Author: ajohnstone

Genocide of the Uighur?

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China is forcing women to be sterilised or fitted with contraceptive devices in Xinjiang in an apparent attempt to limit the population of Muslim Uighurs, according to a new report by China scholar Adrian Zenz. 
 “Since a sweeping crackdown starting in late 2016 transformed Xinjiang into a draconian police state, witness accounts of intrusive state interference into reproductive autonomy have become ubiquitous,” the report says.
It has prompted international calls for the United Nations to investigate.
 Zenz’s report was based on a combination of official regional data, policy documents and interviews with ethnic minority women in Xinjiang. It alleges that Uighur women and other ethnic minorities are being threatened with internment in the camps for refusing to abort pregnancies that exceed birth quotas. It also says women who had fewer than the two children legally permitted were involuntarily fitted with IUDs, while others were coerced into receiving sterilisation surgeries.
According to Mr Zenz’s analysis of the data, natural population growth in Xinjiang has declined dramatically in recent years, with growth rates falling by 84% in the two largest Uighur prefectures between 2015 and 2018 and declining further in 2019.
“This kind of drop is unprecedented, there’s a ruthlessness to it,” Zenz told the Associated Press. “This is part of a wider control campaign to subjugate the Uighurs.”
Former detainees in internment camps in Xinjiang said they were given injections that stopped their periods, or caused unusual bleeding consistent with the effects of birth control drugs.
According to a report by the Associated Press published on Monday, women in Xinjiang have faced exorbitant fines and threats of internment for breaching childbearing limits.
“Overall, it is likely that Xinjiang authorities are engaging in the mass sterilization of women with three or more children,” the report said.
The Interparliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), an international cross-party group of politicians including Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC and US Republican senator Marco Rubio, called on the UN to “establish an international, impartial, independent investigation into the situation in the Xinjiang region”.
“A body of mounting evidence now exists, alleging mass incarceration, indoctrination, extrajudicial detention, invasive surveillance, forced labor, and the destruction of Uyghur cultural sites, including cemeteries, together with other forms of abuse,” the statement said. “The world cannot remain silent in the face of unfolding atrocities. Our countries are bound by solemn obligations to prevent and punish any effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group ‘in whole or in part’.”
Zenz’s report characterises the alleged campaign of coercive birth control in Xinjiang as part of a “demographic campaign of genocide” against the Uighurs.
“These findings provide the strongest evidence yet that Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang meet one of the genocide criteria cited in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” he writes.
Joanne Smith Finley, a China expert at Newcastle University in the UK, said the alleged programme was “genocide, full stop”.
“It’s not immediate, shocking, mass-killing, on-the-spot type genocide, but it’s slow, painful, creeping genocide,” she told the AP. “These are direct means of genetically reducing the Uighur population.”

The time for change has come

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People have had enough. People have been standing up for what’s right. Those who would oppress others and divide us against each other for the sake of profit and power are being challenged. We are beset by wars, climate chaos, disease, racism and massive inequality. It is time to press the reset button. We’re at a turning point. We cannot go back to “normal”. Our “normal” was not normal by any standards. It’s time for us to be part of the solution to the multiple crises we are suffering. The pandemic, the constant wars and global warming are forcing great changes in the lives of people all over the Earth. No part of our lives is immune. All these crises are caused by an outdated system that prioritise profits over well-being. We cannot continue to ride on the merry-go-round of consuming throw-away goods, consuming more and more, powered by the gigantic global advertising, media and entertainment industries. However, protests and demonstrations alone will not bring the change society desperately needs. Let’s be clear, to ignite a global vision, to inspire hope, it’s not enough to call out injustice. We require a revolution. Exploitation and oppression are everywhere. Socialism is about building a pathway to a truly egalitarian, democratic and ecologically sustainable planet.


It is not the question of violence that divides the revolutionary from the reformist. Reformism, that is attempts to modify the exploitative relations characteristic of capitalism, still remains reformism no matter how violent the means embraced to that end; and revolutionary activity, that is, activity directed to the termination of capitalist exploitation once and for all, still remains revolutionary even though conducted by the methods allowed by the capitalist state. The immediate task with which socialists are faced is to popularise socialist ideas and understanding with the aim of developing a political party strong enough to effect working class emancipation. As long as conditions permit, we shall pursue this course without deviating, but should subsequent developments unhappily render socialist propaganda illegal, we shall certainly do what we can, but let no one imagine for a moment that theatrical and heroic declarations before the event are in any sense a guarantee of effective action after it. The unpalatable, but nevertheless inescapable fact is that in modern society the suppression of those democratic facilities to which all politically conscious workers quite rightly attribute enormous importance, can only occur because of the approval or indifference of the masses. A working class which allows its political life generally to be determined for it by an absolutist government—no matter what that government may call itself nor what its alleged motives may be—is certainly not the kind of working class to provide a background favourable to socialist propaganda. Socialism will not be the work of a working class prepared to accept tutelage from any quarter; it can only be the work of one that is self-reliant, critical, and politically informed. From this it should be obvious that if freedom of speech, of the press and of association is suppressed, there is precious little that socialists can do about it until developments—notably the corruption which is an inevitable by-product of dictatorship—produce the desire and the determination in the working class to regain the right to openly discuss and consider political affairs. To think otherwise is not only to fool oneself, but to fool others as well.

There can be no socialism until a socialist majority have organised politically for and have achieved the conquest of the machinery of government.  Socialism is the only solution, and that independent democratic political action is the method. If the workers do not like the effects of this system upon themselves, it is up to them to change it to one which is based upon the common ownership of the means of production, i.e., socialism.

Socialism involves the abolition of the wages system. This entails that our ability to use our labour power is no longer subjected to the power of the capital social relationship, to be used only when capital sees a profit. Rather our labour power becomes ours, to be used voluntarily as part of our relationship with others, working in association towards our goals—to production for use to meet our needs.

Socialism also involves:
 · The abolition of useless production, freeing up of millions of people from producing products and services necessary only for capitalism.
· Social decision-making on what is useful—no tat, built-in obsolescence or environmental damage.
· Breaking up of the division of labour, having multiple roles in society.
· Voluntary work—from each according to their ability; less emphasis on efficiency so people can work as much as their competence allows
· Co-operation between user and provider: not a commodity relationship; providers doing it because they want to—so less likelihood of abuse; no power differential between providers and users but partners; emphasis on building competencies.


The case for socialism as more than an opposition to the economic exploitation of the working class. Throughout their writings, Marx and Engels criticised capitalism because of its effects on the working class as human beings.




Right-wing Terror

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 A Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)  report released last week, the Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States, CSIS analyzes 25 years of domestic terrorism incidents and finds that the majority of attacks and plots have come from the far right.

The report says “the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of rightwing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years”, with the far right launching two-thirds of attacks and plots in 2019, and 90% of those in 2020.
The report adds: “Far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of perpetrators.”
The CSIS study came during a new wave of terror attacks and plots from white supremacist and anti-government extremists.
The report shows the far left has been an increasingly negligible source of attacks since the mid 2000s. 

The UN – Fit for Purpose?

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The United Nations deputy secretary-general  Amina Mohammed  said their had been a distinct lack of solidarity regarding the coronavirus outbreak and told DW that a number of countries displayed a “me first” attitude, when the world “needed to come together.”



 Mohammed recognized that nations needed to look after their own interests first, before helping others, but now the time has come to work together. She said: “We understand that you need to put the oxygen mask on before you can reach out and help others,” but now it is time to “help in that global response.”



 “But today, we have so many more conflicts. We have different needs. And so I think that one needs to look at being fit for purpose. And I would argue that we could do better.”

The UN – Fit for Purpose?

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The United Nations deputy secretary-general  Amina Mohammed  said their had been a distinct lack of solidarity regarding the coronavirus outbreak and told DW that a number of countries displayed a “me first” attitude, when the world “needed to come together.”



 Mohammed recognized that nations needed to look after their own interests first, before helping others, but now the time has come to work together. She said: “We understand that you need to put the oxygen mask on before you can reach out and help others,” but now it is time to “help in that global response.”



 “But today, we have so many more conflicts. We have different needs. And so I think that one needs to look at being fit for purpose. And I would argue that we could do better.”

Yemen – the suffering continues

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 UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, said the number of malnourished children in the country could reach 2.4 million – a 20 percent increase – by the end of the year. 



  9.58 million children do not have sufficient access to safe water, sanitation or hygiene, putting them at a greater risk of infection.



 7.8 million do not have access to education amid the school closures.



  80 percent of the country is in need of humanitarian assistance. The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the situation. 

Going hungry during lockdown

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Government figures have revealed that lack of money forced millions of people to go hungry or rely on food banks during the first few weeks of the coronavirus lockdown, with families and young adults worst affected.
Households with children, people with health issues and people aged 16-24 were most likely to either to skip meals or use food charities to feed themselves or their family in April and May, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) data showed.
The FSA said this meant between 6.3 million and 7.7 million adults had reduced meal portion sizes or missed meals because of lack of money, and between 2.7 million and 3.7 million adults sought charity food or used a food bank.
These are the first official figures showing the scale of the problem. 
 “The Covid-19 crisis has made it much harder to access food,” said Dr Rachel Loopstra, lecturer in nutrition at King’s College London.
It is understood there was “push back” over the FSA’s findings from ministers when they were presented to the government’s vulnerabilities task force – but the FSA was adamant they should be published.
The first set of published results show nearly one in six people reported being food insecure in May – meaning they went without meals or cut down meal sizes, a proportion that rose to just under a quarter of families with children, and a third of 16-24 year olds.
Nearly one in five (19%) in five adults with a physical or mental health issue had been food insecure in May, the survey found. Older people aged 55-75 were least likely to struggle to put meals of the table – just 4% skipped meals in May.
Emma Revie, the chief executive of the Trussell Trust, which reported an 89% rise in food bank use in April, said: “It is shocking that 7% of the population of Northern Ireland, Wales and England have been forced to use a food bank and charities during the pandemic.”

When the game will be up

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When you put the mark of the illiterate on the ballot paper you give up all your power and rights, you hand them to whoever is the winner and forms the new Government.
The Government then acts in the best interests of society as a whole, chiefly the propertied 1% class. They (the government) then can, hit you over the head with a police baton, fire tear gas at you, suffocate you to death, shoot you dead, harass you because of the color of your skin, put you in jail even if you’ve not  committed a crime, and sentence you to death.
When we stop being philanthropists, handing over the wealth we produce to the idle parasite robber capitalist the capitalists. 
When you stop acquiescing.
When you inscribed on your placards and banners: “Abolition of the wages system “
When you vote for yourself for a change. The game will be up.
James19

Poverty – UK

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Britain entered the coronavirus crisis with a less generous welfare safety net, and after the worst decade for income gains for households since comparable records began in the 1960s. Families falling out of work during the coronavirus crisis will get £1,600 less on average in benefits. 



 Even after taking account of emergency additions to the welfare safety net launched as the virus spread to Britain earlier this year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said benefits for out-of-work households were worth 10% less than in 2011.



  For an average out-of-work household with children, the shortfall jumps to £2,900 a year or 12%, less than was available in 2011 before the cuts kicked in.



 Highlighting the scale of the Tories’ austerity drive and the stuttering recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, the IFS said cuts to working-age benefits and tax credits meant low-income households in particular had experienced stalling improvements in living standards.



 Finding that the impact was entirely down to benefit cuts, which offset growth in wages over the period, it said incomes for the poorest 10th of households were essentially the same in 2018–19 as they had been five years earlier in 2013–14.



 Without the temporary changes announced by Rishi Sunak in March to raise the value of universal credit and other benefits to soften the blow delivered by Covid-19, households would have been 15% worse off, and families with children 16% worse off, the IFS said. The changes are due to last for 12 months. Unemployment is expected to more than double this summer.

Pascale Bourquin, research economist at the IFS, said: “The years following the great recession [2008 financial crisis] do not provide a good blueprint for a bounce-back: in the last decade, we have witnessed the slowest growth in household incomes since records began as earnings and productivity stalled and working-age benefits were cut sharply. We now have the dual challenge of trying to recover the ground people have lost in their careers and employment prospects, and addressing the problems we already had.”

Who will get the Vaccines?

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 Billions of dollars are flowing into research to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 and over 100 efforts are under way. But how will these vaccines reach the poorest people on the planet?



  Ask pharmaceutical corporations about how they will ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines, and they say “Gavi”. Ask the wealthiest governments in the world what they are doing to ensure global equity, and they too say “Gavi”.



 Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance, is a 20-year old public-private partnership that believes the marriage of markets and philanthropy will bring vaccines to everyone in the world. At the Global Vaccine Summit held earlier this month, Gavi raised a record-breaking $8.8bn.   Gavi launched its newest initiative, a fund for future Covid-19 vaccines – the Covax Facility – which invites countries to invest in a wide portfolio of potential vaccines, pool their risk, and gain dedicated access to eventual products.



 Pharmaceutical companies say they will make no money off the pandemic, that they will supply vaccines at a cost. Yet, they have already seen multibillion dollar increases in their market capitalisation, and are unwilling to relinquish the monopolies that drive their outsize profits. Leaders of rich countries (apart from the US) have said all the right things about equitable access to vaccines. Yet they are entering into multiple advance deals to stock up on possibly far more vaccines than they will ever need



 The first deal – a US$750m agreement with AstraZeneca for 300 million doses of the potential Oxford University vaccine – was heralded as a commitment by industry to meet the needs of the world’s poorest countries. But it came at a high price, representing only a minor discount over the full price paid by the US government. The problem is, we know very little about this deal because the agreement isn’t public, despite all the public money involved. We don’t know if, for example, AstraZeneca gets to keep the money if its vaccine fails. We don’t even know for a fact that all the vaccines bought are intended for use in poor countries.



 The World Health Organization’s forthcoming Global Allocation Framework will specify that the most vulnerable people in the world be given the vaccines first and in a fair and equitable way.  Yet, a report prepared for the Gavi board meeting that starts this week, and circulated ahead by Gavi to stakeholders, including civil society organisations, proposes that rich countries can ignore the WHO framework, with only poor countries having to abide by it. According to the document, it seems Gavi will allocate rich countries enough vaccines for a fixed percentage of their population, which their “national advisory bodies” will decide. Poor countries, meanwhile, will only get vaccines for their highest priority people, after demonstrating proof.



 Rich countries are “encouraged (but not required)” to donate vaccines if they have more than they need, but we do not know when poor countries will get these donated vaccines: will it be at the same time as the rich countries, or only after they have used up all the vaccines they need? 



 The prospect of a two-tiered system puts into question the fundamental issue that Gavi was founded to address: equitable access to vaccines.



 Three decades of getting medicines and vaccines to poor people have revealed the problem and the solution: monopolies over vaccines in the pharmaceutical industry, enforced through patents which, when suspended, result in prices going down and supply going up. The rich countries and organisations who fund Gavi are equally culpable: the US, UK and EU have committed billions towards vaccine research, almost all of which has gone to private pharmaceutical companies – without any conditions to prevent them from monopolising their vaccines. All these countries have further stockpiled future vaccines by making direct deals with manufacturers, again without any access conditions whatsoever. At best, Gavi has failed at negotiating control over the vaccines it funds. At worst, it believes that pharmaceutical monopolies, which have thwarted equitable access, are somehow essential to achieving it.



 Seth Berkley, the Gavi CEO, cannot claim to want “the world to come together” with “no barriers” while failing to tackle both rich country nationalism and pharmaceutical industry greed.



 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/24/worlds-poorest-people-coronavirus-vaccine-gavi

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