An Indian auto plant wracked by violence in July reopened last week, with almost all 2,500 full-time and casual workers at the plant barred from entering.

The union and its community allies responded Monday by picketing the chairman of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corporation when he visited the plant.

Maruti Suzuki India, a subsidiary of the Japanese company, is the largest auto producer in the subcontinent. On July 18 an altercation between a supervisor and a worker at its Manesar plant, southwest of New Delhi, was allowed to escalate.

Union leaders say that a supervisor insulted a Dalit worker (formerly called “untouchables”). When the worker protested, he was suspended. When workers and union reps went to the HR office, managers refused to listen and brought in a firm that specializes in supplying thugs in labor disputes.
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More than 3,300 acres of the Wayne National Forest could go back on an auction block after federal officials decided shale drilling and “fracking” can be allowed within the forest.

Shale wells could be drilled in as many as 13 sites throughout the Wayne forest by 2016, according to an analysis done by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The drilling estimate was included with a report released yesterday that states a 2006 forest-management plan covers the potential environmental impacts of shale drilling, even though at the time it deemed such drilling “not yet economically feasible.”

Forest Service officials canceled a Dec. 7 public auction and agreed to re-examine the management plan after Athens-area leaders and environmental advocates objected to drilling.
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WASHINGTON — Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress.

Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.

The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.

A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels.
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