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	International. Holocaust Remembrance Day by UN, OSCE News & agencies   27 January 2013   “Today is the day to remember that 70 years ago millions of Jewish men, women and children, as well as Roma, Slavs, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, communists and other political dissidents were being brutally assassinated, simply because of who they were.”   “This important commemoration gives us the opportunity to reflect on one of the most tragic moments of our history and to remember the millions of lives that were destroyed in this senseless violence.”   “But this special day is also more than that. It is a reminder that the ultimate responsibility of making sure that such monumental crimes never happen again rests with each and every one of us.”   “This responsibility goes beyond words and good intentions. It requires us to maintain our ability to stand firm in our fight against discrimination and related hatred at all times. It requires us to not permit manifestations of hatred or discrimination to go unnoticed or unchallenged.   It requires us, every single day of our lives, to stay vigilant against efforts to excuse or turn a blind eye to hate speech and acts of discrimination and incitement to violence.”   “Such constant vigilance is the only way to ensure there is no risk of repetition, and the best way to honour the memory of Holocaust victims.”   Statement by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Pages/WelcomePage.aspx   January 27, 2013 – International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Yad Vashem)   On January 27, 1945, Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, discovering the largest Nazi killing center in Europe. Auschwitz has become a symbol of the Holocaust, representing the depths of man"s inhumanity to man.   Eighteen governments have legislated January 27 as an annual Holocaust Memorial Day. In November 2005, the United Nations passed a resolution to mark January 27 as an international day of commemoration to honor the victims of the Holocaust, and urged member states to develop educational programs to impart the memory of this tragedy to future generations. Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies will be organized on the international, national, regional and local levels, including in universities and schools. This site contains educational materials ahead of this date in multiple languages.   http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/educational_materials/january27_2013.asp   27/1/2013   The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day today with a call to honour the victims with renewed efforts to fight intolerance, discrimination and hate crimes.   “This day is a sad reminder of a horrific crime inflicted on innocent people. In Ukraine alone more than one hundred thousand people were killed in the ravine of Babyn Yar, including nearly 34,000 Jews in a single massacre,” Kozhara said.   “Today we are paying tribute to the victims and to those brave individuals who risked their lives to save Jews and members of other minorities at risk.”   “The universal lessons from these terrible events must not be forgotten. We must redouble our efforts to prevent and counter intolerance, hate and discrimination in all its forms, and promote respect for all ethnic and religious groups.”   “Educating young people in human rights is an important way of ensuring this,” Kozhara said, adding that youth human rights education focusing on tolerance and non-discrimination is one of the priorities of Ukraine’s 2013 OSCE Chairmanship.   Twenty-six OSCE participating States have established 27 January as their official day for remembrance of the Holocaust, according to the overview recently released by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.   http://www.osce.org/odihr   THE IRREVERSIBLE   At the General Meeting of the International Auschwitz Committee, what would the prisoners want to talk about 68 years after their liberation? They were worried about what the world would say about Auschwitz after they, the survivors, passed away and about who would keep the memory of what they had endured. http://www.theirreversible.com/
	In China, a vast chasm between the Rich and the Rest by Sim Chi Yin The Great Divide   BEIJING — The passing coal miners in remote Shaanxi Province took one look at our marooned Audi and walked on, leaving us stuck on the sleet-covered mountain road.   As dusk fell, I managed to mingle with some young migrant workers, and trek with them through a snowy mountain pass and onto the last bus for the day. “We thought you were rich city people, coming out here in an Audi,” one worker told me. “That’s why no one helped you.”   He had become chatty only after I assured him that I had taken a ride in a friend’s Audi — the car make of choice for Chinese government officials — only because I was rushing out to the mountains to visit a dying villager I had been photographing over for a year.   The disdain that working-class Chinese have for the rich did not surprise me; it was a timely reminder of the sentiments surrounding the growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots in China.   This gulf, between the prosperous and booming cities and the poor rural areas, has been expanding since the 1990s.   Along with official corruption, inequality is a major source of social unrest. In Chinese cybercommunities, where sentiments are aired honestly and anonymously, cynical and celebratory comments abound over any spectacular fall of the wealthy, corrupt or privileged.   Often, anger erupts over the arrogant misbehavior of the “fu er dai” — the children of wealthy families, who often have powerful political connections. On Tuesday, the government announced a vague plan to address “stark problems in income distribution.”   Last month, China reported that income inequality peaked in 2008 and has narrowed since then, though many economists believe the problem is understated. For the first time in 12 years, the government reported figures for the Gini coefficient — an indicator of inequality. It said the coefficient was 0.474 last year, down from a high of 0.491 in 2008. (Zero would represent perfect equality, and 1 would represent complete inequality.) The Gini coefficient for the United States, after taxes and transfers, is 0.378 through the late 2000s, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.   China has 2.7 million millionaires and 251 billionaires (in United States dollars). But 13 percent of its people live on less than $1.25 per day, according to United Nations data. Meanwhile, average annual disposable income in the cities is about $3,500.   Over the past year or so, the income gap in China has been one focus of my work.   In Shanghai, I followed around a trash collector, Zhang Chunying, 47, riding on the back of her cardboard- and plastic-laden tricycle past Gucci and Ermenegildo Zegna stores at the Xintiandi shopping and entertainment district. By collecting and selling cardboard and other recyclables, Ms. Zhang and her husband make about $15 a day, which they are using to put their son through college.   I also photographed migrant workers on a street in downtown Shanghai that turns into a flea market at night. They stand around picking out used clothes and shoes to buy for a few dollars. Some got upset with me for documenting what they see as their embarrassing existence.   In Beijing, I photographed a curbside cobbler, Gao Minghe, 48, just across the street from five-star hotels and an alley behind stores selling Aston Martins and Maseratis. He repairs the shoes of migrant and office workers from dawn till dusk, rain, shine or snow.   Beneath the skyscrapers and apartment blocks in the capital, a parallel universe of inhabitants lives in cramped, boxy, windowless rooms partitioned out of basements. These subterranean dwellers — which the local press unkindly calls the “rat tribe” — are migrant workers in the service industry. Over two years, I made portraits of these women and men, trying to show their dignity and aspirations.   I have also shot the so-called “ant tribe,” which comprises graduates from provincial and unprestigious universities who flock to the capital in search of their Beijing Dream, only to find themselves working low-paying jobs and living in dorm-style hostels on the outskirts of the city. Years after graduating, they still live like students and cuddle in dark parking lots for lack of a space to call their own. Most were happy to chat and share their stories.   Hours after photographing this tribe, I was with another. I hung out with the young and wealthy members of a sports car club who did practice rounds in their McLarens, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches at a racetrack in Beijing. Decked out in Prada shoes, holding Louis Vuitton bags and escorted by their trophy girlfriends, who never stepped out of their air-conditioned cars, they seemed proud to be photographed by a foreign photographer, but were not forthcoming when asked any personal questions — including the nature of their jobs or the source of their wealth.   With the “rats” and “ants,” the trash collectors, cobblers and couriers, it took time to build rapport and trust. But it was even harder to get wealthy Chinese — perhaps like rich people everywhere — to open up. Most live in gated, guarded communities on the outskirts of the city, and socialize behind closed doors. A few months ago, I was granted rare permission to photograph inside an exclusive club in Beijing for high rollers, and only at a party where some members were in costume.   The migrant workers and the poor mostly accept that life is unfair, at least for now.   “There is no difference between me and the people who live in the posh condominium above,” Zhuang Qiuli, 27, a “rat tribe” pedicurist who lived in a basement apartment, told me in Beijing. “We wear the same clothes and have the same hairstyles. The only difference is we cannot see the sun. In a few years, when I have money, I will also live upstairs.”   * Sim Chi Yin, is a photojournalist and a former reporter for The Straits Times in her native Singapore.
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