Linked to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of babies born in France in January fell by 13 percent, the biggest drop in 45 years. 53,900 babies born in January 2021, down from 62,180 in January 2020

National statistics agency INSEE said that the “context of a health crisis and huge uncertainty may have discouraged couples from procreating or prompted them to postpone their parenting project for several months”.

In 2020, the number of births in France fell to its lowest level since World War II, with 735,000 children being born. In 2020, the birth rate in France fell to 1.84 children per woman, compared with 1.86 in 2019.

Covid-19 pandemic blamed for biggest drop in France’s births in 45 years (france24.com)

 A year of extreme climate-driven events compounded by the coronavirus pandemic has left millions in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua struggling for basic needs.  Hunger has increased almost fourfold in the region in the past two years

Nearly eight million people in Central America are now chronically hungry, including nearly 2 million in an “emergency” level of food insecurity, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported.

15 per cent of people in the region, according to a WFP survey last month, said they had “concrete plans” to migrate due to losing livelihoods and lack of employment.

Miguel Barreto, WFP regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said: “Urban and rural communities in Central America have hit rock bottom”, adding that “the Covid-19-induced economic crisis had already put food on the market shelves out of reach for the most vulnerable people when the twin hurricanes Eta and Iota battered them further”.

Climate crisis and Covid have left 8m people in Central America chronically hungry | The Independent

A new report published Thursday details United States so-called “counterterrorism” operations by the U.S. military in 85 nations since 2018 as part of its “Global War on Terror.” The report—published by the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute and USA Today—features an interactive map showing U.S. military operations on every inhabited continent on Earth, including combat, training, exercises, and bases. 

According to the report, the U.S. has provided “counterterrorism” training or assistance in 79 nations since 2018, with U.S. troops carrying out bombing or ground attacks in 10 countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen—over the same period. American forces participated in training exercises in 41 nations over the past three years.

 Additionally, under “Section 127e” programs, U.S. special operations forces have planned, controlled, and participated in missions in numerous African nations. 

Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. still maintains nearly 800 overseas military bases on six continents, according to independent research by Base Nation author David Vine. China—considered by many to be the greatest competitor and threat to the U.S.—has only one official overseas base, in Djibouti.

 $6.4 trillion the U.S. has spent on the never-ending War on Terror.  The report states that more than 15,000 U.S. troops and contractors, nearly 12,500 allied troops, 177,000 national military and police officers, 1,300 journalists and humanitarian aid workers, nearly 260,000 enemy fighters, and nearly 336,000 civilians have been killed.

 London has overtaken New York as home to the highest concentration of dollar millionaires in the world.

Nearly 875,000 Londoners are dollar millionaires (denoting assets worth more than £720,000).

It means one in 10 people living in London are dollar millionaires, with the data highlighting the yawning inequality gap in the capital. More than 2.5 million (or 28%) of those living in London are classed as “living in poverty”. 800,000 – or 39% – of the capital’s children are living in poverty. 

The high cost of housing in London is the main driver for categorising so many households as being wealthy.  London had the most so-called “prime” homes of any city in the world, with more than 68,000 units valued at more than £2m each. 

Despite the economic destruction wrought by the pandemic on millions of people with modest incomes, those who were already very rich have been able to increase their fortunes. More than 6,000 people joined the ranks of the ultra-wealthy last year as those in the top 0.1% were able to increase their already-vast fortunes despite the coronavirus pandemic. The number of ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) – those with assets of more than $30m (£21.3m) – rose by 2.4% last year to 520,000. The UHNWI population is expected to swell by a further 27% to 663,483 by 2025, the report estimates, as huge fortunes are being made in China, Indonesia and India. The number of dollar millionaires is expected to soar by 41% in the same period.

 A person living in the UK would need a $1.8m (£1.3m) fortune to join the so-called 1% club of the richest people in the country.

In Monaco, where many of the world’s richest people live to avoid income taxes, a fortune of $7.9m is needed to join the top 1%. In Switzerland it is $5.1m. While in the US it is $4.4m, in Kenya the figure is $20,000.

 Black farmers peaked in number in 1920 when there were 949,889; today there are only 48,697; they account for only 1.4% of the country’s 3.4 million farmers (95% of US farmers are white) and own 0.52% of America’s farmland. The acreage they have managed to hold on to is a quarter the size of white farmers’ acreage, on average. From 2006 to 2016, Black farmers were six times as likely to be foreclosed on as white farmers.

Biden nominated Tom Vilsack to head the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and it was confirmed by the Senate. Vilsack served two terms in the same role in the Obama administration and in between he held a high-paying job in Big Ag, paid a $1 million by Dairy Management. If Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge, a senior member of the House agriculture committee, was selected, as had been anticipated – she would have been the first Black woman to serve as agriculture secretary. 

 George Roberts farms 500 acres with his two brothers. A third-generation farmer, he was hoping for Fudge. “She could have understood what we were up against, she’s walked in our shoes. Pretty sure Vilsack never has,” he said.

Vilsack’s nomination was met with confusion, disappointment and anger. During Vilsack’s eight-year tenure under Obama, fewer loans were given to Black farmers than during the Bush administration, and the USDA foreclosed on Black farmers who had discrimination complaints outstanding, despite a 2008 farm bill moratorium on this practice.

In 2010 Vilsack fired Shirley Sherrod, a longtime Black farmer advocate and civil rights activist who was serving as the Georgia state director of rural development for the USDA, when a deceptively edited clip that made her appear racist towards a white farmer was circulated by the rightwing propagandist Andrew Breitbart. Vilsack later apologized and offered her a different high-level USDA role, which she declined.

At the Senate agriculture committee, Vilsack said in his opening remarks: “It’s a different time, and I’m a different person.” 

George Roberts is familiar with why many Black farmers call the USDA the “last plantation”.

 “Because we are still answering to ‘boss’. Can we do this, can we do that? They still have their hand over us, saying: no, you can’t.”

‘Tired of getting slapped in the face’: older Black farmers see little hope in Biden’s agriculture pick | US politics | The Guardian

84% of all shares held by American households are owned by the wealthiest 10%.

84% of all shares held by American households are owned by the wealthiest 10%.

 Vaccines have brought hope amid the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 2.4 million people and brought world economies to a halt. Vaccines have been presented as a remedy that would put an end to the immense suffering – physical, emotional, and economic – caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

If deployment of the vaccine continues at the present rate, only a few of the world’s richest countries are expected to achieve herd immunity before the end of the summer.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO),  Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, thanked the G7 countries for their pledges to provide $7.5 billion to support “affordable and equitable access to vaccines” and treatments for COVID-19.

But he said that “even if you have the money, if you cannot use the money to buy vaccines … having the money doesn’t mean anything”. He said some rich countries’ approaches to manufacturers to secure more vaccines are “affecting the deals with COVAX, and even the amount that was allocated for COVAX was reduced because of this”. 

Tedros underlined the importance of using every opportunity to step up vaccine production “because, with increased production, the pie is increased, then there is a better volume to share. Otherwise, with shortages, sharing is difficult,” he said. “And that’s exactly what’s happening now.”

 German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier conceded that money alone was not the solution, adding that vaccines were still a “scarce commodity”.

The Lancet concludes, “new vaccines will mean little to individuals around the world if they are unable to get vaccinated in a timely manner”.

Some have put the blame for the vaccine debacle on the cumbersome bureaucracy of governments and on anti-vaxxer sentiments. But the root of the problem lies elsewhere. It has to do with a dysfunctional  economic system propped up by three ideological myths: that the private sector is best at innovation; that markets are best at managing supply and demand; and that the outcome of globalisation is fair for all.

One myth of capitalism is that entrepreneurship is the only effective source of innovation and progress. But Big Pharma has long demonstrated this is not necessarily so. For decades, vaccines have been de-prioritised by the industry as insufficiently profitable. 

Another capitalist myth is that competitive markets are the best regulators of supply and demand and the best at achieving the optimal distribution of goods. In early 2020, we witnessed countries started to outbid each other for vital medical equipment, such as PPE and ventilators. Demand was high across the board, but supply only went to the wealthy few, at the price of many human lives. This is now happening again, as, amid severe undersupply of vaccines.

The third  myth of capitalism portrays globalisation as equally beneficial for all. But a  look at the global distribution of vaccines shows that this is far not the case. Western countries are able to acquire vaccines while poorer nations are struggling to access supply.

WHO chief urges rich nations not to undermine COVAX scheme | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

Oxfam has accused the British government of prolonging the war in Yemen by allowing the export of air-to-air refuelling equipment that could be used to help the Saudi air force conduct indiscriminate bombing in the country.

The technology was licensed to Riyadh last summer when arms restrictions were lifted, alongside £1.4bn of other sales, and can be used to help war planes fly longer missions at a time when the conflict is intensifying.

Sam Nadel, head of policy and advocacy at Oxfam, said: “As the US has called for an end to the conflict in Yemen, the UK is heading in the opposite direction, ramping up its support for the brutal Saudi-led war by increasing arms sales and refuelling equipment that facilitate airstrikes.  The UK claims to support peace in Yemen. It can start by immediately ending the sale of all arms that risk being used against civilians and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis,” Nadel added.

British arms sales prolonging Saudi war in Yemen, says Oxfam | Saudi Arabia | The Guardian

Deaths among homeless people have risen by more than a third in a year, according to an analysis by a social justice group that found that almost 1,000 unhoused people had died across the UK in 2020.  Among cases where a cause of death was confirmed, 36% were related to drug and alcohol use and 15% were suicide. Separate figures by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published in December 2020 found that the number of people dying while homeless in England and Wales rose for the fifth year in a row in 2019.

Jess Tuttle, the organisation’s co-founder, said the findings demonstrated how the pandemic had hit a system “already cut to the bone from 10 years of austerity”. She called on the government to “stop repackaging old funding commitments as new support”, urging authorities to “do more to stop this terrible loss of life”.

The steep rise in fatalities comes despite the government’s Everybody In scheme, which was launched at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis to provide safe shelter for thousands of rough sleepers. During the first lockdown, approximately 29,000 people were helped into settled accommodation, with thousands initially housed in budget hotels.

Less than 3% of recorded causes of death were directly due to Covid-19, the MoH found, which it said was one of the programme’s “significant achievements”. However, Tuttle said the scheme failed to prevent “a staggering increase in the number of people dying while homeless”.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said that despite the hard work to get people off the streets at the start of the pandemic, people continue to become homeless daily because of a lack of affordable housing. “Pre-pandemic, there were over a million households on the social housing waiting list. As we look towards recovery, ending the housing crisis must be a priority,” she said.

More than 70,000 households across the UK have been made homeless since the start of the pandemic, the Observer found in January, while tens of thousands more were threatened with homelessness despite a government ban on evictions for most of 2020. The tenants’ union, Acorn, blamed the rise on a combination of factors including illegal evictions, landlords pressuring tenants to leave before eviction, and a lack of protections for lodgers.

The number of people sleeping rough on the streets of London surged by a staggering 170% between 2010 and March 2020.

UK homeless deaths rise by more than a third in a year, study finds | Homelessness | The Guardian