavy machinery tread lightly on the ruins to avoid dismembering bodies. Back at Fuxin, parents remember hearing how the buildings were unsafe, but nothing was done. "Who inspected and built the building?" asks one. "Where is the government?" In a field behind their home, the parents of a victim show pictures of their son, and visit the mound of soil where they were forced to bury him. "We want justice to prevent future tragedies," says the mother. "This is a lesson of blood." Even more children - 438 - died at Xinjian Primary School. A woman shows off a class photo with some 30 or 40 students. All but one student and the teacher died. Parents here rail about the school building's "shoddy construction," complaining that the mortar and concrete did not meet standards. Likewise, in Hongbai Schools, where 430 children died, questions about the quality of building construction are raised over the sound of sobs. China has a strict one-child policy, and most of these parents lost their only child.
In Mianzu City, protesters vent their complaints with a director from the Board of Education. "Where did the school money go?" asks a man. Next to the wreckage we see an intact warehouse building that survived the quake; it used to be a school, and students would have been safe here. Instead, a parent shows us an official letter of compensation: $317 for each dead child. A father plays us a song his daughter recorded on his cell phone. He and his wife show us the forest in which they buried their child, along with many others. Back at Fuxin, parents examine the fallen building's bricks, dumbfounded by the lack of cement on them. "If children are the flowers of our country, is this where you plant them?" asks a mother. The lack of response from local officials has caused parents here to begin a 70-mile march to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. They start off full of resolve, jostling a Party Secretary and breaking through a line of police officers. Chants accusing officials of negligence and wrongful deaths abound. One woman recounts how, after being denied use of an overcrowded crematorium, she was forced to personally carry the body of her daughter home, first by motorcycle and then (when the bike stalled) by foot.
Eventually, parents are pressured to board buses to a nearby government office in the regional capital of Deyang. After officials promise to visit the Fuxin school the next day, parents return home to await government inspection. Inspectors and engineers from the Architecture Institute finally arrive, as promised, with some admitting that the construction of the school was faulty. Eventually, officials shoo away most of the onlookers and camera crews, explaining that "Starting tomorrow, only a select group of parents can be here." Eventually, the government bans gatherings of more than three parents at school sites, warning villagers that protesting is unpatriotic. One protesting mother is berated by other villagers, who remind her that the Communist Party has done a lot of good in the wake of the disaster, and who lecture her for speaking with foreign filmmakers. She returns to her farming, which had been neglected in her grief, and laments how she'd hoped her daughter would be cultured and highly educated. It turns out that compensation is tied to a pledge to "obey the law and maintain social order." With the implication that the protests will cease, parents are offered $8,800 per dead child. Later, 58 parents from Fuxin Primary School file a suit seeking additional damages and a public apology. Their lawsuit is rejected.
CREDITS: Directed by Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill; Produced by Jon Alpert, Peter Kwong, Michelle Mi, Matthew O'Neill & Ming Xia; Edited by Adam Barton; Editor & Colorist: John Custodio; Cinematography & Audio: Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill. For HBO: supervising producer, Jacqueline Glover; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.
Women on the Frontline is a video documentary series, presented by Annie Lennox, that shines a light on violence against women and girls. The series takes the front to homes, villages and cities around the world where a largely unreported war against females is being waged.
Broadcast on BBC World for seven weeks in 2008, the series covers: Nepal, where thousands of women are trafficked each year; Turkey, where killing in the name of honour continues; Morocco, where women political activists who have survived torture and imprisonment testify before a government truth and reconciliation commission; the DRC, where women bear the brunt of a 10-year war in the eastern provinces; Colombia, where women have been tortured in the shadow of a guerilla war; Mauritania, where women who have been raped may go to prison; and Austria, where, under a new law, perpetrators of domestic violence are forced to leave home.
(Publishers: UNFPA, dev.tv, Austrian Development Cooperation, UNIFEM; Year of Release: 2008)
While nuclear giants Russia and the US agreed to reduce their stockpiles of weapons, some of the brightest minds in nuclear science have gathered in Bahrain to discuss the future of nuclear energy in the Gulf and how to avert nuclear catastrophe.
Talk by freelance journalist Pepe Escobar sponsored by the Central Eurasian Society at the University of Toronto. Mr. Escobar discusses what has often been called the Great Game of the 21st century, how the reigning superpower US and the rising regional powers like China, Russia, Iran, and the non-state actors have maneuvered against each other for access and control of the vast oil and natural gas reserves of the region.
This 20th annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2009 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the country in question.
Every government is at times tempted to violate human rights, but the global human rights movement has made sure that abuse carries a price. Still, some governments cannot resist trying to minimize that price by attacking human rights defenders, organizations, and institutions. The aim is to silence the messenger, to deflect pressure, to lessen the cost of committing human rights violations.
These efforts have yet to succeed, but the campaign is dangerous. Human Rights Watch calls on governmental supporters of human rights to help defend the defenders by identifying and countering these reactionary efforts. A strong defense of human rights depends on the vitality of the human rights movement now under assault.
