The Guardian reports about a Report by the National Equality Panel. It highlights income disparities: “richest 10% is more than 100 times better off than the poorest 10%”. An unemployed father of three observes:

“If you don’t feel secure, you are always on tenterhooks, you snap at the children. It is a mental strain. Sometimes you feel you just want to roll over and give up. Your resilience is worn away, there is nothing left to rely on.”

Data of the report can be found here.

“Thinking beyond the label” is an advocacy campaign aimed at debunking myths about inclusion of persons with disabilities in the work place. Highlighting the ease with which one tends to “label” people using the classic self-make labels, the campaign plays with stereotypes and “labels” respectively.

An example is the following add in which a woman clothed in an eclectic mix of patterns as “pattern deficient”:

As the tragedy in Haiti unfolds, the Wall Street Journal observes: “while natural calamities do not discriminate between rich countries and poor ones, their effects almost invariably do (…) The difference is a function of a wealth-generating and law-abiding society that can afford, among other things, the expense of proper building codes.”

In an Op-Ed in the Observer, singer Régine Chassagne states:

“Many Haitians expect to be let down. History shows they are right to feel that way. Haitians know that they have been wronged many, many times. What we are seeing on the news right now is more than a natural disaster. This earthquake has torn away the veil and revealed the crushing poverty that has been allowed by the west’s centuries of disregard.”

The infamous Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, Camp Delta has produced much dispute, rightly so. Its effect on the rule of law in the United States of America remains to be seen. One of the many side aspects are the torment this – and similar – facilities leave on all involved.

The BBC has an interesting story on the reconciliation between a former prison guard and two inmates. They were reconnected using the online social tool “facebook.”

NYTimes columnist Judith Warner discusses the situation of persons with varying forms of depression in the United States of America. As a new  study finds that those who do get treaty do not get treated properly and many others receive no treatment at all, Warner holds: “This is the big picture of mental health care in America: not perfectly healthy people popping pills for no reason, but people with real illnesses lacking access to care; facing barriers like ignorance, stigma and high prices; or finding care that is ineffective.”

The effect of social barriers, such as stigma and ignorance cannot be overestimated. Equally, access to affordable quality health care – a human right – is fraught for many around the globe.

In early December the United States of America reached an agreement with a string of American Indian tribes who had been battling the government’s faulty practices towards them by way of a class action since 1996. The statement by President Obama did not focus on offering an apology but did venture to state that it was “an important step towards a sincere reconciliation.”

Happy New Year! The European Union is dedicating 2010 to the fight against poverty and social exclusion, see EU framework on poverty + social exclusion.