International
Migrants, cheap labor to work in the fields in the south of Rome
Before dawn, Shoda, a 29-year-old Indian, goes out by bike to go to work in the countryside in Latina, an important agricultural province in the south of Rome and one of the most productive in Italy. It is one of the many migrants exploited as cheap labor in the area, the vast majority, according to the unions.
This young Indian from the Punjab region – like a large part of the migrants in Latina – travels every day the 20 kilometers between his rural neighborhood of the town of Aprilia and the green fields of Latina, where he collects seasonal fruit and vegetables since his arrival in Italy two years ago.
Shoda, one of the 30,000 members of the Indian community in the area, claims to be happy with his work, although he only charges about 6 euros an hour – below the about 10 that the agricultural agreement marks – but is outraged by the death last week of his compatriot Satnam Singh after a serious accident on a farm in the region.
After being run over by a machine that cut his arm, Singh was abandoned on the street next to his member amputated by his boss, who let him die from a hemorrhage that would have been contained if he had received the necessary medical attention.
“They treated him like an animal,” he denounces to EFE Shoda, who in recent days went out to protest a tragedy that has once again focused on the labor exploitation of migrants, very common in Latina, an area with about 30,000 agricultural workers, 70% of them foreigners and many irregular and without a contract.
Andrea Coinu, a member of the CGIL union, the largest in Italy, leaves these early morning days to talk to the migrants who leave at dawn to go to work.
In a van with a dozen more trade unionists, he walks through the fields and villages full of fruit trees and crops to inform them of their labor rights in the face of the “extended impunity” of agricultural owners and entrepreneurs that, he says, culminated in Singh’s tragic death last week.
Since that incident, in the area “there is a lot of tension and fear, both on the part of workers and entrepreneurs,” says Coinu, who distributes pamphlets and talks to Indian day laborers of the Sikh religion with the support of a translator shortly before they are picked up to go to the countryside.
Even in the early hours of the morning, other vans with more workers pass by. According to the CGIL, they go to work accompanied by foremen, one more sample of the ‘caporalato’, a system very widespread in Italian agriculture – it would affect 40% of employees in the center and south of the country – and that has been prevailing in Latina despite being vetoed by law for years.
It is based on employing cheap labor through foremen – part of them from the migrant community – who choose the workers and keep part of the money that the employer offers as a daily wage.
Faced with the controversy over the death of the Indian day laborer, a new victim of the ‘caporalato’, the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni insisted in recent days on its rejection of that system, while unions, part of the migrant community and the political opposition accused the Executive of inaction.
“There are people who only charge four euros an hour despite the strenuous work in the countryside,” says Coinu, who hopes that, after Singh’s tragedy, “the authorities will really invest time in changing things” in a sector “very based on exploitation.”
According to the complaint, the bosses of Latina profit from all this, an area of fascist tradition populated by settlers from northern Italy in a project launched by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s.
The area has many water resources, which makes Latina one of the large areas of kiwi production in Europe, as well as vineyards and crops of melons, tomatoes or cucumbers.
“It’s a tiring job, but it needs to be done to support the family,” another Indian migrant of about 50 years old who goes by bike to work and complains about the bad conditions.
As he explains, he changes crops and pattern according to the seasonal harvest, although unlike many others who must work clandestinely, he has a work permit and a stable situation.
That’s what three young Tunisians are looking for, hoping to improve their future in Italy, while the sunlight rises and they wait on the corner of a rural road for a vehicle to pick them up to go to work on a foreign land.
International
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.
In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.
The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.
Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.
The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.
This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.
Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.
AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.
International
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.
“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.
For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”
The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.
In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.
“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.
The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.
The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.
The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.
The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.
According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.
All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.
That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.
International
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.
The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.
According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”
Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.
“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.
He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.
It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.
The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.
In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.
Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.
Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.
Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.
The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.
Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.
It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).
Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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