On Saturday, November 23, Iran warned countries in its region of retaliation if they were proved to have meddled in provoking the deadly protests that have swept over more than a hundred towns and cities across the country.

Iran’s Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri told Fars News Agency that countries in the region “should know that they will not have an easy life,” if they were found to have “intervened to create unrest in Iran.”

Yet Iranian officials had already accused neighbouring archenemies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, of being behind the week-long protests. President Hassan Rouhani previously blamed “reactionary regional regimes, the Zionists and the Americans” for instigating the unrest.

After violently quelling unrest in Kermanshah, in western Iran, Tehran said on Saturday that “US agents” were among the protesters there. Amnesty International said at least 30 people were killed in the province that shares borders with Iraq.

The western province underwent a severe crackdown. “All the forces of the Revolutionary Guards, Basij, the Intelligence Ministry, police and the army took part actively in controlling the situation,” Parviz Tavassolizadeh, the head of the judiciary in Kermanshah, told Fars News Agency.

Tavassolizadeh also claimed that the demonstrators were armed and burned and vandalized public property. The Revolutionary Guards’ commander in Kermanshah, Bahman Reyhani, told Tasnim News Agency that “the rioters belonged to anti-revolutionary groups and America’s intelligence services.”

For their part, protesters said their peaceful movement had been infiltrated by agents charged with burning banks and damaging public property, as many banks and government buildings were set on fire and heavily vandalized in several cities.

Iran’s recent wave of protests was propelled by the government’s announcement of a hike in gasoline prices of at least 50%. Demonstrators first took to the streets on November 15, but analysts say the rise in gasoline prices only added to the decades-long weariness Iranians had cultivated against their authoritarian government.

Tensions among the Iranian youth have particularly flared up in recent years. The country’s currency has long been in decline, whereas costs of living and housing increased amid sweeping unemployment and international economic hardships.

The United States has long sworn to bring Iran’s oil revenues —the country’s lifeblood— to “zero,” as it leads austere sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Many other countries took the same stance against Teheran.

Critics of the Iranian regime said over 200 people were killed in the protests and thousands arrested. But the death toll proved delicate to establish after the Iranian government had shut down the internet for five days during the week of the protests. Amnesty International updated its estimated death toll on Saturday to 115 dead protesters, whereas, it said, over 1000 were detained.

“According to credible reports we have continued to receive, security forces in Iran have unlawfully killed 115 protesters,” Amnesty International declared on Twitter. “We believe the real number is higher and are continuing to investigate,” the tweet went on.

The human rights group also reported that government forces of Iran opened fire from rooftops and helicopters when targeting protesters. Iran rejected Amnesty’s death toll figures as being “speculative,” and said only a handful of protesters succumbed during clashes with security forces.

Video footage and pictures that had made it to social media despite the shutdown, however, showed civilians chased in the streets by anti-protest agents on bikes or sometimes dressed as civilians. Some protesters were heavily battered; in other footage, security forces appeared to open fire from rooftops.

Yet observers said far more of the ruthless crackdown was likely concealed by the government’s days-long blockage of internet across the country. Other reports said the government forces used live ammunition against the protesters.

The Revolutionary Guards were said to have immediately reacted to the protests, alongside the Basij paramilitary, and the internet was promptly shut down.

Virtually cut off from the rest of the world during most of the protests’ week, Iranians said they felt ignored by the international media and audiences. (International journalists were banned from travelling to Iran to cover the protests.)

On Thursday, November 21, Iran’s National Security Council, which had ordered shutting down the internet, approved of reactivating it in some areas, after the Revolutionary Guards said calm had returned across Iran that same day.

NetBlocks, the cybersecurity and internet governance monitoring organization, showed connectivity was back up to 64% of normal levels on Saturday. Iranian state television showed pro-government rallies in several cities that same day. Yet Iranians on social media still actively make use of #IranProtests to share video footage and pictures, saying the unrest was not over.

On Friday, November 22, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Iran’s minister of information and telecommunication technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, for his role in stifling information on the protests and the crackdown.

That same Friday, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Iranians to “send us their videos, photos and information documenting the regime’s crackdown on protests. The United States will expose and sanction abuses.”

Saying the protesters were linked to foreign forces who had long opposed Iran, Teheran blamed the “thugs” for the unrest, accusing them of having committed a major crime.

Iran’s judiciary said some 100 individuals were arrested nationwide on charges of leading the unrest. Senior cleric Ahmed Khatami said they deserved the “maximum penalty,” echoing a position shared by many others standing for the regime.

Human rights groups and NGOs fear the cleric meant the death penalty. A pro-government newspaper, Kayhan, wrote they should be hanged.

L'articolo Tehran Threatens Regional States Involved in Iran Protests proviene da InsideOver.

In Britain, suicide is the most common form of death for men between the ages of twenty and forty-nine. In 2018, The Office For National Statistics recorded 6,507 suicides. Scotland has the highest rate of suicide in Britain: 16.1 deaths per 100,000 people. Wales has 12.8 deaths per 100,000 people and England has 10.3 deaths per 100,000 people.

Suicide is much more common for men than women because males are far less likely to seek help, such as going to a counselor. Many men feel it signifies weakness and failure to ask for help. Also, men are far less likely to talk about their emotions and this eventually leads to a crisis which is not resolved. Women are socialised to express their emotions. Also, they have flexible, coping strategies and can manage complex emotions more effectively than men.

When men experience unemployment, this causes them to develop a feeling of hopelessness and low self-esteem. Unemployment instigates poverty as there is little money to pay the rent/mortgage and bills. Life without a job, money and being unable to provide for the family make men feel they have no role in society and therefore no need to remain alive. This was exacerbated by the decimation of male dominated work, such as coal mining, when Thatcher was Prime Minister.

From the 1980s, there emerged many service industry jobs suited for women such as in customer services and hospitality; men felt undermined by this. Also, some women earned more than men so males felt that financially, they were defunct.

In child custody cases, children automatically reside with the mother unless she is incapable of raising them owing to physical or mental ill health. When this occurs, many fathers lose access to see their children; this instigates sorrow and a wish to commit suicide. Also, the disintegration of relationships, especially a long-term one which led to the birth of children, causes men to commit suicide because that strong bond with a partner no longer exists. Men can develop a feeling of loneliness when this occurs so this reinforces their wish to end their life.

Men need to be educated to ask for help and to not feel a failure for doing so. Also, boys need to be told by their parents that it is fine for them to show their emotions; when they become men, they will not let their feelings overwhelm them to the point that they want to commit suicide. Such changes will prevent men from feeling that the only solution to a dilemma is the termination of their life.

L'articolo The High Rate Of Male Suicide In Britain proviene da InsideOver.

In August 2018 Greece officially ended its reliance on bailouts, hailing a new era of financial independence according to the PM Alexis Tsipras, but the future is far from rosy for the country’s young people. Giorgos S. is 23 but he already feels as if his life is over. “I have no hope – how can I imagine that things will get better?”

Giorgos is just one of the young people who managed to find work in the country’s tourist industry after several years of unemployment. He has a degree in hospitality and a master in business studies. He earns 600 euros a month. He tells me that most of his friends have moved overseas.

According to data released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority, better known as ELSTAT, the overall rate of unemployment in September 2018 was 18.6 percent, but with unemployment for 18-24 year olds at 36.6 percent, Greek youth has been hardest hit by the crisis. Part time employees, many of whom work in the hotel industry, are particularly affected. “Here in Greece we all help each other – everyone lends and everyone borrows, but now it’s been 10 years of taxes on everything and wages have been reduced by half so there is no money to lend and none to borrow so we are struggling – some of us are literally starving – but we don’t show it – we are too proud,” says hotel employee Nikos Pirpinakis.

Recent figures released by Greece’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that nearly a third of the population are living on or below the poverty line. Research by Amsterdam’s Transnational Institute has also revealed that the country’s children have been amongst the worst affected by the crisis, with around 14 percent showing signs of malnutrition due to poor diet. Greece’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also noted that one in five workers in the private sector only earn between 200 to 500 euros per month, which is almost five times as many as at the start of the crisis in 2010. With wages down by 28 percent since 2010 and pensions cut more than a dozen times since 2009, in-work poverty is a fact of life in modern Greece.

Hotel workers have been particularly affected by the downward spiral of poor wages and precarious conditions. With little official control on working conditions, many workers in the tourist industry work ten or 14 hour shifts. Despite the fact that the country’s tourism industry is currently booming, job security is also rare. “The good hotels always look after their employees, but there are some hotels that don’t pay their staff for months on end,” says Giorgos. “They tell their staff that they will be paid later in the season, once they’ve made some money. Of course the staff should just leave, but even the promise of money is better than no money at all.”

One such hotel was the Ledra, formerly the Ledra Marriott, a five star property in Athens that was once seen as the epitome of luxury. Badly affected by the economic crisis, the hotel closed abruptly in May 2016 after workers were obliged to stage a strike in order to receive their wages, which had not been paid for several months. “People think that if we have jobs we must be OK, no one knows the truth –that many of us are just surviving,” says Manos K. another hotel employee on the popular island of Santorini.

Greece has the highest rate of unemployment in the European Union, according to figures recently released by the European Commission’s statistics service Eurostat. Unemployment currently hovers at around 20 percent and in many cases an entire family will be forced to survive on “starvation wages”. Since the unemployed only receive a few months unemployment benefit and there is very little aid for rents, heating or even basics such as food, conditions are extremely difficult for the Greece’s “new poor.” In a country which was happy and well fed a decade ago it is now a common sight to see adults searching in the rubbish bins for food, whilst those who are slightly better off will leave bags of clothes and food close to the bins in a bid to help their less fortunate fellows. ‘The importance of the examination of the period 2008–2016 in Greece is significant not only for the extreme reduction of the GDP (25%), which is equivalent to a war period, but for the uncertain social and economic prospects,’ states Symeon Mavridis Department of Social Administration and Political Science, Democritus University of Thrace in his detailed report about the economic crisis.

“We were not a rich country but we had enough to be happy. Now we have been brought to our knees by Europe’s brutal policies, says Nikos. “My big fear is that Tsipras will be re-elected. Things are so bad now that this could lead our country into a civil war.”

L'articolo The Young Victims of the Greek Economy proviene da InsideOver.

When government authorities in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu advertised various sanitation jobs, they were not expecting highly qualified graduates to apply. They were surprised when 150 engineers and Masters in business administration graduates responded to the announcement.

This recent episode underscores India’s grim picture of unemployment as the jobless rate threatens to jeopardise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of a second term when he seeks re-election in mid-2019.

According to a recent official survey – originally withheld by the government before eventually being leaked to media – India’s unemployment rate reached a 45-year high in 2017-18. The suppressed numbers were first published by the respected Indian daily The Business Standard, which pulled the statistics from the government agency National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).

This is a massive blow to the Modi administration, following the ruling party’s sweep of the polls in 2014 through promises of generating 20 million jobs annually. The leaked data also indicates that urban employment is higher than in rural areas – which could prove costly for the Modi government. The supposed 6.1% jobless rate has stirred the parliamentary hornet’s nest, locking the government and critics in intense political mudslinging. This means close to 30 million employable Indians among the 500 million-strong workforce are without a job. This includes 10 to 12 million young people who are entering the workforce every year.

The last time unemployment reached a rate above 6% was 1972-73 when India was only just limping back from a war with Pakistan, coupled with widespread shocks in the oil market.

The government – which so far has refused to hold a parliamentary debate on the matter despite continued demands from the opposition – neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of the numbers but insisted it is only a leaked figure. Lawmakers from both sides of the debate were engaged in bitter tirade in which party leaders were compared to dictators Hitler and Mussolini. Analysts have urged the government to embrace the report offering a plausible explanation and solution rather than denying the existence of a crisis and eventually accentuating it. The unemployment rate has continued to steadily rising since the previous low of 2.2% in 2011-2012.

The latest NSSO report was originally scheduled to be released in December last year but the federal administration has chosen not to. Traditionally, unemployment figures have always been a delicate matter, with previous governments having also been apprehensive to publish exact numbers. Two key members of a statutory body, which oversees the jobs data survey, have stepped down in protest of the government’s decision to not divulge the numbers. Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s political opponent and leader of the Indian National Congress, said the jobs report is “a national disaster”.

Critics pin two key events – the November 2016 demonetisation when 86% of high-value currency notes were abruptly sucked out from the system and the poorly implemented Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July 2017 – as causes of the jobs crisis. Prolonged farm distress and sluggish rural wage growth thought the country have contributed to these dismal figures.

The leaked jobless figure only reaffirms the other signs which have indicated that silent unemployment distress is ongoing in the country. According to a report released by the All India Manufacturers’ Organisation in December 2018, 3.5 million jobs have been lost since 2016.

Under Modi’s ambitious and flagship ‘Make in India’ initiative – a string of government policies were developed with the aim of converting the country into a production and manufacturing hub, however they failed to be put into action, having originally promised to create as many as 10 million jobs every year. Still, this scheme is also flawed, as the latest data tabled in the upper house reveals the government managed to generate just 2.75 million jobs in the last four and a half years.

Another study released by the Mumbai-based private research firm Center for Monitoring Indian Economy suggests that 11 million jobs were lost in 2018. Indian railways, one of the world’s largest employers, advertised around 90,000 jobs in 2018, for which they received more than 23 million applications, highlighting the nation’s hunger for jobs.

Creating jobs was the foundation of Modi’s 2014 election platform, as roughly two-thirds of India’s 1.3 billion population is under the age of 35. Failing to uphold this promise could mean disastrous consequences for Modi as the next parliamentary elections are only months away. Jobs generation is bound to be the vital campaign element which will hold the key to upcoming polling.

L'articolo So, Exactly How Many Are Jobless in India? proviene da InsideOver.