Chemicals giant DuPont decided to sell a plant in south Louisiana that emits a likely cancer causing pollutant, citing “major concerns” that government agencies would regulate its emissions to protect the community living nearby.  The multibillion-dollar company worried in 2011 about the potential cost of offsetting its emissions of the “likely human carcinogen”, chloroprene, and so moved to sell the plant, the Pontchartrain Works facility. The company also withheld details of its own research to offset emissions from the plant’s new owners, the Japanese chemical company Denka.

According to the EPA, the majority Black community have the highest risk of cancer due to airborne pollution anywhere in the US, over 50 times the national average, primarily due to chloroprene emissions. 

“They prioritize profits over people. They come to your neighborhoods and give you as little information as possible,” said Lydia Gerard, another resident who lost her husband to cancer in 2018. “To me this shows that DuPont thought, ‘Let’s see how long we can get away with it in this community before anyone finds out and says anything about it.”

“They [DuPont] should have told us. They have a good-neighbour policy but they were not trying to change anything. They were going to go for another 50 years if this [potential government regulation] hadn’t come to light,” said Mary Hampton, a resident who lives a few hundred feet from the plant.

DuPont argue it cannot be held liable as it no longer owns the plant, despite opening the facility and polluting the air with chloroprene for nearly half a century.

“It was a money decision to continue contaminating a community, when in fact the technology was there to implement the controls to operate the facility safely. And they [DuPont] chose not to do it because of the price tag,” said Hugh Lambert, a lawyer working for the plaintiffs.

Revealed: chemicals giant sold Louisiana plant amid fears over cost of offsetting toxic emissions | US news | The Guardian

 In Australia, at least 11 billionaires last year received lucrative dividends totalling tens of millions of dollars from companies that received jobkeeper subsidies designed to keep workers employed.

The average Australian billionaire’s wealth increased by 59% over the past year, while workers struggled with wage stagnation and a spike in unemployment caused by the pandemic.

Harvey Norman paid dividends of $74.7m, of which Harvey, who is worth $2.57bn, was entitled to $23.5m.

John Gandel, the founder of Melbourne shopping centre Chadstone, who is worth $5.4bn. He and his family own about 15.2% of shopping centre group Vicinity, which received about $10.8m in jobkeeper.

Brett Blundy, who built a retail empire from a record store called Disco Duck and is now estimated to be worth $2.2bn, received an estimated $6.48m in dividends from his shares in youth-focused jewellery chain Lovisa.

James Packer, who is estimated to be worth $4.69bn. His private company, Consolidated Press Holdings, owns 34% of Crown, which received about $110m in jobkeeper subsidies – almost $70m of which was passed directly on to employees who had been stood down, at no net benefit to the company.

The family of poker machine magnate Len Ainsworth, who is worth $4.42bn, also received dividends from the company he founded, Aristocrat Leisure. Aristocrat received $11m in jobkeeper and paid dividends of $63.9m.

Nick Politis, who is worth $1.31bn, also received a dividend paid within weeks of the announcement of jobkeeper.

Marc Besen and his family, who are worth $2.24bn, received dividends from property group Home Consortium. The company received $200,000 in jobkeeper.

Other billionaires entitled to dividends from companies that received jobkeeper were Dale Elphinstone (worth $1.08bn), who has a large interest in engineering and labour hire group Engenco, and Raphael Geminder, who is the chairman of packaging company Pact Group.

Billionaires receive tens of millions in dividends from companies on jobkeeper | Business | The Guardian

 Government failure to maintain the £20 a week Covid top-up payment for universal credit will overwhelmingly hit the incomes of working and disabled people, and put more than 700,000 into poverty, according to the Fabian Society.

If the planned cuts to universal credit and tax credits go ahead it will put 760,000 people below the poverty line over the medium term. Of these, 490,000 (64%) will be in working households where at least one adult works, many with children.

Its analysis of how the cut impacts on different households concludes that households with a disabled adult will be hit by 57% of the cuts; families with children will be hit by half ; and households where someone is a carer will be hit by 12%.

Andrew Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society, said: 

“If ministers cut universal credit this April, they will overwhelmingly punish working families and disabled people. People in these groups have shown huge resilience during the pandemic and have done nothing to deserve this. The chancellor’s planned cut will strip £1,000 per year from 6 million families and plunge three quarters of a million people into poverty. Some politicians like to pretend that social security is just for the workshy. But the reality is that millions of working households need benefits and tax credits to make ends meet, as do disabled people who are out of work through no fault of their own. If ministers are considering a few months’ temporary extension to the universal credit uplift, that just isn’t good enough. The 2020 benefit increase must be placed on a permanent footing.”

Cutting Covid top-up ‘will put 700,000 people into poverty’ | Universal credit | The Guardian

  Biden’s officials, fearing a surge in immigration, has sent out the message that little will change quickly for migrants arriving at the southern US border, even if there is a softer reception for them.

The World Food Programme says three million Hondurans face food insecurity, six times higher than before the hurricanes. The dual hurricanes Iota and Eta affected an estimated four million of 10 million Honduran people. 

Dana Graber Ladek, head of the International Organization for Migration office in Mexico, explained, “They’re suffering poverty, violence, the hurricanes, unemployment, domestic violence, and with that dream of a new administration, of new opportunities, they’re going to try [to migrate] again and again.”

 Okonjo-Iweala, the World Trade Organization’s incoming chief on Monday warned against “vaccine nationalism’ that would slow progress in ending the COVID-19 pandemic and could erode economic growth for all countries – rich and poor.

“No one is safe until everyone is safe. Vaccine nationalism at this time just will not pay, because the variants are coming. If other countries are not immunized, it will just be a blow back,” she said. “It’s unconscionable that people will be dying elsewhere, waiting in a queue, when we have the technology.”

Okonjo-Iweala said studies showed that the global economy would lose $9 trillion in potential output if poor countries were unable to get their populations vaccinated quickly, and about half of the impact would be borne by rich countries.

“Both on a human health basis, as well as an economic basis, being nationalistic at this time is very costly to the international community,” she said.

Incoming WTO head warns ‘vaccine nationalism’ could slow pandemic recovery | Reuters

 There are many media articles condemning the Chinese secrecy over the origins in Wuhan of the COVID-19 outbreak. They are accused of suppressing data concerning it and the local and national officials handling of it. Such lack of transparency has led to a number of conspiracy theories.

In contrast, the secrecy and with-holding of information by the pharmaceutical companies is treated as normal custom and practice regardless to the risk to lives patents and intellectual ownership creates. 

Wealthy nations and the vaccine manufacturers are engaged in contract disputes over supplies. Nations compete with one another for commitment by the drug corporations to fulfil their advance orders for the vaccines. 

Rich countries have ordered enough doses to vaccinate their populations three times over, while 9 in 10 people in nearly 70 poorer countries are unlikely to be vaccinated at all this year. We know that when it comes to Covid infection and prevalence, nobody is safe until we are all safe. But the efforts of almost every rich country to secure vaccines reminds us of first-class passengers receiving privileged treatment.

Getting the vaccine to the world’s poor will require an approach based on solidarity rather than competition. 

 People living in poverty around the world are in danger of food shortages as the coronavirus crisis continues, Agnes Kalibata, the special envoy to the UN secretary general for the food systems summit 2021, has warned, with the risk worse this year than in the period shortly after the pandemic began.

 She said, “Food systems have contracted, because of Covid-19. And food has become more expensive and, in some places, out of reach for people. Food is looking more challenging this year than last year. The main impact has been on markets, the shutdown of food markets. The lockdown has closed markets and that makes it very difficult for farmers.” She explained that “Last year, many countries used whatever opportunity they had to keep their food systems going. That is more difficult now. Food prices have increased significantly in some places.”

Kalibata highlighted the plight of African countries in particular, several of which are facing serious food price rises and shortages, exacerbated by problems such as drought predicted in east Africa, likely to affect northern Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. “This year, the predicted drought cycle is much more serious than last year,” she said.

Other countries were also seeing prices rise, she added. “The price of food is increasing in some cases very fast, which is really challenging.” As the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic crisis it has provoked continue, more countries are likely to be drawn into difficulties, she said. “We have not been able to strengthen our reserves. Now they are under pressure.”

Munderlying problems have grown worse over the past year, as people have exhausted their reserves of food, cash and family support and now are facing a long crisis without backup.

“We are facing a greater threat this year, as economies have shrunk,” she said. “That is happening across the globe, everywhere. Countries are in a very distressed situation, and it is not getting easier – it is getting more difficult. Some countries have hung on, but for how long?”

Risk of global food shortages due to Covid has increased, says UN envoy | World news | The Guardian

 Food has been speculated on the financial markets for a very long time. In December, water also became a commodity which can now be traded in the Wall St futures market. Now another basic of life is being speculated over for profit and private gain – oxygen, itself.

  With most hospitals full, many Mexicans are battling COVID-19 oxygen tanks and oxygen concentrators (devices that concentrate the oxygen from a gas supply, typically the air) have become scarce, as individuals and companies are taking advantage of the pandemic and selling or renting them at extremely high prices. Others are using the situation to fraudulently sell tanks without delivering them.

In Mexico City, people have been lining up for up to five hours to refill tanks, many of which only provide a few hours’ worth of oxygen. The demand for oxygen has grown by 700 percent over the past month. Oxygen products have roughly quadrupled in prices since November. Now some companies sell industrial oxygen tanks that aren’t medical grade and thus not fit for personal use.

Profiting From Desperation: Oxygen Tanks Become an Underground Market in Mexico (truthout.org)

 The pro-democracy campaigns in Hong Kong may have fallen out of the media headlines and been replaced by the struggles against the Myanmar military coup but they are very closely related. Both governments have deprived people of their political and labour rights and are acting more and more ruthlessly. 

The Chinese state are  suppressing and persecuting trade union officials. The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions is appealing for support and solidarity. This video has been posted to explain the situation. 

  UN envoy said US and EU sanctions on Venezuela were worsening a humanitarian crisis and recommended that the United States relax the measures.

 Alena Douhan, a UN special rapporteur focusing on sanctions, recommended in a preliminary report that the sanctions be lifted, and the Venezuelan government be granted access to funds frozen in the US, United Kingdom and Portugal.

“Unilateral sanctions increasingly imposed by the United States, the European Union and other countries have exacerbated the abovementioned calamities,” Douhan told reporters.

Maduro’s government blames the sanctions for Venezuela’s economic woes.  Once a prosperous OPEC nation,  the economic decline started in 2014 before the imposition of economic sanctions with the downturn in oil prices and that mismanagement and corruption also contributed.

UN envoy draws rebuke for bid to relax Venezuela sanctions | Politics News | Al Jazeera

Some background reading on sanctions

Sanctions: Waging war without bullets – spgb.net (worldsocialism.org)