“…movements such as “America first”, “China first”, “India first” and “Russia first”, “my tribe first”, threaten to descend into an us versus them geopolitics of “my country first and only”…” Gordon Brown 

Nationalism is the ideology of our age. No wonder the world is in crisis | Gordon Brown | The Guardian

 Wages are rising at their fastest rate in more than 20 years, but still lag well behind the soaring cost of living.

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) said states were depriving themselves of $89bn (£75bn) a year by allowing some of the world’s biggest companies anonymity over the way they use tax havens to conduct their tax affairs.

In its State of Tax Justice 2022 report, it called for an end to the concession made to multinational companies that they would not be named and shamed if they provided information about shifting profits into tax havens.

TJN said that on its calculations, governments could recoup 28% of the $316bn lost in cross-border “tax abuse” in 2021 if a loss of anonymity shone a light on the activities of all multinationals.

The UK legislated in 2016 to make country-by-country reporting publicly available but never used the power, and the idea was abandoned in 2020 by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor. Last year, according to TJN estimates, the UK lost £27bn to multinational corporations underpaying tax.

Rachel Etter-Phoya, a senior researcher at the Tax Justice Network, said: “The OECD concession to corporate tax abuse is a political choice to turn a blind eye. Our governments patronise us with talk about making ‘tough decisions’ to deal with the global cost of living crisis, then choose to stay quiet about multinational corporations that have privately confessed to cheating the public out of billions in tax. They’re choosing to protect the cherries on the cakes of the richest corporations while people worry about putting food on the table. Our message to governments is clear: stop the cover-up, to lift living standards up…”

Global corporations ‘cheating public out of billions in tax’, say campaigners | Tax avoidance | The Guardian

 Diabetes—a disease that can wreak havoc on organs, eyesight, and limbs if left unmanaged—affects more than 37 million U.S. adults and is the country’s seventh leading cause of death.  The price of insulin, which is needed to treat diabetes, is so astronomical in the U.S. that experts have accused the federal government and pharmaceutical industry of violating human rights.

In a letter addressed to Senate and House leaders more than 50 organizations wrote: “World Diabetes Day marks the birthday of Frederick Banting, who discovered insulin and famously sold its patent for $1 and stated, ‘Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.’ Despite its discovery more than 100 years ago and the generosity of Banting and the co-inventors, many people living in the United States still struggle to afford access to the insulin they need.”

“As people in the United States struggle to access affordable insulin, the big three drug corporations that manufacture insulin have repeatedly and sharply raised prices and aggressively sought to extend lucrative product monopolies, resulting in many billions of dollars in excessive spending,” states the letter. “Since the 1990s, insulin manufacturers have raised prices many times over for U.S. patients, as much as 1,100%, despite their products remaining largely unchanged, and low production costs.”

On Twitter last week, a user created an account posing as Eli Lilly’s official page. 

The user proceeded to tweet that “insulin is free now,” causing Eli Lilly’s share price to drop and drawing fresh attention to the sky-high price of the medicine in the U.S.

Although it costs a mere $10 to produce a vial of insulin, uninsured patients in the U.S. pay $300 to $400 per vial of the century-old drug because the three pharmaceutical corporations that control the nation’s lucrative insulin market charge excessive prices. 1.3 million people in the U.S. ration insulin, including an estimated 1 in 4 people with type 1 diabetes.

“Abusive pricing of insulin, which the very same corporations who sell insulin here sell for a fraction of the price in other wealthy countries, has led to immense profits for these corporations at the cost of preventable suffering and death of people who need insulin, in addition to billions of dollars drained from government coffers and consumers’ bank accounts,” the letter continues.

Amid Eli Lilly-Twitter Fiasco, Groups Call for End to Insulin Price Gouging (commondreams.org)

  Save the Children is warning that thousands of lives could be lost to starvation and cholera, especially children from the poorest and most vulnerable households.

About 200,000 more children in Haiti have been pushed into crisis-levels of hunger this year, with almost half the country’s population not knowing where their next meal will come from, Save the Children said.

The number of people experiencing crisis-levels of hunger or worse in Haiti has risen  to 4.7 million — including 2.4 million children — up from 4.3 million earlier this year.

For the first time ever, more than 19,000 people, including about 9,600 children, are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

Haiti is also battling its worst cholera outbreak since 2010, with more than 6,800 suspected and confirmed cases reported since 2 October. Children are most at risk from the deadly disease, with those 19 and under making up more than 41% of confirmed cases.  Children who are already facing severe acute malnutrition are especially vulnerable to the spread of cholera and are at least three times more likely to die if they contract the deadly disease.

Chantal-Sylvie Imbeault, Save the Children’s Country Director in Haiti said:

“The situation in Haiti is rapidly deteriorating. Millions of children are going to bed hungry every night, and for the first time ever, we’re seeing children face famine-like conditions. Many families are being pushed to the brink and using credit to purchase everyday food items due to a dire combination of economic collapse, political turmoil, and gang violence that is blockading fuel and life-saving food. The country is now on the verge of collapse, and we fear the worst for millions of children.”

Haiti: 200,000 more children pushed into hunger since March, as nearly half the population goes hungry – Haiti | ReliefWeb

 Since Russia invaded Ukraine, some eight million Ukrainian refugees have registered across Europe. The EU has opened its borders and granted displaced Ukrainian citizens temporary protection. With 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees, Poland has taken the largest number. A total of 1,019,789 people entered Germany for reasons related to the war in Ukraine.

Organizations working for refugees have been raising the alarm, accusing European countries of unequal treatment towards Ukrainian refugees on the one hand and refugees from other crisis regions on the other. Ukrainian refugees are being given priority by a two-tier refugee policy.

The EU opened its borders with the  Temporary Protection Directive that allowed Ukrainian refugees to enter the European Union without a visa and without formally requesting asylum. In Germany, refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine don’t need a visa for the first 90 days if they enter before November 30, 2022. After the first 90 days, they need to register and apply for a temporary residence permit. According to Germany’s Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), this provision runs until February 28, 2023.

Depending on the host nation, the social benefits that Ukrainian refugees can access vary. In Germany, Ukrainian refugees have been incorporated into the welfare syste since June 1, where they may receive public health insuranc, permission to seek gainful employment, unemployment benefits, child benefits, financial assistance for students of higher education and retirement benefits. Ukrainian refugees are permitted to travel to Germany by train free of charge, and Germany’s national railway company DB even offers numerous concessions for local transport. 

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, refugees who were not considered “white” reported discrimination to various media outlets. In March, the human rights organization Amnesty International observed the situation on the ground and found that refugees fleeing Ukraine who didn’t hold Ukrainian passports, and especially People of Color, were experiencing discrimination both in Ukraine as well as in host countries. In Ukraine, the report continued, students from Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa were hindered from boarding trains in order to leave the country.

In contrast, refugees fleeing crises in other countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iraq receive less. 

This is in accordance with the so-called Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act. They can only hope for a residence permit after months or even years of proceedings. Then, after being recognized as refugees, they, too, have access to the welfare system.

Fact check: Does the EU prioritize Ukrainian refugees? – DW – 11/12/2022

 Described by the United Nations’ desertification agency as one of the greatest threats to human society, it’s estimated that over 40% of the world’s land is already degraded. Around 1.9 billion hectares of land, more than twice the size of the United States, and roughly 1.5 billion people globally are affected in some way by desertification, according to U.N. estimates.

In 2015, at Cop21 in Paris governments agreed to pursue efforts to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5C. Now, it is irrelevant. The world’s largest food companies, whose products have been linked to the widespread destruction of rainforests, have failed to come up with an adequate strategy to align their business practices with the 1.5C climate target.

The leading producers of soya beans, palm oil, cocoa and cattle published their roadmap to align with 1.5C earlier this week, promising to develop and publish commodity-specific, time-bound targets on stopping deforestation which will be backed by science and checked each year. The companies include the Brazilian beef firm JBS, the American agricultural firm Cargill and the Singaporean food processing firm Wilmar International.

To comply with 1.5C, all land use conversion must stop by 2030 with significant progress made by the middle of the decade, according to scientists.

Nico Muzi, managing director of the environmental group Madre Brava, said the plan announced at Cop27 did amount to some progress but said the commitment fell short of what was needed, especially in the meat sector. 

“There are two flagrant omissions: a cutoff date to stop soy-driven deforestation now, and the exclusion of conversion by cattle and soy expansion of the largest savanna region in South America, Brazil’s Cerrado,” she said.

Cristiane Mazzetti, a senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace Brazil, said some of the companies had previously promised to rid deforestation from their supply chains by 2020 and had failed.

“We cannot afford any more greenwashing or reckless behaviour from these companies who profit from the destruction of ecosystems and come up with more delays and inadequate plans to halt and reverse the destruction they drive that will continue to fry the planet.” 

André Vasconcelos, of Global Canopy, said the companies needed to go further for the plan to be credible.

“Tackling deforestation is integral to staying under 1.5C,” he said. “Traders need to go further, faster. The roadmap needs a proactive stance towards avoiding future deforestation and conversion, including a concrete commitment not to invest in further infrastructural development in key deforestation frontiers. There needs to be a commitment to a common cutoff date across commodities that includes all types of ecosystems.”

Food firms’ plans for 1.5C climate target fall short, say campaigners | Climate crisis | The Guardian

People from working-class families earn several thousands of pounds a year less on average for doing the same jobs as their more privileged peers, according to a landmark study of the class pay gap.

Professionals from working-class backgrounds earn £6,718 less on average, while women and most ethnic minorities face a double disadvantage, according to the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF), which conducted the research. Working-class professional women earn £9,450 less than men, while working-class Bangladeshi professionals earn £10,432 less than their white counterparts in the same jobs.

Working-class chief executives earn £16,749 less than their peers. Finance managers are paid £11,427 less, and accountants and solicitors have a gap of more than £8,000. Police officers, firefighters and army officers earn £5,229 less than their middle or upper-class peers. Academics face a £5,807 penalty, with £5,123 for IT workers. Teachers and social workers also earn about £2,000 less.

The 13% class pay gap affects hundreds of thousands of people and means that tomorrow marks the day when working-class professionals will effectively start working for free.

Revealed: working class people paid thousands less than middle class peers despite doing same jobs | Class issues | The Guardian