Excluded Headlines: Deliberate fire leaves 12,000 homeless, bias in covering violence in Mexico, Colombia's reduced work week...
Stay up to date on the global news stories the US- and Eurocentric media overlooks, with journalist and author, Tamara Pearson.
This week in the downplayed and overlooked news about the Global South, the English mainstream media has at least covered the devastating floods in Malawi and Mozambique (mostly for the dramatic clickbait footage), but not the following:
Fire in one of the world’s largest refugee camps was deliberate - A refugee camp in southern Bangladesh housing over a million Rohingya people caught fire earlier this month and around 12,000 people lost some 2,800 homes. The media half-heartedly covered the initial fire, but only a few media outlets, such as Reuters and Al Jazeera, have covered the recent findings that the fire was deliberate. The media has hardly talked about the lack of international support for Rohingya refugees. The difference in follow-up coverage with the Grenfell fire is alarming. That horrific incident deserved the ongoing analysis it got (and it deserved better analysis), but so did this recent tragedy in Bangladesh. Source, source, source.
13 million displaced Syrians - Since the initial uprising in Syria 12 years ago, over 230,000 have been killed in the war waged in and on the country and 13 million people have had to flee their homes, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). A separate report found that 90% of Syrians in camps for internally displaced people in north-western Syria have been displaced repeatedly. Source, source.
Impunity in Mexico - The media has been all over the killing of two USians and the indictment of their killers in Mexico but has completely ignored the murder of 72 activists here over the period of last year, and pretty much any other violence that occurs in Mexico that isn’t against Global North citizens. There is a 93% impunity rate for murders that are recorded (and so many, especially of land-bound migrants are not). The political dominance or power of the US and of the media no doubt played a role in these particular murderers going to court while the others don’t. Media racism and its selective silence is deadly.
Colombia is reducing its work week - Colombia’s president has presented a labour reform to Congress, which includes reducing the work week from 48 hours to 42. The reform also aims to reinforce worker stability and prevent termination for external reasons such as being pregnant. Source, source.
Sudanese people continue resisting military coup - On March 14 the March of Millions was held in various locations in Sudan, in solidarity with striking workers and again calling for an end to the military coup. Security fired tear gas at protestors in the capital. Source.
After 13 years, emergency pill is again legal in Honduras - The Honduran government issued an executive decree last week allowing the use and sale of the morning after pill. Unfortunately, local media coverage has been critical of the change and the church considers the pill “abortive”. Source, source.
Massive strikes in Sri Lanka - While the UK strikes and Paris protests have rightly received lots of media coverage, there has been little about the Sri Lankan strikes which have brought activities there to a halt. Unionists are protesting the doubling of taxes on workers, a measure implemented by the government so that the country can obtain an IMF loan. Source.