Word: ja
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...miles outside the town of Jaén, olive trees cover the hills in neat lines. But this year's harvest, which started on Dec. 1, has brought another, more troubling, queue to town: the bread line. Each night, immigrants in search of once plentiful seasonal work find themselves forced to gather outside the city shelter to wait for a hot meal and, if they're lucky, a bed. "I've been working the olive harvest for the past six years," says Abdullah N., a Moroccan migrant who preferred not to give his last name. "But this year...
...migrants who have come to the province (also called Jaén) looking for work, the problem lies not with the harvest, which is thriving, but with the economy, which is not. For more than a decade, Spanish olive growers have relied on migrants willing to beat branches and collect fallen fruit; last year they made up roughly 15% of the seasonal workforce, according to Andrés Bódalo, a representative of the Andalusian Workers' Syndicate. Yet thanks to a looming recession that has pushed unemployment to more than 11%, those migrants are finding the jobs have gone...
...situation isn't unique to Jaén, or even to Spain. Across Europe until recently, foreign laborers were the backbone of industries such as construction and hospitality. But as the economy has stuttered, unemployment among migrants has risen - by 67% over the past year in Spain. So grim has the outlook become that the Spanish government has initiated a program that essentially pays out-of-work migrants to go home. "It's not that anyone has anything against the migrants," says Bódalo. "But if you're an olive farmer and your cousin or your neighbor comes...
...Immigration Forum, comprised of organizations like Cáritas and Jaén Acoge, an NGO that works with migrants, as well as government officials, has declared the situation a social emergency. Many cities in the province run a hostel for migrant workers, but this year in Jaén the 800 hostel spaces have been overrun. The city of Ubeda has turned its municipal gym into an emergency shelter, while Cáritas oversees the Santa Clara facility. "It's crowded, there are no beds, a cold-water shower, and only one toilet," says Juan Carlos Escobedo, the local...
...North Korea MOURNING AND ANGER A North Korean soldier shot and killed Park Wang Ja, 53, a South Korean tourist who apparently wandered into a restricted military zone near Mount Kumgang on July 11, hours before South Korean President Lee Myung Bak proposed reconciliation talks with the North. Seoul responded by halting tours to the area, while Pyongyang rejected Lee's overture and demanded an apology for the incident...