Further to this earlier blog on future resource conflicts.

Experts say the current supply of various metals and minerals cannot support a global economy producing net-zero carbon emissions.

 The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) calls for no new oil, natural gas and coal investments for the world to be able to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  It outlined a path to net-zero emissions that suggested stopping new investments in oil, gas and coal supply, retiring coal-fired plants in advanced economies by 2030. The IEA said its pathway was “the most technically feasible, cost-effective and socially acceptable”.

Some Asian energy officials viewed that approach as too narrow.

Energy companies in Australia, the biggest carbon emitter per capita among the world’s richest nations, and officials in Japan and the Philippines said there were many ways to get to net zero.

Akihisa Matsuda, the deputy director of international affairs at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), said the government has no plans to immediately stop oil, gas and coal investments.

“The report provides one suggestion as to how the world can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, but it is not necessarily in line with the Japanese government’s policy,” he said.

Japan was the region’s third-largest carbon emitter in 2019, after China and India.

“The IEA report doesn’t take into account future negative emission technologies and offsets from outside the energy sector — two things that are likely to happen and will allow vital and necessary future development of oil and gas fields,” Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association Chief Executive Andrew McConville said.

Australia’s top independent gas producer, Woodside Petroleum, said it still aims to make a final investment decision for an $11 billion investment to develop a new gas field off Western Australia in late 2021.

Australia on Wednesday committed A$600 million ($467 million) in taxpayer funds to build a new gas-fired power station.

In the Philippines, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said cutting finance for oil, gas and coal without considering efficiency and competitiveness would “set back the Philippines’ aspiration to join the ranks of upper-middle-income countries,” he said.

Demand for coal is still expected to be strong in the next few decades as some countries are still building new coal-fired power plants, said Hendra Sinadia, executive director at Indonesia Coal Mining Association.

Asia snubs IEA’s call to stop new fossil fuel investments (trust.org)

 Locals in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta have stepped in to help the hundreds of mainly Moroccan migrants in dire need of food, clothes and water after aid groups have found themselves unable to help. Migrants have been wandering the streets of Ceuta. Most have no money.

The situation has encouraged some locals to step in by offering the migrants clothes, a place to shower, and food.

Sabah Mohamed said she took action after seeing how much the migrants suffered. “I saw so many people just roaming in the streets and we thought, ‘We have to help them’. There were people who were wet, people who had no shoes, others who were disoriented and who were hungry…So my friends and I, who don’t belong to any organisation, decided we needed to help.”

“They give us clothes, we can come have showers here… they give us food and water. It’s everything we need, thank God. The people of Ceuta are kind to us,” one migrant at Mohamed’s home said.

Ceuta migrant crisis: Locals step in to help as aid groups overwhelmed (france24.com)

 Approximately 245 000 deaths in the United States in 2000 were attributable to low education, 176 000 to racial segregation, 162 000 to low social support, 133 000 to individual-level poverty, 119 000 to income inequality, and 39 000 to area-level poverty.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3134519/

The richest 130,000 Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 117 million.

billionaire wealth has increased by more than $1.3 trillion during the pandemic while millions have fallen into poverty.

In San Diego County, we have mansions on the beach, but we also have 40 percent of children living in poverty — and that was before the pandemic.

 The message of socialism is worldwide. It reaches across the artificial national boundaries erected by mankind. and is as much for the ears of every worker. Poverty and inequality will last as long as the capitalist social system is in existence. The only way out is to establish socialism, which will organise the world so that everyone, whatever their sex or colour of skin, has free access to the world’s wealth and stands equal to the rest of humanity. There is no place for vicious exploitation in such a society. That is the lesson for workers to learn all over the world.

 It is no longer possible for the Irish defenders of capitalism to pretend that the poverty and unemployment suffered by the Irish workers are due to “foreign” government. So also in Scotland. It is better that Scottish workers should be able to realise that they suffer from exploitation just as much whether at the hands of Scottish exploiters or European and Asian exploiters. If Scotland’s workers see in national independence a solution to their economic problems they will—like the Irish and many others—suffer a grievous disappointment.  It is part of the task of the Socialist Party to work to destroy the present illusion and thus avoid future disillusion. Let Scottish workers organise not as Scots alongside their home capitalists, but as workers. They should reject the fallacious argument of political parties which urge them to do otherwise. In England, this fallacy is based on an old saying that “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.” In truth, the capitalist enemies of Scotland’s capitalists are not, and cannot, be the friends of the workers. If certain Scottish capitalists happen to be at loggerheads with some English capitalists, that is no reason why Scottish workers should imagine they have a friend in the Scottish employing class. The real task of Scotland’s workers is that of the workers everywhere—to fight against capitalism whatever the national flag under which it hides. The duty of socialists is to keep this issue always to the fore, not to rouse deadly national hatreds which obscure the class divisions in society and retard the growth of socialism.

This “internationalism” of the Socialist Party is in direct antagonism to that national sentiment which is fostered under the name of “patriotism.”  As class-conscious workers, its members view any “nationalism” as a snare in the path towards emancipation. Not only does it serve to cloud the class issue within the nation, but it also hinders the workers of the world from recognising and acting up to their unity of interest. What significance has “pride” in one’s nation for the wage-slave? The Socialist Party vehemently denies any connection between the interests of the capitalist and working people.

 Internationalism will only have a sure foundation to the extent to which such illusions are ruthlessly cut out. The first step is to tell foreign workers frankly that with the best will in the world the amount of practical help that can be given is strictly limited, and therefore it is necessary for them not to build great hopes on succour from abroad to make up for their own weakness. The best help that the workers anywhere can give to their foreign comrades is to redouble their efforts to strengthen the socialist movement in their own country and hasten the day when the workers will control social affairs. Socialists intend to help build a world in which there will be neither exploiters nor exploited. We are interested in the resources of the whole world and we want them to be used for the benefit of all mankind without distinction of nationality.

The real division in the world is not between people of supposedly different “nationalities” but between two social classes both of which are international: a class of capitalists and state capitalists who own and control all that is in and on the Earth and a class of people who, excluded from such ownership and control, are obliged to work for an employer (private or state) in order to live. Wage and salary earners everywhere, whatever their language, legal nationality, skin colour, have a common interest.

The future lies with us, the past belongs to our enemies. They depend for their success upon the ever-diminishing working-class ignorance; we depend for ours upon the increasing working-class knowledge. Unlike those parties, which degrade the name of socialism, the Socialist Party and its companion parties have an unbroken record of loyalty to socialism and commitment to working-class internationalism in peace and in war. The truth is that the very essence of socialism is internationalism. Socialism knows no frontier. It matters little that one country may be peopled by any other nationality. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing cooperative commonwealth. 

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

It is characteristic of any war that the first victims are usually innocent civilians. The World Socialist Movement fully sympathises with the compassion being expressed for the plight of the people of besieged Gaza. Saturday saw an example with an enormous turn-out in London showing support for the Palestinians. We roundly denounce the lethal Israeli air-strikes against Gazans who cannot flee the war–zone to safety nor seek refuge in the shelter of underground tunnels which were being deliberately targeted.

 Every few years we have witnessed Israeli state-violence with the purpose of repressing Palestinian resistance. Palestinians had begun protests against the eviction from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. These were accompanied at the al-Aqsa mosque with demonstrations against the provocative incursions of extremist Zionists. As the protests grew, Israeli police responded with increased violence.  

It is frustrating that many concerned people are endorsing armed struggle by Hamas as fully justified. A common refrain repeated is it is not for us to determine the methods of resistance but the Palestinians themselves and they have chosen Hamas as their representatives. But we cannot avoid questioning that claim. Has it ended the siege of Gaza? Has it provoked Israel to deploy its army to face high casualties that a ground invasion would inflict? Has it challenged Israel’s security with several hundred rockets fizzling out before even reaching Israeli territory and those that do, 90% get shot down by Iron Dome? As the political commentator, Norman Finkelstein observed, the rocket risk to Jewish-Israelis is as much as being struck by lightning. Has “self-defence” been a financial cost to Israel with the USA paying most of the bills?

The rockets, in fact, distracted from the East Jerusalem and the Palestinian-Israeli protests and served Hamas efforts to control events. It was a power-play by Hamas, not solidarity. Hamas wanted to portray itself as the leadership of the Israeli-Palestinians the moment they appeared to be acting independently in various cities within Israel. We can see that the real motive Hamas has in militarising the struggle is to ensure it retains partisan political control, distancing the Palestinian Authority even further but also undermining those that possess the decisive potential power,  the Palestinian-Israelis.

John Pilger and others present the argument that the occupation legitimises the right of resistance. But the dilemma is that defending the armed struggle directly weakens other strategies such as the rights of those who seek to wage non-violent resistance using general strikes and civil disobedience.

Rather than rockets, Hamas could so easily have revived the March of Return along the fences and if the Israeli snipers shot the participants as the IDF did previously, it would have resulted in far fewer casualties being incurred. Hamas wanted a media event of Israeli bombing and Israel willingly gave it to them for Netanyahu’s domestic election reasons.

The apologists for Hamas, the romantics who still adhere to the proven failed national liberation ideology, never mention that Hamas supported the Islamist al-Nusra who fought against Syria’s Assad, Hezbollah and Iran. The very same al Nusra jihadists being also supported by Israel and the USA. Strange bedfellows indeed. 

As socialists, our position is one against all nationalism but it should not be mistaken for docility to oppression or that Israel’s apartheid system and its occupation should not be resisted. The Palestinians should practice self-defence and engage in equal human rights. But the tactics chosen must be ones with the best chance of success.

No war but the class war but class politics is something many of the marchers against Israel and for a free Palestine don’t wish to understand, preferring to depict it as a religio-ethnic conflict. We support a vision of Jews and Palestinians coming together as workers, no matter how remote such an aspiration might appear today. Our fundamental principle is that true freedom will never be achieved until we are all liberated from wage slavery. This means that we do not support Hamas or any other would-be rulers. We cannot accept the sacrifice of our fellow-workers to satisfy the self-interest of sectarian political parties.

 At least nine persons have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, thanks to the profits from pharmaceutical corporations.

The nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion, enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times.

The CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech top the list of nine individuals who became billionaires on the back of the rollout of vaccines against Covid-19.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel is the richest new ‘vaccine billionaire,’ followed by Ugur Sahin, his counterpart from BioNTech. Each is now worth over $4 billion. Others on the list include three Moderna investors, the chair of a firm contracted to manufacture and package Moderna’s product, and the three co-founders of the Chinese vaccine producer CanSino Biologics.

Eight others, whose wealth had already topped the billion-dollar benchmark when the pandemic hit, have seen their wealth grow significantly. They include people linked to China’s Chongqing Zhifei Biological and Sinopharm, India’s Cadila Healthcare and the Serum Institute of India, and holders of BioNTech stock.

Vaccine billionaires are being created as stocks in pharmaceutical firms rise rapidly in expectation of huge profits from the COVID-19 vaccines over which these firms have intellectual ownership control.

“These billionaires are the human face of huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines,” said Anna Marriott, the health policy manager at charity Oxfam, a member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance. “We need to urgently end these monopolies so that we can scale up vaccine production, drive down prices, and vaccinate the world. What a testament to our collective failure to control this cruel disease that we quickly create new vaccine billionaires but totally fail to vaccinate the billions who desperately need to feel safe.”

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of another Alliance member, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, said it was “obscene that profits continue to come before saving lives,” as patent holders refused to share their technology.

Heidi Chow, Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager at Global Justice Now, said:

“As thousands of people die each day in India, it is utterly repugnant that the UK, Germany and others want to put the interests of the billionaire owners of Big Pharma ahead of the desperate needs of millions.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said:

“While the companies making massive profits from COVID vaccines are refusing to share their science and technology with others in order to increase the global vaccine supply, the world continues to face the very real risk of mutations that could render the vaccines we have ineffective and put everyone at risk all over again. The pandemic has come at a terrible human cost, so it is obscene that profits continue to come before saving lives.”

The nine new vaccine billionaires, in order of their net worth are:

Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO (worth $4.3billion)Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech (worth $4 billion)Timothy Springer, an immunologist and founding investor of Moderna (worth $2.2bn)Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s Chairman (worth $1.9 billion)Juan Lopez-Belmonte, Chairman of ROVI, a company with a deal to manufacture and package the Moderna vaccine (worth $1.8 billion)Robert Langer, a scientist and founding investor in Moderna (worth $1.6 billion)Zhu Tao, co-founder and chief scientific officer at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.3 billion)Qiu Dongxu, co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.2)Mao Huinhoa, also co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1 billion)

 The £300,000 saved in a cost-cutting exercise during the refurbishment of the 24-storey Grenfell council block between 2014 and 2016 that led to combustible aluminium panels being substituted for the planned non-combustible zinc on the exterior of the block has cost the council over £500m, £406m on its response and recovery efforts in almost four years since the disaster,  in addition to the costs to the taxpayer of the ongoing public inquiry, which hit £117m by the end of March this year, most of which was taken up with lawyers’ bills.

“For too long our politicians, leaders & corporations have fed us the SAME lies, the SAME broken promises, the SAME too-little-too-late solutions, the SAME destructive fossil fuels. But we know that if we keep doing things the SAME way, we are doomed.” Official account of the UN Envoy on Youth, Ms Jayathma Wickramanayake .

The Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) has put leaders and policymakers on notice that they are not willing to listen to the same conversations, suggestions and unmet promises as it launches a massive youth mobilisation campaign, with the hashtag #samesucks. 

 Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in America.

At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its real estate purchases during the pandemic – including making large investments in real estate companies with a potential financial interest in eliminating eviction restrictions.

 Between 2017 and 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation contributed almost $7.7m to three conservative organizations, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation and the New Civil Rights Alliance have been pushing federal courts to strike down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is designed to protect millions of Americans from being thrown out of their homes during the pandemic. The groups have so far won two rulings. But since the Covid-19 pandemic began, Koch Industries has been ploughing money into real estate.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the billionaire’s corporate conglomerate “is emerging as a major real-estate investor during the pandemic, using its robust cash reserves to buy properties at beaten-down prices and betting on a longer-term recovery”.  Koch Real Estate Investments made a $200m preferred-equity investment in Amherst Holdings LLC’s single-family rental business. Koch Real Estate Investments began a financial relationship with Ladder Capital Corp., culminating in a $32m equity investment in December. 

In February, the Texas Public Policy Foundation convinced a federal judge in Texas to declare the CDC’s eviction moratorium unconstitutional. In March, a federal judge in Ohio sided with the Pacific Legal Foundation, ruling that the CDC “exceeded the scope of its authority” with its eviction ban.

Charles Koch funded eviction push while investing in real estate companies | Koch brothers | The Guardian