It is not what one usually sees in store windows, but in a shopping centre in Tel Aviv, women tagged with price tickets are being offered for sale.
It is part of a protest to highlight the problem of human trafficking for the sex industry.
An estimated 3,000 woman are living in Israel today having been smuggled into the country and sold and resold while being assaulted, raped and starved.
Campaigner Ori Keider explained:
“ What we see here today is an example of what’s going on in houses and basements and yards in this city, but today we’re showing it in the centre of this shopping mall so people can understand, they cannot look away.”
The distress and violence meted out to the women was not hidden and shoppers were asked to sign a petition calling for people who pay for sex to be prosecuted.
The protesters hope that way the demand for sex workers will be reduced and it will be the clients and not the prostitutes who’ll bare the brunt of the law.
French police ordered into fuel depots
Some fuel supplies were restored in France today after police moved in on strikers blocking three oil depots to move them on. The picketers left peacefully, but there were reports of them returning later when the police left, and blocking other depots elsewhere.
The brief respite allowed tankers in and some petrol stations that had run dry were getting fresh supplies in the early hours. But France’s 12 refineries remain closed.
Air travellers are struggling, with international and domestic services cancelled or delayed from Paris’s twin airports Orly and Charles de Gaulle.
This morning picketers closed the Port de Bouc depot near Marseille, cutting off fuel supplies to airports including and south of Lyon, and to the air force.
“Western France was facing the risk of a serious shortage so unblocking depots there had become indispensable. It will enable the resumption of normal activity”, said Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux.
Folowing Hortefeux’s statement President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was ordering police into all the blockaded depots.
However the security forces are struggling to control the student protests, that are turning violent as troublemakers infiltrate their ranks to burn cars, stone police and loot shops in a dozen cities yesterday.
Unions in the Uk gear up for action ahead for cuts
Unions in the UK say they will fight tooth and nail to protect public services from the axe.
They rallied in London ahead of the government’s long-awaited and much-feared spending review today, in which departments face budget cuts of up to 40 percent.
They say there will be coordinated strike action if the government does not change its plans:
“These cuts will lose over a million jobs. And, let’s be clear, this is not an economic necessity, but a political choice they are making.” said TUC head Brendan Barber.
The unions say the emphasis should be on fair taxes and growth instead of cuts.
They are also angry at the banks whom they say will save billions by offsetting their losses during the financial crisis against tax.
Asian markets stem losses before close
China’s raising of its interest rate by 25 base points has sent Asian stockmarkets into a spin, following on from falls in Europe yesterday, and falls in the value of the dollar and the euro.
Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan and South Korea all recorded losses along with Tokyo, to send the region’s markets to a two-month low and extended the losing streak to four days, although in late trading those losses were pared back before the close.
Analysts say that China is now worried inflation may rise and the central bank is keen to prick a property bubble that is outpacing growth. While the Chinese move is being seen as being driven mainly by domestic factors, the news was not lost on America.
Following the news the US Treasury pulled back from tabling new measures to pressure China into raising the value of its currency. China has been accused of keeping the Yuan artificially low to boost exports, and not doing enough to fuel domestic consumption.
Spain set for major cabinet reshuffle
Spain’s leader José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero looks set to replace his right-hand woman in a major cabinet reshuffle today.
Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega will lose her Deputy Prime minister’s post to Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba according to Spanish media speculation.
He will combine the role with his job as Interior minister, where success in the campaign against Basque separatists ETA has won him praise.
In further musical chairs, Health minister Trinidad Jimenez is tipped to replace Miguel Angel Moratinos at Foreign Affairs.
The Housing and Equality ministries are set to be dissolved altogether with the focus now on tackling the economic crisis that has hit Spain hard. However Labour minister Celestino Corbacho will not be helping to oversee austerity measures as he is being replaced.
Whether the changes will appease public opinion is far from sure. Last month, unions called Spain’s first general strike in eight years against spending cuts and easier hire-and-fire laws enacted by the Socialist government.
Killing in Karachi leaves 16 dead
More bloodshed in Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi where at least 16 people have died in separate attacks.
In one, armed gunmen on motor-bikes opened fire in a market in the city centre, killing eight and injuring 10 others.
The violence, which has claimed 49 lives since Saturday, was sparked by the weekend’s by-election to replace a provincial politician who was murdered in August.
Karachi is prone to political and religious conflict.
Two parties most linked to violence are supported by different ethnic groups and secular sections of society are highly critical of the so-called Talibanisation of the city.
From: Euronews
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