• 33% the immediate increase in salaries for Foxconn workers announced last week, in wake of a bunch of suicides
• $300 the monthly amount they could be making in three months – $75 a week, or double their current salaries source

• We are rejecting an international commission. We are discussing with the Obama administration a way in which our inquiry will take place.
• Israel’s US ambassador, Michael Oren • Regarding the country’s response to the UN’s proposal of an international commission to study what happened during the flotilla incident. Why reject the proposal? “Israel is a democratic nation,” Oren says. “Israel has the ability and the right to investigate itself, not to be investigated by any international board.” But we’re guessing the international board might have slightly less bias in the situation than Israel might. Just a hunch. source

• Our good friends at Shell seriously have no place to talk. As bad as the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been, Shell has created problems as bad, if not worse (and mostly unreported), in Nigeria. A few quick numbers to throw your way on this, courtesy of The Guardian’s recent exposé on Shell:

• 14,000 tons of oil spilled by Shell in 2009

• 98% Shell’s estimate of spills caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage
• 7,000 number of oil spills Shell had in Nigeria between 1970 and 2000
• 2,000 the number of official spillage sites in Nigeria alone source

Two spills, two responses

• There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year. It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm.
• Friends of the Earth International’s Nigerian head Nnimo Bassey • Regarding the government’s response to the spill, which seems to only highlight the differences between the American and Nigerian responses to major oil spills. With nearly 1.5 million barrels reportedly spilled in the Niger River’s delta in the last 50 years, it seems that the country has resigned itself to the fate. “In Nigeria, they have been living above the law,” Bassey said. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the international court of justice.” source

• 116+ killed in the fire in densely-populated Dhaka source

• NO but only if South Korea’s President isn’t wrong source

• We are not afraid.Everyone on the boat is very calm.
• Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire • Aboard the Rachel Corrie, an aid ship headed to Gaza, not long before it was intercepted. Unlike the prior flotilla act a week ago, there was no violence this time. In fact, Israeli authorities boarded with the activists’ permission this time. source

• Two new reports suggest they did. Last year, swine flu, or H1N1, was treated as the second coming of the black plague. A couple of new reports suggest the people making the recommendations to WHO had ties to the drug industry, and those recommendations led to governments wasting millions of dollars on H1N1 vaccines that would never actually get used. “We are left wondering whether major public health organizations are able to effectively manage the conflicts of interest that are inherent in medical science,” one report says. So, who’s the swine now? source

• We could have had the answers in the first couple of days down there had they done their job right. And this should have never happened what’s happened in Peru.
• Natalee Holloway’s stepfather, “Jug” Twitty • Discussing the recent arrest of Joran van der Sloot, a former suspect in Holloway’s disappearance in Aruba in 2005. Twitty feels that political connections (van der Sloot was the son of a prominent judge in Aruba) allowed him to go free, which led to the recent death of Stephany Flores in Peru. The U.S. recently charged van der Sloot with extortion related to the Holloway case. source

• 6 number of “spacemen” who will pretend to go to Mars; playtime!

• 250 the number of days the crew will be pretending to go to Mars
• 30 the number of days they’ll pretend to be on Mars’ surface
• 220 the number of days it will take them to get “back” to Earth source