“The number of people forced to flee conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution has now crossed the staggering milestone of 100 million for the first time on record, propelled by the war in Ukraine and other deadly conflicts,” said UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

The figures combine refugees, asylum-seekers, as well as more than 50 million people displaced inside their own countries.

The 100 million figure amounts to more than one percent of the global population, while only 13 countries have a bigger population than the number of forcibly displaced people in the world.

UNHCR said the number of forcibly displaced people rose toward 90 million by the end of 2021, spurred by violence in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and since then, more than eight million people have been displaced within the country, while more than six million refugees have fled across the borders.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi, said, “This must serve as a wake-up call to resolve and prevent destructive conflicts, end persecution, and address the underlying causes that force innocent people to flee their homes.”

He continued, “Compassion is alive and we need a similar mobilisation for all crises around the world. But ultimately, humanitarian aid is a palliative, not a cure. To reverse this trend, the only answer is peace and stability so that innocent people are not forced to gamble between acute danger at home or precarious flight and exile.”

Grandi called for those countries to lift any remaining pandemic-related asylum restrictions, saying they contravene a fundamental human right.

“I am worried that measures enacted on the pretext of responding to Covid-19 are being used as cover to exclude and deny asylum to people fleeing violence and persecution.” 

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) chief Jan Egeland told reporters, “It has never been as bad as this. The world is falling apart.”

Number of displaced people passes 100 million for first time, says UN (france24.com)

 The largest private suppliers of children’s homes and foster care places in England, Wales and Scotland make excessive profits says a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report. Data on 15 large providers from 2016 to 2020 showed steady operating profit margins averaging 22.6%. The CMA says a well-functioning market should generate returns to investors of up to 6%, but the largest children’s home providers make about double that.

David Beasley, head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), is appealing to the compassion and charity of  billionaires  as the global threat of food insecurity rises. If Ukraine’s supplies remain off the market, the world could face a food availability problem in the next 10 to 12 months, and “that is going to be hell on earth”, Beasley said.

“The world is in real serious trouble. This is not rhetoric and BS. Step up now, because the world needs you.”

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man,  last year challenged policy advocates to show how a $6bn donation sought by the UN agency could solve world hunger. Since then  Musk donated about five million shares of company stock worth roughly $5.7bn to an unidentified charity in November. The US Securities and Exchange Commission filing did not name any recipients for Musk’s donation.

‘Step up now’: UN’s food agency presses billionaires for aid | Food News | Al Jazeera

“Musk put $6bn into a foundation. But everybody thought it came to us, but we ain’t gotten any of it yet. So I’m hopeful,” Beasley pointed out. “I don’t know what it’s going to take,” he said of Musk. “We’re trying every angle, you know: Elon, we need your help, brother.”

 Of more than 7,000 edible plants worldwide, only 417 are widely grown and used for food.

  A recent report from the Poor People’s Campaign highlights a key overlooked demographic in the pandemic response: poor and low-income people. Data from over 3,200 counties across the United States show that, after the first wave of the pandemic, poor counties experienced substantially higher death rates than richer counties. 

 During the pandemic, people living in poorer counties died at nearly two times the rate of people who lived in richer counties: After grouping counties by median household income into ten groups with equal population size (deciles), the report shows that death rates in the highest income group are half the death rates in the lowest income group.

 • During the deadliest phases of the pandemic, poorer counties saw many times more deaths than wealthier counties: 

A recent Pew study that broke the pandemic up into six phases shows that the deadliest phases of the pandemic to date were in winter 2020-2021 and the Omicron period.

 Except for the first phase in March 2020, death rates were many times higher in poorer counties than in richer counties: 

 – The second phase was mostly experienced by poorer counties. 

 – During the third phase (winter 2020-2021), death rates were 4.5 times higher in counties with the lowest median income than in counties with the highest. 

– During the Delta variant phase (August-November 2021), death rates were five times higher in these low-income counties. 

– The Omicron variant phase (approx. December 2021-February+) has had a death rate nearly three times higher in counties with the lowest median incomes compared to those with the highest median incomes

ExecutiveSummary_7.pdf (poorpeoplescampaign.org)

 The World Food Programme estimates about 49 million people face emergency levels of hunger. 

About 811 million go to bed hungry each night. 

The number of people on the brink of starvation across Africa’s Sahel region, for example, is at least 10 times higher than in pre-Covid 2019.

The total number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food assistance has nearly doubled since 2016, according to the Global Network Against Food Crises, a joint UN and EU project. 

 “An absolute crisis is unfolding before our eyes,” the World Food Programme’s director, David Beasley, said following visits to Benin, Niger and Chad. “We’re running out of money, and these people are running out of hope.”

Apocalypse now? The alarming effects of the global food crisis | World news | The Guardian

Expanding drought conditions, coupled with hot and dry weather, extreme wind and unstable atmospheric conditions, have led to explosive fire behavior in the south-western US, federal officials warned.  The climate crisis has set the stage for increasing and intensifying heatwaves in the coming decades, and models indicate that there could be between 25 and 30 extreme events a year by mid-century – up from an average of between four and six a year historically. They are also expected to cover wider swaths of land regionally than before.

Wildfires have broken out this spring earlier than usual across multiple states in the western US, where climate change and an enduring drought are fanning the frequency and intensity of forest and grassland fires. The nation is far outpacing the 10-year average for the number of square miles burned so far this year. Nationally, more than 5,700 wildland firefighters were battling 16 uncontained large fires that had charred over a half-million acres (2,025 sq km) of dry forest and grassland, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The largest fire currently burning in the US has blackened more than 300,000 acres.  In New Mexico,  the country’s biggest blaze – and the largest in state history – continues to burn.

Dozens of states across the US are bracing for historically high spring temperatures this weekend, as a scorching heatwave moves east. The early onslaught of sweltering weather, before what’s expected to be another hot, dry summer, is forecast to break or tie roughly 130 heat records for this time of year, with temperatures between 20F and 30F above average in the mid-Atlantic and north-east.

More than 120 million Americans are expected to be affected by the punishing heat, raising fears of health risks for the most vulnerable, outdoor workers and those who do not have access to indoor cooling. The National Weather Service issued a special statement cautioning residents to remain vigilant for signs of heat illness, take breaks inside when possible, and stay hydrated. Heat is a silent killer, often responsible for more deaths than higher-profile disasters like floods, hurricanes or tornadoes, and the rising toll is expected to worsen as the world warms.

Records are expected to be broken in large swaths of the east, including in Washington DC, forecast to hit 96F on Saturday, and in Boston, which could get up to 93F. Already, Texas has been pummeled by the heat, which delivered Dallas’s hottest May in history, and the south-west has cooked as strong winds fanned wildfire risks throughout the drought-stricken region.

Meanwhile, India’s heatwave also continues.  Last weekend, as temperatures in some parts of India’s capital Delhi hit a record-breaking 49C. 

“In a warming world, I would expect a place like India to experience these types of events as the norm rather than as an extreme,” said Luke Parsons, a climate researcher in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. “As we warm the globe, not only do the midday temperatures rise, but also the heat exposure in the early morning hours and evenings, times when outdoor workers traditionally do more labour intensive tasks. Therefore we will see more people exposed to extreme and unsafe labour conditions.”

Farmers across north India began to harvest their wheat crop in mid-April, amid temperatures that were regularly above 40C, they were confronted with damaged, shrivelled grain. Unseasonable winter rain and then a scorching summer heatwave that arrived two months early – both markers of climate change – had stunted crop growth and laid waste to grain and their livelihoods. The wheat harvest losses, which occurred across India, have left the farmers in terrible debt, having loaned money from a middleman to pay for seeds and fertiliser, but all found themselves with at least 50% less grain to sell. Profits from the harvest were not nearly enough to cover the money owed, and now interest on those debts is rising.

The low wheat yield had meant that the government’s own supplies have dipped to a 13-year low, and the shortage – exacerbated by alleged hoarding of wheat by private traders – led to prices in wheat and flour soaring by 40% in recent weeks. The Indian government announced it was putting a ban on all wheat exports, due to the heatwave decimating India’s expected harvest. 

 German agricultural minister Cem Özdemir warned that “if everyone starts to impose export restrictions or to close markets, that would worsen the crisis”. The United States said it hoped “India would reconsider” its decision to ban wheat exports which “will make the current global food shortage even worse”. 

Historic heatwave poised to hit dozens of US states this weekend | US weather | The Guardian

India’s wheat farmers count cost of 40C heat that evokes ‘deserts of Rajasthan’ | India | The Guardian

 Who runs the country?

Judge Robert Summerhays of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana—an appointee of then-President Donald Trump—concurred with 24 Republican-controlled states’ assertion that the Biden administration’s decision to terminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rule “violates the Administrative Procedures Act” because it “failed to consider the effects of a Title 42 termination on immigration enforcement and the states.”

The injunction blocks the administration of Biden from lifting Title 42, a Trump-era public health order that both presidents have invoked to deport around two million asylum-seekers under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic. First implemented by the Trump administration in March 2020 at the pandemic’s onset, Title 42—a provision of the Public Health Safety Act allowing the government to prohibit entry into the U.S. of people who could pose health risks—was continued by Biden. More Title 42 removals have occurred during Biden’s tenure than Trump’s.

Blame the Republicans?

 Last month a bill by Sen. James Lankford (D-Okla.)—and co-sponsored by right-wing Democrats including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas)— was introduced to codify Title 42.

“If Congress locks Title 42 into law, what we’re really talking about is creating an asylum system that selectively doles out protection for certain groups, while keeping out Black and Brown people,” Helena Olea, associate director of programs at Alianza Americas, said in a statement. Olea contended that “Title 42 was never about protecting public health. It was about eliminating the possibility of asylum for people who cross the border by foot, fleeing instability and violence resulting from multiple factors, including U.S. policies.”

Tami Goodlette, director of litigation at the immigrant legal aid group RAICES, called the judge’s decision “both infuriating and unlawful.”

“President Biden could have ended Title 42 and all of Trump’s inhumane and immoral policies as soon as he took office in January 2021 with the flick of a pen,” she continued, “but instead, he surrounded himself with centrist advisers who coddled his fears on immigration reform and embraced deterrence as their central priority on immigration.” Goodlette then added, “Now, the anti-immigrant right-wing agenda continues to fly forward unchecked and immigrants seeking safety and asserting their legal right to asylum will continue to pay the price.” 

“Beyond the devastating humanitarian impact of Title 42, the court’s ruling also fails to recognize well-established domestic and international law,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. “Seeking asylum is a legal right, and yet this bedrock of the American legal system is quickly eroding at a time of unprecedented need.”

‘Arbitrary, Racist, and Unfair’: Judge Blocks Biden From Ending Title 42 (commondreams.org)

 Argentina has found the state guilty of the massacre of more than 400 indigenous people nearly a century ago. The Qom and Moqoit peoples had been protesting inhumane living and working conditions on a cotton plantation when authorities shot them dead in 1924. Until now, no responsibility had ever been officially acknowledged. A judge has now ordered historical reparations to be awarded to the communities.

Some in the environmentalist movement have succumbed to ideas that are promoted by the far-right and eco-fascists that population control and immigration restrictions are a solution to the effects of climate change. The attorney general of the US state of Arizona cited environmental protection when he sued the Biden administration for loosening immigration laws, claiming that migrants would use up resources, cause emissions and pollute the environment if they weren’t kept out by a wall with Mexico. Eco-fascists use racist theories to conflate the degradation of the natural environment with the degradation of their culture and their people, added Thomas. They believe that white people, along with the environment, are threatened by non-white overpopulation. Marine Le Pen has invoked climate change and environmental protection in her nationalist campaigns, while the youth wing of Germany’s far-right climate-sceptic AfD party called on the party to embrace climate change as an effective recruitment tool. 

Treating people as the problem isn’t just misguided — it’s dangerous. When concern about population becomes central to environmental policy, “racism and xenophobia are always waiting in the wings.” said Betsy Hartman, former director of the population and development program at Hampshire College and author of ‘Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: the Global Politics of Population Control,’ 

“In this ideology of ‘too many people’ it’s always certain people who are ‘too many,’ ” Hartman said. “It just shifts the discourse away from the real problem of who has power and how the economy is organized.”

 Climate change isn’t caused by population growth. It’s caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

“But doesn’t having more people on the planet lead to more fossil fuel consumption, which leads to more emissions?” some over-populationists respond.

Not so, Princeton University environmental engineer Anu Ramaswami, an expert on sustainable cities and contributor to the United Nations’ Global Resources Outlook explained. A small minority of wealthy people produce the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions — their consumption habits have a much greater impact than overall population numbers. It’s true that the planet can’t support unlimited population growth, Ramaswami said. But if people can figure out how to moderate our consumption and meet our needs without fossil fuels, experts say, it is possible for all of us to live sustainably and well — even if there are more of us.  Ramaswami said. “Fixating on population decrease doesn’t make much of a difference.” People in the world’s richest countries emit 50 times more than those in the poorest, despite having much slower population growth.

Over-populationists ignore the enormous inequality of wealth existing within every nation, whether thickly or thinly populated. They also ignore that much of the population between 16 and 60 are not engaged in producing wealth at all, but are either idle or are carrying on purely wasteful services called into being by the capitalist system. For them, there are no class divisions in society. They dismiss our contention that nature, contrary to some claims, is sufficiently bountiful for our needs. Many assert that over-population is the cause of modern wars. It is, of course, nonsense. The urge to find markets and sources of raw materials affects every capitalist country, irrespective of population. Is it a “natural” or a “man-made” law which prevents millions of workers from taking possession of the wealth which they create but do not possess? What natural law prevents the workers from enjoying the food and housing reserved for the propertied classes? The amount consumed by members of the capitalist class depends on their ownership of the means of production, which in turn depends on their control of the political machinery of society. There obviously are problems of population, but the problem of working-class poverty is not one of these. That problem cannot be solved by the workers until they have taken possession of the political machinery and re-organised society on a socialist basis.

We all need to eat. We all need homes that are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We all require to travel. But the economic system can change.

Adapted from

Eco-fascism: The greenwashing of the far right | Environment | All topics from climate change to conservation | DW | 19.05.2022