Less than one per cent of the world’s population breathes pollution-free air – and Asian countries face some of the most severe health risks, according to a new study published in Lancet Planetary Health.

About 99.82 per cent of the global land area is exposed to dangerous levels of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) that are above the safety limit recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), according to the research. Only 0.001 per cent of the world’s population breathes air considered acceptable, it found.

The study found that air quality is particularly worrisome in regions such as south Asia and east Asia.

Asian countries have the worst air quality with less than 1% of the world breathing clean air, study finds | The Independent

 Around 630,000 small and microbusinesses in Britain have raised concerns that they may have to fold this year due to spiralling costs, Sky News reported on Monday, citing a study by website builder GoDaddy. Their collapse could reportedly wipe £12 billion ($14.4 billion) out of the economy.

More than three-quarters of survey respondents described the cost-of-living crisis as the biggest challenge they have ever faced, calling the price of energy their single biggest concern.

Microbusinesses, which are typically firms with fewer than 10 employees, represent 96% of all businesses within Britain’s private sector, according to GoDaddy’s UK manager Andrew Gradon.

“They are the lifeblood of businesses in the UK and it’s them that are on the frontline, very much feeling the direct impact of the cost-of-living crisis,” he was quoted as saying by Sky.

“Around 42% said that they wanted support with tax incentives but are also looking more broadly to business support – so looking at technical assistance for business development as well as support for digital strategy,” Gradon noted.

Meanwhile, a government spokesperson acknowledged that companies have been struggling with energy bills, noting that the government is providing businesses with billions of pounds in support.

“This support means some will be paying around half of predicted wholesale energy costs this winter,” he told Sky, adding that the government has “pledged further energy support from April onwards.”

In September 2022, the British government introduced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which has reportedly provided £18 billion ($22 billion) to businesses to help with soaring energy costs. However, the plan is due to come to an end in March, and a new support package will reportedly see funding reduced to £5.5 billion ($6.5 billion).

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Dave C.

The Conscript

He nearly always switched channels

When it was time for the news,

Decidedly unaffected

By the war they must not lose.

After all there’s beer and fashion

For a lad not yet a man,

Girls, and video games to play,

A future without a plan,

A course for him to be chosen;

It’s enough to be alive,

Not thinking of tomorrow; then

The call up papers arrive.

A few weeks initial training,

Swapping fashion for fatigues,

While men in braid and business suits

Pursue self-serving intrigues.

The front line must push on forwards,

So the lad is quickly led

To the heroic offensive

And yet still a lad, is dead.

D. A.

  The Financial Times reported Sunday that the commodity trading industry “made record gross profits of more than $115 billion from trading activities last year.”

That total is up 60% compared to 2021, with the independent trading houses Trafigura, Vitol, and Glencore among the biggest beneficiaries, the Financial Times noted.

As much of the world reeled from high energy and food prices that left millions struggling to heat their homes and feed their families, commodity trading firms that benefit from extreme market volatility brought in record-breaking profits in 2022, capitalizing on chaos spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Financial players such as hedge funds also enjoyed big gains, earning an estimated $12 billion from trading activities in 2022 compared with less than $3 billion the year before,” the newspaper added.

Ernst Frankl, a partner at Oliver Wyman and one of the report’s authors, told the Financial Times that 2022 “was a bit of a perfect storm across all the commodities, from a trading opportunity perspective.”

“Volatility is the lifeblood of what traders need in order to trade,” Frankl said.

Experts have argued that commodity speculators are not only benefiting from extreme market volatility—they’re to some degree causing major price swings that have real-world consequences.

“We’re in a market where speculators are driving prices up,” Michael Greenberger, former head of the Division of Trading and Markets at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told Mongabay last year.

World Food Program (WFP) projects that more than 345 million people will be “food insecure” this year, more than double the 2020 number.

Amid Global Hunger Crisis, Commodity Speculators Reap Record-Shattering Profits (commondreams.org)

 Inflation in Switzerland unexpectedly accelerated in February largely due to soaring airfares, rent and energy costs, figures from the Federal Statistical Office showed on Monday.

Consumer prices surged 3.4% last month year-on-year and were higher than the median estimate by Bloomberg, which predicted a slower rate of 3.1%. The February jump reflected rising prices for air transport, package holidays, rents and gasoline, indicating that the country’s central bank will have to tighten its monetary policy, the media outlet said.

Core inflation in Switzerland excluding energy and food prices also accelerated for a third successive month and reached 2.4%, the data shows.

While Switzerland has managed to maintain the lowest pace of inflation among major European economies, persistent price growth will likely force the central bank to hike rates as underlying inflationary dynamics are “stronger than what the SNB is prepared to tolerate,” Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan said.

Swiss inflation saw a 3.3% rise year-on-year in January, driven by surging gas and electricity prices. The rate also exceeded economists’ forecasts of 2.9% and was the highest since August 2022. Housing and energy prices surged 5.1%, while public transport costs climbed 4.7% year-on-year. Gas prices alone rocketed by 40.3% in January in annual terms, while electricity soared by 25.5%.

The central bank has also expressed concern that companies are now more likely to pass on higher prices to customers. Utility providers adjusted prices at the beginning of the year, passing on increased costs to Swiss households. Swiss state regulator ELCOM previously predicted that electricity would become an average of 27% more expensive for consumers.

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Dave C.

  Suella Braverman declares “…there are 100 million people around the world who could qualify for protection under our current laws. And let’s be clear: they are coming here…”

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said it was untrue to claim 100 million people could qualify for asylum in the UK. “To claim that all 100 million people who are facing forced displacement are, or even want to, come to the UK is simply untrue. No refugee wants to leave their home and the reality is that 75% of the world’s refugees are hosted by countries neighbouring the one people have left.”

UK was 16th out of 28 of Euro countries destination of choice for asylum seekers per capita in 2021: Germany took 190,000 France took 120,000 Spain took 62,000 Italy took 53,000 UK took 50,000

 Nationwide strikes and rallies against pension reform have caused major traffic disruptions and paralysed oil refineries and universities in France, after trade unions called for the country to be brought “to a halt.”

As the latest wave of protests against the government’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 entered their sixth day, trade unions announced that “more than two million people” would take part in rallies on Tuesday. For comparison, on January 31, the biggest day of demonstrations so far, some 1.27 million took part, according to official figures.

Marches started in the early morning across the country, with crowds blocking major higher education establishments including Rennes II University and Lyon II University, according to footage on social media and local media reports.

Protesters erected barricades in front of a bus depot in La Roche-sur-Yon, a city in western France. Students also blocked a bus depot at Saint-Denis Pleyel, near Paris, before being pushed back by security forces.

At least 100 people blocked the RN 24 highway connecting Rennes and Lorient in western France, according to student organization Le Poing Leve (The Raised Fist). The group claimed the police used tear gas to disperse the gatherings.

The trade union organization CGT-Chimie said fuel shipments had been blocked at the exits of “all refineries.” The management of oil major TotalEnergies confirmed to AFP that it had been affected, but said there was “no shortage of fuel” at its stations.

Trade unions have also warned of strikes on public transport. On Monday SNCF, France’s national state-owned railway operator, and RATP, the transport operator in Paris, confirmed that the movement of trains in France would be “very severely disrupted,” while metro operations would also be disrupted.

Meanwhile, the French General Directorate of Civil Aviation has requested that airlines reduce scheduled flights by 20% and 30% at Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris, respectively.

Unrest against pension reform has been escalating for several weeks now. While French President Emmanuel Macron has described the initiative as “essential” due to projected deficits in the pension system over the next 25 years, it has proved deeply unpopular among the public, with almost 60% opposing the reform, according to an Elabe poll.

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Dave C.

Global progress on women’s rights is “vanishing before our eyes”, the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, has warned.

The goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve.

“Women’s rights are being abused, threatened and violated around the world,” he added, as he ticked off a litany of crises: maternal mortality, girls ousted from school, caregivers denied work and children forced into early marriage.

He stressed that “in many places, women’s sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled back [and] in some countries girls going to school risk kidnapping and assault”.

“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology,” Guterres said, citing as an example how women represent only 3% of Nobel prize winners in those sectors.

Gender equality still ‘300 years away’, says UN secretary general | Women’s rights and gender equality | The Guardian

The watchdog Accountable.US revealed that the biggest oil companies operating in the United States raked in a collective $290 billion in profits last year while they “consistently prioritized shareholder returns over alleviating the pressure of high energy prices.”

According to the report—which analyzed 26 oil companies doing business in the U.S.—the $290 billion in collective 2022 Big Oil profits marked a 126% increase from the previous year. Fossil Fuel giants including BP, Shell, and Chevron more than doubled their net income in 2022, while smaller players like Murphy Oil And Southwestern Energy saw respective increases of 1,410% and 7,496%.

“With $290 billion in profits, Big Oil made enough money in 2022 to end world hunger, pay off U.S. medical debt…but instead used their record profits to shower $163 billion on shareholders with plans to give even more in 2023,” Accountable.US said.

 The industry spent over $163 billion on stock buybacks and dividends. Even as Big Oil executives complain about supposedly lower-than-desired margins in 2023, oil and gas companies have already publicly announced plans to buy at least $160 billion in stock backs starting this year to enrich their wealthy shareholders further.

“Despite the industry’s bald-faced lies, Big Oil’s never-ending greed was the central force driving the industry’s obscene price gouging,” said Accountable.US director of energy and environment Jordan Schreiber.

Analysis Shows Major US Oil Companies Raked in $290 Billion in Profits Last Year (commondreams.org)