“Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr. Ure, Professor Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class had predicted, and to their heart’s content proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labour must sound the death knell of British industry, which, vampire like, could but live by sucking blood, and children’s blood, too…Yet the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economic monopolies…. they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labour.,..To conquer political power has, therefore, become the great duty of the working classes.”

Karl Marx, Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association. 1864

The 1833 Factory Act and the 1842 Mines Act began to ameliorate  the ages that children could be exploited and restricted the hours they could work.

The  1878 Factory Act prohibited work anywhere before the age of 10.The 1880 Education Act made it compulsory  for children up to ten years old  to go to school This  then became up to twelve years old.

Child labour laws were not enshrined in the United States until The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

A piece in RT by Bradley Blankenship, 24\2\23, examines the efforts by American capitalists to reintroduce child labour.

“Amid an ongoing push for higher wages by US workers, including union-building efforts and a national railway strike that was averted last December, some states are finding ways to undercut the working class.

One method, as Business Insider reports, is for the US to start allowing children aged 14-17 into the workforce. The federal government has said this practice is already increasing in an illicit fashion, too.

In the last month, Republican lawmakers in Iowa and  Minnesota have introduced legislation that would allow exceptions to existing child labour regulations. This is aimed at ameliorating the ongoing labour shortage in the US, which is also plaguing other countries, predominantly in the West.

The proposed bills in these states would allow children to work more hours and “protect employers from liabilities due to sickness or accidents,” which could help specific industries like construction and meatpacking that are being hit hard in these states.

The federal government also create a new rule in January allowing people wishing to be professional truck drivers to obtain their Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) at the age of 18 instead of 21. This was done because, as CNN reports, “the head of the American Trucking Associations said the industry needed about 80,000 more drivers.”

Minnesota wants to see 16 and 17-year-olds allowed to work in construction, which can be a dangerous job. Iowa wants to see even younger children allowed to work in their meat-packing plants.”

Dave C.

 The Israeli rights groups Peace Now and B’Tselem also described the attacks as a settler “pogrom” supported by the Israeli government.

300 attacks, including shootings and arson in the Nablus area of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials say, in what has been described as a “pogrom”

37-year-old Palestinian, Samih al-Aqtash was shot and killed by settlers protected by the Israeli army in the village of Zaatara south of Nablus.

390 Palestinians were injured across the villages of Huwara, Zaatara, Burin and Asira al-Qibliya.

Stabbings and attacks with metal rods and rocks, and one person in hospital with a fractured skull after being beaten in the head with a rock. Another was beaten with a metal rod to the face, 30 Palestinian homes and 100 cars were set on fire by settlers.

Video shows the attacks taking place under the protection or in coordination with the Israeli army, sometimes with soldiers and settlers shooting side by side.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/27/unprecedented-israeli-settlers-wreak-havoc-on-occupied-nablus

Jordan hosted a meeting between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Aqaba attended by Egypt and the United States, called in order to discuss steps to de-escalate tensions.

The closing statement of the Aqaba summit, said: “The Government of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority confirmed their joint readiness and commitment to immediately work to end unilateral measures for a period of 3-6 months. This includes an Israeli commitment to stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorisation of any outposts for six months,”

After the statement was announced, Netanyahu said that there “will not be any freeze” with regards to settlement construction.

“The building and authorisation in Judea and Samaria will continue according to the original planning and building schedule, with no change,” he said, using the biblical term for the West Bank.

A number of top ministers in Israel also confirmed that the Israeli government will not temporarily halt the announcement of new illegal settlement units.

Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, who headed the Israeli delegation at the summit, said “Contrary to reports and tweets about the meeting in Jordan, there is no change in Israeli policy,”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, “…there will not be a freeze on construction and development in settlements, not even for one day,”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/27/403

“The speed and efficiency in which settlers take over Palestinian lands by building farming outposts is coupled with a lot of violence,” Dror Etkes, Kerem Navot founder and settlement researcher, told Al Jazeera.

According to the latest United Nations figures, 2022 recorded the highest number of settler-related incidents since the international organisation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs started monitoring them in 2006.

Etkes said that the establishment of outposts is usually associated with a huge amount of violence…Israeli human rights group Yesh-Din data from 2005 to 2022 show that 93 percent of all investigations into ideologically motivated crime in the West Bank are closed without an indictment.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/2/27/israeli-settler-outposts-threaten-palestinian-bedouins

Israeli group B’Tselem summed it up.

“This isn’t ‘loss of control.’ This is exactly what Israeli control looks like. The settlers carry out the attack, the military secures it, the politicians back it…”

 Nothing demonstrates the destructive waste of the capitalist system more than the work of vast numbers of people in the arms industries and in the armed forces. On a world scale, many millions of people are involved both directly and indirectly in war machines. As well as the numbers in the armed services every branch of industry, manufacture, communications and transport has been used to mine and process every kind of material for the production of the missiles, fighter aircraft, bombers, warships, tanks, guns, bombs, shells, bullets and much more, all of which make up the military in capitalist states. 

In itself, the use of armed forces together with people in industry and manufacture for armaments production and the use of materials, represents a great waste but the purpose of war resources is to inflict death and destruction, which leads to further waste. This results in a socially insane circle of destruction which accumulates. We shall never know how many people were killed as a result of war since the beginning of the 20th Century. With each contestant inflating their enemies numbers whilst minimising their own, official figures are unreliable.

War objectives include the destruction of industrial, chemical and manufacturing installations with their machinery and equipment. Targets also include communications systems such as railways, roads, bridges, ports, power facilities and communication networks. Towns and cities have become prime targets. Creating terror, causing destruction and killing civilians have become acceptable battle tactics.

War happens in the modern world between rival capitalist states in pursuit of strategic economic objectives. These include an ability to maintain trade from a position of strength, access to and control of important materials (such as oil), access to and control of important trade routes, the retention and expansion of economic and political spheres of influence. These objectives of war are an extension of the economic objectives of capitalist production, which are to maintain a monopoly of ownership and control of the production process and an ability to trade, as a basis for the accumulation of capital. Therefore, because modern war is inherent in the national economic rivalries of the capitalist system, it can be rightly said to represent a vast waste of human and material resources, together with bringing about unimaginable misery and suffering. This waste and destruction would not happen in a system in which all humanity shared a common interest in co-operating to produce for their mutual needs. In a world socialist system,  the material assets of the entire planet would be for the benefit of all people.

 Wars are not  undertaken out of any sentimental reasons. War is the product of commercial conflicts; the aim of war – to impose upon the enemy those economic conditions one considers necessary for oneself. All possible pretexts for war are applied, but their actual causes are always questions of economics. Outward causes may seem credible to the media. One is “defending” oneself, or fighting nobly for the independence of a country, the third is defending the interests of “civilization”, purely out of idealism, against “barbarians”. 

In reality, however, all fight for the interests of a handful of magnates. In almost all the wars of recent decades, as in former times, both sides considered themselves the attacked. Whether defence or the necessity of a strategic position is alleged as the cause of war, whether treaties must be violated or similar reasons play a part – in the long run everything has its origin in business interests. For the simple but decisive reason that trade is the heart’s blood of a nation-state.

Every belligerent state contends:

1. That it is conducting a defensive war and is fighting for the just cause.

2. That it is conducting a fight for the freedom and civilization of all peoples.

3. That it is striving for a lasting peace.

4. That it is bending all efforts and will fight until the enemy has been conclusively beaten.’

5. That it will be the victor, beyond a doubt.

6. That it is forging ahead victoriously and has only slight losses to record.

7. That the bombs of its hit only the military institutions of the enemy and always with great success.

8. That its pilots and its artillery are far better than the pilots and artillery of the enemy.

9. That at this very moment, it is planning great measures which promise absolute success.

10. That the good Lord is on its side.

And every belligerent state further contends:

1. That the enemy wanted the war and was preparing for it long ago.

2. That the enemy began the war and attacked “us”.

3. That the enemy is conducting a war of conquest and wants to dominate the world.

4. That the enemy is trampling underfoot the rights of the people.

5. That the enemy has violated the neutrality of the small states and threatens the neutrality of other small states.

6. That the enemy is conducting the war with barbarous means.

7. That the enemy uses outlawed weapons

8. That the enemy is misusing the Red Cross.

9. That the enemy mistreats prisoners of war.

10. That the enemy violates women, murders and plunders.

11. That the military courts of the enemy are a mockery of the law.

12. That the enemy kills prisoners of war

13. That the enemy bombards open cities, kills women and children, but does not do “us” the slightest military damage thereby.

14. That the attack of the enemy is always nipped in the bud or else is beaten back with great losses for the enemy.

15. That the enemy is using chemical or biological bombs.

16. That the enemy is a pirate on the high seas.

17. That the enemy is needlessly preventing neutral trade.

18. That the reports of the enemy are lies through and through, and calumnies to boot.

19. That the enemy is trying to influence the neutrals by means of lies, threats and bribery.

20. That the enemy is egging the neutral states on to war – to their greatest misfortune.

21. That the enemy is suffering from a lack of money, rising living costs, industrial crises.

22. That the war loans and credits of the enemy are subscribed only by means of deception.

23. That epidemics are ravaging the enemy.

24. That strikes and domestic disturbances are the rule in the land of the enemy.

25. That the enemy’s ministers and generals are resigning.

26. That the enemy is war-weary. 

This list could on and on. What people find nn their nation’s media, is all the same thing everywhere, the same methods everywhere, the same “technique” for the deception of “its” people, everywhere.

A just war is impossible, just as impossible as a “just” struggle between thieves for the division of their loot.

 The USA has one of the most extensive rail networks in the world, but with diminishing safety standards. The rail-roads are almost exclusively used for freight and are owned and maintained by a handful of private transport giants, which together spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political lobbying.

Rail workers and unions have complained about mass layoffs and a declining culture of safety. Much of this has been blamed on the widespread adoption of so-called Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), which improves efficiency, but according to its detractors, is just a blunt cost-cutting measure that sacrifices safety for profits. Since 2017, railroads have slashed their workforce by 30%. workers warned that lax safety standards would eventually lead to a catastrophic derailment.

 Overworked rail workers are given barely enough time to walk the length of the train when inspecting carriages, with trains getting longer and more haphazardly assembled, inspection points being closed, and a culture of fear instilled in the much-diminished workforce.

Ohio chemical spill draws focus on railroad dangers – DW – 02/24/2023

 “The UK government needs to “take command” of local food production, the deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said on Saturday, warning that an ongoing shortage of fruit and vegetables across the country could be just the “tip of the iceberg.”

According to Tom Bradshaw, the deficit of some fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes and cucumbers, has been caused by volatility arising from geopolitical events, and climate change, which is putting intense pressure on supply chains.

“What we saw last summer with 40°C heat is climate change in action,” Bradshaw told Times Radio, adding that the weather had exacerbated a supply-chain crisis triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Bradshaw also said geopolitical tensions have driven up inflation, particularly energy inflation, to unprecedented levels, leaving UK farmers struggling to meet energy costs.

Moreover, Britain has been facing the additional challenge of “repositioning” itself with trading partners since the 2016 Brexit referendum, the union chief said.

He noted that the country’s exit from EU structures, in which it had favourable trade relations, has inevitably inflicted damage on its own cross-border trade.

“It’s really interesting that before Brexit we didn’t used to source anything, or very little, from Morocco but we’ve been forced to go further afield and now these climatic shocks becoming more prevalent have had a real impact on the food available on our shelves today,” Bradshaw concluded.”

RT 26\2\23

Dave C.

 

  Research revealed that basic benefits given to low-income households are at least £140 a month below the real cost of food, energy and everyday basics.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the food bank network the Trussell Trust said inadequate benefits were the main driver of the explosion in destitution and food bank use in recent months.

The two charities have calculated the weekly cost of a basic existence to be £120 for a single adult and £200 for a couple, based on a basket of goods and services including food, energy, travel, mobile phone and internet use, as well as smaller items such as toothpaste and washing-up liquid.

By comparison, even after April’s 10.1% benefits uprating, the universal credit standard allowance – the portion of the monthly benefit payment meant to cover basic living costs – will be £85 a week for a single adult aged over 25 (£35 less than the charities’ estimates) and £134 a week for a couple (a £66 gap).

In reality, more than half of households on universal credit receive even less than the basic £85 rate because of monthly caps and benefit deductions amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds a year, the charities say. A single adult facing deductions would typically see their basic rate allowance drop from £85 to £64 a week.

The charities have been increasingly alarmed by the unprecedented scale and depth of poverty witnessed in food banks, warm rooms and advice agencies this winter. Millions of low-income households have been left unable to afford even bare essentials as the cost of energy and food has rocketed, leading to overstretched welfare emergency services and shocking examples of extreme hardship.

They say the cost of living crisis has exposed a disastrous long-term erosion of benefits, whose value has fallen to a 40-year low in real terms as a result of freezes and cuts. This has led to rampant food insecurity, children turning up at school hungry, and the phenomenon of disabled people risking their health because they cannot afford energy bills.

A typical worker losing their job can see their income fall off a cliff when they claim unemployment benefits; universal credit replaces just 13% of average earnings.

The JRF chief executive, Paul Kissack, explained that the “so-called” welfare safety net had floated completely free from the economic reality of people’s lives. 

“With millions of low-income households going without essentials like food and heating, and food bank use at record levels, it is plain the system is failing,” he said.

The Trussell Trust chief executive, Emma Revie, said that even when its food banks helped vulnerable clients to claim their full benefit entitlements, in many cases their newly enhanced incomes still did not cover their basic living costs. 

“People have cut and cut, but you cannot budget if your budget isn’t enough,” she said.

UK benefits fall short of minimum living cost by £140 a month, charities say | Poverty | The Guardian

 On a global scale, meat consumption continues to rise: It has multiplied by almost five over the past 60 years, growing from 71 million tonnes in 1961 to 339 million tonnes in 2021, according to statistics from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This production has massive consequences for climate change: The livestock sector is responsible for 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions derived from human activities and half of the emissions of the agricultural sector worldwide.

In France, a mere quarter of the population describes itself as flexitarian, eating meat only occasionally, while 2.2 percent describes itself as vegetarian.

 Agricultural economist Carine Barbier, a researcher for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and The International Research Centre on Environment and Development (CIRED) explained, “It’s the principal cause of dietary-related greenhouse gas emissions. Ultimately, the whole food industry already represents 25 percent of French emissions, this includes the entire process, from the production to our plates as well as imports. Animal farming alone represents 9 percent of total emissions.”

Due to emissions of three types of greenhouse gas – carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide and methane – into the atmosphere, animal husbandry is costing the planet dearly. “CO2 emissions come from the use of fossil fuel for transportation, namely imports, (and) the use of machinery in agriculture as well as in the food processing industry and large retail outlets,” the expert explained. Nitrous oxide (N2O), on the other hand, “comes from the use of mineral nitrogen fertilisers in fields”, and methane is produced by the digestive system of cattle. Although not as well known as carbon dioxide, the latter two gases are not less harmful: N2O reflects 300 times as much heat as CO2 while methane reflects 28 times as much.

“Therefore we have to differentiate between ruminants, swine and poultry”, Barbier said. “Due to their particular digestive system, ruminants have a larger impact on the climate.” According to the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME), a kilogram of beef represents around 14 kilograms of CO2 equivalent (CO2e), which includes CO2, nitrous oxide and methane, 10 times that of poultry.

On top of its climate impact, animal farming is also responsible for detrimental effects on the environment. According to a 2015 report by the Physics Institution, livestock production accounts for 78 percent of terrestrial biodiversity loss, 80 percent of soil acidification and atmospheric pollution as well as 73 percent of water pollution.

“We also have to cut down on imports of animal feed. I’m thinking of, for example, soybean meal imported from Brazil that leans heavily on transport. Currently, transportation represents more than one-fifth of the food industry’s carbon footprint,” Barbier continued. “Why not return to crop-livestock systems in which farmers grow most of what the animals need by themselves?” But to make further progress in transforming large-scale farming methods, “it’s absolutely necessary to start reducing herd sizes”, Barbier insisted. These practical changes would set into motion a virtuous cycle. “For example, by cutting back on meat in our diets and decreasing cereal fodder and oil and protein crops used in animal feed, we would increase the area of arable land that we can use to grow crops for human consumption,” she added.

In addition to purely ecological thinking, she also advanced several nutritional arguments. “In any case, we consume too much protein, around 80 percent more than what we need,” the expert continued, pointing to oft-illustrated cardiovascular risks linked to overconsumption of meat. In 2019, a commission formed by the medical journal The Lancet estimated that Europeans should cut their red meat consumption by 77 percent while doubling fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes in order to respect the limits of Earth’s resources and to maintain their own health. “Reducing our consumption to reflect our real needs will considerably decrease the carbon footprint of our diets.”

“If we stick to the most moderate scenario, then we need to cut down two-thirds of our meat consumption and half that of milk products”, she explained. “By no means do we seek to remove meat completely from the entire population’s plates. It is a question of developing our diet and animal-farming practices to reach carbon neutrality.

‘A wake-up call for the industry’: Meat production in France under scrutiny amid climate change (france24.com)

 

The former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has warned that the world’s largest fund to help developing nations weather the climate crisis remains an “empty shell”, despite decades of promises by rich nations.

“We need to see a massive acceleration in mobilising trillions of dollars needed to keep the world from climate collapse,” he said.

International climate finance from rich to poor countries is between five and 10 times short of what is needed, according to the UN. In 2020, money set aside to help poorer countries adapt to climate breakdown amounted to $29bn – far below the $340bn a year that could be needed by 2030. The largest such fund, the Green Climate Fund, stands at $11.4bn. 

Rich countries have also been accused by NGOs of misleading accounting and issuing loans instead of grants.

At Cop15 in Copenhagen, rich countries promised to provide $100bn of climate finance a year every year for developing countries by 2020. However, Ban said: “After 14 years, nothing has been happening.”

Ban, is an advocate for smallholder farmers, who in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia produce 80% of the food but receive only 1.7% of climate finance. “This is irrational,” he said.

“What an injustice. If we want a world free of hunger while adapting to climate change, we need to put smallholder farmers at its centre.”

‘We have no time to lose’: Ban Ki-moon criticises climate finance delays | Global development | The Guardian

 Sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments rose 49% to $205.6 billion. Sales approved included $13.9 billion worth of F-15ID fighter jets to Indonesia, $6.9 billion worth of Multi-Mission Surface Combatant ships to Greece, and $6 billion worth of M1A2 Abrams tanks to Poland.

There are two major ways foreign governments purchase arms from U.S. companies: direct commercial sales negotiated between a government and a company, and foreign military sales in which a foreign government typically contacts a Defense Department official at the U.S. embassy in its capital. 

The direct military sales by U.S. companies rose 48.6% to $153.7 billion in fiscal 2022 from $103 billion in fiscal 2021, while sales arranged through the U.S. government rose 49.1% to $51.9 billion in 2022 from $34.8 billion the prior year. 

U.S. arms exports up 49% in fiscal 2022 | Reuters

  Russia is selling its military products to more than 50 countries. 

“We have a stable portfolio of export orders, which amounted to $50-$55 billion of US dollars (over 3 trillion rubles). The tendency remains approximately the same at present,” the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS) has told TASS.

Russia sells its military products to over 50 states, demand stable — federal service – Military & Defense – TASS