The media is very fickle. A headline today and tomorrow disappears into the inside pages, then the story is forgotten all about. 

At least 5 million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine and a further 16 million are “marching toward starvation”, according to experts from the World Food Programme (WFP) 

Supply chains in the country had been disrupted and food prices were “spiking”.

WFP’s executive director David Beasley said: “With food pricing and the lack of fuel, it is catastrophic…”

 Without further funding, the organisation will be forced to cut 3.2 million people’s food rations by October, a number rising to 5 million people by December.

The WFP’s spokesperson for Yemen, Annabel Symington, said that Yemenis have been left unable to afford basic food supplies. “The causes of the hunger crisis in Yemen are complex, but the impact on Yemenis is clear. The devaluation of the Yemeni riyal and soaring food prices have made it impossible for ordinary Yemenis to afford basic foods,” she said.

Adam Kelwick, a humanitarian aid worker for the NGO Action For Humanity, visited al-Sabaeen hospital, in the western city of Sana’a and said it was “full to the brink” with starving, malnourished children.

“They had to expand into other wards to accommodate all these children,” he said. “It was a horrific scene where there were beds full of children who looked like skeletons. It’s clear to see the situation is rapidly deteriorating and the reason children are so severely malnourished is because their mothers are malnourished as well…”

He explained something that socialists have often had to point out is that “There is food in Yemen but it’s expensive and out of people’s budgets.” Kelwick said a woman, who lives on the outskirts of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital city, told him her family earns $100 (£73) a month, but it is not enough to afford basic food supplies. “She said their money doesn’t go anywhere any more. Prices for everything have increased.”

16 million in Yemen ‘marching towards starvation’ as food rations run low – UN | Hunger | The Guardian

 Boris Johnson’s raised national insurance 1.25% to additionally fund the NHS and social care. 

 12% of the £7.4bn expected to be raised from employees through the tax rise will come from nurses, care home staff and other health and social care workers who will pay an additional £900m in tax, according to the analysis.

The figures do not include those working in the NHS or care who are self-employed, meaning the real impact is likely to be even greater.

Millions of health and care workers are already facing a squeeze on their finances. A combination of rising energy and consumer goods prices, coupled with benefits cuts, are adding hundreds of pounds in costs for households.

Christina McAnea, general secretary of Unison, Britain’s biggest health union, said that punishing key workers with the national insurance rise was a terrible way to treat those “who’ve done so much to care for people and save lives these past 18 months”. “Inflation has bypassed the NHS pay rise,” she said. “Most care employees have had nothing at all. The harsh universal credit snatch has yet to take effect. And these same key workers will be paying through the nose when the [national insurance contributions] increase hits.”

McAnea said the NHS and social care sector could see thousands quit as a result. “No one could blame care and NHS staff for jumping ship for more lucrative, less stressful jobs,” she said. “But the consequences of losing thousands of experienced workers simply do not bear thinking about.”

The Royal College of Nursing council chair, Carol Popplestone, said: “Reaching primarily into the pockets of our hardworking healthcare workers who already feel taken for granted, which could lead more to the exit, is the opposite of levelling up.” She added, “The prime minister needs to come up with a credible plan to make up for years of underinvestment and put money into the services patients will rely on for years to come, and the people who provide them.”

National insurance hike to hit NHS and care staff with £900m tax bill | Health | The Guardian

 Senior career diplomat, Daniel Foote, US special envoy for Haiti has resigned in protest over the deportation of Haitian migrants which he described as “inhumane”.

Biden had begun the forced deportation of desperate Haitians from Texas-Mexican border, flying them to Haiti where they are unceremoniously abandoned on the runway.

“I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs to daily life,” Daniel Foote stated in his resignation letter. “Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my policy recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.” 

Foote explained Haiti was a “collapsed state” that “simply cannot support the forced infusion of thousands of returned migrants lacking food, shelter, and money without additional, avoidable human tragedy”.

 More than 100 countries face cuts to public spending on health, education and social protection as the Covid-19 pandemic compounds already high levels of debt, a new report says. The International Monetary Fund believes that 35 to 40 countries are “debt distressed” – defined as when a country is experiencing difficulties in servicing its debt, such as when there are arrears or debt restructuring.

However, this figure is a “gross underestimation”, according to the study, led by the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, based at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation.

Zambia was the first African county to default on debt last year during the pandemic and now has to allocate 44% of its annual government revenue to creditors. Ghana spends about 37% of its national budget on debt interest payments. 

In 2019, the cost of servicing external debts in 64 countries exceeded what they spent on healthcare, she said. Cameroon spent 23.8% of its budget on debt payments, compared with 3.9% of the country’s revenue spent on health.

 Faiza Shaheen, lead author of the report, explains, “If nothing changes and governments face having to make cuts, populations will see development stall and even reverse. For the person on the street, it means they are going to visibly see that it’s harder to access key services, and they’re not going to see improvements in their material wellbeing.”

More than 100 countries face spending cuts as Covid worsens debt crisis, report warns | Global development | The Guardian

 Biden is intending to deport migrants to a detention camp at Guatanamo Bay.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) bureau is inviting tenders for private contractors to run the Migrant Operations Center on the US naval base in Cuba. 

The migrant camp was first set up in 1991 and was intended to hold Cuban asylum seekers. Ultimately it was used to detain about 34,000 Haitians and roughly the same number of Cubans until it was wound down by the Obama administration. It has not been used to hold migrants since 2017.  Ice is looking for a private contractor to run the centre and provide custody and security officers.

Biden administration to reopen migrant detention camp near Guantánamo Bay prison | US immigration | The Guardian

 According to Human Rights Watch, 75% of Covid vaccines have gone to 10 countries. The Economist Intelligence Unit have calculated that half of all of the vaccines made so far have gone to 15% of the world’s population, the world’s richest countries administering 100 times as many shots as the poorest.

Jeff Bezos at the top of the pyramid with $180 billion

The minimum net worth of the top 1% is roughly $11.1 million.A person would need to earn an average of $758,434 per year in order to join the top 1%. That’s a far cry from the annual income of $38,923 reported by the average taxpayer (the bottom 90%). The number of billionaires globally is around 2,755, and their numbers have been growing dramatically.Altogether, they are worth $13.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion on the previous year.In the United States continues to widen, with about 1.4 million people falling into the top 1%. Those who want to become part of the top 0.01% would need to make an average of $2,888,192 annually.North America’s billionaires had more wealth at $3.5 trillion compared to $2.5 trillion of Europe’s.China had 342 billionaires with a combined wealth of $1.2 trillionThe top 1% earned nearly 21% of the total adjusted gross income in the U.S. ‘Wages’ for the top 1% from 1979 to 2019 rose over 160%—compared to 26% for those in the bottom 90%.The widening gaps in wealth and income stem from a variety of factors, including the wealthiest’s increasing dominance of public and private equity, and tax breaks.In 1962, the wealthiest 1% had net worths equal to approximately 125 times that of the average American household. Their net worths were shown to be approximately 225 times the net worth of the average household in 2009. The gap between the richest and the poorest more than doubled between 1982 and 2016.The minimum net worth of the top 1% is roughly $11.1 million. The top 10%, on the other hand, has a net worth of about $1.2 million. Between 1970 and 2000; median income increased by 41% during this time at an annual average rate of 1.2%. From 2000 to 2018, the rate was 0.3%.The top 1%  own more than 50% of the equity in both private and public companies. And they’ve also benefited from surges in the stock market. These gains help them reinvest their money back into exclusive investments like hedge funds and private equity ventures.The growing disparity can be traced to tax breaks on income, gift, and estate taxes, as well as the decline of labor unions in America. Although the middle class also benefited somewhat from the reduction in taxes, it allowed the wealthy to retain a much greater portion of their assets and pass them on to their heirs.In the U.S., the share of the nation’s wealth held by the top 1% increased from 23% to nearly 32% from 1989 to 2018.

Only a third of children under two in many developing countries are fed what they need for healthy growth and no progress has been made on improving their nutrition over the past decade.

According to the report, half of the children aged from six to 23 months across a range of developing countries were not fed the minimum number of daily meals and even fewer had a diverse diet that met minimum requirements.

As a result of poor diets, children can fall behind in school, become more vulnerable to illness and suffer the effects of malnutrition, including stunting and wasting, as well as becoming overweight or obese. 

Unicef estimates more than 11 million children under two are vulnerable to wasting globally.

Nutrition was worst for children in rural or poorer families, according to the study, and varied by region. 

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the diets of 62% of children aged between six and 23 months met the minimum diversity requirements compared with less than a quarter in Africa and only 19% in South Asia.

The report said that many families now bought their food rather than producing it themselves, even in rural areas, which made them more dependent on food systems.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said last week that the food summit was taking place at a key time, after five years of the number of those affected by hunger growing globally to about 811 million people, after a period in which it declined.

“Many of the current agri-food practices are also exacting a heavy toll on our planet. Our agri-food systems are not functioning properly,” said the FAO’s director-general, Qu Dongyu. He said the key was transforming the system that delivers food, from “tillage to table”.

Most infants in 91 countries are malnourished, warns Unicef | Hunger | The Guardian

 At the General Assembly of the United Nations Biden concluded his speech by boldly declaring that “I stand here today — for the first time in 20 years the United States is not at war.”

 He either has forgotten or ignores US combat troops in Iraq, Syria, and Africa.

2,500 in Iraq, 900 in Syria and an undisclosed number of special forces in various African countries. A recent air attack was carried out in Somalia in July. 

Then there are  2,976 United States military personnel in Jordan, 2,742 in Saudi Arabia, and 83 in Lebanon for the purposes of counterterrorism. 

Biden Said the US Is ‘Not at War’ Anymore (businessinsider.com)

  100 million Covid-19 vaccines stockpiled by rich nations and set to expire by the end of the year.

The European Union holds 41% and the United States 32%.

“Rich countries like the U.K. are hoarding vaccines that are desperately needed in low- and middle-income countries. We should immediately hand doses over to Global South nations. But that alone will not be enough,” Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said.

100 Million Doses of COVID Vaccines Hoarded by Rich Nations Are Set to Expire (truthout.org)