When governments don’t care

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Thousands of people lost their lives “prematurely” because care homes in England lacked the protective equipment and financial resources to cope with the coronavirus outbreak, according to council care bosses. Care homes could account for half of all Covid-19 deaths in England by the end of June, according to one recent estimate.
In a highly critical report, social care directors say decisions to rapidly discharge many vulnerable patients from NHS hospitals to care homes without first testing them for Covid-19 had “tragic consequences” for residents and staff.
In many places, vulnerable people were discharged into care facilities where there was a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) or where it was impossible to isolate them safely.
“Ultimately, thousands have lost their lives prematurely in social care and were not sufficiently considered as part of wider health and community systems. And normality has not yet returned,” James Bullion, the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), said. He added: “It is clear that adult social care was rendered ill-equipped and under-resourced to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic by the failure of successive governments of all political colours to recognise and understand how essential social care is.”  Care homes had been treated as an “afterthought” in the fight against Covid-19. Lack of testing, issues with access to PPE and a lack of policy focus on social care in the early weeks of the pandemic had had “tragic consequences for individuals”.

It was not until 15 April that the government recommended testing before admission to care homes, and there has been widespread criticism of the slow and chaotic rollout of the testing programme.



Bullion said directors were still not confident that testing was comprehensive enough, and PPE supply had only just begun to improve. “Social care is not out of the woods,” he said.



https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/11/english-care-bosses-say-lack-of-resources-cost-thousands-of-lives

The Rogue State

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Instead of standing for international justice and the rule of law, the USA is launching an economic and legal offensive on the international criminal court in response to the court’s decision to open an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan carried out by all sides, including the United States. Judges at the ICC gave the green light in March to an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan. 

The ICC was set up in 2002, as an attempt to extend the effort to impose international humanitarian law for war crimes and crimes against humanity begun by the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Over 120 countries, including Washington’s closest allies in Europe, are party to the Rome statute, the founding document of the ICC.

The US will not just sanction ICC officials involved in the investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and its allies, it will also impose visa restrictions on the families of those officials. Additionally, the administration declared on Thursday that it was launching a counter-investigation into the ICC, for alleged corruption.



 American officials accuse the ICC of  violating the sovereignty of the United States.



 Attorney general, William Barr, referred to the ICC as “little more than a political tool employed by unaccountable international elites”.



 The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo,  made clear the US sanctions were also aimed at defending Israel as the ICC began an investigation into crimes by Israeli and Palestinian forces in December.



 Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, welcomed the move, describing the Hague-based court as “politicised and obsessed with carrying out a witch-hunt against Israel and the United States.”



 David Bosco, who wrote a book on the ICC, Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics, said: “I think this is as much directed at the looming Palestine situation as it is at the Afghanistan investigation. The executive order clearly allows for sanctions against ICC personnel who investigate US allies who have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction.”

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the decision, arguing that Trump was “playing directly into the hands of authoritarian regimes by intimidating judges and prosecutors committed to holding countries accountable for war crimes. Trump’s sanctions order against ICC personnel and their families – some of whom could be American citizens – is a dangerous display of his contempt for human rights and those working to uphold them. We are exploring all options in response,” the ACLU said.

The Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said he was “very disturbed” by the news.





 And so he should be for the United States passed the American Services Members Protection Act, sometimes called the Hague Invasion Act, which empowers the USA to take military action against the Netherlands if either any American citizen or a citizen of one of America’s allies (eg Israel) is detained and put on trial by the international court.  


The Pandemic and Child Labour

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The coronavirus pandemic has put millions of children at risk of being pushed into underage labor, reversing two decades of work to combat the practice and potentially marking the first rise in child labor since 2000, the United Nations warned.

“As the pandemic wreaks havoc on family incomes, without support, many could resort to child labour,” said Guy Ryder, director-general of the International Labour Organization. “Social protection is vital in times of crisis, as it provides assistance to those who are most vulnerable.”



Advocates also warn that children are susceptible to being put to work while schools are closed in the effort to stop the spread of coronavirus.
“As poverty rises, schools close and the availability of social services decreases, more children are pushed into the workforce,” said Henrietta Fore, executive director of UNICEF.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200612-united-nations-ilo-unicef-child-labour-coronavirus-covid-19

The Global Poverty Threat

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The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic could plunge an extra 395 million people into extreme poverty and swell the total number of those living on less than $1.90 a day worldwide to more than one billion, according to a new report.



The document – published by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) – played through a number of scenarios, taking into account the World Bank’s various poverty lines – from extreme poverty, defined as living on $1.90 a day or less, to higher poverty lines of living on less than $5.50 a day.



Under the worst scenario – a 20 percent contraction in per capita income or consumption – the number of those living in extreme poverty could rise to 1.12 billion. The same contraction, applied to the $5.50 threshold among upper-middle-income countries, could see more than 3.7 billion people – or just over half the world’s population – live below this poverty line.
“The outlook for the world’s poorest looks grim unless governments do more and do it quickly and make up the daily loss of income the poor face,” said Andy Sumner, one of the report’s authors. “The result,” he said, “is progress on poverty reduction could be set back 20 to 30 years, making the UN goal of ending poverty look like a pipe dream.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/world-extreme-poor-rise-11-billion-live-updates-200611225207924.html

Syria’s Economy and Assad Loyalists

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A town in  Syria is set for fresh protests this weekend. Food is now more expensive than at any other time during the nine-year conflict, triggering scenes reminiscent of the Arab spring protests of 2011 on the streets of the previously government-loyal town of Sweida this week.



“We don’t want to live, we want to die in dignity,” and “He who starves his people is a traitor,” protesters chanted as they marched for consecutive days in the southern city. Another march is scheduled for Saturday.

“When your kids are hungry, you don’t think of strongmen, you don’t think of what Russia wants, you don’t worry about geopolitics. You blame the person who is in charge. And I see it happening on a daily basis, from people way up in the regime all the way down to the average loyalist,” said the activist Shueb Rifai. “Assad’s biggest risk is no longer what Putin wants, or what Iran wants, or what regional powers are scheming. It is his own people, sitting in a pressure cooker.”



Syria’s currency has already nosedived in recent months, falling this week to a record 3,500 pounds to the dollar on the black market, compared with 700 at the beginning of the year. As a result, the cost of living has soared and basics such as flour, sugar, rice and medicine are increasingly hard to find.



More than 80% of the country now lives below the poverty line, while the children of regime officials show off sports cars, jewellery and technological gadgets on their Instagram accounts.

Assad sacked his prime minister, Imad Khamis, in an attempt to mollify growing public anger, but even in Assadist strongholds such as the coastal city of Latakia people are becoming bolder in their criticism of regime corruption. Public figures including MPs, business leaders and members of the army have all openly criticised government policy in recent weeks.



 Lebanon’s economic crisis has helped send the Syrian economy into meltdown. New US sanctions against his regime that come into force next week could be potentially devastating.

In north-western Idlib province, the last part of the country controlled by Sunni opposition groups, the currency collapse has caused the price of bread to spike by 60%, triggering demonstrations against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant jihadist group in the area. While the Turkish lira has been in circulation in rebel areas for years, HTS’s civilian wing announced on Thursday that it will begin paying salaries in the Turkish currency to insulate the local population from the Syrian pound’s continued fall.







Scrap the NRPF

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Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the UK have an immigration status that allows them to work here, but which prevents them from accessing most benefits should they become unemployed. It is the “no recourse to public funds” immigration status for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, to prevent thousands from falling into destitution and homelessness. High numbers of people have this status attached to their visas. The “no recourse to public funds” status was introduced in 2012 as one of a series of hostile environment immigration measures. Those on this visa are barred from things such as universal credit, disability allowances, local authority homelessness support, free school meals and access to mainstream refuges for victims of domestic violence.



 Many are struggling to survive during the exceptional circumstances of lockdown, with no safety net, according to the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils in England and Wales. Many have lost their jobs because of the Covid-19 pandemic and are struggling to feed their families and pay rent. Many face losing their homes once restrictions on evictions are lifted.



 Charities all over the country have been helping to feed families designated with this immigration status, after lockdown pushed them into unemployment. Homelessness charities have warned of the rise in homeless migrant workers with the “NRPF” status – many of whom were working until lockdown in the restaurant and hotel industry, and have struggled to pay rents since losing their jobs. Although landlords are prevented from evicting tenants during lockdown, many who have informal tenancies have lost their homes anyway. Councils have been given special dispensation to house homeless migrants with this immigration status for the duration of the pandemic, but there is no longer-term provision to fund measures to stop people who were sleeping rough from returning to the streets once lockdown ends and hotels housing the homeless return to being used by tourists.



 More than 40 migrants’ rights organisations have called for the NRPF status to be scrapped permanently on the grounds that it “bars most migrants from accessing a vast proportion of the social security net we all rely on in times of crisis”.



 Sally Daghlian, chief executive of the migrant rights charity Praxis, which has helped hundreds of families facing destitution during the pandemic, said: “We have seen parents going without food to try to ensure their children eat, and people facing homelessness and mounting debt. In the face of this pandemic, people with NRPF have not been supported through the government’s Covid-19 safety net. If the government is committed to ending destitution, child poverty and homelessness, it should permanently suspend NRPF as a matter of urgency.”



 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/12/councils-ask-for-uk-to-lift-bars-on-emergency-help-for-migrants

#PapuanLivesMatter

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West Papua is a former Dutch colony that was absorbed into Indonesia in 1969 following a controversial referendum. An existing movement agitating for independence from Dutch rule has refocused its energies on the Jakarta government, which maintains tight control over the region.



 At the far east of Indonesia, West Papua remains physically and ideologically separate from the rest of the country. Indigenous Papuans make up about half of the population. Locals claim racism is rife among the police and the military, and there have been allegations of human rights abuses and exploitation against the local population. In August 2019, protests erupted in the region over alleged police abuse against ethnic Papuan students. It was the biggest protest since 1998.

Eden Armando Bebari, 19, was allegedly shot and killed by Indonesian security forces while fishing in his home town in West Papua in April. Indonesian media described Bebari as a member of an armed criminal group, a claim denied by his parents. 



Suwanto and her classmates tweeted about Bebari’s death, using the hashtag #PapuanLivesMatter. The tweet went viral, focusing attention throughout Indonesia to allegations of brutality by the police, military and security forces towards West Papuans. Soon afterwards, articles, artwork, online debates and celebrity calls for action to stop the abuse were circulating on social media.
 UK-born Indonesian actor and gender-equality activist Hannah Al Rashid wrote: “I stand in solidarity with Papuan Lives Matter, because since moving to Indonesia I have observed the way in which people of darker skin have been treated unfairly, whether in the most obvious way with racial slurs, or ‘subtly’ in the way they are spoken about or represented on TV.”

Rico Tude, speaking for the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP), says the Black Lives Matter movement “gives a new understanding to the Indonesian public to be more concerned to address racism against West Papuans”.



Elvira Rumbaku, a lecturer at Cenderawasih University, agreed, “It prompted Indonesians outside West Papua to understand how racist the Indonesian government is. West Papuans are always stigmatised as separatist and committed to violence; therefore, they always used security approaches and sent more troops,” she says. 



Students at the University of Indonesia are using the attention to demand justice for Cenderawasih student executive board member Ferry Gombo, who was arrested by the Indonesian government after organising a rally against racist abuse towards Papuan students in Surabaya in August last year. Gombo, one of four students being detained in Balikpapan prison, is facing a 10-year sentence if found guilty. 



https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/11/global-protests-throw-spotlight-on-alleged-police-abuses-in-west-papua

No green lining for pandemic recovery

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Carbon dioxide emissions have rebounded around the world as lockdown conditions have eased, raising fears that annual emissions of greenhouse gases could surge to higher than ever levels after the coronavirus pandemic.



Emissions fell by a quarter when the lockdowns were at their peak, and in early April global daily carbon dioxide emissions were still down by 17% compared with the average figure for 2019, research published last month in the journal Nature Climate Change found. Now daily carbon emissions are still down on 2019 levels, but by only 5% on average globally, according to an updated study. 
“Things have happened very fast,” said Corinne Le Quéré, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia and the lead author of the studies. “Very few countries still have stringent confinement. We expected emissions to come back, but that they have done so rapidly is the biggest surprise.”

Emissions for the year to date, from 1 January to 11 June, are 8.6% lower than in the same period for 2019, and emissions for the whole of this year are likely to be between 4% and 7% lower than for the whole of last year. That is not enough to make a significant contribution to the cuts in emissions needed to fulfil the Paris agreement on climate change, which will require structural changes to transport systems and how energy is generated. In the UK, emissions had fallen by 31% in early April, when the lockdown was at its most restrictive. But this week daily emissions were found to be 23% lower than last year’s levels. The reduction is likely to shrink further as the lockdown is loosened.



Most of the fall and subsequent rebound has come from road transport. Deserted streets and empty motorways swiftly became the norm during lockdown, as people were ordered to stay at home except for emergencies.
“Road transport is the most responsive sector,” said Le Quéré. “Emissions from transport were always going to go back up, but government responses have not been as fast as I would have liked [to make changes to people’s driving habits]. It would be terrible if we carry on going back to normal. It would be a disaster.”
While emissions overall are still down on last year, there are fears that as lockdowns around the world ease further in the coming months, carbon from cars could surge to levels higher than before the pandemic as people avoid public transport.
“What we may now see are emissions that exceed pre-pandemic levels, if for instance more people start using private instead of public transport due to health concerns,” said Bob Ward, a policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics. “Any economic recovery packages designed to help economies fully rebound need to focus on zero-carbon climate resilient investments that address unemployment but avoid locking us into a new high-carbon future.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/11/carbon-emissions-in-surprisingly-rapid-surge-post-lockdown



Dalits and Black Lives Matter

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Dalits find themselves outside the Hindu caste hierarchy – a membership determined at birth – and have historically faced violence, segregation and been barred from even having their shadows touch those of people from more privileged castes. India banned discrimination based on caste – a system which divided Hindus into groups based on occupations – in 1955. But ancient biases against Dalits and members of the less privileged Hindu caste groups persist, making it harder for them to access education and jobs and buy homes. Dalits, who were sometimes forced to perform “unclean” tasks like disposing of corpses, and scheduled tribes – Indigenous peoples who are often isolated or disadvantaged – make up about a quarter of India’s population of 1.3 billion. Dalits were among the worst-hit by India’s strict lockdown, often having to wait longer for their turn to receive food or financial aid at local distribution points, and even being turned away, she said.



 Dalit campaigners  support the Black Lives Matter protests. 



” Indian Dalits have historically learned a lot from the struggle of the African Americans,” Ruth Manorama, who works for rights of Dalit women, told the Reuters news agency, ” This is a good moment to challenge the narrative in India also and talk about the age-old repression of Dalits, which is visible even during the COVID-19 pandemic with discrimination denying people aid.”

“It is a good time for people in India to understand and to point out to the government that racial discrimination is not only what you see in America,” said Henri Tiphagne of People’s Watch. “It is the same as how so-called ‘untouchables’ are treated in India.”

“In India, people need to admit their role in everyday discrimination faced by Dalits and only then can a dialogue for change be initiated. We hope what they are seeing unfolding globally will lead to soul searching,” said  Omprakash Mahato, president of the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association, a Dalit organisation at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “People need to understand that every life matters.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/protests-trigger-calls-india-dalits-discrimination-200611101740372.html

COVID-19 – Mortality rates and the Poor

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New data reveals the poorest in England and Wales have been hit the hardest by coronavirus. People living in the most deprived areas died of Covid-19 at double the rate of those living in the most wealthy areas according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics.



The figures show people living in the poorest 10% of England died at a rate of 128.3 per 100,000, compared to those living in the most wealthy 10% who died at a rate of 58.8 per 100,000 between March and May this year.



The pattern was also reflected in Wales where the equivalent rates were 109.5 deaths compared to 57.5 deaths per 100,000.



Nine out of ten local authorities with the highest Covid-19 age-standardised mortality rates were in London. Brent had the highest overall age-standardised rate with 210.9 deaths per 100,000 population, followed by Newham (196.8 deaths) and Hackney (182.9 deaths).



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