‘Afghanistan’s supreme leader said Sunday the country’s women were being saved from “traditional oppressions” by the adoption of Islamic governance and their status as “free and dignified human beings” restored.

In a statement marking this week’s Eid al-Adha holiday, Hibatullah Akhundzada — who rarely appears in public and rules by decree from the Taliban’s birthplace in Kandahar — said steps had been taken to provide women with a “comfortable and prosperous life according to Islamic Sharia”.

The United Nations expressed “deep concern” last week that women were being deprived of their rights under Afghanistan’s Taliban government and warned of systematic gender apartheid.

Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have stopped girls and women from attending high school or university, banned them from parks, gyms and public baths, and ordered them to cover up when leaving home.

They have also barred them from working for the UN or NGOs, while most female government employees have been dismissed from their jobs or are being paid to stay at home.

However, Akhundzada said “necessary steps have been taken for the betterment of women as half of the society”.

“All institutions have been obliged to help women in securing marriage, inheritance and other rights,” his statement read.

Akhundzada said a six-point decree issued in December 2021 guaranteed women their rights.

Among other things, the decree outlawed forced marriages and enshrined the right to inheritance and divorce.

“The negative aspects of the past 20-year occupation related to women’s hijab and misguidance will end soon,” Akhundzada said.

A report to the UN’s Human Rights Council last week by Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur for Afghanistan, said the plight of women and girls in the country “was among the worst in the world”.

“Grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid,” Bennett said.

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif added: “Over the past 22 months, every aspect of women’s and girls’ lives has been restricted.”

“They are discriminated against in every way.”

Despite his rare public appearances, Akhundzada has regularly issued lengthy “state-of-the-nation”-style statements ahead of important Muslim festivals and holidays.

“At the national level, the independence of Afghanistan has been restored once again,” he said.

He praised Afghanistan’s economic resilience, efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation, and the improvement in national security.

“It is our shared responsibility to protect and serve our Islamic system,” he said.

“The current system is the result of the sacrifices of thousands of mujahideen. Let’s stand by each other, eliminate conspiracies, value security and prosperity and work together for its further enhancement.”’.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/afghan-supreme-leader-says-women-084842660.html?guccounter=1

X Marks the Spot

Prices are rising, real wages falling,

The climate’s becoming overheated,

Public protests gradually deleted,

While the death toll of warfare’s appalling.

Politicians maintain the status quo

If possible, at least that’s their intent,

No matter which party they represent,

Just so long as capital’s profits flow.

‘Spurn the ballot box!’ some radicals say,

‘It only lets the government get in.’

But power is there for people to win

Through choosing real change come election day.

On the map to the future everyone’s got

Look carefully for where X marks the spot.

D. A.

Namibia is a a country in Southern Africa. Its population is over two million eight hundred thousand. Twenty six per cent of its population live in extreme poverty.

 The most deprivation occurs in the the rural areas.

https://worldpoverty.io/ma

A report in the Namibian would appear to indicate that almost half of Namibia’s population are living in poverty or extreme poverty.

‘Almost half of the country’s population are faced with poverty, says prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila. She was speaking at the launch of the delayed sixth National Development Plan (NDP6) by the National Planning Commission (NPC).

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the government had reduced poverty from 38% to about 18%, however, matters have since worsened.

“If you look at the new formula to calculate poverty, close to 50% of the population is living under poverty,” she said. Since 2016, the country experienced a macro-economic deterioration which exposed Namibia’s vulnerability to external shocks, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said.

“These had a negative impact on our poverty and inequality. In fact, the gains we made in reducing poverty were almost completely wiped out,” she said.

A month ago, The Namibian reported that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said 43% of the country’s population are experiencing multidimensional poverty.

According to the UNFPA 2022 annual report, the Gini coefficient index shows that income inequality in Namibia stands at 57,2%.

The Gini index is a summary measure of income inequality, which incorporates the detailed shared data into a single statistic, summarising the dispersion of income across the entire income distribution.

The report indicates that the unemployment rate stands at 33,4%, with youths aged 15-34 taking up 46,1%, while women take up 48,5%.

The report further indicates that 46% of households are female-headed, while 41% are male-headed.

At that time, economic analyst Arney Tjaronda told The Namibian these figures are not surprising, as the cost of living has drastically increased while salaries remain low.

He said most concerning is the high unemployment rate in the country, and a job market that is unable to absorb the high number of graduates’.

https://www.namibian.com.na/nearly-50-of-population-living-in-poverty-says-pm/

An unemployment rate of over a third with young people and women being affected the most means that many Nambians are struggling under capitalism.

The World Bank notes: ‘Economic advantage remains in the hands of a relatively small segment of the population, and significant inequality continues. This lack of inclusiveness and society’s vast disparities have led to a dual economy—a highly developed modern sector, co-existing with an informal subsistence-oriented one’.

‘Namibia ranks as one of the world’s most unequal countries. Its Gini coefficient of 59.1 in 2015 was second only to South Africa. Geographical disparities in both economic opportunities and access to services are large and widening. High levels of inequality result in starkly different poverty rates across different groups, including by age and gender’.

‘Due to consistently negative per capita GDP growth since 2016, and the negative impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods, poverty rates are projected to have increased. Typically, female-headed households, less educated, larger families, children and the elderly, and labourers in subsistence farming, are particularly prone to poverty.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/namibia/overview

Capitalism is global. Capitalism is the cause of such misery. Capitalism is not the solution. Socialism is.

‘.

‘The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image’. Manifesto of the Communist Party.

China purports to be communist. Mao Zedong declared China a ‘communist’ state on 1st October, 1949. China was then, not communist but a state capitalist society. ‘The change from state capitalism to a mixed state and private system may have been started by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, but the idea of China being part of the global economy did not originate with Deng. As Mao Zedong is reported to have told a US diplomat in 1945: ‘China needs to build up light industries to supply her own market and raise the living standards of her own people. Eventually she can supply these goods to other countries in the Far East. To help pay for this foreign trade and investment, she has raw materials and agricultural products. America is not only the most suitable country to assist this economic development of China: she is also the only country fully able to participate’, Socialist Standard July 2017. ‘

The piece below, taken from a Time article entitled: ‘China’s Solution to Inequality? Cracking Down on Displays of Wealth and Poverty’, demonstrates the inequality that permeates Chines society. It would seem to show that young people in particular are badly served in a society exhibiting many capitalistic traits.

‘In recent weeks, senior Chinese officials held urgent meetings with business leaders to discuss revitalizing the economy. The country’s youth unemployment rate has climbed to a record 20.4% in April, and then to 20.8% in May, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. (When officials revealed that they considered anyone working at least an hour a week to be employed, speculation abounded online that the real unemployment rate is in fact much higher.)

This has come as a rude awakening for millions of Chinese young adults, who have long been told that studying hard would come with the reward of financial stability. In response, Chinese authorities have urged them to swallow their pride and accept lower-end jobs—a proposition that has left many feeling betrayed.

“In a context like today’s China, the wealth gap is so big that young people from an average family background realize that no matter how hard they try they can never reach that kind of wealth. So they just stop trying,” says Huang. ( Tianlei Huang, the China Program coordinator at the Peterson Institute for International Economics).

China’s Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, has decreased significantly since the 2000s, but continues to hover above 0.46, which by international standards signals a high level of income inequality.

“The showing off of wealth among wealthy people, especially those who work in the government and state companies, is like adding oil to fire,” says Shan. “It just reveals the hard truth of how unequal the society is.”’.

(Shan Wei, a senior research fellow of Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore).

More at link.

https://time.com/6289559/china-inequality-wealth-flaunting-common-prosperity/

Inequality where ever it is found in the world under the present system will only be abolished when capitalism is abolished and is replaced by real socialism.

‘

Hail the Daily Mail, the workers friend! Just kidding.

A piece in the MailOnline joyously proclaims how, following their ‘experts’ advice, a family was able to cut their food bill by a third. That’s now down to approximately six thousand pounds a year down from nine thousand pounds a year

The piece does give examples from various supermarkets of the hardly believable increases in some of their commodities.. Three items the Mail highlights have had a price increase of 175, 143, and 120 per cent.

Instead of editorializing about the the iniquities of a social system that promotes such greedflation the Mail prefers to pat itself on the back by offering advice on how to spend an inordinate amount of time in developing ‘new shopping skills’. Apologies, forgot that the Daily Mail is owned by Jonathan Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere.

Look out for the next article on how to save on Champagne, caviar and minions who do all the heavy graft.

The family in the article do note that before taking part in this experiment their food bill had increased by seventy per cent despite already being careful shoppers.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12308441/How-slash-weekly-shop-Family-reveals-new-shopping-skills-save-households-thousands-pounds-amid-soaring-costs.html

Chicken is a versatile food that can provide a number of varied meals.

Even non-animal activists are probably aware that the supermarket cost is lower than a that of a chicken bought from a local butcher because of intensive factory farming.

Vegans and vegetarians are likely to point a ‘told you so’ finger at the news that now even chicken may not be safe to eat.

‘A major meat supplier to UK supermarkets is sourcing chickens dosed with antibiotics linked to the spread of deadly superbugs, raising the risk of future outbreaks of life-threatening disease, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.

The Polish meat giant SuperDrob is sourcing chicken from factory farms that use medicines classified as “critically important” to human health, despite the grave risk this poses to consumers. SuperDrob sells frozen poultry products to Lidl, Asda and Iceland.

The company was linked to a fatal salmonella outbreak in 2020 – which TBIJ, the Guardian and ITV can now reveal involved bacteria resistant to multiple drugs – and there were at least 15 salmonella contaminations linked to SuperDrob poultry in the 18 months that followed.

Bacteria such as salmonella can easily spread on poultry farms, particularly where there are unhygienic or overcrowded conditions. The use of antibiotics on farms can enable potentially lethal bacteria to develop resistance, meaning the drugs will no longer work to treat infections. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria – known as “superbugs” – are a growing threat to human health, leading to an estimated 1.2 million deaths globally in 2019.

To reduce the risk of superbug outbreaks, EU legislation tightened up the use of antibiotics on farms as of last year. Yet the use of drugs critical for human health on farms in Poland, Europe’s biggest producer of poultry meat, has soared in recent years.

The country has accounted for more than half of serious salmonella contaminations involving meat originating in the EU since 2020. SuperDrob is one of Poland’s leading poultry producers and more than 50% of its revenue is from exports.

In recent years, sales of a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones, which are often used to treat serious salmonella infections, have increased by more than 70% in the country. Data shows even larger increases in the sales of colistin, a last-resort drug used to treat serious infections that have not responded to other medicines. Both are classified by the World Health Organization as critically important for human health.

More at link.

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2023-06-20/polish-meat-giant-supplied-superbug-infected-chicken-to-uk-shelves

For socialists the solution to the problem of more and more expensive food, putting many necessities out of the reach of many, is a straightforward one.

It is the replacement of capitalism, a profit-based social system by socialism, a money-free social system where food , and other life essentials, is produced for use, not profit. How hungry are you for that?

 ‘The UNDP brief comes after a pair of U.N. reports from Wednesday that detailed how debt is burdening the developing works and revealed the climate emergency, conflicts, and the Covid-19 pandemic have pushed an additional 122 million people into hunger worldwide since 2019.’

Nigerians experienced an almost twenty five per cent increase in their food bills in May.

Following on here from a post on poverty in Nigeria, 5 July, it is now reported that:

‘A state of emergency has been declared in Nigeria as a result of food shortages and surging prices, with the country’s government announcing a range of measures to address the crisis.

On Thursday, it was announced that fertilizers and grains will “immediately” be released to farmers, and 500,000 hectares of farmland and river basins will be activated for year-round farming.

The move will also expand the central bank’s role in financing the agricultural value chain.

“We declared a state of emergency and unveiled a comprehensive intervention plan on food security, affordability, and sustainability, taking decisive action to tackle food inflation,” President Bola Tinubu said on Twitter.

Tinubu emphasized that the goal of the intervention was to promote agriculture and increase job creation, pledging that “no one will be left behind” in his government’s efforts to ensure “affordable, plentiful food.”

Attahiru Bafarawa, a former governor of Nigeria’s Sokoto State, had warned earlier this month about banditry in the country’s north, saying it threatens food security and was a “serious disaster.”

Africa’s largest economy has seen a surge in the cost of food and transportation due to the president’s removal of fuel subsidies and sweeping exchange-rate reform since May.

In a statement on Thursday, government spokesperson Dele Alake said “savings from the fuel subsidy removal” would be directed at revamping the agricultural sector.

A National Commodity Board will be established and charged with reviewing food prices and maintaining a “strategic food reserve that will be used as a price stabilization mechanism for critical grains and other food items,” Alake said.

The cost of food in Nigeria had increased by 24.82% in May compared to the same time last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). It explained that the year-on-year increase in food inflation was caused, among other things, by price hikes in oil, yam, bread, cereals, and fish.’

We will keep on saying it; the solution is socialism.

The Guardian reports that Which? Have noted supermarket prices show an increase of twenty five per cent over the last two years.

‘Two years of relentlessly soaring food prices have had a devastating impact on households,” said Sue Davies, the Which? head of food policy. “This isn’t helped by the confusing and inconsistent pricing practices used by some supermarkets, which make it incredibly difficult to work out how to find the best value products.’

Perhaps Which? Should take out a subscription to the Socialist Standard where it will discover that the ‘devastating impact on households’ is caused by capitalism.

The German owned Aldi and Lidl have the highest inflation figures , 19.3 per cent and 21.4 per cent. Across two years their inflation rate is verging on thirty five per cent.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) inflation data for June is expected to show a rate of 8.2% from 8.7% in May. The Bank of England’s target remains at two per cent inflation. Are house buyers in for another kicking soon?

The ‘best value’ products will be those which are produced for use in a socialist society – because they will be free.

The tinkering with the practices of capitalist food providers benefit no one.

Think of the benefits to all if the effort expended in making the capitalist system more palatable to all was focused on bringing about socialism.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/15/uk-supermarket-food-prices-which-loyalty-card-deals

 Friday 14 July 19.30 GMT + 1 (Zoom)

‘As corporate profits soar, the real income of workers in 38 wealthy countries has fallen by an average of nearly 4% over the past year, and the situation could deteriorate further as artificial intelligence and other forms of technology threaten to automate 27% of existing jobs in the same nations.

That’s according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) latest annual employment outlook which stresses the “urgent need to act.”

One of the report’s key findings is that in most high-income countries, labour markets have “stabilized” since the Covid-19 pandemic unleashed economic chaos more than three years ago. The OECD unemployment rate was 4.8% in May 2023, compared with 5.3% in December 2019. However, joblessness varies widely among the club’s members, from 12.7% in Spain to 3.6% in the United States and 2.4% in the Czech Republic.

Tight labour markets typically improve workers’ bargaining power, yielding wage gains. But despite historically low unemployment rates in many OECD countries, the report finds that real wages across the bloc declined 3.8% between the first quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.

Nominal wages increased 5.6% from Q1 2022 to Q1 2023, but that wasn’t enough to offset the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, the report indicates. As a result of high and persistent inflation—a phenomenon that many experts says is inseparable from corporate profiteering—real income decreased by as much as 15.6% in Hungary, 10.4% in the Czech Republic, and 0.7% in the United States.

Several earlier analyses have shown that since the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted international supply chains—rendered fragile by decades of neoliberal globaliation—highly consolidated corporations have capitalised on myriad crises to justify price hikes that far outpace the rising costs of doing business, padding their bottom lines at the expense of working-class consumers.

The OECD’s new report also acknowledges that “profits have often risen more than labour compensation.”

As corporate profits soar, the real income of workers in 38 wealthy countries has fallen by an average of nearly 4% over the past year, and the situation could deteriorate further as artificial intelligence and other forms of technology threaten to automate 27% of existing jobs in the same nations.

“Going forward,” the report notes, “evidence suggests there is some room for profits to absorb further wage adjustments to recover some of the losses in purchasing power gradually without generating significant price pressures or resulting in a fall in labour demand.”

Workers’ incomes could take additional hits due to technology-induced automation.

“While firms’ adoption of AI is still relatively low, rapid progress including with generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT), falling costs, and the increasing availability of workers with AI skills suggest that OECD countries may be on the brink of an AI revolution,” the report states. “It is vital to gather new and better data on AI uptake and use in the workplace, including which jobs will change, be created or disappear, and how skills needs are shifting.”

The report estimates that 27% of existing jobs in OECD countries are at high risk of automation, from AI and other technologies. If even a fraction of those jobs are automated, it could lead to a surge in unemployment—weakening workers’ bargaining power in relation to employers and setting the stage for further wage repression.

“High-skill occupations, despite being more exposed to recent progress in AI, are still at least risk of automation,” says the OECD. “Low- and middle-skilled jobs are most at risk, including in construction, farming, fishing, and forestry, and to a lesser extent production and transportation.”

According to the report, 63% of finance workers and 57% of manufacturing workers are worried about job loss due to AI in the next 10 years.’

https://www.commondreams.org/news/oecd-wages-down-ai-revolution