More than half of parents and nearly two-thirds of grandparents believe life is more difficult and stressful now than when they were children, citing money issues, house prices, the climate crisis and emotional anxiety linked to school and social media, according to the charity Action for Children.

Mental illness continued to register as a major worry for children, with 42% believing their own mental health to be an issue, compared with 29% when the question was asked in the previous Action for Children childhood survey in 2019.

 In 2019, 17% of parents and 9% of grandparents recognised mental health as a concern. By 2021 this had increased to 45% of parents and 30% of grandparents.

 A third of children believe their parents enjoyed a better childhood than theirs. Many cite increasing worries around mental health, school stress and family finances, with those from poorer backgrounds much more likely to be pessimistic.

38% of children from low-income households (up to £20,000 a year) were more likely to say their childhoods were worse, this fell to 26% of children from households with an income of £70,000 or more. Similarly, 64% of poorer parents thought children’s lives were worse, compared with 48% from richer households.

Half of the children from low-income households are worried about family finances, for example, compared with 14% of children from wealthier families. Children from poorer families are far less confident they will get the job they want, and twice as likely to believe they will not get to university.

Childhoods have got worse in Britain, survey reveals | Children | The Guardian

 The nearby Russian-Ukraine war has also sent European governments scrambling to build up their own military strength. After years of resisting US pressure, last month Germany said it would allocate €100 billion ($110 billion) to a special fund in 2022 to top up its defence budget and raise it above the 2% of GDP required by NATO. Defence stocks surged following the news. 

 The arms lobby is pushing for investors and EU regulators to classify the industry as “sustainable.” The arms lobby and some financial institutions are seizing the moment to push their argument that defence companies should be included in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria.

Swedish bank SEB has already adjusted a brand new sustainability policy to now allow its funds to invest in the defence sector.

“It’s absurd to say weapons are sustainable,” said Christian Klein, professor of sustainable finance at the University of Kassel in Germany. 

Andrew Murphy, director of Murphy&Spitz, a sustainable asset management firm in Germany explained  measures like expanding the use of renewable energies and improving public transportation. “This is what needs to be promoted. Not the arms industry, not weapons that kill innocent people, destroy habitats and — in the wrong hands — enable wars of aggression by power-hungry rulers.” He added. “The failure to focus on the most economically and ecologically viable forms of energy, namely energy from wind and solar, is what enabled Putin to wage wars of aggression in the first place.”

Pointing to Ukraine war, arms lobby pushes for ′sustainable′ label | Business | Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 24.03.2022

IT IS THE SAME IN EVERY WAR

The bloody butchery of world capitalism had been unleashed in Ukraine. Working people in their masses were being sacrificed as human offerings to the insatiable god of Mammon. The recruiting sergeants pour forth the propaganda of nationalism. Those who once waved the red flag in peacetime and carry their national flags in war. It is easy to favour peace when there is no war. But, because they adhere to the ideology of capitalism and do not recognise it as a world system based upon a clear class division between capitalists and workers, the phoney socialists abandoned the internationalism of the working class in favour of the interest of capitalist nations. We have been asked to support “wars for democracy” and “wars of national liberation” and “wars for self-determination”. 

In every case the World Socialist Movement has refused to support the view that the workers’ interest can be advanced in any way by means of capitalist war. It is not only in peace that we have spoken of peace, but in war too, even though the consequences for our members have not been easy or comfortable. War has only one cause, so it has only one possible solution: world socialism.

We hold that the working class must march to its emancipation from wage-slavery and the domination of the capitalist class, by the conquest of political power. In the Britain the means  to accomplish this are already in the hands of the workers, the workers have the overwhelming majority of the votes at their disposal when an election takes place. Hence the great, immediate, and pressing work requiring to be done is the education of the working class to an understanding of socialism to a realisation of their slavery and the method of their emancipation.

The working class are slaves to the capitalist class. While the workers produce all existing wealth by applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, this wealth, and the instruments necessary for its production, along with the great storehouse of Nature’s materials -the earth- are owned and controlled by the master class under a system of private ownership that necessitates the selling of the bulk of the products upon the markets. But while powers of production increase by leaps and bounds, the markets grow but slowly. Hence the struggles between the various groups of capitalists for the control of these markets and the routes thereto so that they may dispose of the commodities the wage-slaves have produced. Practically all the wars of the last three centuries, from the struggle against the Dutch and Portuguese in India to the present carnage have had their essential causes rooted in the demands of the various groups of capitalists to control these markets and routes.

The workers’ share of these conflicts has been to slaughter each other in their masters’ interests, to find a grave if killed, or be offered the degrading and comfortless shelter of the workhouse if disabled or maimed. The hardship, misery, want, and suffering following these wars fall always upon the working class.

No matter which group of the masters win the struggle, the workers remain enslaved. The division of interests is not between the peoples of the world, but between the classes – the master class and the working class. Not, therefore, in their fellow Workers abroad, but in the master class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found.

What interest have the workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none.

Every socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow workers. All those who on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist.

Moreover, where the working class have the necessary means – the franchise – for their emancipation within their grasp it is clearly an anti-socialist and treacherous act to urge them to use those means for the purpose of placing political power in the hands of the masters. The flimsy excuses so often used to cover up such acts of treachery to the working class merely add evidence to support the truth of this statement.

Applying these tests of real understanding of socialist principle and correct action to the organisations in this country claiming to be socialist, we find all of them except the Socialist Party failing to stand that test. The so-called  Labour Party is ready at all times to make political bargains with the capitalists and to urge the workers to place power in the hands of the masters.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY alone takes up the socialist position. THE SOCIALIST PARTY places on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home. Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity.

We declare that there was nothing in the conditions of any country which justified socialists voluntarily supporting either side in the war, and record our condemnation of such action as a betrayal of socialist principles arising from lack of political knowledge and unsound political organisation.

So, with our own hands clean and our every action in accord with the CLASS struggle and the solidarity of the interest of the working class the world over, we bring before the international proletariat our DEMAND FOR PEACE without any change of attitude or re-adjustment of policy. We stand for PEACE without reference to terms, since the fruits of capitalist war are the masters’, and only the pains and penalties of the Workers’.

To the socialists of other countries we extend our fraternal greetings. As soon as conditions will permit us to do so we shall endeavour to join forces with our comrades for the purpose of establishing a global socialist movement  where socialist policies shall be decided, where mis–leaders and tricksters who use the name and fame of socialism will be exposed and denounced, where the message of socialism will be sent forth to the toilers of all countries in clear and unmistakable terms, where the gage of battle against the capitalist class will be thrown down to the clarion call:

“WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS; YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.”

Negotiate Not Escalate

 There is no such thing as an ideal foreign policy. In international politics, there is no policy that will suit all times and all circumstances. There is none that can be carried out to give a guarantee of enduring peace. After every outbreak of war historians and journalists look back to this or that turning point, and say that if only a certain government had acted differently, with more foresight, the war would not have happened. This kind of reasoning rests on assumptions that are not justified. It assumes that a government is a free agent, able to follow any policy that the international situation may seem to call for. It ignores the forces behind the government which determine the government’s attitude and limit its freedom of action; the electorates that have to be considered, but more important commercial, industrial and financial groups whose demands on foreign policy are coloured by their trading and other interests, such as the so-called “isolationists” versus the “interventionists”.

The view taken by the “wise-after-the-event” historians assumes, too, that if one government gave a certain lead in international affairs other governments would react in a simple practicable way, determined either by fear of opposing a strong group of super-powers or by the mutual desire to maintain world peace.

 Another problem is also that political leaders all too often ignore their own intelligence reports when they don’t fit with their political goals. Those goals reflect ideological and electoral concerns such as the need to appear to be acting in strong and determined ways – to be more assertive protectors of “freedom” than their competitors in the opposition party. This works to make presidents and prime ministers prone to opportunism and short-sightedness.

Capitalism forces all governments to compete in the world market and to strive for aims that cannot be satisfied. In order to solve the insoluble problems of its own industries and financial organisations every nation, great or small, is demanding something which the other nations cannot afford to yield. And the whole problem is complicated by the sectional interests within each country, each trying to influence foreign policy. Alongside all this is the fact that the propertied class in all countries fears “subversive” influences and leans towards other governments which look like firm bulwarks for the defence of property.

The  Socialist Party has the clearest and most positive attitude to war. We are opposed to all wars, whether they be major and worldwide, or minor and localised. Our opposition to all war has been consistent from the time of our origin.

 Our opposition to war is an opposition distinct from all others. It is not an opposition based upon religious beliefs; and although we are opposed to war on social and humanitarian grounds, our opposition is not limited to a humanitarian approach – it goes much further.

The socialist opposition to war results from our analysis and opposition to capitalism; the realisation that this system is the cause of war; further, that the working class are living under a system that can never be made to operate in their interests; and that war is inevitable under capitalism, and that the two go hand in hand and should be completely opposed by the workers at all times until they are both finally eliminated, one with the other.

The  Socialist Party’s answer is that we can uproot the cause of war by organising to uproot the capitalist system.

 Workers have more than the necessary numbers to vote capitalism out and socialism in, as proposed by the  Socialist Party. This new social system, the working people alone can bring into being, thus forever putting an end to wars, and establishing the society of human solidarity based on freedom, peace and abundance.

To conclude: Sentiment and emotion for a fine cause are laudable. But without a sound premise and defined goal, they can only end in failure and despair. The crying need of our time is not marches and demonstrations for limited and impossible to attain objectives, but determined, unrelenting action to awaken the working class to the imperative need for a socialist reconstruction of society, and to enlighten them on the principles and program for accomplishing that social change in a peaceful manner.

To quote scripture, Isaiah saw in prophetic vision a time when nations should war no more—when swords should be transformed into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. The fulfilment of the prophecy only awaits socialism and the solution to the economic problems we all face. All else is futile and hopeless.

 Thousands of people, mostly Russian nationals, protested in the Czech capital against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Demonstrators also called on Putin to release political prisoners

 Organizers said it was important to show that Russian expatriates are not secret Putin supporters. Russians in Prague are “not Putinists, they are Europeans.”

Protester and former soldier, Oleg Golopyatov, said: “Just because we are Russians doesn’t mean we are automatically for the war.”

Ukraine: Russians living in Prague stage anti-war rally | News | DW | 26.03.2022

 International nurses working for NHS trusts and private care homes are being trapped in their jobs by clauses in their contracts that require them to pay thousands of pounds if they try to leave.

In extreme cases, nurses are tied to their roles for up to five years and face fees as steep as £14,000 if they want to change jobs or return home early.

Parosha Chandran, a barrister and UN expert on human trafficking who helped shape the UK’s modern slavery laws, likened the clauses to “debt bondage” and called for them to be reviewed at the highest level. “This gives rise to very serious concerns about exploitation,” she said.

Designed to retain staff and recoup recruitment costs, they often cover hiring expenses such as flights to the UK, visas and the fee for taking language and competency exams. In many cases, they also include the costs of mandatory training, which workers hired in the UK are not routinely required to pay.

Nurses affected by the repayment terms, many of whom served on the frontline at the height of the pandemic, said they had been pushed into debt or locked into long-term payment agreements after leaving roles, even in cases of bullying or family emergencies. Others stay in jobs despite illness or poor working conditions as they fear they will be unable to repay, charities and unions said.

Patricia Marquis, director for England at the Royal College of Nursing, said she was “very concerned” by a practice which flourished “in a climate of chronic understaffing”. The RCN was aware of some employers using punitive clauses which could result in workers being forced to pay thousands of pounds.

“We have also heard of cases in which employers try to frighten and intimidate staff with threats of deportation should they choose to work elsewhere,” Marquis said.

Susan Cueva, a trustee of the charity Kanlungan, which supports Filipino migrants, said: “They are taking advantage of these workers who have no clue about the rules in the UK,” she said. “They end up thinking, ‘I better sit tight, even though I’m suffering,’ because they can’t afford to pay it back.”

It costs between £10,000 and £12,000 to recruit an overseas nurse, but employers can save £18,500 in agency nurse costs in the first year alone, according to one estimate. By comparison, it takes three years to train a nurse in the UK and costs about £50,000 to £70,000.

Overseas nurses in the UK forced to pay out thousands if they want to quit jobs | Nursing | The Guardian

  600 million people, or 50 percent of Middle East and North Africa (MENA)  population, may be exposed to “super-extreme” weather events by 2100 at current projections, raising questions about “human survivability” in some areas.

At current projections, some areas in MENA could see temperatures potentially reaching 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher in the coming decades, rendering them uninhabitable. 

Severe water and food scarcity and the mass movement of “climate refugees” have been forecast.

‘Grave threat to life’: UN climate chief issues warning for MENA | Climate Crisis News | Al Jazeera

TRADE UNIONS AND THE TROTSKYIST LEFT

Speaker: Howard Moss

Tomorrow from 10:00 am (GMT+1)to 12:00 pm

The oppressed and exploited are always cannon-fodder to be called upon to take part in another war that threatens to slaughter men, women and children and bring ruin, misery and devastation. Our rulers will have us believe that this or that war is to be fought for a good cause to win our sympathy and pity. It is to mislead and to deceive by calling you to join up and fight for ‘democracy’. It’s the bait to catch us.

The World Socialist Movement deplores war and the ruin in its wake. War is part and parcel of the capitalist system. War is a feast for the dogs of war. It means armament spending and huge weaponry orders, an orgy of currency speculation and the accumulation of unheard-of fortunes. One sector of the economy class that is forever prospering and is the arms industry. It means riches for the war profiteers. But, for sure, war also means squandering the wealth and means actual devastation of countries plus death for many. But these ‘costs of war’ rarely appear in their annual accounts and have never deterred the capitalists from plunging nations into bloody conflict. International conferences to settle disputes end in fiasco. The quest for markets is nothing but the question of re-dividing the globe among the capitalist nations. We live in a pervasive atmosphere of imminent war with frequent ‘war games’ in the air, on the land and at sea with constant modernisation of warfare taking priority over welfare in every countries’ budgets.

Workers must realise that war is against their interests. There is only one war that is just — and that is the war of the oppressed class for its liberation. All other wars are predatory wars for the securing seizure of territories and markets for the profits of the exploiters, but they are fought with the bodies of the workers. We cannot stop war altogether. It is not possible to prevent the coming of war as long as capitalism lasts. However, war can on some occasions be postponed. forcing governments to refrain from immediately carrying out war plans. The fight against the war is a political fight. The working class must be stirred by protest meetings and demonstrations.

The danger of war arises inevitably out of the very nature of capitalism — the ownership of the means of production by a small capitalist class and the complete domination of government by this class. In war the World Socialist Movement does indeed take sides, but it’s the third side. It’s the side of the workers, against the owning class that exploits them and also against the owning class that hopes to exploit them. Our position is not people against people but class against class.

A united front against war is appealing. What possible reason could one have in opposing an organisation composed of liberals, the churches and pacifists who are all determined to oppose war? Surely anyone who thinks that socialists alone can prevent war is being ridiculous, for the necessity of joining with all others who are opposed to war seems so obvious as to be beyond question. Nevertheless, those who understand the principles of socialism know that to depend upon any organisation other than the working class will sooner or later lead to failure. War is as intimately bound up with capitalist society as the exploitation of the working class by the employing class. To think of being able to prevent war, in the long run, without at the same time changing the system which breeds war, is utopian. Pacifists and reformists who in practice accept the present order of society and merely wish to ameliorate the conditions of the working class look to conferences and treaties to prevent war. Socialists look to the ending of capitalist society to prevent wars.

The World Socialist Movement has only one programme to prevent war: the programme of social revolution. That means that our struggle to end war is not something unique and separate from our normal, mundane socialist activities but is an intimate part of those activities. We do not create a permanent organisation to fight war with a special platform for that. The inference of many well-meaning and sincere campaigners is absolutely clear that wars can be stopped without a socialist revolution. No socialist can accept such an idea and we cannot lend our name to something which we know is wrong and which must inevitably confuse. Take, for example, the question of the idea of sanctions often raised by anti-war activists in regard to some conflicts. How could socialists ever consent to accept the idea of a boycott by one set of robbers against another gang of thieves? There’s is a most common mistake in the struggle against war, the belief that it exists ‘independent’ of the class struggle and that a broad alliance of all sorts of individuals from every social class and strata can be formed around the issue of fighting war, since – so their reasoning goes – these persons all equally opposed to war whatever their differences on other points.

War is not the cause of the troubles of society. War is a symptom. The only way to fight against war is to fight against the causes of war. Since the causes of war are part of the nature of capitalism, it follows that the only way to fight against war is to fight against capitalism. It, therefore, follows that the only possible viable struggle against war is the struggle for the socialist revolution. No one can uphold capitalism and fight against war, because capitalism means war. So to suppose, therefore, that the socialist movement can work out a common programme against war with non-revolutionaries is a fatal illusion. Any organisation based upon such a programme is not merely powerless to prevent war; in practice, it acts to promote war, both because it serves in its own way to uphold the system that breeds war, and because it diverts the attention from the real fight against war. There is only one case against war: the case for revolution to supplant the capitalist economy with a socialist society. Socialism will end national boundaries, placing the means of production under the ownership and control of society as a whole. This great aim, the elimination of war forever from the world, can be accomplished only by the overthrow of capitalism. The true enemy is at home: the class enemy and its political representative, the state. This is the enemy to be defeated, in every country.

This true struggle against war requires at every stage the utmost clarity and realism and the working class of every country must understand who their enemy is. They must understand that the enemy is not the people of any other nation against whom their ‘own’ government may wage war, but that the real enemy is the ruling class of ‘their own country’. Noble talk about ‘democracy’ or ‘peace’ or ‘defence’ or ‘collective security’ is cant and hypocrisy. Every conception of patriotism and nationalism must be opposed.

The only war worth fighting is for a world socialist cooperative commonwealth.

An analysis tracked back to 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, reveals top energy companies helped build Putin’s war chest to nearly $100 billion. 

Greenpeace USA, Global Witness, and Oil Change International looked at eight companies: BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, OMV, Shell, TotalEnergies, Trafigura, and Wintershall Dea.

“While the Russian government has benefited from majority state-owned or state-controlled oil companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft,” the document states, “European and U.S.-based corporations have also spearheaded large oil and gas projects that filled Putin’s coffers.”

“BP’s and TotalEnergies’ share of the royalties and taxes paid by the Russian companies, proportional to their equity stakes,” specifically calls out BP, which the researchers say was responsible for over 80% of the $95.4 billion because of its Rosneft stock. “Although BP has announced it will divest its stake in Rosneft,” the report adds, “the past impact of this equity stake cannot be negated—both in terms of the benefit to Rosneft from the capital provided, and the cash flowing as a result to the Russian state.”

“BP and other big energy companies are now trumpeting their withdrawals from Russia but do they expect us to forget the almost $100 billion they’re responsible for putting into Putin’s pockets in recent years?” asked Murray Worthy, at Global Witness. Worthy explained that “whilst BP might deny accountability for the consequences of its stake in Rosneft and the payments made to Putin’s war chest, it has always been more than happy to benefit from the billions that have flowed from its involvement in the company.”

He  added, “The Russian energy industry is Putin’s biggest earner and companies like BP that turned a blind eye to the Crimean invasion, continuing to support money pouring into his war chest, should surely be questioning whether they now have Ukrainian blood on their hands.” 

“Fossil fuels are the currency of despots, dictators, and warmongers,” declared Lorne Stockman, research co-director at Oil Change International. “Our global reliance on oil and gas is not only killing our planet but also making the world a less safe and equal place.”

“Big Western polluters like BP and Shell have been all too happy to work in countries with despicable human rights records for over a century,” Stockman said. “They must avoid looking to other autocratic regimes to replace the resources they have foregone in Russia. Now is the moment to end the fossil fuel era.”

‘Ukrainian Blood on Their Hands’: Analysis Details How Big Oil Funded Putin’s War Chest (commondreams.org)