US life expectancy has fallen to the lowest level seen since 1996, continuing a steep decline largely driven by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the provisional data, life expectancy fell by 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021.

 Some Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are online via Discord or Zoom, and some are in-person. Please contact spgb.discord@worldsocialism.org for instructions on how to join Discord. 

CENTRAL BRANCH MEETING

Anyone wishing to join the meeting contact spgb.cbs@worldsocialism.org to get an invite.

Friday 2 September 19.30 BST (GMT +1) Discord

Sunday 2 October 11.00 GMT Discord

REGULAR DISCUSSION GROUP + BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ZOOM MEETINGS

SOCIALIST PARTY IN-PERSON MEETINGS

MANCHESTER

Saturday 10 September, 11.30am-6pm

STALL AT WIGAN DIGGERS FESTIVAL

The Wiend, Wigan

Glasgow Discussion Meeting

Second Saturday of each month at The Atholl Arms Pub, 134 Renfrew St, G2 3AU. Let’s get together for a beer and a blether. 2pm onwards. 2 minutes’ walk from Buchanan Street Bus Station. For further information call Paul Edwards on 07484 717893.

Yorkshire Discussion Group

If you live in the Yorkshire area and are interested in the Socialist Party case you are very welcome to attend our forums which currently alternate on a monthly basis either on Zoom or physical meetings in Leeds. For further information contact: fredi.edwards@hotmail.co.uk

Cardiff Street Stall

Every Saturday 1 – 3pm

Capitol Shopping Centre

Queen Street (Newport Road end)

Weather permitting

 Eating lots of highly processed food such as ready meals is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, bowel cancer and premature death, according to two large studies.

The research offers more reasons to limit intake of ultra-processed foods and instead consume more unprocessed or minimally processed foods to reduce the risk of death, disease and ill health. The findings were published in the BMJ.

Ultra-processed foods include packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals, and ready-to-eat or heat products, often containing high levels of added sugar, fat, and/or salt, but lacking in vitamins and fibre.

The first study suggests high consumption of ultra-processed foods in men and some subgroups of ultra-processed foods in men and women is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. The second study found a link to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death.

The findings reinforce the importance of reformulating dietary guidelines worldwide, by paying more attention to the degree of processing of foods along with nutrient-based recommendations.

In the first study, researchers examined the association between consumption of ultra-processed foods and risk of colorectal cancer in US adults. Their findings were based on 46,341 men and 159,907 women from three large studies of US health professionals whose dietary intake was assessed every four years using detailed food frequency questionnaires.

Foods were grouped by degree of processing and rates of colorectal cancer were measured over a period of three decades, taking account of medical and lifestyle factors.

Results show that compared with those in the lowest fifth of ultra-processed food consumption, men in the highest fifth of consumption had a 29% higher risk of developing colorectal cancer. The link remained significant even after further adjustment for body mass index or dietary quality.

The second study was based on 22,895 Italian adults. Both the quantity and quality of food and beverages consumed were assessed and deaths were measured over a 14-year period, taking account of underlying medical conditions.

Results showed that those with the least healthy diets compared with those with the healthiest diets had a 19% higher risk of death from any cause and a 32% higher risk of death from heart disease.

Risks were similar when the two highest and lowest categories of ultra-processed food intake were compared (19% and 27% higher for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, respectively).

A significant proportion of the excess mortality risk associated with a poor diet was explained by a higher degree of food processing. Ultra-processed food intake remained associated with mortality even after the poor nutritional quality of the diet was accounted for.

The findings back up other research linking highly processed food with poor health.

New research gives more reasons to eat less-processed food | Food | The Guardian

 Indian Gautam Adani has been named the world’s third richest person with an estimated $137bn (£117bn) fortune and becomes the first Asian person to break into the top three of world’s wealthy.

His wealth has soared by $61bn so far this year.

Many of his businesses are involved in natural gas, coal mining and electricity generation, and are likely to have benefited from the global energy price increase.

Adani’s conglomerate owns India’s largest private sector seaport and airport operator as well as a huge coalmine in Queensland, Australia.

When six Indian airports were lined up for privatisation on 2018, Modi relaxed the rules to allow companies with no experience in running airports to bid for them. Adani’s company bought all six and became the country’s biggest airport operator. The Kerala state finance minister, Thomas Isaac, described it as an “act of brazen cronyism”.  Adani’s wealth has risen from an estimated $8bn at the time of Modi’s election in 2014 to $137bn today, a rise of more than 1,600%.

Last week, Adani increased his influence by buying a 29% stake in television network New Delhi Television (NDTV), which is seen as one of few remaining independent TV channels in India.

Indian tycoon Gautam Adani named world’s third richest person | Rich lists | The Guardian

 UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the United Nations Security Council that six million people were at risk of famine in Afghanistan.

Conflict, poverty, climate shocks and food insecurity “have long been a sad reality” in Afghanistan, but he said what makes the current situation “so critical” is the halt to large-scale development aid. He urged donors to restore funding for development in Afghanistan that was frozen when the Taliban took over a year ago.

“Poverty is deepening, the population is still growing, and the de facto authorities have no budget to invest in their own future. It’s clear to us that some development support needs to be restarted,” Griffiths said.

More than half of Afghanistan’s 39 million people need humanitarian help and six million are at risk of famine. More than a million children are “estimated to be suffering from the most severe, life-threatening form of malnutrition” and could die without proper treatment, he said. With more than 70 percent of Afghans living in rural areas, Griffiths warned that if agriculture and livestock production are not protected “millions of lives and livelihoods will be risked, and the country’s capacity to produce food imperilled.”

UN says six million Afghans are at risk of famine as crises grow | United Nations News | Al Jazeera

 There has always been a suspicion that climate scientists were being far too cautious in their predictions and not fully explaining the seriousness of the imminent threats to the planet and its people. They feared they would be considered scare-mongering. However, more research now reveals the catastrophic consequences we face with global warming.

Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were to end overnight.

The research shows an absolute minimum sea-level rise of 27cm (10.6in) from Greenland alone as 110tn tonnes of ice melt. With continued carbon emissions, the melting of other ice caps and thermal expansion of the ocean, a multi-metre sea-level rise appears likely. If Greenland’s record melt year of 2012 becomes a routine occurrence later this century, as is possible, then the ice cap will deliver a “staggering” 78cm of sea-level rise, the scientists said.

The only thing missing from the research is a firm timescale.

Prof Gail Whiteman, at the University of Exeter, who was not part of the study team, said: “The results of this new study are hard to ignore for all business leaders and politicians concerned about the future of humanity. It is bad news for the nearly 600 million people that live in coastal zones worldwide. 

“It is a very conservative rock-bottom minimum,” said Prof Jason Box from the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Geus), who led the research. “Realistically, we will see this figure more than double within this century.” The 27cm estimate is a minimum because it only accounts for global heating so far and because some ways in which glacier ice is lost at the margins of the ice sheet are not included.

 It is understandable that local home-news gets the most in-depth coverage in the media. Consequently, in the UK the present drought and the water-hose bans are making the headlines. But a broader survey of world events and we witness all manner of extreme weather.

In Italy, the worst drought in decades has triggered a state of emergency, while fires have broken out in the cities of Palermo and Sicily. In Southwest France, 10,000 people have fled a massive wildfire that has been smoldering since July. In Germany, record-low water levels in the Rhine threaten to run aground river traffic. . In Kansas, a June heatwave killed so many cattle so quickly that thousands of their carcasses were disposed of in a landfill. This spring in South America, record temperatures across southern Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay have heavily impacted grain and other crop harvests. Widescale flooding in Pakistan and in China.

The effect of climate has social and political consequences.

Olayinka Ajala, a lecturer in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom, pointed to simmering animosity between pastoralist herdsmen who move cattle from one place to another and sedentary farmers — groups that had long peacefully coexisted — in 11 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Traditionally, sedentary farmers would plant crops, harvest them, then the pastoralists would swoop in and clean off the rest, explained Ajal. But erratic changes in rainfall patterns have led to the pastoralist herdsmen getting to the farms before the crops have been harvested. When this happens, Ajal said, the herdsmen’s cattle destroy the plants, leading to tensions and conflict. 

“This has resulted in lots of deaths,” said Ajala. Indeed, between 2020 and 2021, he said, “this conflict resulted in more deaths than terrorism in Africa.”

Back in 2009 by some of the world’s richest nations to deliver $100 billion annually by 2020 to poorer countries. The developed world has really been very resistant of setting up this loss and damage fund. Indeed, the UN has estimated that climate adaptation costs in the developing world alone could hit $300 billion annually by 2030, and as much as $500 billion annually by 2050. 

Climate change is “the greatest market failure on earth if you think about the basics of economics and capitalism,” said Vanessa Pérez-Cirera, director of the World Resources Institute’s Global Economics Center. But, she added, more economists are slowly shifting away from one driven by a profit motive. At the end of the day, she said, “we should move to societies that really value life and value equity in a much greater way.”

Poor Countries Are Suffering the Worst Climate Woes But Getting the Least Help (truthout.org)

 30-year-old Aikhal Ammosov is a member of the local punk rock group Crispy Newspaper. For allegedly “discrediting the Russian army” he faces a possible 3 years in prison. The reason for the case was that he and his partner tried to hang a banner “Yakutian punk against war” in the center of Yakutsk before the visit of Prime Minister Mishustin. Ammosov’s actions were extremely noticeable. Not only in Yakutsk, with a population of 341 thousand, but all over Russia.

Aikhal’s real name is Igor Ivanov. This year, city court of Yakutsk, the capital of the Republic of Sakha, has already fined him 30,000 rubles under an anti-war administrative article three times.

Until now, my generation was not interested in anything. Many people drink, some go hunting, others are just passive. I have been waiting for someone to publicly present my thoughts and the thoughts of my peers. The fact is that today no politician seems worthy to be called a “man” or “woman.” So I decided to do everything myself”, he said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I grew up in a poor family. As a child, I was aware of the vast differences that exist in our society. Today, some might think that I’m an abnormal punk because I don’t drink or smoke. But here we have our own way of understanding things. In the first place is knowledge and intelligence…All the conflicts that Russia starts are similar and tragic. Are meaningless. People are dying because of the whims of officials and oligarchs. Those in power start the aggression, and we, ordinary people, pay the price…”

In a June interview with Sadwave, he said:

“I’m against any wars. It is strange to be for it. Any conscious person who thinks with his own head will be against armed conflicts. We all watched war films. We watched Soviet films. War is always bad. War does not bring anything good. Only death, hunger and poverty. These are elementary things that even a child knows! But people are so stupid that they say that we must fight. They say that war is good. That sooner or later it would happen. Wars must be prevented, not fomented. And do not contribute to their development. I am not a hippie and have never been a peace-loving person. Was not a pacifist. But I have never been for the war. I have read many books about wars. About the Great Patriotic War, about Afghanistan, about Chechnya. I will always be against wars…”

“People are confused. They were deceived. People don’t understand what they are doing. Why do they need this war? Everyone wants to live in peace. Everyone wants to live in peace. But they are told that it is necessary. That it is forced. That there was no other way….We want to live. We want freedom. We want to make history.”

Siberian punk may be imprisoned for anti-militarist agitation | libcom.org

 In the United States those who have committed crimes and have been punished by being put into prison, emerge after their period of sentence to further retribution. 

All but two states have so-called “pay-to-stay” laws that make prisoners pay for their time spent in jail. Critics say it’s an unfair second penalty that hinders rehabilitation by putting former inmates in debt for life. 

“Pay-to-stay” laws were put into place in many areas during the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and ’90s. As prison populations swiftly rose, policymakers questioned how to pay for the cost. So, instead of raising taxes, the solution was to shift the cost burden from the state and the taxpayers onto the incarcerated, themselves.

Laws vary from state to state. To collect prison debt by attaching an automatic lien to every inmate, claiming half of any financial windfall they might receive for up to 20 years after they are released from prison, said Dan Barrett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. That included things like insurance settlements, inheritances and lottery winnings, and even money awarded to inmates in lawsuits over alleged abuse by prison guards. 

In Connecticut, onve released, an ex-prisoner will face a debt of $249 for each day behind bars. 

At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt | AP News

 While many parts of the world endure heatwaves and drought, Pakistan’s monsoon rains have brought deadly floods.

Almost a thousand dead including children, over 3.1 million people displaced, 710,000 livestock drowned and thousands of kilometres of roads and many bridges destroyed. 

It isthe worst floods in a decade which have destroyed homes, crops, livelihoods and infrastructure and leaving millions vulnerable. Pakistan is experiencing abnormal monsoon rainfall nearly ten times higher than usual, resulting in uncontrollable urban and flash floods, landslides, across the country.

Chairman of Pakistan Red Crescent, Abrar ul Haq said, “The situation is worsening by the day. These torrential floods have severely restricted transportation and mobility… and damage to vehicles, infrastructure and connectivity are further making our emergency relief works almost impossible. Most of those affected are also immobile or marooned making us hard to reach them…” He added, “We fear the worst is yet to come as these kinds of waters could mean the risk of water-borne diseases are looming over the heads of our people.”