At least 225 dead, over 4000 injured and almost 10,000 arrested after the government of Kazakhstan’s suppression of the numerous demonstrations. The British media, meanwhile, says little about the recently honoured Tony Blair’s publicity relations exercise in 2011 to whitewash the last time Kazakhstan experienced unrest and improve the image of its previous president after civil unrest resulted in what is known as the Zhanaozen Massacre, where 70  people were killed, over 500 injured, and many more including main trade unionists, were arrested.

Former dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, believed to still pulling the strings in the autocratic regime, is said to have paid Blair’s consultancy business $13 million for advice.  Like Blair, Nazarbayev was also awarded a title, the ‘Leader of the Nation’, and had the country’s capital renamed Nur-Sultan in his honour in 2019, something Blair has still to achieve. 

The current leader, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, refuses to concede any legitimacy to the protests, describing those who participated in them as ‘bandits and terrorist’, incited by foreign infiltrators, dismissing as “stupidity”, the appeals for all parties to negotiate a peaceful solution. He instead issued a shoot-to-kill order. It has been the Kazakh government itself that has introduced foreign intervention by inviting thousands of Russian troops to help put down the uprising. There also appears to be some internal dissent within the government as Nazarbayev has not spoken or appeared in public since the unrest began and Karim Masimov, the head of the security services and a former prime minister, has been arrested on charges of treason. 

Unrest originally began when the cost of liquefied petroleum gas doubled (later rescinded.) It is the fuel 90 percent of their vehicles run on. But the protests were the result of long-standing frustrations with the political and economic situation in the country. It has turned into a generalised protest against corruption, poverty, inequality and lack of democracy. According to a KPMG report, 162 people control about half of Kazakhstan’s total wealth, a country of 19 million.  There prevails widespread economic hardship despite the country’s enormous reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium and minerals.

Much of the people’s anger has been aimed at the wealth amassed by Narzabayev and his family plus their lavish spending. His daughter and grandson own £80m of property in London and in 2020 the National Crime Agency lost a legal action to force them to explain where the money came from. Property of hundreds of millions of pounds across the UK  has been identified as belonging to Kazakhstan’s affluent elite.

There are those who have suggested the events echo one more American CIA-instigated ‘colour revolution’ to de-stabilise another former Soviet republic and Russian ally but the movement has had no obvious organisation behind it but it will not stop such conspiracy theories from spreading on social media. The protests are leader-free and the politicians have not yet taken control.

It is unfortunate due to the small size of the World Socialist Movement that we can only express our outrage at the brutality of the Kazakhstan government, condemn Putin’s military intervention, and offer sympathy and solidarity to our Kazakh fellow workers in their struggle against oppression. But the battle for democracy is a long and arduous one, and even if the Kazakhstan working class successfully depose their present masters, the class war against the replacement rulers requires to continue.

 In 2021 the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization published the first global study of loss of life and health associated with working long hours. In 2016, according to their calculations, 398,000 people died from stroke and 347,000 from heart disease, totalling 745,000, by working 55 or more hours a week. 

Moreover, the number of people working long hours is increasing. In response to the Covid pandemic, employers have cut payrolls but imposed longer hours on those still working.

The regions worst affected by dying from overwork are the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. The long working hours typical of East Asia are reflected in an unusual feature of the three main languages of the region. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean each have a word meaning ‘death from overwork’ – guolaosi in Chinese, karoshi in Japanese, and gwarosa in Korean.

In China the extreme ‘work culture’ is symbolized by a combination of numbers – 996. That is, 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week – a 72-hour week. Although work sometimes goes on until even later – to 11.30 pm or even midnight. And this despite laws that limit working hours to 8 per day and 44 per week. 

No wonder that placards held up by protestors read 996.ICU (ICU – Intensive Care Unit). 

Why are people still dying from overwork – nearly two centuries since workers began to fight for the eight-hour day? And surely the spread of automation should bring us shorter hours?

A manager in a web media company in Beijing explained the pressure for long hours as follows:

996 is inevitable. If you don’t do it someone else will. In fact, it’s the same from the perspective of the company. Even if you don’t work overtime, other companies will. Then the costs of your company will increase, your efficiency will decrease, and you will be overtaken by others… Because the people around you are running forward you dare not stop.

UNLESS the voice of the people makes itself heard and halts the race. And then, finally, everyone stops.

Sources

China Labor Bulletin

https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2021-long-working-hours-increasing-deaths-from-heart-disease-and-stroke-who-ilo

https://clb.org.hk/content/death-overwork-china

See also: ‘May Day: the endless fight for the eight-hour day’

http://www.wspus.org/2019/04/may-day-the-endless-fight-for-the-eight-hour-day/

Stephen Shenfield

World Socialist Party of the United States

Dying from overwork | World Socialist Party of the US (wspus.org)

 The number of people in need of humanitarian aid is expected to rise to 274 million this year, or one in 28 people, and more than 84 million people have been uprooted. 

Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention. 

 Laurie Lee, CEO of Care International UK explained, “There is deep injustice at the heart of it. The world’s poorest are bearing the brunt of climate change – poverty, migration, hunger, gender inequality and ever more scarce resources – despite having done the least to cause it,” he said. “Add Covid-19 into the mix and we see decades of progress towards tackling inequality, poverty, conflict and hunger disappearing before our eyes.”

Zambia

First on the list, Zambia has 1.2 million malnourished people and about 60% of the 18.4 million population living below the international poverty line of $1.90 (£1.40) a day. Women produce 60% of the country’s food supply, but families headed by women faced higher poverty rates than those headed by men.

Food insecurity in Zambia has primarily been blamed on prolonged drought, but rising corn prices and flooding have contributed.

Ukraine

Currently in the news amid renewed tension between Russia and the west, in Ukraine, 3.4 million people were in need of assistance in 2021, after years of conflict.

“While a comprehensive political solution for the conflict is still not in sight, people in eastern Ukraine are daily forced to put their lives on the line. Along the 420-km ‘contact line’ that separates Ukrainian government-controlled territory from that of the separatists, the situation is particularly dangerous,” the report said.

Malawi

Malawi is facing a food insecurity crisis, with 17% of the population severely malnourished. Droughts, floods and landslides have been predicted to worsen over the coming years. Cyclone Idai in 2019 severely affected harvests and left tens of thousands displaced.

“The climate crisis is hitting people here earlier and much harder than the people of the global north,” said Chikondi Chabvuta, advocacy lead for Care International in Malawi. “We are already seeing real-life consequences with delayed rainfall, heavy and destructive rainfall, unpredictable rainfall patterns, infertile soil, destroyed harvests.”

Central African Republic

In Central African Republic (CAR), where civil war has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis, half of the population face food insecurity. A ceasefire agreement struck in October 2021 is fragile and more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced – more than half children. CAR is ranked second to last globally on the Human Development Index. “On average, a child attends school for just under four years, and girls for only three,” the report said. About 30% of children are in work.

Guatemala

Poverty, violence and the climate crisis are leading problems in Guatemala, which is on the migratory route to Mexico and the US. Two-thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day and 38% of the population face food insecurity.

Camps sheltering those sent back by Mexico are overcrowded, meaning many live on the streets, the report said. Guatemala is considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries, with 3,500 murders in 2020 alone. “Although about 3.3 million people in the country rely on humanitarian aid, the frequent occurrence of violence is in many cases a barrier to accessing urgently needed assistance,” said the report.

Colombia

Nearly 5 million people live under the control of armed groups, and 6.7 million people are dependent on humanitarian aid.

Food insecurity has been blamed on an economic recession caused by the pandemic. It has particularly affected indigenous communities, those uprooted internally and 1.8 million Venezuelan refugees, mainly in northern Colombia.

Burundi

Ranked as the country gaining the least attention in 2020, Burundi was seventh in 2021 when 2.3 million of the 12.6 million population were in need of humanitarian assistance.

The country secured only 27% of the $195m pledged in aid. Extreme weather, hunger and political unrest were among the challenges faced by Burundians. In a country where 90% of people rely on small-scale agriculture, only a third of land is suitable for cultivation, due to drought, floods and landslides. The report also highlighted structural discrimination against women – 20% of those in Burundi’s decision-making bodies are female, while 60% of the agricultural workforce are women.

Niger

Niger is deeply vulnerable to climate disasters. Persistent droughts and recurring floods have had catastrophic consequences: nearly 3 million people rely on humanitarian aid. About 1.8 million children need food assistance and almost half of all children under five are malnourished.

Militias in eastern and northern Niger have caused 313,000 people to be displaced as of last September. “Providing emergency relief is often hindered by the fact that infrastructure is destroyed, operation areas are marked by violence and rural areas are difficult to access,” the report said.

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe has acute food insecurity with increasingly extreme climate conditions and economic mismanagement causing 6.6 million people to need humanitarian aid. More than a third of the population (5.7 million) lack sufficient food.

“The harvests in many rural areas are not sufficient to secure basic food supplies and other needs. In these regions, households must rely on local markets when supplies are depleted – but the prices there are unaffordable for many,” the report said.

Honduras

Poverty and violence have exacerbated the humanitarian situation in Honduras, prompting many to leave for the US. About 70% of the population live in poverty, according to a 2020 study.

There have been problems with farming due to drought, hurricanes and floods. The country has 937,000 displaced people, the highest number in Latin America.

“In Honduras, people therefore often talk about poverty being female, as it is mostly women who stay behind with the children,” the report said.

We live on a planet with greatly increasing disparities.

In October 2021, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released a report that received barely any attention: the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021, notably subtitled Unmasking disparities by ethnicity, caste, and gender. 

‘Multidimensional poverty’ is a much more precise measurement of poverty than the international poverty line of $1.90 per day. 

It looks at ten indicators divided along three axes: health (nutrition, child mortality), education (years of schooling, school attendance), and standard of living (cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets). 

The team studied multidimensional poverty across 109 countries, looking at the living conditions of 5.9 billion people. They found that 1.3 billion – one in five people – live in multidimensional poverty. The details of their lives are stark:

Roughly 644 million or half of these people are children under the age of 18.Almost 85 per cent of them reside in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.One billion of them are exposed to solid cooking fuels (which creates respiratory ailments), inadequate sanitation, and substandard housing.568 million people lack access to proper drinking water within a 30-minute round trip walk.788 million multidimensionally poor people have at least one undernourished person in their home.Nearly 66 per cent of them live in households where no one has completed at least six years of schooling.678 million people have no access to electricity.550 million people lack seven of eight assets identified in the study (a radio, television, telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorcycle, or refrigerator). They also do not own a car.

The top 10% of German people own 67% of the wealth

The richest 10% own two-thirds of total private wealth (some €12 trillion in assets); the richest 1% own a third, while the richest 0.1% own up to a fifth.

At the end of the table, the bottom half own few to no assets — just 1.3% of overall private wealth — and are left almost nothing when family members die. 

Universal Inheritance: Would €20k at 18 help to reset inequality? | Business | Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 12.01.2022

 Twenty new “pandemic billionaires” have been created in Asia thanks to the international response to Covid-19, while 140 million people across the continent were plunged into poverty. 

According to Oxfam’s report by the aid organisation says that by March 2021, profits from the pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and services needed for the Covid response had made 20 people new billionaires as lockdowns and economic stagnation destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of others.

In 2020, an estimated 81m jobs disappeared and loss of working hours pushed a further 22–25 million people into working poverty, according to the International Labour Organization. Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific region’s billionaires saw their wealth increase by $1.46tn (£1.06tn), enough to provide a salary of almost $10,000 (£7,300) to all those who lost a job.

From China, Hong Kong, India and Japan, the new billionaires include Li Jianquan, whose firm, Winner Medical, makes personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers, and Dai Lizhong, whose company, Sansure Biotech, makes Covid-19 tests and diagnostic kits.

The total number of billionaires in the Asia-Pacific region grew by almost a third from 803 in March 2020 to 1,087 by November last year, and their collective wealth increased by three-quarters (74%), the report said.

The report said the richest 1% owned more wealth than the poorest 90% in the region. The wealth gap is set to grow. Credit Suisse forecasts that, by 2025, there will be 42,000 more people worth more than $50m in Asia-Pacific and 99,000 billionaires. The number of millionaires by 2025 is projected to be 15.3 million, a 58% increase on 2020. Both the World Bank and IMF have said that coronavirus will cause a significant increase in global economic inequality.

Mustafa Talpur, of Oxfam Asia, said: “It is outrageous and highly unacceptable that poor people in Asia [were left at] the mercy of the pandemic facing severe health risks, joblessness, hunger and pushed into poverty – erasing the gains made in decades in the fight against poverty.

“While rich and privileged men increase their fortunes and protect their health, Asia’s poorest people, women, low-skilled workers, migrants and other marginalised groups are being hit hardest,” he added.

Covid created 20 new ‘pandemic billionaires’ in Asia, says Oxfam | Global development | The Guardian

  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16.1 percent of children under age 18 lived in poverty in 2020, up from 14.4 percent the year before. The poverty rate also ticked up for people aged 18 to 64, from 9.4 percent to 10.4 percent.

Each year, the federal government awards states a block grant, or lump sum, of funding, with the intention that the money is spent to help poor people meet their basic needs. States have discretion in how they can use the money.

According to recently released federal data, states are sitting on $5.2 billion in unspent funds from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF.

Tennessee has $790 million in federal welfare funding sitting around — the largest pool of unspent welfare dollars nationwide.

 Hawaii has $364 million idling in an account, equivalent to $2,923 per person living in poverty. 

And Oklahoma has $264 million, nearly double its annual TANF budget of $138 million.

Hoarding Welfare Funds Amid Rising Need in US – Consortium News

 New Year’s Revolution?

New Year’s resolutions are already

Withering like forgotten Christmas wreathes

Left on rarely opened doors. This world seethes

With discontents; the News being a steady

Litany of wars and prospects of wars,

Diseases, and those too poor for medicine,

Sad-eyed children too bloated or too thin

From want of food, and empty shelves in stores.

All the while, billionaires, trillionaires,

Accounting for so few, still demonstrate

There’s plenty enough, that it is not fate

But choice as to who might access the world’s wares.

Nothing’s resolved without resolution

To elect the common weal solution.

D. A.

  “The world’s poorest are bearing the brunt of climate change — poverty, migration, hunger, gender inequality, and ever more scarce resources — despite having done the least to cause it.” – CARE’s UK CEO Laurie Lee

 White person: Where are you from?

Non-white, non-Indigenous person: Melbourne.

White person, confused: No, no. I mean, where do you really come from?

It is a question that very clearly asserts its purpose: “People who look like you don’t come from here. White people come from here. So, where do you really come from?”

It isn’t always said with malicious intent.

The underlying meaning is still the same, though – you can’t be from here. White people come from here.

It was common within western literature that the terms “people” and “white people” were readily interchangeable.

But they still kept all the racialised adjectives, classifications and slurs for everyone else.

It is why generations of people were taught that when a newspaper refers to “a 23-year-old Sydney man” that man is probably white, because if they weren’t, it would have said “a 23-year-old Aboriginal man living in Sydney”.

What is racial invisibility, and how do white people benefit from it? | Luke Pearson for IndigenousX | The Guardian