PDF version SS FEBRUARY 2022
Editorial – Sabre-rattling over Ukraine
Pathfinders – Is capitalism making us lose our marbles?
Colston verdict – the big picture
Cooking the Books 1 – Unfair Shares
Was Money Abolished in Cambodia?
Reading Capital as Crisis Theory: Part 2
Consumerism and Literature – The Epoch That Ate the World
Cooking the Books 2 – The Return of Tariff Reform
Amnesty International joins Human Rights Watch and B’tselem in describing Israeli laws, policies and practices against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories amount to apartheid.
Its new report alleges that the Israeli state maintains “an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis”.
Officially all Israeli citizens have equal rights, regardless of religion or race. But Amnesty’s report concludes that Israel “considers and treats Palestinians as an inferior non-Jewish racial group”.
“The segregation is conducted in a systematic and highly institutionalized manner through laws, policies and practices, all of which are intended to prevent Palestinians from claiming and enjoying equal rights with Jewish Israelis within the territory of Israel and within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and thus are intended to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people,” it says.
“This has been complemented by a legal regime that controls (by negating) the rights of Palestinian refugees residing outside Israel and the OPT to return to their homes.”
The report says the “territorial fragmentation” of the Palestinian population “serves as a foundational element of the regime of oppression and domination”.
Other aspects, it alleges, include the denial of nationality and residence; denial of family life; severe restrictions on freedom of movement; and discriminatory seizure and allocation of and access to resources.
The report also says Amnesty has documented inhumane acts – forcible transfer, administrative detention and torture, unlawful killings and serious injuries, and the denial of basic freedoms or persecution – that it says Israel has committed against Palestinians “with the intention to maintain this system” and that “amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid” under of the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Amnesty’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, explained that “There is no possible justification for a system built around the institutionalised and prolonged racist oppression of millions of people,” she said. Callamard added: “The international community must face up to the reality of Israel’s apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored.”
Israeli policies against Palestinians amount to apartheid – Amnesty – BBC News
811 million people – or 10 percent – of the world’s population go to bed hungry each night, 161 million more than the previous year.
Afghanistan is among the highest levels of food insecurity around the world. At least 37.7 million of its population of 40 million people – 93 percent – do not have enough food.
A record 23 million Afghans face acute hunger, with nearly 9 million a step away from famine, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
Two in five children (38 percent) under the age of five face chronic malnutrition – that is inadequate nutrition over a long period of time – which has led to stunted growth. Up to 1 million children under five are at risk of dying from malnutrition.
Yemen is one of the world’s poorest countries. According to the latest figures from the WFP, nearly half of the country (14.3 million) of 30 million people do not have enough food.
Nearly half (47.5 percent) of the country’s children under the age of 5 face chronic malnutrition.
A seven-year war has left at least 4 million people displaced and thousands dead.
After more than 10 years of conflict, Syrians are facing unprecedented levels of poverty and food insecurity. Some 12.4 million Syrians, out of a population of 20 million, do not know where their next meal will come from, an increase of 4.5 million in the last year alone and the highest number ever recorded.
Nearly one in three children (27.9 percent) under the age of 5 are living with chronic malnutrition.
Over the past few weeks, bitter winter conditions have compounded the poverty of millions of displaced people in northwest Syria where the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past year.
South Sudan is suffering its highest levels of food insecurity and malnutrition since independence in 2011.
According to the WFP, more than half the population (6.6 million out of 11 million) have insufficient food. One in three children under five suffers chronic malnutrition.
The continued conflict and the worst flooding in decades have wreaked havoc on vulnerable communities.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest number of highly food insecure people in the world: some 43.3 million out of the population of 106 million.
According to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 27 million people in the DRC are highly food insecure, with 857,000 children and 468,000 women likely suffering from acute malnutrition.
Somalia’s deteriorating security conditions and a crippling dry season has left upwards of 90 percent (11.4 million) of the East African country’s 12.3 million people hungry.
According to Famine Early Warning Systems, people have experienced not only a decrease in food supply and income, but also a prolonged drought, flooding in early 2020, a desert locust surge, the economic impact of COVID-19, and security issues with armed groups.
Infographic: Hunger and food insecurity in maps and charts | Infographic News | Al Jazeera
All Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are currently online on Discord. Please contact spgb.discord@worldsocialism.org for instructions on how to join.
Friday 4 February 7.30pm GMT
NEWS REVIEW, 7.30PM
Host: Mike Browne
General discussion on current affairs
CAPITALISM AND THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
Extract from podcast from Marxist-Humanist Initiative’s ‘Radio Free Humanity’, followed by discussion on why a ‘green capitalism’ is impossible.
Friday 18 February
FRIDAY NIGHT TALK, 7.30pm GMT
SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, MARXISM. WHAT’S IN A WORD?
Speaker: Howard Moss
Do we have exclusive rights to the meaning of ‘socialism’?
EVERGRANDE: CHINESE CAPITALISM’S LEHMAN MOMENT?
Hosts: Paddy Shannon / Adam Buick
Discussion on whether or not the collapse of the property company Evergrande would spark a financial and economic crisis in China that would have repercussions on the world economy.
Yorkshire Discussion Group
If you live in the Yorkshire area and are interested in the Socialist Party case you are very welcome to attend our forums which currently alternate on a monthly basis either on Zoom or physical meetings in Leeds. For further information contact: fredi.edwards@hotmail.co.uk