“Rango” is a 2011 animated film set in Nevada. The villain, (capitalist) is a tortoise, Tortoise John who is controlling the water supply to the desert town of Dirt for his own nefarious ends. He is eventually overcome by a chameleon named Rango.

The “Mail Online”, 23\1\23, has a story about water, this life necessary resource:

Residents in drought-hit Arizona town skip showers and use rainwater to flush toilets after supply was cut off – while neighbouring luxury $60,000-a-year golf course keeps its sprinklers on

• Over 500 families in the sleepy suburb of Rio Verde Foothills have just days before their water tanks run dry

• Neighbouring city Scottsdale said it cut off the town’s water to conserve supply for its own residents – but next door golf course remains lush and green

• Home owners in the suburb are now suing Scottsdale – who they say are unwilling to work to a solution – to reinstate their water supply.

Do English and Welsh water customers need to start investing in water butts and rain barrels? Readers must decide how much longer they are going to allow capitalism to accelerate poverty and ill health of the class which runs capitalism for the ruling class and which is exploited by that class. Spoiler alert: the answer is not higher taxation of the exploiters.

“English and Welsh households are expected to see their water and sewage bills surging 7.5% starting April, marking the biggest increase in nearly 20 years, the country’s industry body Water UK announced on Thursday.

The hike will see customers pay around £1.23 ($1.51) a day on average – an increase of £0.08 ($0.10) per day, or £448 ($551) per year, £31 ($38) more than in 2022.

The updated figures come amid warnings that one in five customers are already finding it difficult to pay. Consumer groups are warning that the increase could further squeeze households hit by the raging energy crisis.

However, Water UK highlighted that the hike for most customers across England and Wales will be below inflation. The data takes into account that the November CPIH (Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs), set as the benchmark by the regulator, was 9.3%.

In December, the measure of the rate of overall price rises in the UK was 10.5%.

“Water bills remain lower, in real terms, than they were a decade ago,” Water UK said, adding that the rise reflected higher energy costs, with water firms using about 2% of the UK’s electricity.

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) said there was a postcode lottery of social tariff schemes, meaning some people who need help with their bills “slip through the net.”

“These increases will bring more uncertainty to struggling households at a time when they can’t be certain they will get the help they need,” CCW chief executive Emma Clancy told Sky News.”

RT 4\2\23

Dave C.

 “Real earnings in Germany decreased by an average of 4.1% in 2022 compared with a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the statistics agency Destatis released on Tuesday.

A drop in real earnings refers to a situation where wage increases are unable to keep up with rising inflation, thus reducing spending power. Last year was the third consecutive year in which real wages declined.

“High inflation has led to the largest loss in real earnings for employees since the beginning of the time series in 2008,” Destatis wrote, noting that consumer prices jumped 7.9% last year.

Meanwhile, nominal earnings in the country increased by only 3.4% on average in 2022. This figure takes into account the gross monthly earnings of employees including extra payments, Destatis explained.

Europe’s largest economy suffered from record inflation last year due to a surge in energy prices brought about by the drop in deliveries from Russia amid Ukraine-related sanctions. Issues with pipeline maintenance and then the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines further exacerbated the tight supplies. Last month, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said the German economy would avoid a sharp decline but is set to enter a technical recession.”

RT 8\2\23

Dave C.

 “The world is closer than ever to a global conflict, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday. The global community is not even “sleepwalking” into “a wider war” but marches towards it “with its eyes wide open,” he stressed in a speech to the General Assembly.

“The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing,” Guterres said, denouncing the lack of “strategic vision” and “bias” that prevent political decision-makers from taking steps in the right direction.

“This near-term thinking is not only deeply irresponsible – it is immoral,” he argued, adding that politicians and entrepreneurs became too absorbed with clinging to power and their business cycles.

The secretary-general also blasted the erosion of international law and order based on UN principles, which, according to him, led to the present sorry state of affairs.

“If every country fulfilled its obligations under the [UN] Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed,” he noted, calling on UN members to “to transform our approach to peace by recommitting to the Charter – putting human rights and dignity first, with prevention at the heart.”

“We need to wake up – and get to work,” Guterres said, adding that 2023 had placed humanity in front of a “confluence of challenges unlike any in our lifetimes.”

The UN chief also pointed to the fact that scientists have moved the symbolic “Doomsday clock,” which reflects the potential annihilation of humanity, to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to a possible Armageddon.

The UN chief’s words came after the US and its allies vowed to send dozens of Western-designed modern battle tanks to Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The Pentagon also announced supplying the Ukrainian forces with munitions that have a 150-kilometer range, adding that it would allow Kiev to use them as it sees fit.

Moscow has previously repeatedly warned that continued weapons supplies to Ukraine by the US and its allies risk further escalation that might spiral into a direct conflict between Russia and NATO.”

RT4\2\23

Dave C.

 A new report from the U.N. Environment Program warns that as many as 10 million people could die from so-called “Superbugs” annually by 2050 as the result of antimicrobial resistance driven by environmental pollution and irresponsible practices from a range of industries.

The report, titled Bracing for Superbugs, explains how pollution from hospital wastewater, sewage discharged from pharmaceutical production facilities, and run-off from animal and plant agriculture can be rife with “not only resistant microorganisms, but also antimicrobials, various pharmaceuticals, microplastics, metals, and other chemicals, which all increase the risk of AMR [antimicrobial resistance] in the environment.”

According to the study, the pharmaceutical industry frequently releases untreated wastewater containing “active pharmaceutical ingredients” such as “antibiotics, antivirals, and fungicides, as well as disinfectants.”

Those contaminants increase the likelihood that “resistant superbugs” will “survive in untreated sewage,” 

From the agricultural industry, the report warns that the “use of antimicrobials to treat infection and promote growth” among livestock, the “use of reclaimed wastewater for irrigating crops, use of manure as fertilizer, and inadequate waste management” all serve as entry points for AMR organisms into the environment.

“The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem,” said Andersen at the sixth meeting of the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (GLGAMR) in Barbados. “The impacts of anti-microbial resistance could destroy our health and food systems. Cutting down pollution is a prerequisite for another century of progress towards zero hunger and good health.”

Currently, AMR is linked to as many as 1.27 million deaths per year.

Fueled by Industry Pollution, Superbugs Could Kill 10 Million People Per Year by 2050: UN (commondreams.org)

 Haiti is experiencing the worst level of hunger in its history, with 4.7 million people suffering from acute hunger, the World Food Programme recently warned. In Haiti half its children rely on humanitarian aid to survive, Unicef says.

At least 2.6 million are expected to need immediate lifesaving assistance this year as the overlapping crises leave Haiti’s children in the worst position since the earthquake of 2010, Unicef’s Haiti representative, Bruno Maes, told the Guardian.

“Haitian children don’t just face challenges accessing food and potable water while the health system collapses around them,” Maes said. “There is also a lack of protection. Children are being abused, young girls are being raped and services are not there at the scale they should be for their survival and development.”

“Humanitarian assistance to children and their families, one of the few remaining lifelines for children in Haiti, is a buffer that prevents the country from spiralling into a cycle of social unrest, insecurity, instability and more poverty,” said Garry Conille, Unicef director for the region.

 Anarchy reached new heights in late January when police – the last line of defence against the gangs – staged a revolt. Angry officers terrorised Port-au-Prince, firing guns into the air, creating roadblocks of burning tyres and trapping the prime minister in the airport. Gangs have seized control of two-thirds of the capital, bringing human rights abuses, unprecedented malnutrition and the return of cholera. To support health centres, Unicef has to negotiate access with gangs, who are now the de-facto authorities in many areas.

Maes said: “All the children suffered from the presence of the armed group there, which shows how much violence and insecurity is spreading around the city. In the south, the north, the mountains and suburban areas – in fact, it’s everywhere, and kids are paying a heavy price.”

 Médecins Sans Frontières suspended all its operations at a public hospital in west Port-au-Prince on 26 January after three masked men burst into an emergency room, dragged a patient outside and shot him dead. It was the second such incident in six months that forced MSF to close to protect staff.

The humanitarian crisis is expected to intensify this year, with no obvious political solution in sight.

Yet again, another energy corporation declares record profits.

 Breastfeeding promotes brain development, and protects infants against malnutrition, infectious diseases and death, while also reducing risks of obesity and chronic diseases in later life. It also helps protect mothers against breast and ovarian cancers. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusively breasfeeding babies for the first six months and giving breast milk alongside solid food until the age of two.

25 experts from 12 countries, including paediatricians, public health specialists, scientists, economists and midwives, find that commercial milk formula companies “exploit parents’ emotions and manipulate scientific information to generate sales at the expense of the health and rights of families, women and children”.

The “economic and political power” of the dominant formula milk companies and countries’ “public policy failures” mean that fewer than half of infants globally are breastfed as recommended, the Lancet 2023 Series on Breastfeeding found.

Dr Nigel Rollins, a co-author of the series and a paediatrician in the department of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health at the WHO explained, “The sale of commercial milk formula is a multi-billion dollar industry which uses political lobbying alongside a sophisticated and highly effective marketing playbook to turn the care and concern of parents and caregivers into a business opportunity. It is time for this to end. Women should be empowered to make choices about infant feeding which are informed by accurate information free from industry influence.”

The voluntary uptake of the code is not enough and call for an international legal treaty to regulate lobbying and the commercial marketing of infant formula milk to protect the health and wellbeing of mothers and families.

‘Underhand’ formula milk ads stop millions from breastfeeding, experts say | Breastfeeding | The Guardian

 More than a third of species in the United States are at risk of disappearing, according to a study.

Some 40 per cent of animals and 34 per cent of plants are under threat of going extinct, and 41 per cent of ecosystems are at risk of collapse, according to the conservation group NatureServe.

The assessment of the natural world was based on five decades of research and the work of more than 1,000 scientists in the US and Canada.

The highest percentage of species at risk are California, Texas and the US southeast.

In total, about 1,250 plants are categorized as “critically imperiled” by NatureServe – the last stage before extinction. Almost 50 per cent of cacti species and 200 types of trees are at risk of extinction. More than three-quarters of grasslands face dying out.

A wide array of threats are heightening the possibility of extinctions but including the climate crisis, invasive species, river pollution and habitat degradation.

Among pollinators, bees are particularly threatened, with 37% of assessed species classified as at risk. Bees in the West are more threatened than bees in the East

Sean O’Brien, president of NatureServe, called the report’s findings “terrifying” and urged lawmakers to do more to protect the environment.

Biodiversity in Focus: United States Edition | NatureServe

 India is buying more and more cheap Russian oil and refining it into fuel for Europe and the US.

India shipped about 89,000 barrels a day of gasoline and diesel to New York last month, the most in nearly four years. 

Daily low-sulfur diesel flows to Europe were at 172,000 barrels in January, the most since October 2021.

When Russian crude is processed into fuels the refined products can be delivered to the EU because they’re not deemed to be of Russian origin.

Oil’s New Map: How India Turns Russia Crude Into the West’s Fuel (yahoo.com)

Gallup International asked people in 57 countries whether they would prefer to live in another country or stay where they are. 

More than one-third (36%) said they would like to emigrate. People want a better life.

 Younger generations — including those in Europe — are more and more mobile.

 Poor urban populations in many parts of the world — especially in the so-called developing world — are desperate to leave for a better place.  People from low-income countries want to migrate to a place where the standard of living is higher. 

To wish to migrate to a country that offers better possibilities, better conditions, more options for recognition and even better chances to earn more money is quite understandable and normal.

 Many people in the EU say they would migrate, just because they can. In this case, however, migration is mostly from one EU country to another. Mobility in the EU is dynamic. It is also one of the freedoms and rights of being an EU citizen.

International poll shows one in three would emigrate – DW – 02/04/2023