Author: ajohnstone

The Global Poverty Threat

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The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic could plunge an extra 395 million people into extreme poverty and swell the total number of those living on less than $1.90 a day worldwide to more than one billion, according to a new report.



The document – published by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) – played through a number of scenarios, taking into account the World Bank’s various poverty lines – from extreme poverty, defined as living on $1.90 a day or less, to higher poverty lines of living on less than $5.50 a day.



Under the worst scenario – a 20 percent contraction in per capita income or consumption – the number of those living in extreme poverty could rise to 1.12 billion. The same contraction, applied to the $5.50 threshold among upper-middle-income countries, could see more than 3.7 billion people – or just over half the world’s population – live below this poverty line.
“The outlook for the world’s poorest looks grim unless governments do more and do it quickly and make up the daily loss of income the poor face,” said Andy Sumner, one of the report’s authors. “The result,” he said, “is progress on poverty reduction could be set back 20 to 30 years, making the UN goal of ending poverty look like a pipe dream.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/world-extreme-poor-rise-11-billion-live-updates-200611225207924.html

The Pandemic and Child Labour

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The coronavirus pandemic has put millions of children at risk of being pushed into underage labor, reversing two decades of work to combat the practice and potentially marking the first rise in child labor since 2000, the United Nations warned.

“As the pandemic wreaks havoc on family incomes, without support, many could resort to child labour,” said Guy Ryder, director-general of the International Labour Organization. “Social protection is vital in times of crisis, as it provides assistance to those who are most vulnerable.”



Advocates also warn that children are susceptible to being put to work while schools are closed in the effort to stop the spread of coronavirus.
“As poverty rises, schools close and the availability of social services decreases, more children are pushed into the workforce,” said Henrietta Fore, executive director of UNICEF.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200612-united-nations-ilo-unicef-child-labour-coronavirus-covid-19

The Rogue State

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Instead of standing for international justice and the rule of law, the USA is launching an economic and legal offensive on the international criminal court in response to the court’s decision to open an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan carried out by all sides, including the United States. Judges at the ICC gave the green light in March to an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan. 

The ICC was set up in 2002, as an attempt to extend the effort to impose international humanitarian law for war crimes and crimes against humanity begun by the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Over 120 countries, including Washington’s closest allies in Europe, are party to the Rome statute, the founding document of the ICC.

The US will not just sanction ICC officials involved in the investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and its allies, it will also impose visa restrictions on the families of those officials. Additionally, the administration declared on Thursday that it was launching a counter-investigation into the ICC, for alleged corruption.



 American officials accuse the ICC of  violating the sovereignty of the United States.



 Attorney general, William Barr, referred to the ICC as “little more than a political tool employed by unaccountable international elites”.



 The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo,  made clear the US sanctions were also aimed at defending Israel as the ICC began an investigation into crimes by Israeli and Palestinian forces in December.



 Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, welcomed the move, describing the Hague-based court as “politicised and obsessed with carrying out a witch-hunt against Israel and the United States.”



 David Bosco, who wrote a book on the ICC, Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics, said: “I think this is as much directed at the looming Palestine situation as it is at the Afghanistan investigation. The executive order clearly allows for sanctions against ICC personnel who investigate US allies who have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction.”

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the decision, arguing that Trump was “playing directly into the hands of authoritarian regimes by intimidating judges and prosecutors committed to holding countries accountable for war crimes. Trump’s sanctions order against ICC personnel and their families – some of whom could be American citizens – is a dangerous display of his contempt for human rights and those working to uphold them. We are exploring all options in response,” the ACLU said.

The Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said he was “very disturbed” by the news.





 And so he should be for the United States passed the American Services Members Protection Act, sometimes called the Hague Invasion Act, which empowers the USA to take military action against the Netherlands if either any American citizen or a citizen of one of America’s allies (eg Israel) is detained and put on trial by the international court.  


When governments don’t care

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Thousands of people lost their lives “prematurely” because care homes in England lacked the protective equipment and financial resources to cope with the coronavirus outbreak, according to council care bosses. Care homes could account for half of all Covid-19 deaths in England by the end of June, according to one recent estimate.
In a highly critical report, social care directors say decisions to rapidly discharge many vulnerable patients from NHS hospitals to care homes without first testing them for Covid-19 had “tragic consequences” for residents and staff.
In many places, vulnerable people were discharged into care facilities where there was a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) or where it was impossible to isolate them safely.
“Ultimately, thousands have lost their lives prematurely in social care and were not sufficiently considered as part of wider health and community systems. And normality has not yet returned,” James Bullion, the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), said. He added: “It is clear that adult social care was rendered ill-equipped and under-resourced to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic by the failure of successive governments of all political colours to recognise and understand how essential social care is.”  Care homes had been treated as an “afterthought” in the fight against Covid-19. Lack of testing, issues with access to PPE and a lack of policy focus on social care in the early weeks of the pandemic had had “tragic consequences for individuals”.

It was not until 15 April that the government recommended testing before admission to care homes, and there has been widespread criticism of the slow and chaotic rollout of the testing programme.



Bullion said directors were still not confident that testing was comprehensive enough, and PPE supply had only just begun to improve. “Social care is not out of the woods,” he said.



https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/11/english-care-bosses-say-lack-of-resources-cost-thousands-of-lives

America’s Garbage Economy

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Trump has called himself a “big believer in the environment” and insisted he wants “the cleanest water, the cleanest air”.



The US is far behind other industrialized nations on environmental performance and now ranks 24th in the world, according to a new analysis by Yale and Columbia universities. The US did better on air quality, ranking 16th, but the authors warned those rankings could fall as Trump officials have rescinded protections or declined to tighten them based on new research.



 Denmark came in first place, followed by Luxembourg and Switzerland. The United Kingdom ranked fourth. The US is near the back of the pack for developed nations. 



 “If you look at Denmark, they’re doing great but they’re a tiny fraction of overall carbon emissions or greenhouse gas emissions broadly,” said Zach Wendling, lead researcher on the index. “The US is one of the top five players in every greenhouse gas, so we need to do better than just OK if we’re going to generate the best practices.”



The USA,  ranked 15th on climate, is currently the second-biggest contributor to the climate crisis, after China. Over time, it has put more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere than any other nation.  In particular, the US scored poorly on protecting water resources and managing its waste.





On wastewater, the analysis considers how much of wastewater is treated before it is released into the environment and how much of the population is connected to a sewage system. The US is doing poorly on both counts.

About half of trash generated in the US is unaccounted for. Thousands of different entities handle trash collection, and the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the resources to gather data about what is being recycled, incinerated or sent to landfills. Colombia, by comparison, has centralized collection and tracks all of its waste. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/04/us-ranks-24th-in-the-world-on-environmental-performance

America’s Sick Health System

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Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician and lead author of the study, said the coronavirus pandemic “is laying bare the lethal inequality of American society and American healthcare.”



“Our ICU has been flooded with poor and minority patients; having Covid-19 is scary enough without worrying that you’ll be bankrupted by medical bills,” said Gaffney, who works at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School and serves as president Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).



 More than 18 million U.S. adults at severe risk of Covid-19 infection due to age and existing medical conditions either lacked adequate health insurance or were completely uninsured when the pandemic hit, spotlighting the extent to which America’s fragmented for-profit healthcare system may have exacerbated the deadliness of the virus.



According to a new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine Wednesday by researchers from Harvard and the City University of New York’s Hunter School. The study found that among U.S. adults over the age of 65 and non-elderly adults with conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and heart disease, at least 18.2 million were uninsured or underinsured at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.



“Among this increased risk group, those with low incomes, residing in a rural area, and of non-white race had higher rates of inadequate insurance,” the research found. “High-risk persons living in Medicaid non-expansion states had 52% higher odds of being inadequately insured relative to those in expansion states, and high-risk individuals residing in states that had not issued stay-at-home orders had 23% higher odds of inadequate insurance relative to those in other states.”




The number of at-risk Americans with inadequate insurance coverage has likely grown significantly since the pandemic hit the U.S., the researchers note, given that tens of millions of people have lost their jobs—and, as a result, their employer-provided health insurance—since mid-March. A Gallup survey released in late April found that tens of millions of Americans would avoid seeking treatment for Covid-19 symptoms due to concerns about the cost.




“Our estimates of uninsurance and underinsurance are likely underestimates,” the study says.



“These promises of new protections for patients with Covid-19 are full of holes,” said Dr. Danny McCormick, a primary care physician and senior author of the study. “Covid-19 threatens the health of people everywhere, but only in the U.S. will it also ruin patients financially. When people avoid testing and care because they fear the costs, it fuels the epidemic’s spread.”



“It’s not just Covid care that’s unaffordable,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, distinguished professor of Public Health at CUNY’s Hunter College and another of the study’s authors co-founder of PNHP. “Patients with heart disease, asthma, and diabetes need protection too. 



https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/10/lethal-inequality-new-study-shows-millions-high-risk-covid-19-us-lack-adequate

Clamping down on class war in Mexico

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 Susana Prieto Terrazas, prominent labour lawyer in Mexico’s borderlands has been arrested on accusations of inciting violence – a move family members and colleagues denounced as retribution for advising wildcat strikers at US-owned factories. Prieto has made many enemies by representing workers fighting for higher salaries and trying to organise independent unions at maquiladoras – largely foreign-owned factories that manufacture products for export. She was arrested on charges of inciting riot, threats and coercion of public officials and  transported to the state capital, Ciudad Victoria – 320km south-east of Matamoros.



  Fernanda Peña Prieto, the lawyer’s daughter, explained,  “They’re trying to fabricate false evidence, saying that my mother was the mastermind of whatever violence workers may have committed.”



Prieto has also battled union bosses, who have a history of putting company interests ahead of workers’ wages and benefits. 
“They have always been the right arm of the companies’ human resources department,” she told the Guardian in 2019. “That’s why they don’t allow workers to join or register independent unions.”
Prieto’s arrest comes as more maquilas reopen following lockdowns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. According to health officials, Mexico has not yet reached the peak of its outbreak and the number of Covid-19 deaths is still rising, but the country has come under intense pressure from the US to declare many manufacturing activities “essential” as they form part of continental supply chains. Prieto had campaigned against policies at maquiladora plants in Ciudad Juárez, which she said had put workers at risk of catching the new coronavirus. 
In 2015, Prieto advised workers at a Ciudad Juárez plant operated by the US printer and software company Lexmark, who were fired for demanding a wage increase of $0.35 per day.
During an unprecedented wave of wildcat strikes in 2019, Prieto described fierce resistance from maquila owners. “They’re fighting tooth and nail because these gringo bastards don’t want to set a precedent.”  Those strikes spread to other businesses.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, has shown little enthusiasm for labour activism along the border, despite winning power on the promise of a better deal for workers and doubling the minimum wage.



“We’ve not been favoured by the federal government in any way,” Peña said. “Mexico is wearing itself out trying to please the United States.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/top-mexican-labour-lawyer-arrested-us-owned-factories



Dividends come first

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Kohl’s, one of the US’s largest clothing retailers, cancelled orders of clothing worth approximately $100m from Korea and $50m from Bangaldeshi factories after the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and refused petitions from suppliers asking for the option to renegotiate payments. Kohl’s also furloughed 85,000 US staff and shuttered its 1,159 stores.



Then on 1 April, Kohl’s paid out $109m  (£85m) in dividends to shareholders. Between 2017 and 2019, Kohl’s paid dividends to its shareholders worth $1.2bn. 



“Brands like Kohl’s say they care about workers, and use their big name to talk about ethical sourcing. But it is a lie,” said Kalpona Akter, the founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, a union organisation supporting garment workers. “They cancel orders and refuse to pay for orders produced. When we need them most, they turn their backs. They need to do the right thing. They need to pay their bills.”



Scott Nova from the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), said that Kohl’s actions were tantamount to exploitation and exposed the huge power imbalance in the global garment supply chain 
“Kohl’s puts a grossly one-sided cancellation clause in its purchase agreements, allowing it to cancel, and refuse to pay suppliers when it decides to,” he said.  “The company has refused to pay for apparel that it ordered and that workers have already made, but the company somehow found a $100m to reward shareholders. It’s hard not to think of these actions as nothing more than a form of robbery.”

As Hasina, who worked in a Bangladesh factory supplying Kohl’s, explains, “I have given all my energy making clothes for very low wages. Manufacturers and fashion brands can profit off the clothes, but nobody cares for us when we are suffering.”

Inequality exacerbated by pandemic

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A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the Covid-19 pandemic threatened to make life worse for the most vulnerable groups.



The Covid-19 report – part of a five-year IFS project on inequality – found that:



1. Low earners were most likely to work in shut-down sectors, to have been furloughed or be at risk of unemployment. 
2. A gap in death rates between better-off and less affluent neighbourhoods, as well as between some ethnic minorities and the white majority, had widened further.
3. Some minority ethnic groups, especially those of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, were much more likely to work in shut-down sectors. Black groups were disproportionately represented in key worker occupations and had been contracting Covid-19 at far higher rates than the white majority.
4. Workers under 25 were twice as likely as those over 25 to work in a locked-down sector.
5. Mothers were more likely than fathers to take on the additional childcare and housework duties caused by the lockdown.
6. Private schools were almost twice as likely to be providing online teaching as the state schools attended by children from the fifth most deprived families. 

Robert Joyce, the deputy director at IFS, and an author of the report, said: “The crisis has laid bare existing inequalities and risks exacerbating them…”



https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/11/inequality-will-worsen-unless-ministers-act-says-thinktank

Mining Corporations and the Destruction of Cultural History

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Mining giant BHP Billiton is poised to destroy at least 40 – and possibly as many as 86 – significant Aboriginal sites in the central Pilbara to expand its $4.5bn South Flank iron ore mining operation.



A BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago and noted that evidence in the broader area showed “occupation of the surrounding landscape has been ongoing for approximately 40,000 years”.
BHP’s report in September 2019 identified 22 sites of artefacts scatters, culturally modified trees, rock shelters with painted rock art, stone arrangements, and 40 “built structures … believed to be potential archaeological sites”.


Under section 18 of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act, the traditional owners – in this case the Banjima people – are unable to lodge objections or to prevent their sacred sites from being damaged. 



They are also unable to raise concerns publicly about the expansion, having signed comprehensive agreements with BHP as part of a native title settlement. BHP agreed to financial and other benefits for the Banjima people, while the Banjima made commitments to support the South Flank project.

But the Banjima native title holders told the WA government in April they did not want any of the 86 archaeological sites within the project area to be damaged, saying the “impending harm” to the area “is a further significant cumulative loss to the cultural values of the Banjima people”.
In a written appeal, the Banjima to the WA government in April this year say they “in no way support the continued destruction of this significant cultural landscape” but “are equally aware” they cannot formally object to the section 18 application. This letter in April followed one sent in December 2019 in which the native title holders said: “The significance of the sites impacted by the notice to Banjima people is such that Banjima people cannot and do not support the destruction of those sites as proposed by the Notice as to do so would be inconsistent with their cultural obligations to protect those sites.” They would “suffer spiritual and physical harm if they are destroyed”.
BHP decided it was “not reasonably practicable for BHP to avoid the eighty-six potential archaeological sites” at the South Flank mine development area.
This follows the apology last week by the chief executive of Rio Tinto iron ore, Chris Salisbury, for destroying the rock shelter in Juukan Gorge, which was blown up in mining works at the Brockman 4 iron ore mine near Tom Price in the Pilbara region on 24 May, saying there had been a “misunderstanding” with traditional owners the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people. 

Robert Eggington, a Noongar man, said Rio Tinto had exploited the weakness of WA’s 48-year-old Aboriginal heritage laws, which have been under review for two years.
“They used that against the people and then turned and blamed [it on] misunderstandings between the company and the custodians of that site,” Eggington said.
The Western Australian minister for Aboriginal affairs, Ben Wyatt, confirmed he approved the South Flank expansion three days after the destruction of Juukan Gorge made global headlines.

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