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BadCompany from Simon Sharp on Vimeo.

Producer/Director: Simon Sharp
Associate Editor: Poul Madsen (Bombay Flying Club)

Bad Company is a story shot in the brick factories of Kathmandu, Nepal. Factories in which scores of children as young as 5 are sent to work, often as labourers and as donkey boys (shepherds) in order to pay off gambling debts borne by drunk uncles and fathers or to earn money for the very basics of life, food and water.

Once there they become bonded and institutionalised for years to come. The kilns envelop them physically and emotionally as bodies are broken and dreams dashed.

It is here they will grow into men. However, what kind of men is moot as nuture in the kilns is one of a lawless, peerless underworld in which children not only witness but also feel the wrongs done to their elders as the psychology and the pain inflicted on others is passed down the line to them, weak and defenceless as they are. In turn they learn how to inflict pain on to a body even less powerful, the animals themselves.

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

Uber spreads its innovative convenience to subprime auto leasing.

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The brilliance of such innovations/disruptions is that they maintain the systemic status quo. Why would anyone want to destroy the reliable value of poor people’s vulnerability in the making of fortunes?

http://bloom.bg/1r0mH8l

Bloomberg spoke to five auto-finance experts. Most said the leases are expensive, even predatory, compared with leases available to drivers with good credit. “I’d say the cost is greater than the benefit for your average driver,” said Mark Williams, a lecturer at Boston University’s business school who reviewed the terms of a blank lease agreement provided by Uber, along with some average weekly lease payments and a driver-reported account. “The terms, the way they’re proposed, are predatory and are very much driven toward profiting off drivers rather than to facilitate an increase in drivers.”

Uber spreads its innovative convenience to subprime auto leasing.

London’s Muslim Mayor is nothing New: 1300 yrs of Muslims who Ran Major European Cities

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… Muslim heads of major European cities have been a commonplace for nearly 1300 years, and even at the beginning of the 20th century a few Balkan cities still had Muslim governors. Sadiq Khan’s victory is a great one and we should be happy that an Islamophobic and scurrilous campaign against him by the Tories was thwarted by the good sense of Londoners. But let us not exacerbate the weird amnesia of Europe about how central Islam and Muslims have been to its history since the eighth century (when Byzantium, founded by Heraclius in 610, was only a century old itself). Sadiq Khan has many illustrious predecessors among European Muslim urban leaders.

London’s Muslim Mayor is nothing New: 1300 yrs of Muslims who Ran Major European Cities