Interesting data

South Africa: Dealing with sexual abuse in prison

Details: Last Updated: Monday, 01 May 2017 09:08; Published: Sunday, 07 October 2012 20:41; Written by PlusNews: Global Aids/HIV News and Analysis; Hits: 2666

South Africa: Dealing with sexual abuse in prison

"CAPE TOWN, 5 October 2012 (PlusNews) - “Here is the mess,” the warder said when he shoved Michael Adams* into an overcrowded cell in Allandale Prison, near South Africa’s Cape Town, 10 years ago. That first night, Adams was raped by two men, and he was repeatedly assaulted during much of his time behind bars.

“Two gangsters came over to me and made me stand naked in front of the gang,” he said recently, now out of prison and working at a hospital. “They did things to me.”

After his ordeal, a nurse told him, simply, “This is what happens in prison.” When he complained, the warder laughed at him.

Adams says he contracted HIV from those assaults. But because he was still awaiting trial, he had to wait two months to see a psychologist, and, despite begging for an HIV test, it would be two years before he was diagnosed. He was not given access to antiretrovirals, and only started taking them after his release."

To read more of this excellent article from PlusNews: Global Aids/HIV News and Analysis, click on the headline above.......

How the British stole Zimbabwe

Details: Last Updated: Monday, 01 May 2017 09:08; Published: Wednesday, 03 October 2012 09:33; Written by A reggae historian; Hits: 2297

How the British stole Zimbabwe

One of the great, totally appalling, imperial thefts of the 19th century....illustrating that society is based on theft and great empires on crime.....Add this short film as a prelude to reading Charles Van Onselen's Chibaro [1976, London: Pluto Press], a fine social history of the horrors of gold-mining in Southern Rhodesia. The latter shows that the establishment of both capital assets and a labour force in this territory very much required the use and abuse of criminal law.

Hillsborough Independent Panel: Disclosed material and Report

Details: Last Updated: Monday, 01 May 2017 09:08; Published: Sunday, 23 September 2012 19:26; Written by UK Government; Hits: 1787

Hillsborough Independent Panel: Disclosed material and Report

'One in eight soldiers' commits violence on return

Details: Last Updated: Monday, 01 May 2017 09:08; Published: Friday, 27 July 2012 16:10; Written by BBC News with comment by Colin Sumner; Hits: 2239

Aggression unleashed does not tend to involve some pacifyihg catharsis, in my view. The frustration-aggression hypothesis simply remains unproven; aggro tends to beget aggro. This story about the phenomenon of 'vet' or 'ex-squaddie' violence, something now widely noted in the US since Vietnam times of course, is an important recording of a new phenomenon for the UK. It should be added that I do not recall any such stories after the Second World War, which suggests the key triggers for violence by ex-military may well not be war or experience of extreme aggression, but more the poor, or problematic, or conflictful, social reception of ex-military after controversial wars. There is a big research project there for someone, but I doubt if it would be funded!

'One in eight soldiers' commits violence on return

G4S boss questioned by MPs over Olympic security: Politics live blog

Details: Last Updated: Monday, 01 May 2017 09:08; Published: Tuesday, 17 July 2012 13:25; Written by The Guardian, with comments by Colin Sumner; Hits: 2012

The answers given by the G4S boss who is responsible for the massive screw-up over security for the Olympics are so unbelievable that they are hugely revealing of the attitude of the corporate elite in this country who have no problems fleecing the state even when they are providing little 'service' for their vast remuneration. The whole exchange reveals too how incompetent the government is at contracting out key tasks that should be allocated to well-paid and well-trained professionals, not barely paid semi-literates off the street with little experience of security and with little English.

Yet again, we are faced with the fundamental question of our age: has capitalism proved itself to be completely unethical and shameless? We might add more questions: have politicians failed to understand the huge costs, financial, political, constitutional and moral in cutting back the public sector? Is the whole ideology of 'the business model' now revealed as hugely unreliable and overrated as a means of public service delivery, and indeed merely a mask for what used to be called corruption? Can we afford to keep cutting back public services only to replace them with more expensive crap versions of them? Do public-private finance initiatives amount to a way of enriching the already rich and their political friends?

G4S boss questioned by MPs over Olympic security: Politics live blog

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