Triggered by a new brand of misguided patriotism, vaccine nationalism, COVID-19 vaccines have been hi-jacked by the rich.  Everything in this world is stacked up against the poor and the downtrodden. The Covid-19 vaccine is no exception because some of world’s richest nations, including the US, Canada and UK, seem to have cornered most of the supplies — whilst marginalizing the world’s poorer nations. Vaccine nationalism is one facet of the widening economic inequalities between the developing and the developed world.

Rich countries with 14% of the world’s population have bought more than half of all the most promising vaccines. The deals made by rich countries mean they have “hoarded enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations nearly 3 times over.” Canada has reportedly bought enough doses to immunize its citizens five times over. 

Meanwhile, nine out of 10 people living in 67 poor countries will miss out on the vaccine in 2021. Covid-19 is being described as a disease of the haves and the have-nots.

“Unless something changes dramatically, billions of people around the world will not receive a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 for years to come,” according to Anna Marriott, health policy manager for Oxfam.

 Vaccine nationalism will deprive citizens of low-income countries of COVID-19 vaccines for many months to come.

Asked about the “lip service” by rich countries on equitable access to vaccine while glaring inequalities persist in the distribution to Africa and other developing countries, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters December 9: “It’s true we are seeing vaccine nationalism moving with full speed. But the vaccines the African continent needs, and we all need… has to be properly supported. Or we will not be able to fight the pandemic anywhere effectively”.

 The scandal is not just that rich nations are marginalizing poor nations from scarce supplies but the bigger scandal is that there is only such scarcity of supplies because companies are being allowed to hoard licenses and know-how. Between 1996 and 2001, the prioritization of companies’ intellectual property over people’s health meant millions of people in poor countries died from AIDS when the treatment to HIV was known, and producible cheaply, but was kept by profit-driven policy deliberately too costly.

Ben Phillips, author of ‘How to Fight Inequality’, explained,  “it’s astonishingly mean-spirited, and utterly short-sighted, that the same approach is being pursued now with Covid-19… No one is safe until everyone is safe, and the world can’t recover till all countries can,” said Phillips.

Professor Kunal Sen, Director at the Helsinki-based UN University– World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), said, “The world needs a people’s vaccine which can be provided universally, and it is important for the international community to develop a vaccine which is compatible with universal access.”

A Vaccine That Was Hijacked by the Rich | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

  The UN reveal that there are now 741,000 women and girls in prison,  an increase in more than 100,000 in the past decade.  In every region except Europe, the numbers have risen.

“The number of women in prison globally is climbing at an alarming rate – even though they are typically convicted of low-level, nonviolent crime,” said Olivia Rope, executive director of Penal Reform International. “Shocking systemic cases of human rights violations, including violence and mistreatment, persist worldwide,” said Rope. “Many women are deprived of essential health and rehabilitation services and face physical or sexual violence in prison.”

The call to action highlights that many women are imprisoned as a result of discrimination or crimes committed in poverty. Women are also disproportionately affected by punitive drug policies, with 35% in prison for drug-related offences compared with 19% of men.

“A high proportion of women in prison have a history of abuse and violence, increasing the risk of mental health issues,” said Anand Grover, a member of the global commission on drug policy and former UN special rapporteur on the right to health. “Women’s specific needs are often ignored, revealing that gender inequality does not stop at the prison doors.”

‘Alarming’: female prison population rises by 100,000 in past decade – report | Women’s rights and gender equality | The Guardian

SOYMB blog makes no apology for repeating its message over and over again that under capitalism a small minority makes money from the misery of the masses.

There is Dan Gilbert, chairman of Quicken Loans, a company specializing in short and long-term personal loans and home mortgages. As people struggle to pay their bills, Gilbert’s wealth has grown 543 percent from $6.1 billion to $41.8 billion, the second highest increase among billionaires.

 Millions of people have lost jobs during the pandemic and food and housing insecurity have skyrocketed to crisis levels. 

More than 1 in 10 adults sometimes or often do not have enough money for food. 

Last month, more than half of the country worried about affording food as the holidays approached. 

About 34 percent of the country — roughly 83 million adults — report difficulty paying for basic expenses such as food, medical bills and mortgage payments. 

An estimated 40 percent of children live in homes that are either behind on rent or facing food hardship, and rates of food insecurity are even higher among families of color.

At least 12 million people are now behind on rent, and housing activists are fighting evictions across the country despite a federal moratorium on evictions set to expire at the end of the month.

 Alongside the surge in new COVID-19 cases, which topped 218,667 nationally on Wednesday, another 1.3 million people filed new unemployment claims last week.

 If Congress fails to pass a relief package before year-end deadlines, 12 million people will lose their unemployment benefits after Christmas.

 As of November 14, 20 million people were collecting unemployment nationally, according to the Labor Department.

 Nearly 98,000 businesses have closed permanently.

Without  housing assistance relief, an estimated 30 to 40 million people could lose their homes.

New Report Shows Top Billionaires’ Wealth Skyrocketing During Pandemic (truthout.org)

  France’s President Emmannuel Macron “honoured” el-Sisi, the Egyptian president, with the its highest award, the Legion d’Honneur. 

It is presumably a reward to the authoritarian ruler for being a loyal customer of the French arms industry. France provides Egypt with advanced weaponry. France profits from weapons sales to Egypt, and during his visit  Sisi met with both the executives of Airbus and Dassault Aviation, which sells Cairo Rafale advanced fighter jets.  

No announcement about the conferring of the honour and no French correspondents were invited to cover the ceremony, as well as other events during Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s  state visit to France. The French media  were obliged to resort to state media in Egypt for footage of the events. Egyptian television channels and social media networks were filled with photos and footage of  Sisi meeting with high-level French political and corporate elites, often presented with the president at the centre of the photo, surrounded by French officials seemingly paying him tribute. 

 The attempts to under-report Sisi’s visit by a nation which presents itself as a paragon of human rights and liberty yet embraces a most brutal and repressive regime  with a worsening human rights record and prisons filled with dissidents, certainly appears to be an embarrassment for France.  

Macron has insisted that he would bring no pressure on Egypt over its human rights record that includes enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture, atrocious prison conditions, and mass trials.

“It is more effective to have a policy of demanding dialogue than a boycott which would only reduce the effectiveness of one of our partners in the fight against terrorism.” Macron was quoted as saying as Sisi’s visit began.

Ziad Majed, a professor of political science at the American University of Paris, explained, “They didn’t even pretend that they raised the issues of human rights, democracy or political prisoners. France plays a role in normalising the brutal suppression of the Sisi regime,” he said. “When you want to send a message of combatting extremism, the worst message that could be sent is accepting impunity and dealing with this regime without any conditions. It’s a way of saying, we accept double standards and the violations of human rights. This is the perfect condition for all sorts of radicalism.”

Liberté, égalité and weaponry: France awards Egypt’s Sisi its highest award despite human rights abuses | The Independent

 Greta Thunberg in a video castigates the political establishment for their inaction on mitigating the climate crises.

 “We are still speeding in the wrong direction,” she said. “The five years following the Paris agreement have been the five hottest years ever recorded and, during that time, the world has emitted more than 200bn tonnes of CO2.

“Distant hypothetical targets are being set, and big speeches are being given,” she said. “Yet, when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are still in a state of complete denial, as we waste our time, creating new loopholes with empty words and creative accounting.”

“Leaders should be telling the truth: that we are facing an emergency and we are not doing nearly enough. We need to prioritise the action that needs to be taken right here and right now, because it is right now that the carbon budget is being used up.

“We need to stop focusing on goals and targets for 2030 or 2050,” she said. “We need to implement annual binding carbon budgets today.”

Thunberg said recent pledges by the UK – to cut carbon emissions by 68% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels – and by China, Japan and South Korea to become net carbon zero were creating a sense of progress, and she added: “That is a very dangerous narrative because of course we’re not going in the right direction. We need to call this out.”

Thunberg concludes her video message by saying: “There is hope … we are the hope – we, the people.”

She said: “For me, the hope lies in democracy – it is the people who have the power. If enough people stand up together and repeat the same message, then there are no limits to what we can achieve.”

Vanessa Nakate, from Fridays for Future Uganda, also had a stark message for leaders: “You have already determined our present, which is obviously catastrophic. Now fix the future, and start now. You have everything you need to stop this war against the planet and the people. But you just won’t do it. We want deep cuts from you right now.”

“I see the hope in the young people who are speaking out from different parts of the world,” Nakate said. “But the only way we can strengthen that hope is to continuously create awareness about the challenge that we are facing, so that we get everyone involved.”

Adélaïde Charlier, from Fridays for Future Belgium, said: “All decisions not taken now will fall back on our generation’s shoulders. Coronavirus has had a huge impact, we cannot deny that. But what’s incredible is seeing the energy inside a movement that does not want to die, but wants to continue to push through.”

Marzena Wichniarz, from Parents for Future Poland, said: “I was pregnant with my daughter when the Paris agreement was signed. It was an amazing message to the world: leaders pledged to fight for a better future for all our children. But we are disappointed, in fact furious, with the Polish government now.”

Agnes Imgart, from Parents For Future Global, said: “Our children have changed so much in the last five years, but the Paris agreement is still crawling.”

Greenhouse gas emissions, which plunged by a record 7% global fall amount this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, are set to rebound next year as restrictions are lifted further and governments strive to return their economies to growth. The drop was the result of temporary behavioural changes rather than structural reforms. China’s emissions may even be level for this year or have increased slightly since 2019, as the country entered and left lockdown sooner than other countries. 

Dave Reay, professor of carbon management at Edinburgh University, said the record drop was still only a “drop in the ocean” when it came to the stock of carbon dioxide humanity has already pumped into the atmosphere, which is expected to reach 412 parts per million (ppm) next year. It is the stock of atmospheric carbon that determines the impact on the climate, and stabilising the level of carbon in the atmosphere will require the whole world to meet net-zero emissions.

Cameron Hepburn, director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, said the scale of the problem required much stronger action from governments. “The record 2.4bn tonne decline in emissions in 2020 is small beer compared to our annual 40bn tonnes that needs to go to net zero every year. The pandemic shows that radical personal behaviour changes are one part of the story – systems change including a rewiring of the economy to clean technologies is necessary to get to net zero.”

Corinne Le Quéré, professor of climate change science at the University of East Anglia, said: “Pledges are not enough,” said Le Quéré. “Action is extremely lagging and most countries do not have a plan for net zero.”

Analysis by the Guardian and Vivid Economics has shown that the “green recovery” around the world has stalled, with governments continuing to pour money into high-carbon activities.

Greta Thunberg: ‘We are speeding in the wrong direction’ on climate crisis | Environment | The Guardian

SOYMB can sympathise with this sense of disillusionment being felt by so many well-meaning and sincere eco-activists. But sadly, we have to remind them all, with that trite phrase “We told you so.” 

The World Socialist Movement repeatedly warned against placing trust and faith in capitalist governments and corporations.  Over and over again, we have counselled that the only solution is socialism, not reforms, regulations and legislation, but fundamental changes to the economic structure of society. 

 More than 700 garment workers had been peacefully staging outside the Dhaka Press Club calling for their unpaid wages as they faced mounting destitution and hunger. All had been working for A-One Ltd, a huge factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that produced clothing destined for the rails of high street brands in Europe and the US. As the pandemic hit, the factory closed after foreign buyers pulled their business from the factory and thousands of workers lost their jobs. The workers were demanding they be paid months of outstanding wages and pension contributions, without which they say they will be unable to feed their children.

 At 4.30am the police charged their camp.

“We were just protesting peacefully against the grave injustice we are facing. We didn’t block roads, we didn’t chant slogans or create chaos” says Ashraf Ali, a former worker at A-One BD Ltd and one of the leaders of the protest. “Yet on Tuesday night a lot of police came with a water cannon truck and baton charged us as we slept. We were shocked by how sudden it was. Around 30 workers were beaten by police. We didn’t deserve this.”

Another worker, Salma, explains, “Our factory closed during lockdown and when we came back they told us there was no new order at the moment and sent us home,” she says. “We went back and demanded payment for our previous work. But they closed the factory gate. We couldn’t go in. We haven’t been paid what we are owed since. Since then we have been protesting for our wages multiple times. We were beaten by the factory-backed goons, water cannoned by the police, been promised 19 different dates to settle what we are owed. But nothing materialised.”

Tahmina Azad also joined the protest. She is the sole breadwinner for her family of six and is surviving on the charity of her neighbours. She hasn’t been able to pay her rent for the past 10 months and has racked up huge credit lines at all her local grocery stores.

“Once, for two straight days, I had nothing to cook for my children,” she says. “ I thought of killing myself, I thought of killing my children and setting them free from this torture. When my neighbours got a sense of my dire situation, they fed my children. I’m only alive because of their generosity,” she says.

Workers say they will continue to protest until they receive their salaries. “We have to continue with our demands,” says Ali. “We’re planning more protests locally. We don’t see any other ways to get the attention of the authority to get a solution.”

‘I thought about killing my children’: the desperate Bangladesh garment workers fighting for pay | Garment workers | The Guardian

85% of China’s impoverished citizens live in rural areas and leave the countryside to seek employment within urban areas. This has resulted in migrant workers making up the vast majority of factory-based workers. There are about 150 million migrant workers that do not receive any state benefits or provisions. In the hope of escaping poverty in these rural areas, migrant workers find themselves enduring harsh conditions. Female migrant workers face discrimination as the national law of hukou prevented rural individuals from permanently migrating to urbanized cities. Once this law had been lifted in the 1980s, it granted the freedom for rural workers to migrate to urban areas even though they are faced with harsh conditions. The rapid economic development of Shenzhen and the advancement of its position in the global economy depends greatly on female rural to urban and job sector movement.

The inequalities remain existent within all aspects of life for Chinese women. However, these inequalities are particularly prominent within the factory. The feminization of industrial work in developing countries can be argued as a primary result of women being the cheapest source of labour within the global economy. As China moved towards a market economy, cheap rural labour became extremely helpful in terms of continuing to develop the country and fuel its growth. Furthermore, this led to the use of women being the most easily accessible and cheapest and form of labour available. But also the most pliant to control. 

In 2017, 61.5% of Chinese women participated in China’s labour force, making China have one of Asia-Pacific’s highest labour participation by females. Although such a significant number of women play a  vital role in Chinese employment, this is often in poorly paid roles and as a result are marginalized and oppressed.

Gender plays a significant role in determining who is able to complete certain jobs and tasks. For example, low-wage female factory workers have limited access to employment opportunities that will improve their skills within the political economy. Cultural formalities placed within China are placed at a disadvantage for women. 

Most advertisements targeting females include specific requirements they must meet, such as height and weight. These requirements put women in an exploitative state before they have even begun work in the factory. This can relate to the emergence of the ‘third world women’ being the most ideal workers. For example, in East Asia, this term can be described as the ‘Oriental Girls’. A Malaysian government advertisement states “her hands are small, and she works fast with extreme care… Who, therefore, could not be better qualified by nature and inheritance to contribute to the efficiency of a bench-assembly line than the oriental girl.”

On a social level, the stress of the low status of Chinese women is deeply rooted in the traditional Chinese family system, which is profoundly patriarchal. In Chinese society, women have been traditionally deprived in all areas of their lives. The female gender as a whole has been submerged under male authority.  Through China’s patriarchal society, men are placed in a position of power in these factories and leaves women in a vulnerable state. Women were, and still to this day, are born into a powerless and patriarchal system that carries out through labour in factory work.  As a result, this becomes normalized for women from a young age and harms future generations. This creates a cycle of intergenerational poverty, as an impoverished lifestyle is induced by the socially challenged background of previous generations.

The dormitory regime is also a prominent proponent of gender inequalities. Foreign-invested firms are building dorms to suit their needs and are placed within the compound of the factory. As a result, those in a position of authority are able to have significantly more control over the worker’s daily lives. This includes their wages, what they eat, how long and often they work. Through this regime, most of their workers are young females and are working long and demanding days while earning next to no wage. Dormitory regimes are perceived to be serving global production but generate hidden costs which are taken on by female workers. This is shown in the documentary, ‘China Blue’ which follows the life within a dormitory regime alongside factory-based workers. Throughout the documentary, the audience is able to see first-hand the intense conditions faced by millions daily. A young female migrant worker is followed throughout her journey in a jean cutting factory. The intense exploitation and isolation faced are explained through the use of dormitory regimes.

The role that technology plays within work is substantial. Through the advancement of technology, the cruel jobs that women have been placed in through factory-based work on a daily basis have been replaced with various pieces of technology. The application of technology allows for a vast number of jobs to be at risk. For example, an Apple and Samsung supplier, Foxconn has replaced approximately 60, 000 workers with robots. Through the implementation of a robot workforce, this is not only placing females at an extreme disadvantage. Also, the advancement of technology and mechanization is diminishing a larger variety of employment opportunities for women.  New technologies tend to employ men. This is due to the perceived inability of women upgrading their skills and investment in capital intensive industries.

The diminishment of employment opportunities for women results is not only rapidly increasing, but follows the wider pattern of normalized oppression. 

Gender Inequality In Factory Based-Work In China – The Organization for World Peace (theowp.org)

In 2018, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon took home more than $23 million. By contrast, McDonalds’s Chris Kempczinski was paid a mere $18 million last year — falling just short of making two thousand times the median wage for workers at his company.

As many businesses across the country struggle to stay afloat amid rolling pandemic lockdowns, many of America’s largest corporations are doing just fine. Better than fine, in fact: it emerged this week that Walmart’s profits surged during the third quarter of 2020, exceeding $5 billion with McDonalds’s profits jumping almost 5 percent to just under $2 billion. The pandemic has proven especially lucrative for big retailers, the largest fifteen (including Walmart) collectively making $60.8 billion in profits in 2020 so far — an increase of $14.6 billion from last year.

Walmart and McDonald’s, perhaps unsurprisingly, earned the singular distinction of being the two leading companies with workers forced to turn to Medicaid and SNAP — the former ranking among the top four employers of SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries in every state.

. In some areas of the country, workers at Walmart and McDonald’s alone account for non-negligible percentages of those receiving aid from the two federal programs. Georgia, for example, had 136,130 working age recipients of SNAP in February (excluding the self-employed) with nearly six thousand, or 4.4 percent, employed at either McDonald’s or Walmart.

 70 percent of the 21 million workers receiving Medicaid or SNAP (twelve and nine million respectively) work full-time schedules of thirty-five hours a week or more. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority are employed in service jobs at businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, and big retailers.  A 2015 study by Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education found that nearly three-quarters of those assisted by programs designed to aid the poor belong to families with at least one member who is working.  As the study noted, the real hourly wages of the median American worker were a mere 5 percent higher in 2013 than they were in 1979, with wages for the lowest paid decile of workers 5 percent lower. “Inflation-adjusted wage growth from 2003 to 2013,” its authors went on to observe, “was either flat or negative for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution.”

 Millions of those employed at some of the nation’s largest and most profitable companies are paid less than what’s needed to afford the necessities of life, let alone dignity or comfort. A bargain basement economy so exploitative that CEOs make millions while literally relying on government subsidies to stop workers from starving or dying? The roulette wheel of American capitalism could hardly look any more rigged if it tried.

The Class War at Walmart (jacobinmag.com)

 For nearly 20 years, the Taliban’s wealth has financed mayhem, destruction and death in Afghanistan. In the fiscal year that ended in March 2020, the Taliban brought in revenues of $1.6 billion. In comparison, the Afghan government brought in $5.55 billion during the same period.

1. Drugs – $416 million

Afghanistan accounted for approximately 84 percent of global opium production over the past five years. Much of those illicit drug profits go to the Taliban, which manage opium in areas under their control. The group imposes a 10 percent tax on every link in the drug production chain. That includes the Afghan farmers who cultivate poppy, the main ingredient in opium, the labs that convert it into a drug and the traders who move the final product out of country.

2. Mining – $400 Million to $464 Million

Mining iron ore, marble, copper, gold, zinc and other metals and rare-earth minerals in mountainous Afghanistan is an increasingly lucrative business for the Taliban. Both small-scale mineral-extraction operations and big Afghan mining companies pay Taliban militants to allow them to keep their businesses running.

3. Extortion & Taxes – $160 Million

Like a government, the Taliban tax people and industries in the growing swath of Afghanistan under their control. They even issue official receipts of tax payment.

“Taxed” industries include mining operations, media, telecommunications and development projects funded by international aid. Drivers are also charged for using highways in Taliban-controlled regions, and shopkeepers pay the Taliban for the right to do business.

The group also imposes a traditional Islamic form of taxation called “ushr” – which is a 10 percent tax on a farmer’s harvest – and “zakat,” a 2.5 percent wealth tax.

4. Charitable Donations – $240 million

The Taliban receive covert financial contributions from private donors and international institutions across the globe.

Many Taliban donations are from charities and private trusts located in Persian Gulf countries, a region historically sympathetic to the group’s religious insurgency. 

5. Exports – $240 Million

In part to launder illicit money, the Taliban import and export various everyday consumer goods, according to the United Nations Security Council. Known business affiliates include the multinational Noorzai Brothers Limited, which imports auto parts and sells reassembled vehicles and spare automobile parts.

6. Real Estate – $80 Million

The Taliban own real estate in Afghanistan, Pakistan and potentially other countries.

7. Foreign Financing – $500 Million?

In 2008 the Taliban had received $106 million from foreign sources, in particular from the Gulf states.

Today, the governments of Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are all believed to bankroll the Taliban, according to numerous U.S. and international sources. Experts say these funds could amount to as much as $500 million a year, but it is difficult to put an exact figure on this income stream.

Taliban Are Megarich – Here’s Where They Get the Money – Consortiumnews

The World Food Programme executive director David Beasley accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, warning that the combination of conflict, climate crisis and COVID-19 could push 270 million people to the brink of starvation.

 In his acceptance speech, Beasley said:

 “…Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching toward starvation. Failure to address their needs will cause a hunger pandemic which will dwarf the impact of COVID.”

“…What tears me up inside is this. This coming year, millions and millions and millions of my equals, my neighbors, your neighbors, are marching to the brink of starvation…today those 200 million of our neighbors are on the brink of starvation. That’s more than the entire population of Western Europe. On the other hand, there is $400 trillion of wealth in our world today. Even at the height of the COVID pandemic, in just 90 days, an additional $2.7 trillion of wealth was created. And we only need $5 billion to save 30 million lives from famine. What am I missing here?”

“…I don’t go to bed at night thinking about the children we saved; I go to bed weeping over the children we could not save. And when we don’t have enough money nor the access we need, we have to decide which children eat and which children do not eat, which children live, which children die. How would you like that job? Please, don’t ask us to choose who lives and who dies.”

Hunger Pandemic Will Surpass COVID Impact, Warns World Food Programme (truthout.org)