Mexican union reform effort stays alive -- for now

MEXICO CITY — A dramatic vote in the Mexican Senate has kept alive a plan to reform this country’s corrupt and politically powerful unions, despite opponents’ attempts to smother the idea in the legislature.

But the senators' move late Tuesday could also torpedo a broader labor-reform bill, of which the union reforms are only one part. That left Mexicans pondering two very different futures Wednesday: one that could see a diminished role for the country’s king-making union bosses and another in which nothing much changes.

The reforms in question would require union elections to be held with secret ballots and open the books of big labor to public scrutiny. That, in theory, could undermine the virtual fiefdoms of labor leaders like Elba Esther Gordillo, the head of Mexico’s national teachers union, whose salary is unknown, but who is known to carry $5,000 Hermes purses and once gave out Hummers to loyal followers.

The reforms could also undermine an important source of political power for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which managed to co-opt big labor for most of the 20th century, when it ran Mexican society in a top-down, semi-authoritarian manner.

The teachers union and the powerful syndicate representing workers in the state oil company, PEMEX, both remain closely linked to the PRI. Critics consider both unions to be warrens of corruption, and hindrances to the modernization of two key elements of Mexican society: the poorly managed state oil and gas monopoly and the underperforming educational system.

Both Gordillo of the teachers union and Carlos Romero Deschamps, the longtime leader of the oil company union, were reelected over the weekend, clear indications that labor’s old guard was not planning on going gently.

That only intensified the drama facing Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto of PRI, who rode to victory in July promising sweeping government reforms, but heads a party that may not be so eager to give up its ways.

Peña Nieto, who takes office Dec. 1, has supported the idea of labor reform in general. He has declined, however, to take a strong stand on the union reform effort: In Madrid this month, he said he was in favor of greater union “transparency,” but added that the “autonomy” of the unions must also be respected.

His fellow party members are dominant in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, and last month they stripped the broader labor-reform bill of its union-reform provisions before it passed the lower chamber.

On Tuesday, however, the union reforms were reintroduced in the Senate version of the bill, thanks to an ad-hoc coalition of senators from the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and the right-wing National Action Party, or PAN. The bill passed on a 100-28 vote after 12 hours of debate.

Now, under Mexican law, the bill goes back to the lower chamber, which will consider the Senate’s alterations.

If the lower house approves the Senate’s changes, the altered bill will go to the desk of outgoing President Felipe Calderon, who introduced it.

But if disagreement remains, there is a chance the bill could languish in legislative limbo.

There is also a third possibility: The legislation could be approved by both houses, but without the union-reform provisions. Even in that scaled-back form, the bill could bring historic change to Mexico’s traditionally rigid labor market, making it easier for businesses to hire and fire workers, formalizing the outsourcing of work in some cases, and allowing for the payment of an hourly wage.

Those proposals infuriated some on the Mexican left, who worried that the bill only weakened the position of workers whose guaranteed minimum wage is about 60 cents per hour.

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-- Richard Fausset and Cecilia Sanchez

PHOTO: A demonstrator shouts slogans against proposed labor reforms outside Congress in Mexico City on Sept. 27. A proposal to reform Mexico's 1970s-era labor laws, loosen work rules and increase union democracy split Mexican political parties, threatening to create the first big political battle for President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto. The banner reads, "No to labor reform." Credit: Alexandre Meneghini / Associated Press

 

Wounded Pakistani girl Malala now able to stand but battling infection

LONDON -- Malala Yousafzai, the teenage education-rights campaigner who was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan, has been able to stand for the first time since the attack and is communicating by writing, a British hospital official said Friday.

But the 14-year-old whose plight has aroused international concern is still fighting an infection caused by the bullet that entered her skull, burrowed through her jaw and lodged in her shoulder blade, said David Rosser, medical director at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, in central England. Malala was flown to the hospital this week to receive treatment.

Rosser said she continued to show signs of improvement since waking from a long anesthesia.

"One of the first things she asked the nurses was what country she was in," he told reporters, adding: "She's closer to the edge of the woods, but she's not out of the woods."

The teenager was shot in a school bus in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where she had risen to prominence by courageously advocating the right to education for girls despite the fanatical Taliban's sway over the region. The Taliban has vowed to finish her off, prompting tight security at the Birmingham hospital.

PHOTOS: Pakistani teen shot by Taliban

But far from quashing Malala's cause, the attack sparked huge rallies across Pakistan and the rest of the world on her behalf. Rosser said she was "keen to thank people" for their outpouring of support and wanted the world to be kept apprised of her condition.

He said that scans had shown some damage to her brain, which was grazed by the bullet. But encouragingly, "at this stage we're not seeing any deficit in terms of function. She seems to be able to understand; she has some memory. ... She's able to stand. She's got motor control, so she's able to write."

Malala appears to have some recall of the attack, but those around her are refraining from bringing up the topic, Rosser said.

"From a lot of the work we've done with our military casualties, we know that reminding people of traumatic events at this stage increases the potential for psychological problems later," he said.

A tube in her trachea makes it impossible for her to speak, but the hospital is trying to arrange for her to listen to her father on the phone. Her family remains in Pakistan; efforts are underway to bring them to Britain to be at her bedside.

Rosser said the girl would require a couple of weeks of recuperation before surgeons try to reconstruct the damaged part of her skull and possibly her jaw.

"It would be over-optimistic to say that there are not going to be further problems," Rosser said. "But it is possible she’ll make a full recovery."

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Photo: Women in the British city of Birmingham hold a vigil Thursday for wounded Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who is receiving treatment at a hospital in the city. Credit: Gavin Fogg / AFP/Getty Images

Mexico's most powerful woman faults working mothers

 

MEXICO CITY -- She may be Mexico's most powerful woman, but she doesn't seem too keen on power for women.

Elba Esther Gordillo, the much-feared head of Mexico's gigantic teachers union, is blaming the abysmal state of education here on none other than working mothers.

In an "open letter to the public" covering two full pages of Mexico's leading Reforma newspaper, Gordillo seemed to rue the days decades ago when traditional family roles were clearly established (link in Spanish, registration required).

"A fact that was changed when women had to share responsibility for the family income, which didn't only contribute to the deterioration of the individual but also of society," Gordillo wrote.

"The abandonment of the mother in the rearing of children turned schools into daycare centers, gave teachers sole responsibility for education and emptied education of any substance," she added.

Gordillo went on to say that the void created by absent mothers working outside the home was filled with "the excessive consumption of junk TV" and similar distractions, which generally contributed to the demise of society's values.

Quite a lot to hang on working women, especially since most experts would blame Mexico's poor educational system on precisely the union that Gordillo lords over like a private fiefdom.

Gordillo, who favors expensive jewelry, designer clothes and tons of prime real estate, is the "president for life" of the union, which also formed a political party prone to backroom king-making deals and which generally refuses to open its bank accounts to public scrutiny. Thanks to the union's clout, teachers are allowed to bequeath their posts to descendants, and most teachers have flunked basic competency exams.

Outrage over Gordillo's comments was swift, intense and came from both the political left and right as well as women's groups.

"I read that and didn't know whether to laugh or cry," feminist columnist Rosaura Barahona wrote, noting that Gordillo apparently ignored the fact that many of the very teachers she represents are working moms (link in Spanish).

"It is very easy to blame women for everything bad that happens in the world today and for the poor education of the children," she continued. "But what about the fathers? The school? The media? The church? The government?"

If Gordillo needed a scapegoat, Barahona concluded, she should look elsewhere.

And that is exactly what many analysts said Gordillo appeared to be doing. She is under pressure on several fronts. There is a move afoot in the recently seated Congress that would force unions to be more democratic and "transparent," qualities that might erode her power. And the citizens group Mexicanos Primero has launched a concerted campaign to promote education and criticize Gordillo's handling of the teachers. One slogan is: More money for education, less for the union.

Gordillo on Thursday was opening a three-day convention of her union, the largest teachers group in Latin America. It was expected that members would endorse a slate of regional and local leaders primarily loyal to Gordillo.  The city of the convention had to be changed at the last minute because of reports that a group of dissident teachers who oppose Gordillo planned to picket the meeting.

Gordillo used the venue to argue that some of her recent comments had been "twisted" and that she really wasn't a misogynist.

But her critics remained adamant and revived a June television interview given by Gordillo's daughter, Monica Arriola, who was just elected to the Senate (link in Spanish). In it, Arriola said she was essentially raised by her grandmother because her mother, whom she sometimes went weeks without seeing, was too busy.

"It was difficult to see her," Arriola said, "because of her work."

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Photo: Teachers union boss Elba Esther Gordillo of Mexico, shown in 2006 in Mexico City. Credit: Dario Lopez-Mills / Associated Press

 

 

Pakistani girl shot by Taliban arrives in Britain for treatment

LONDON -- A Pakistani teenager who was wounded by Taliban gunmen opposed to her support of education for girls arrived in Britain on Monday for medical care and rehabilitation.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, was transported by air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates from the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi to Birmingham in central England and taken to the Queen Elizabeth hospital. She will receive post-trauma treatment, skull reconstruction and neurological rehabilitation for damage caused by a bullet that penetrated her skull.

The newly built hospital where she will be treated is Britain’s main receiving unit for military casualties, specializing in the treatment of firearms and burns victims. A brief hospital statement announcing her arrival said she was “currently stable and being assessed by a team of multi-specialist doctors,” including “clinicians from neurosurgery, imaging, trauma and therapies.”

PHOTOS: Malala Yousafzai

Medical director David Rosser said Malala will be treated by a team whose long experience in battlefield wounds predates the opening of the hospital. “We’ve taken every British battle casualty for over 10 years now,” he told reporters.

As Malala recovers, U.N. marks International Day of the Girl Child

As Malala Yousafzai lay in a Pakistani hospital recovering from gunshot wounds, the United Nations on Thursday marked its first International Day of the Girl Child.

The U.N. event, planned long before Malala was shot this week, focused on an end to child marriage and emphasized the importance of educating girls, the cause that put Malala in the sights of a Taliban gunman.

“Education for girls is one of the best strategies for protecting girls against child marriage,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “When they are able to stay in school and avoid being married early, girls can build a foundation for a better life for themselves and their families.”

Ban urged all members of society, including governments, community and religious leaders and families -- especially men and boys -- to promote the rights of girls.

“Let us do our part to let girls be girls, not brides,” he said.

The Tuesday attack on Malala, who angered militants by speaking out against efforts to ban education for girls, appalled Pakistanis and again thrust the issue into the global spotlight. The 14-year-old, who was reportedly out of danger of dying from her wounds, was on a school bus when she was shot.

A new report released Thursday by Plan International says that while the average teen girl now gets more years of education than ever before, the numbers largely reflect strides made by China and India, masking the fact that many poor countries have made little or no progress in educating girls.

Girls are thwarted from going to school for a long and varied list of reasons, some of which also keep boys out of school. The obstacles include poverty, prejudice against women, early marriage and safety threats.

Less than a fifth of girls in Niger, for instance, are in school. In Mali, roughly a third attend classes. And in Senegal and Guinea, less than half are in school. Education rates are also dismal for Roma girls in eastern Europe; only 9% of Roma girls in the Slovak Republic go to high school, the group wrote.

The bulk of young people who are not in school are in South Asia and Africa, regions that also have glaring gender gaps, the report said. Rural girls are even less likely to go to school than urban ones, as girls are tasked with gathering firewood, finding water and childcare to help their families scrape by.

Other girls are kept out of school by marriage. UNICEF estimates a third of young women worldwide -- 70 million -- are married before they turn 18, including 23 million girls wed before the age of 15. Marrying young almost always ends schooling for girls, the United Nations said Thursday.

School fees and hidden costs block other girls from school. Others are turned away by lengthy treks on roads riddled with danger. And still others fear sexual abuse perpetrated by teachers or classmates, the report found. In some Francophone countries in West Africa, sexual coercion by teachers is so familiar that students coined the phrase ‘moyennes sexuellement transmissibles’ -- sexually transmitted grades.

Gunmen in Pakistan shoot teenage advocate for girls' education

This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Gunmen in Pakistan’s Swat Valley opened fire Tuesday on a 14-year-old girl who won national acclaim for championing the cause of girls’ education in the country’s troubled northwest, injuring her and another girl as they sat in a school bus.

Malala Yousafzai has been hailed across the country as a symbol of defiance against the brutality of Taliban insurgents who had overrun Swat before a Pakistani military offensive retook the region in 2009.

Before the offensive, Yousafzai spoke out against Taliban destruction of girls’ schools in Swat and atrocities committed by the insurgent group’s fighters. In December, then-Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani awarded her the country’s National Peace Award for Youth.

Local authorities and witnesses said she was inside a school bus that was taking her and other girls home from their school in Mingora, Swat’s largest city, when gunmen on a motorcycle approached. The assailants stopped the bus, opened fire at Yousafzai, injuring her in the head and neck, and sped off.

Hong Kong leaders try again to put divisive curriculum plan to rest

BEIJING -- Seeking to put to rest months of controversy and demonstrations, Hong Kong officials said Monday they would shelve “national education” course guidelines that many residents of the former British colony had protested as an indoctrination tool being imposed by mainland China.

The "Moral and National Education" classes, which were to have become mandatory at elementary schools within three years, were meant to bolster national identity and pride, Chinese officials said. But critics complained that the classes would be government propaganda that whitewashed history under Communist Party rule.

In early September, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to denounce the planned courses, and some university students briefly went on a hunger strike.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announced Sept. 8 in the wake of the large protests that the classes would not be mandatory, but tensions have continued. On Oct. 1, China’s National Day, protesters carrying banners with slogans such as “End one-party dictatorship" and "Power to the people” marched to the China Central Government Liaison Office. 

Solutions to poverty, population growth, global warming [Google+ Hangout]

As experts from three continents convene this week at UC Berkeley to discuss rapid population growth, climate change and other intractable problems, The Times will hold a live online video discussion -- via Google+ Hangout -- Thursday on potential solutions.

The newspaper explored such issues around the world in its recent five-part series on population growth in the developing world. Among other topics, the "Beyond 7 Billion" series examined chronic hunger and mass migration in East Africa -- trends that Dr. Malcolm Potts believes will soon extend across the Sahel, an arid region of Africa just below the Sahara desert.

LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION: Join us at 3:30 p.m. Thursday

"What you've been seeing from Somalia is going to happen in all those countries, all the way across from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean," said Potts, a UC Berkeley professor of public health. "You've just seen a fraction of what's going to happen in the next 10 or 20 years."

Potts, who co-organized the conference focused on the Sahel region, will join The Times at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time Thursday to discuss solutions to the problems facing this part of Africa and other impoverished nations with soaring populations. He will be joined by Dr. Ndola Prata of UC Berkeley, William Ryerson of the Population Media Center and Fatima Adamu from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto, Nigeria.

We invite you to join the conversation by posting comments or questions below, on The Times’ Facebook and Google Plus pages, or on Twitter using the #asklatimes hashtag.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Photo: Somalia refugees, driven from their land by sectarian violence and drought, gather outside the United Nations' camps in eastern Kenya. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Big protests arise in Hong Kong over Chinese 'national education'

As the school year begins in Hong Kong, thousands of protesters in the former British colony are rallying against new classes soon to be required by China, deriding them as “brainwashing.”

Chinese officials say the newly introduced "Moral and National Education" classes, which will be mandatory in three years, are meant to bolster national identity and pride.

Hong Kong education officials have hastened to add that “national education” makes up only a fifth of the classes, which “cultivate students’ positive values and attitudes.”

“There are no mandatory learning and teaching materials imposed by the government,” the Hong Kong Education Bureau said earlier this summer,  adding that the website included a copy of the curriculum guide for public perusal, “in which there are no elements for brainwashing.”

The protesters argue the classes are government propaganda that whitewash history under Communist Party rule, pointing to a Chinese educational handbook that skips over Tiananmen Square and says systems with more than one political party create a “malignant party struggle.” The booklet, titled "The China Model," was produced by a government-funded group.

Though education officials say the handbook is not part of the curriculum and no topics are off-limits, critics see it as a sign of an overly rosy picture of China under the new classes.

“I want my children to love our country, but I don’t want them to be in love with a false image,” Hong Kong mother and writer Verna Yu wrote in a New York Times op-ed earlier this summer.

Thousands have gathered outside Hong Kong government headquarters this week in protest, with several protesters declaring hunger strikes against the classes. Radio Television Hong Kong reported early Thursday that the protests continue “and show little sign of giving up.”

9 Jewish youths indicted in near-fatal beating of Palestinian teen

JERUSALEM -- Two weeks after the brutal beating of a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, nine Jewish teenagers were indicted Tuesday in a Jerusalem court on charges of incitement to violence and commiting racially motivated assault.

Earlier this month, 17-year-old Jamal Julani was walking in downtown Jerusalem with a group of friends doing holiday shopping toward the end of Ramadan. His evening out ended in a hospital bed and serious injury after a group of Jewish teenagers attacked him without provocation, authorities said, brutally beating him unconscious.

Those indicted, according to Israeli media, were Shimon Simantov, 19; and eight minors including  a 15-year-old girl released to house arrest. According to the indictment, the group moved between several downtown flash points that evening looking to pick a fight with Palestinians, chanting racist slurs and intimidating Arab youths they encountered. Most hastened out of their way after being cursed, pushed and kicked, the indictment said.

Three Palestinian youths managed to escape at the beginning of the assault but Julani was beaten relentlessly and kicked while he lay unconscious on the ground, authorities said. The assault was almost fatal; Julani's heart stopped and he had to be resuscitated, according to a justice ministry statement on the indictments.

The incident drew widespread condemnation across the political spectrum, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared Israel would "not tolerate racism" or "the combination of racism and violence," and President Shimon Peres, who expressed "shame" over the attack.

It also sounded an alarm among educators, headed by Minister of Education Gideon Saar, who said the education system would take a stand that would be "sharp and clear," and directed schools to discuss the incident with students upon their return to school this week.

An editorial in the liberal daily Haaretz had scolded Israeli society for feigning shock and wrote that the perpetrators, "children and teens ... absorbed hatred for Arabs from their environment," including the educational and political systems.

A recent poll conducted by Tel Aviv University among high school seniors found that more than half of them did not want to live next door to Arabs and most supported deporting African refugees from the country.

This month's beating of Jamal Julani, widely described by mainstream Israeli media as a "lynching," was defined as an "altercation" by Honenu, a right-wing organization that aids Jews in legal trouble for "defending themselves against Arab aggression or due to their love for Israel," including in this case.  

While Julani was recovering in a Jerusalem hospital, his mother told local media that she pitied her son's attackers -- and their mothers. "Who could be proud of a child who does a thing like this?" she asked.  

She believed her son's assailants would feel more shame and regret as they grew up. After his arrest, one of the teens had said that Julani could die for all he cares, explaining,"He's an Arab." 

-- Batsheva Sobelman