During the build-up towards the 2003 invasion of Iraq there was a sustained attempt by the pro-war advocates to influence the investigations of both Hans Blix’s WMD inspectors and the El Baradei nuclear weapon inspectors. Both agencies were targeted by US and UK governments to undermine their independence. 

It now appears that a very similar strategy was undertaken at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in its search for the truth about the 2018 use of chemical weapons at Douma in Syria, which the OPCW final report suggested was the result of a Syrian government attack. 

Dissenting opinions at the OPCW have been in effect silenced and those officials criticised and discredited by the organisation itself.

It has resulted in a pushback by them when they became signatories of an open letter accusing the OPCW of being unduly swayed by outside political actors – the US, UK and France.

 A  “Statement of Concern” was signed by five former OPCW officials, as well as the first Director General of the OPCW, José Bustani, along with leading political commentators.

This blog has no way of knowing the real truth of the toxic gas attack at Douma but now from past experience has less confidence in the objectivity and neutrality of various international organisations.

For further background 

5 former OPCW officials join prominent voices to call out Syria cover-up | The Grayzone

 The Socialist Party has revealed the lie about the humanitarianism of sanctions as humbug. We see their detrimental effects upon working people around the world when they are imposed on the so-called “pariah” states, with the subsequent effect of reducing them to “failed” states. 

The medical journal, The Lancet has pointed out that “although sanctions do not seem to be physical warfare weapons, they are just as deadly, if not more so. Jeopardising the health of populations for political ends is not only illegal but also barbaric.”

In February, Alena Douhan, a UN special rapporteur, published her preliminary report on the impact of US and European sanctions upon Venezuela which concluded that the long campaign of economic warfare had impacted upon Venezuela’s economy, thwarting the government’s ability to provide basic services both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The government’s revenue was reported to shrink by 99%, with the country currently living on 1% of its pre-sanctions income,” Douhan found, impeding “the ability of Venezuela to respond to the Covid-19 emergency.” She then urged, “the governments of the United Kingdom, Portugal and the United States and corresponding banks to unfreeze assets of the Venezuela Central Bank to purchase medicine, vaccines, food, medical and other equipment.”

Her findings supported an earlier study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) that estimated that sanctions were responsible for over 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in 2017–18.  While accepting sanctions were not the only factor driving economic hardship, CEPR found that they:

“…exacerbated Venezuela’s economic crisis and made it nearly impossible to stabilize the economy, contributing further to excess deaths. All of these impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.”

Most of the mainstream media attributes sole responsibility for economic and humanitarian conditions to the Venezuelan government of Maduro, thereby using the misery provoked by sanctions as the rationale to validate even more stringent sanctions.

The former US Attorney General William Barr gloated that the pandemic was:

“good timing, actually. The [Trump] administration is taking a kind of “kick them while they’re down” approach, seemingly with the hope that by piling on sanctions and other actions, the administration can capitalize on the virus in Iran and Venezuela to spur greater public opposition to the incumbent governments and perhaps regime change.”

The media typically presents the effects of sanctions as mere accusations and allegations of Maduro such as he claims “…US sanctions were hurting his administration’s ability to buy medicines and foodstuffs” or implicitly blames him, for example, “continuing chaotic situation under Nicolás Maduro leaves hospitals and health services desperately unprepared.”

The media would rather suggest that all of the 4 million Venezuelans who have now fled the economic and humanitarian chaos was because of the corruption of this regime without any mention of the complicity of those nations engaged in economic warfare against it.  Neither the Guardian, New York Times,  Washington Post nor BBC carried reporting of Douhan’s findings.

Sanctions (other than against specifically named individuals) is collective punishment which is a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Sanctions constitute violations of international law.

Adapted from here

Opinion | UN Rebuke of Crushing US Sanctions on Venezuela Met With Stunning Silence (commondreams.org)

 The amount of economic advantage passed down from one generation to the next is much higher in the US. Approximately 50% of a father’s income position is inherited by his son. In contrast, the amount in Norway or Canada is less than 20%.

In the US, 8% of children raised in the bottom 20% of the income distribution are able to climb to the top 20% as adults, while the figure in Denmark is nearly double at 15%.

 American life expectancy varies by up to 20 years depending on the zip code of residence.

 Quality of education also differs widely depending on the wealth of the neighborhood that families reside in.

 And the chances of being victimized by a crime, exposed to environmental toxins or having unmet healthcare needs is far greater for America’s poor than those impoverished in all other OECD countries.

Currently, those in the top 20% of the income distribution earn nearly nine times more than those in the bottom 20%. This difference is far greater than in the European Union or the United Kingdom.

Wealth inequality is even more skewed. In the United States, the top 5% of the population own three-quarters of the entire financial wealth of the country, while the bottom 60% possess less than 1%.

The ‘American Dream’ of upward mobility is broken. Look at the numbers | US news | The Guardian

 Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty from the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics reported, India’s top 1 percent in today’s “Billionaire Raj” have a similar share of the national income as the top 1 percent did under the British Raj.

A majority of the population lives in poverty.

On the 2020 Global Hunger Index, India is 94th out of 107 countries

India’s National Family Health Survey for 2019-20 showed that in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, 39 percent of children under the age of five have had their growth stunted by malnutrition. 

Approximately 25 percent of all hungry people live in India, where around 195 million people are undernourished. 

Thousands per day, perhaps a million per year, die of malnutrition in India, most of whom are children.

India’s right-wing government is so hungry for profit it will risk a famine – Alternet.org

 Everybody thought that 2020 would be the baby boom year. But that’s unlikely. And the reason is not the coronavirus. Elke Loichinger, researcher at Germany’s Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), told DW that it would “be inadequate” to connect the estimated decrease in the number of births in 2020 to the pandemic. She said there was a different cause: “Already before the pandemic, the number of potential mothers, as well as the total fertility rate, has been decreasing.”

Italy recorded the widest gap between births and deaths since the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918. The country recorded an estimated 400,000 births and more than 746,000 deaths. On top of that, number of marriages fell by more than half, which suggests that there will be fewer babies in Italy in 2021.

France has noted a decrease of 1.8% in number of births in comparison to 2019.

Germany recorded zero population growth for the first time since 2011. The number of births fell from 2019, and the number of deaths increased noticeably. The estimations are that there were 755,000-775,000 births and at least 980,000 deaths in 2020.

Loichinger said the increased number of deaths in 2020 was partly connected to pandemic, but added that the overall negative deficit between the number of births and deaths is not a surprise. “We have seen this since the 1970s in Germany. More people are dying than babies are being born.”

Migration was also a reason for the changes to Germany’s population in 2020. Among other things, restrictions on international travel hampered international migration, people moved less, and as a result fewer people migrated to Germany.

“The reason that the population in Germany has not by now declined noticeably is migration,” Loichinger said, adding that with exception of few years, more people have immigrated than emigrated during the last three decades. It is expected that the population in Germany is going to decline from the mid-2020s, largely because of the effects of migration. “The future population of Germany is likely going to decline, but at what speed and in what timeframe is hard to say. It will highly depend on migration,” Loichinger said.

The same goes for the whole European Union. According to Eurostat projections, the EU’s population will peak at 449.3 million in 2026 then gradually decrease to 416.1 million by 2100.

What is certain is that “the German population is aging, with or without migration,” Loichinger said.

Coronavirus: Pandemic leads to baby bust rather than boom | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 13.03.2021

The US Air Force plans to order more than 600 new nuclear missile the length of a bowling lane. It will be able to travel some 6,000 miles, carrying a warhead more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The missile currently goes by the inglorious acronym GBSD, for “ground-based strategic deterrent.”

On September 8, the Air Force gave the defense company Northrop Grumman an initial contract of $13.3 billion to begin engineering and manufacturing the missile, but that will be just a fraction of the total bill. The government will spend roughly $100 billion to build the weapon, which will be ready to use around 2029.  $100 billion could pay 1.24 million elementary school teacher salaries for a year, provide 2.84 million four-year university scholarships, or cover 3.3 million hospital stays for covid-19 patients. 

The GBSD is designed to replace the existing fleet of Minuteman III missiles; both are intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. Like its predecessors, the GBSD fleet will be lodged in underground silos, widely scattered in three groups known as “wings” across five states. 

America’s nuclear arsenal is presently 3,800 warheads. ⁠ Russia has about 4,300 nuclear warheads, the only arsenal on par with America’s, and is also up-grading to new nukes.

William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense during the Clinton administration, argued in 2016 that “we simply do not need to rebuild all of the weapons we had during the Cold War” and singled out the GBSD as unnecessary.

And for practical purposes, such numbers are superfluous and surplus to requirements. “Once you’ve dropped a couple of nuclear bombs on a city, if you drop a couple more, all you do is make the rubble shake,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Latiff, a Bulletin Science and Security Board member who once commanded a unit of short-range nuclear weapons in West Germany.

James Mattis, the former Marine Corps general who would go on to become Secretary of Defense, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2015 that getting rid of America’s land-based nuclear missiles “would reduce the false alarm danger.” Whereas a bomber can be turned around even on approach to its target, a nuclear missile launched by mistake can’t be recalled.

Why is America getting a new $100 billion nuclear weapon? – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (thebulletin.org)

 A new study shows the U.K. government has increased spending on the military to $61.5-billion last year, up from $54.8-billion in 2019. 

Currently around £56.1-billion of the NHS annual budget goes on staffing costs. A 1 percent pay rise would cost approximately £561-million. That’s almost the same amount the Ministry of Defence (MOD) spent on missiles for its new fleet of F-35 Lightning fighter jets in January. A week after the missile spending was announced, the MOD said another £76-million would be spent maintaining the F-35s.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said Britain now has the fourth-largest defense budget in the world, ahead of Russia, France and Germany.

Only the U.S., China and India spent more on their militaries than the U.K. , with the Pentagon accounting for 40 percent of the world’s defense expenditure.

The IISS said the Russian defense budget for 2020 was $60.6-billion, down $1-billion from 2019. Russia is 70 times the size of the U.K. and has more than twice as many inhabitants. 

Other spending announcements during lockdown this year include £180-million on armored vehicles for the British army, £102-million on a surveillance system for soldiers and £98-million for shoulder-launched missiles. 

The British government was likely to spend more than £200-billion over the next decade to fulfil its pledges on military procurement for equipment such as new nuclear-armed submarines, aircraft carriers and combat aircraft. In addition, other costs for the Trident nuclear weapons system could reach up to £164-billion in the 40 years to 2061.

Britain overtakes Russian military spending — but onl… (dailymaverick.co.za)

 Roads occupy less than 1% of the country yet 94% of Britain has some traffic pollution above background levels. 

The most widespread pollutants are tiny particles, mostly from fossil fuel burning, nitrogen dioxide from diesel vehicles, and noise and light. More than 70% of the country is affected by all of these, with the only land to escape road pollution being almost entirely at high altitudes.

Road pollution affects 94% of Britain, study finds | Pollution | The Guardian

 Warren Buffett has been up there near the top of the world’s wealth league for decades. Now, his net worth has exceeded $100 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway, the source of virtually all of Buffett’s wealth, has had a good start to 2021. The firm’s A shares are up 15% this year, outpacing the 3.8% gain of the S&P 500 Index. That’s been helped by Buffett’s recent push to spend record amounts buying back Berkshire’s own stock, a notable shift for an investor who has preferred to use the $138 billion cash pile to buy other businesses.  In 2020, Buffett spent a record $24.7 billion on buybacks and filings indicate he’s already bought at least $4.2 billion worth of stock through mid-February. Buffett added $1.9 billion to his fortune on Wednesday as Berkshire Class A shares hit a record high, h

The staggering amounts accumulated by the ultra-wealthy – $1.8 trillion by the world’s 500 richest in 2020 alone – highlights the K-shaped recovery that’s taking place as the U.S. emerges from the pandemic. While millions of disproportionately poor, working-class and minority people remain unemployed, the rich have seen incomes and net worth levels jump thanks to a buoyant stock market.

Meanwhile, more than 8 million Americans — including many children — fell into poverty in the second half of last year.

 For they starve the little frightened child

   Till it weeps both night and day:

And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,