Crises around the world have taken away the headlines about Syria’s problems. Syria now has the sixth-highest number of food insecure people in the world

Following 12 years of war, an economy crippled by runaway inflation where food prices have increased nearly twelve-fold over the last three years, a currency that has collapsed to a record low, 12 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from. 2.5 million people who are severely food insecure, and their lives are at risk without food assistance. Child and maternal malnutrition are increasing at a speed never seen before – not even during over a decade of war.

Another 2.9 million people are at risk of sliding into hunger, meaning that 70% of the population may soon be unable to put food on the table for their families.

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director, David Beasley, said:

 “If we don’t address this humanitarian crisis in Syria, things are going to get worse than we can possibly imagine. Another wave of mass migration like the one that swept across Europe in 2015 – is that what the international community wants? If not, we must urgently seize this opportunity to avert the looming catastrophe and work together to bring peace and stability to the Syrian people.”

Hunger soars to 12-year high in Syria, WFP chief calls for urgent action – Syrian Arab Republic | ReliefWeb

 Chevron announced a record-shattering $35.5 billion in profits for 2022 as well as a $75 billion share buy-back to lavish on its wealthy shareholders. Chevron also raised its quarterly dividend by around 6%.

“What Big Oil has done over the last year is the definition of war profiteering,” said Jamie Henn, a spokesperson for the Stop The Oil Profiteering (STOP) campaign. “After working with Russia for decades, companies like Chevron have used the war in Ukraine as cover to jack up prices and suck billions directly out of the pocket of American families.” Henn added, “Big Oil is rolling in cash while families are struggling to heat their homes or fill their gas tanks.”

 Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement, “It has price gouged consumers in plain sight and it’s going to get away with it. Once oil prices spiked after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a government not compromised and captured by Big Oil would have done the commonsense thing of taxing Big Oil’s windfall profits and returning the proceeds to consumers,” said Weissman. “The failure to impose a windfall profits tax reflects Big Oil’s raw political power, not any principled policy dispute.”

‘The Definition of War Profiteering’: Chevron Posts Record $35.5 Billion in Profit for 2022 (commondreams.org)

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU), the lobby group which represents powerful voices in the agriculture sector, questioned about the government’s proposed targets on water pollution, tree planting and rewilding.

It told the government: 

“Broadly, we consider the level of ambition across the nutrient targets to be unachievable, inconsistent and irrational. The NFU and its members are committed to building on past successes and further reducing nutrient losses to the environment from agriculture. However, this effort must be balanced with the need to produce food, fibre and energy on farm, thereby protecting the rural economy and maintaining food security.”

 It did not agree with targets to reverse species extinction, and in particular spoke out against reintroducing lost species. It said: 

“The NFU has long advocated that we should support species that are already present before we seek to introduce new species. So instead, we believe that we should aim to prevent the loss of species, as such a bespoke target approach to rare and threatened species could be beneficial in driving action to reduce biodiversity loss.”

It argued that the concept of rewilding was damaging to the countryside, warning against “adopting an approach that risks undermining the social fabric of rural communities”. It said:

 “Rewilding, for example, ignores the fact that our iconic farmed landscapes are valued by the many who make 4bn visits to the British countryside each year.”

It also said the tree planting target of 17.5% coverage was too ambitious. It said

“An increase in tree canopy and woodland cover from 14.5% to 17.5% equates to 415,000 hectares of tree cover by 2050, approximately 15,000 hectares of trees a year. This is extremely ambitious, if not unachievable.” 

Environmentalists said the NFU was “deluded and dangerous” and that it was “stunting progress towards a greener future” after its lobbying against nature restoration policies was revealed.

Rob Percival, the head of food policy at the Soil Association, said: 

“The NFU’s attitude towards environmental targets is defeatist, deluded and dangerous. There is clear scientific rationale for regenerating woodlands and increasing tree cover, but the NFU thinks it’s too difficult. Our rivers are choking on excess nutrients, primarily due to the proliferation of intensive livestock systems, but the NFU has dismissed pollution reduction targets as ‘irrational’. Instead they propose more of the same – more poultry, more pollution.

Farmers’ union called UK environment targets ‘irrational’ and ‘unachievable’ | Farming | The Guardian

  Unison’s general secretary Christina McAnea said in a statement that Jermy Hunt, the chancellor holds the key to unlock the damaging health pay dispute and rebuild the NHS, but he’s not even trying.

“No plan for the economy can succeed unless the government also focuses on essential services. Paying proper wages will halt the staff exodus and mean there’s more money to spend in the local high street.”

 The TUC  accused the chancellor of ignoring the “crisis” in public services and the “fundamental issue of public sector pay” and “massive staffing crisis” hitting the country’s schools, hospitals, care homes and other key services.

The TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, said, “Public servants will be deeply worried about the chancellor’s warnings of further restraint. We know that is usually code for cuts.”

Jeremy Hunt ‘not even trying’ to settle NHS pay dispute, says Unison – UK politics live (theguardian.com)

 The world’s biggest luxury group, LVMH,  said they experienced a second straight record year with revenue and profits despite geopolitical tensions and high cost of living.

 Who Controls the World? – Adam Buick

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/who-controls-the-world/

Who are the other socialists? – Paddy Shannon

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/who-are-the-other-socialists/

Manufacturing Reagan – Kevin Cronin

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/manufacturing-reagan/

 Wealthy businessmen, Gulf royals and states such as China have legally bought up billions of pounds of mostly London property, often via jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Channel Islands.

 On Friday the Companies House register listed 17,754 overseas entities, with thousands more expected to register before the 31 January deadline. Three-quarters of the registered companies are based in five jurisdictions: the BVI, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Luxembourg. With 45% of all overseas owners declared to date, the register shows that the royal families of Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar own about £1bn of UK property via tax havens such as Jersey and the BVI. 

It also shows that the Chinese Investment Corporation, an arm of the Chinese government, owns at least £580m of property through offshore entities.

Holding properties through offshore companies xperts say can be done to minimise an individual’s tax liability as the owner or buyer of a property, or, until now, to allow a property to be held anonymously. 

“Historically, there have been some really great tax advantages from owning UK property via offshore companies,” said Robert Palmer, the executive director of the campaign group Tax Justice UK. “The government has closed down quite a lot of them but there are still ways you can pay less tax by owning property via offshore companies.”

UK for sale: how the wealthy hold British property via offshore firms | Real estate | The Guardian

 Bankers’ pay has risen more than three times as fast as nurses’ pay since the 2008 financial crisis, according to the TUC.

Pay and bonuses for those working in the finance and the insurance sector had risen by an average of 6% a year in nominal terms – without taking inflation into account – since 2008 compared with a rise of less than 2% a year for nurses, midwives, and paramedics.

On average nurses now earn £32,934 a year according to the TUC, up from £26,123 in 2008. This compares with average pay of £80,390 for those employed in finance and insurance sectors, a near-doubling of their average 2008 pay of £43,901.

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, said, “At a time when ministers are telling dedicated public servants they can’t have a pay rise, they’re letting City executives take home ever bigger sums.”

The TUC said the government’s failure to increase nurses’ pay in line with inflation had left them facing a £42,000 loss in real earnings since 2008. That figure is even higher for midwives and paramedics, who are said to be facing an estimated loss of £56,000.

Separate analysis by the TUC found that bonuses in finance and the insurance sector have reached a record £20,000 a year on average – which it said was almost one-and-a-half times the average pay collected by teaching assistants. Average City bonuses increased by 101% in cash terms between 2008 and 2022. It estimates the latest annual bonus pot (2022) for workers in the finance and insurance sector is £18.7bn.

Bankers’ pay rises three times as fast as nurses’ since 2008 crash, TUC finds | Executive pay and bonuses | The Guardian

 While placing the blame upon Russia for “…the worst food crisis, the worst humanitarian crisis since world war 2” Cindy McCain, the US ambassador to the UN agencies for food and agriculture, couldn’t avoid pointing to another cause.

She urged speculators in the financial markets not to take advantage of the turmoil to drive up prices further.

Asked whether speculation could be having an impact, McCain said: “Probably so. I say that without a lot of exact information, but sometimes there are bad players.”

She declined to say whether such speculation should be penalised, but said she would speak out against it. “You can’t tolerate it – people are starving. Speculation does nobody any good during a crisis…”

Russia to blame for ‘worst food crisis since WW2’, says US envoy | Cindy McCain | The Guardian

 European People’s Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic conservative and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily Christian-democratic parties in 1976, it has since broadened its membership to include liberal-conservative parties and parties with other centre-right political perspectives. (Wiki)

It has 175 seats in the European Parliament.

Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party is shilling for the military-industrial complex.

He is calling for the EU to move to a wartime economy.

 “A year after the start of the war, the armaments companies have hardly received any orders,” he said.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists doomsday clock  stood at 100 seconds.

It was updated on January 24th 2023. It now stands at ninety seconds to midnight.

 George Bernard Shaw’s play, Major Barbara posits the war dealers point of view – Undershaft, an arms manufacturer, estranged father of Major Barbara, who is in the Salvation Army, describes his satisfaction in his chosen profession:

Undershaft:. Here I am, a manufacturer of mutilation and murder. I find myself in a specially amiable humour just now because, this morning, down at the foundry, we blew twenty-seven dummy soldiers into fragments with a gun which formerly destroyed only thirteen.

Lomax Well, the more destructive war becomes, the sooner it will be abolished, eh?

Undershaft. Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it.. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always done so; and I always shall. Therefore your Christmas card moralities of peace on earth and goodwill among men are of no use to me. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil, and to turn the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. My morality—my religion—must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it.

Money matters, morality does not.

“The European Union should move its economy to a wartime footing amid the Ukraine conflict, Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), suggested on Thursday. He said that the move is required to ramp up the bloc’s own defence potential, and that of Kiev.

Speaking to the newspapers of the Funke media group, Weber called for the reorganization of the EU arms industry. The MEP believes that the bloc needs “a kind of war economy… in order to be able to guarantee stability and security”.

“The European states are currently not in a position to provide the necessary armaments quickly enough, neither for our own defence, nor for Ukraine,” he lamented. To remedy the situation, Weber argued, the EU should “break new ground,” pointing out that complex allocation structures are not working the way they are supposed to.

The MEP pointed out that Germany had established a €100 billion ($109 billion) special defence fund amid the Ukraine conflict, but “hardly anything happens because the bureaucracy is paralysing.” “A year after the start of the war, the armaments companies have hardly received any orders,” he added.

His comments come after both the US and Germany on Wednesday approved the delivery of 31 M1 Abrams and 14 Leopard 2 tanks respectively to Kiev. However, the decision comes amid numerous warnings by EU officials that the bloc’s own arms stockpiles are running low.

Last month, Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that the Ukraine conflict had become “a brutal wake-up call” for the bloc’s policymakers and its military industry, which had been underfunded for years.

The military aid for Ukraine comes from army stocks and “everybody agrees that this stockpile has been quickly depleted because they were almost empty,” he admitted at the time.

Russia has repeatedly warned the West against supplying Ukraine with weapons, arguing that this would only prolong the conflict but would not change its outcome. On Wednesday, commenting on the Western tank shipments, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov reiterated that this armour “would burn as [did] the rest of it.”

“They [tanks] are quite expensive, and this will fall and is falling on the shoulders of, first of all, European taxpayers,” the spokesman stated, suggesting that Washington would likely financially benefit from the deliveries.”

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Dave C