Rescue teams and volunteers from around the world have made their way to Turkey, medical volunteer Obaida Rannoush called out the inaction of the global community when it comes to his country, Syria. In northwest Syria, the sluggish international response is a matter of life or death for hundreds still trapped under the concrete of collapsed buildings.

“I call on the international community, the Arab countries, and the United Nations to urgently help us,” he said, standing by the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. “More than 60 hours after the quake took place, there are still hundreds trapped under the debris. We cannot rescue them because of our meagre resources. We need heavy machinery, humanitarian and medical aid.” He went on to say, not a single humanitarian convoy has crossed the border. “We have not received any kind of assistance,” Rannoush said. “We are standing here by the border crossing to ask for humanitarian aid so we can save some of the people under the rubble.”

The lack of response has prompted dozens of Syrian journalists to stage a sit-in at the Bab al-Hawa crossing.

Mazen Alloush, head of media relations for the Bab al-Hawa border, said millions of Syrians have been affected by the earthquake and its aftershocks. “The crossing has been closed since the earthquake took place,” he said. “We know that the UN aid is stored in the Turkish city of Reyhanli, which is just one kilometre away from the border crossing,” he added.

“No aid has entered [north Syria] through any of the corridors,” Abdul Razzak Kentar, programmes manager at the Syria Civil Defence.

Is it politics first, aid second? 

Medico International’s Anita Starosta explained, “The aid that was being delivered before the earthquake was not sufficient and sometimes it never even arrived. Now it’s winter and very cold. That means that now, more than ever, people in the displaced persons’ camps here, and also in the areas in Idlib that have been destroyed, are dependent on international help.”All this will depend on one thing, Starosta added. “Whether Turkey opens a humanitarian corridor, to bring people who are fleeing the area to safety, or whether the country sticks with its political position and keeps the borders closed,” she said. “Unfortunately we expect the latter to happen.”

All those Syrians in the country affected by the earthquake simply have to wait — for help to arrive or political decisions to be made, even as time is running out to find survivors.

The U.S. made it clear that it was only willing to support some work carried out in Syria by NGOs, but that it would have no dealings with the al-Assad government.

The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Khaled Hboubati, has requested that Western countries, specifically the U.S. and its allies, lift their siege and sanctions on Syria so that rescue and relief work can proceed unimpeded.

“We need heavy equipment, ambulances and fire fighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible,” Hboubati said.

Syrians denounce failed aid response after devastating quake | Earthquakes News | Al Jazeera

The five largest western oil and gas companies alone making a combined $200bn in profits. When the 2022 results for all publicly traded oil and gas companies are tallied the total profits are expected to exceed $400bn

The “big five” – Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies – all revealed that last year was the most profitable in their respective histories.

Exxon, the Texas-based oil giant, led the way with a record $55.7bn in annual profit, taking home around $6.3m every hour that ticked over last year. California’s Chevron had a record $36.5bn profit, while Shell announced the best results of its 115-year history, a $39.9bn surplus, and BP, another London-based firm, notched a $27.7bn profit. The French company TotalEnergies also had a record, at $36.2bn.

“…built off the backs of working families who were victimized by oil and gas executives’ greed”, according to Claire Moser, deputy executive director of the US activist group Climate Power.

The big five oil and gas companies have already confirmed that most of the bumper profits will be going to stock buybacks and dividends. The $200bn in combined profits equates to around five times the US’s annual foreign aid budget. 

Last year, more than 1tn dollars were invested in fossil fuel infrastructure and extraction worldwide.

António Guterres, the secretary-general of the UN, was scornful of the industry in a speech, in which he expressed incredulity at the “monster profits” of fossil fuel companies at a time when the world needs to be rapidly slashing its planet-heating emissions to avoid climate breakdown. 

“If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero [emissions], with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business,” Guterres said. “Your core product is our core problem. We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence.”

The sale of oil and gas remains so enticing that BP this week announced it is scaling back its climate ambitions, retaining its fossil fuel assets for longer than it previously expected. 

 Said Bernard Looney, BP’s chief executive, “At the end of the day, we’re responding to what society wants.”

“If the bulk of your investments remain tied to fossil fuels, and you even plan to increase those investments, you cannot maintain to be Paris-aligned, because you will not achieve large-scale emissions reductions by 2030,” said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, an activist shareholder group. “The picture is clear now, no oil major has plans to drive down emissions this decade. Now it’s up to the shareholders. Together with major investors, we continue to compel BP to put its full weight behind the energy transition.”

‘Monster profits’ for energy giants reveal a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence | Fossil fuels | The Guardian

Socialist Party of Great Britain rebukes Congressman who warns of the dangers of socialismSocialist Party of Great Britain claps back after a U.S. resolution in Congress condemned the political system

Striking

The vote’s been taken, pickets are posted,

Placards hoisted, slogans given full voice;

Their situation leaves strikers no choice

As wages fall, while profits are boosted

At the workers’ expense. This feels arranged

As was the broad discontent forty years

Ago which surely must provoke fears

That forty years on nothing much has changed.

Inflation is still whittling away pay,

Governments of various stripes all show

It matters little how they come and go,

While the interests of capital hold sway.

Class solidarity may win, but then,

Gains secured will be taken back again.

D. A.

 The 1964 Stanley Kubrick film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, features  Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper who unilaterally tries to begin a war with the Soviet Union by launching nuclear bombs at it.

It seems pertinent to ask the question, in 2023 how many Brigadier General Jack D Ripper’s are there in the U S Military, or the State Department, or the White House?

Not content with trying to escalate the current Russia -Ukraine conflict, the U S A military is now preparing its population for a full scale war with China. It should not be assumed that Minihan posited this of his own accord.

Capitalism has to be abolished and replaced by a sane social system before it literally kills us all.

“American Four-Star General Mike Minihan, head of the US Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC) believes the US and China will go to war by 2025.

“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” Minihan reportedly wrote in a memo to his officers, obtained by media outlets. The message instructs AMC personnel to train and get their affairs in order so that they are “legally ready and prepared.”

This prediction is the most direct and blunt yet from an American official on the prospect of a potential conflict between the US and China, besides President Joe Biden’s indications that the US would intervene on the side of Taiwan if China invaded. Of course, Minihan is not a policymaker, and the memo is not an official statement of US military policy towards China. But the influence of the US military and by extension, the military-industrial complex, on US foreign policymaking and on the mood in Washington in general, should not be underestimated.

The reality is, especially as seen in Ukraine, that the risk of a major-power conflict is arguably at the highest it has ever been since the end of World War II or the height of the Cold War. That is because the US sees itself as a rightful and permanent global hegemon. It also sees the competition catching up, however, and is ready to use all means necessary, and to take massive risks, to prevent the rise of rival powers. As such, the US and China risk falling into the so-called, “Thucydides Trap,” which is described as “an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power  hreatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon”.

The current distribution of power in the world is described as “emerging multipolarity”. Following three decades of American unipolarity, when the US ruled unchallenged, a number of emerging powers are changing the international order. Multipolarity differs from “bipolarity,” where two powers compete for hegemony, the best known example being the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

While bipolarity brings a form of stability, as the military capabilities of both powers are evenly matched and the stakes of a potential conflict are extremely high, history shows multipolarity typically brings instability as it creates an insecure, unpredictable, and competitive international environment. The world of 1914, where a theatre of competing European powers scrambled for international dominance, ultimately combusted into the First World War. As competing world powers expanded their imperialist ambitions, they sought to contain others by forming alliances and starting arms races.

Sounds familiar? It should. Today’s world has some disturbing parallels. The US – an insecure hegemon whose relative power is diminishing as other world powers emerge – is desperately seeking to degrade, undermine and contain its rivals by triggering arms races and expanding alliance systems. Already, the focus on expanding NATO has provoked the conflict in Ukraine, but worse still, the Biden administration is actively seeking to expand that model to East Asia against China, in the form of blocs such as the Quad and AUKUS.

While these alliance systems are in theory supposed to establish deterrence and project American power, in practice history shows this behaviour only provokes, rather than prevents, conflict. The Cold War is the only exception in all history, and the Ukraine conflict has only affirmed this. Because when one state seeks to arm itself with the focus of deliberately targeting another, the other responds, creating an escalatory cycle. Each state therefore races to enhance their capabilities with the goal of responding to the other, and the cycle becomes self-reinforcing.

How do arms races break out into wars? The answer is that in a climate of growing political paranoia, suspicion and distrust which comes with these military tensions, some states like to ask themselves “what happens if they attack me first?” or “are they planning an attack?” The danger stems from when a state perceives that it is facing military containment, or a potential pre-emptive attack, their “only choice” is to attack first and land the first blow. This is, again, rooted in the lessons of history from World War I.

Once Austria-Hungary (an ally of Germany) declared war on Serbia, Germany believed that war with France (an ally of Russia) was inevitable. Therefore, the decision was made to pre-emptively attack France, through Belgium. Why is this relevant today? Because what if at some point, China decides it has no choice but to attack the US or Japan first, before they step in with force of arms to protect Taiwan? Rest assured, we aren’t quite there yet, and Beijing is normally risk averse when it comes to this kind of thing.

The comments by the US general are, of course, overly dramatic, at least at this point. Yet they are dangerous because they reflect the sentiment that sooner or later, war is inevitable, and when it is believed that war is inevitable, it is treated as such, and thus war becomes a reality. Right now, it might seem unthinkable, but so were many other wars in the past. As the US continues to drive up tensions with Beijing, a tipping point, or a miscalculation, becomes ever more likely, and that’s where the danger lies.”

RT 4\2\23

Dave C

 “Rango” is a 2011 animated film set in Nevada. The villain, (capitalist) is a tortoise, Tortoise John who is controlling the water supply to the desert town of Dirt for his own nefarious ends. He is eventually overcome by a chameleon named Rango.

The “Mail Online”, 23\1\23, has a story about water, this life necessary resource:

Residents in drought-hit Arizona town skip showers and use rainwater to flush toilets after supply was cut off – while neighbouring luxury $60,000-a-year golf course keeps its sprinklers on

• Over 500 families in the sleepy suburb of Rio Verde Foothills have just days before their water tanks run dry

• Neighbouring city Scottsdale said it cut off the town’s water to conserve supply for its own residents – but next door golf course remains lush and green

• Home owners in the suburb are now suing Scottsdale – who they say are unwilling to work to a solution – to reinstate their water supply.

Do English and Welsh water customers need to start investing in water butts and rain barrels? Readers must decide how much longer they are going to allow capitalism to accelerate poverty and ill health of the class which runs capitalism for the ruling class and which is exploited by that class. Spoiler alert: the answer is not higher taxation of the exploiters.

“English and Welsh households are expected to see their water and sewage bills surging 7.5% starting April, marking the biggest increase in nearly 20 years, the country’s industry body Water UK announced on Thursday.

The hike will see customers pay around £1.23 ($1.51) a day on average – an increase of £0.08 ($0.10) per day, or £448 ($551) per year, £31 ($38) more than in 2022.

The updated figures come amid warnings that one in five customers are already finding it difficult to pay. Consumer groups are warning that the increase could further squeeze households hit by the raging energy crisis.

However, Water UK highlighted that the hike for most customers across England and Wales will be below inflation. The data takes into account that the November CPIH (Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs), set as the benchmark by the regulator, was 9.3%.

In December, the measure of the rate of overall price rises in the UK was 10.5%.

“Water bills remain lower, in real terms, than they were a decade ago,” Water UK said, adding that the rise reflected higher energy costs, with water firms using about 2% of the UK’s electricity.

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) said there was a postcode lottery of social tariff schemes, meaning some people who need help with their bills “slip through the net.”

“These increases will bring more uncertainty to struggling households at a time when they can’t be certain they will get the help they need,” CCW chief executive Emma Clancy told Sky News.”

RT 4\2\23

Dave C.

 “Real earnings in Germany decreased by an average of 4.1% in 2022 compared with a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the statistics agency Destatis released on Tuesday.

A drop in real earnings refers to a situation where wage increases are unable to keep up with rising inflation, thus reducing spending power. Last year was the third consecutive year in which real wages declined.

“High inflation has led to the largest loss in real earnings for employees since the beginning of the time series in 2008,” Destatis wrote, noting that consumer prices jumped 7.9% last year.

Meanwhile, nominal earnings in the country increased by only 3.4% on average in 2022. This figure takes into account the gross monthly earnings of employees including extra payments, Destatis explained.

Europe’s largest economy suffered from record inflation last year due to a surge in energy prices brought about by the drop in deliveries from Russia amid Ukraine-related sanctions. Issues with pipeline maintenance and then the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines further exacerbated the tight supplies. Last month, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said the German economy would avoid a sharp decline but is set to enter a technical recession.”

RT 8\2\23

Dave C.

 “The world is closer than ever to a global conflict, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday. The global community is not even “sleepwalking” into “a wider war” but marches towards it “with its eyes wide open,” he stressed in a speech to the General Assembly.

“The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing,” Guterres said, denouncing the lack of “strategic vision” and “bias” that prevent political decision-makers from taking steps in the right direction.

“This near-term thinking is not only deeply irresponsible – it is immoral,” he argued, adding that politicians and entrepreneurs became too absorbed with clinging to power and their business cycles.

The secretary-general also blasted the erosion of international law and order based on UN principles, which, according to him, led to the present sorry state of affairs.

“If every country fulfilled its obligations under the [UN] Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed,” he noted, calling on UN members to “to transform our approach to peace by recommitting to the Charter – putting human rights and dignity first, with prevention at the heart.”

“We need to wake up – and get to work,” Guterres said, adding that 2023 had placed humanity in front of a “confluence of challenges unlike any in our lifetimes.”

The UN chief also pointed to the fact that scientists have moved the symbolic “Doomsday clock,” which reflects the potential annihilation of humanity, to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to a possible Armageddon.

The UN chief’s words came after the US and its allies vowed to send dozens of Western-designed modern battle tanks to Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The Pentagon also announced supplying the Ukrainian forces with munitions that have a 150-kilometer range, adding that it would allow Kiev to use them as it sees fit.

Moscow has previously repeatedly warned that continued weapons supplies to Ukraine by the US and its allies risk further escalation that might spiral into a direct conflict between Russia and NATO.”

RT4\2\23

Dave C.

 A new report from the U.N. Environment Program warns that as many as 10 million people could die from so-called “Superbugs” annually by 2050 as the result of antimicrobial resistance driven by environmental pollution and irresponsible practices from a range of industries.

The report, titled Bracing for Superbugs, explains how pollution from hospital wastewater, sewage discharged from pharmaceutical production facilities, and run-off from animal and plant agriculture can be rife with “not only resistant microorganisms, but also antimicrobials, various pharmaceuticals, microplastics, metals, and other chemicals, which all increase the risk of AMR [antimicrobial resistance] in the environment.”

According to the study, the pharmaceutical industry frequently releases untreated wastewater containing “active pharmaceutical ingredients” such as “antibiotics, antivirals, and fungicides, as well as disinfectants.”

Those contaminants increase the likelihood that “resistant superbugs” will “survive in untreated sewage,” 

From the agricultural industry, the report warns that the “use of antimicrobials to treat infection and promote growth” among livestock, the “use of reclaimed wastewater for irrigating crops, use of manure as fertilizer, and inadequate waste management” all serve as entry points for AMR organisms into the environment.

“The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem,” said Andersen at the sixth meeting of the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (GLGAMR) in Barbados. “The impacts of anti-microbial resistance could destroy our health and food systems. Cutting down pollution is a prerequisite for another century of progress towards zero hunger and good health.”

Currently, AMR is linked to as many as 1.27 million deaths per year.

Fueled by Industry Pollution, Superbugs Could Kill 10 Million People Per Year by 2050: UN (commondreams.org)

 Haiti is experiencing the worst level of hunger in its history, with 4.7 million people suffering from acute hunger, the World Food Programme recently warned. In Haiti half its children rely on humanitarian aid to survive, Unicef says.

At least 2.6 million are expected to need immediate lifesaving assistance this year as the overlapping crises leave Haiti’s children in the worst position since the earthquake of 2010, Unicef’s Haiti representative, Bruno Maes, told the Guardian.

“Haitian children don’t just face challenges accessing food and potable water while the health system collapses around them,” Maes said. “There is also a lack of protection. Children are being abused, young girls are being raped and services are not there at the scale they should be for their survival and development.”

“Humanitarian assistance to children and their families, one of the few remaining lifelines for children in Haiti, is a buffer that prevents the country from spiralling into a cycle of social unrest, insecurity, instability and more poverty,” said Garry Conille, Unicef director for the region.

 Anarchy reached new heights in late January when police – the last line of defence against the gangs – staged a revolt. Angry officers terrorised Port-au-Prince, firing guns into the air, creating roadblocks of burning tyres and trapping the prime minister in the airport. Gangs have seized control of two-thirds of the capital, bringing human rights abuses, unprecedented malnutrition and the return of cholera. To support health centres, Unicef has to negotiate access with gangs, who are now the de-facto authorities in many areas.

Maes said: “All the children suffered from the presence of the armed group there, which shows how much violence and insecurity is spreading around the city. In the south, the north, the mountains and suburban areas – in fact, it’s everywhere, and kids are paying a heavy price.”

 Médecins Sans Frontières suspended all its operations at a public hospital in west Port-au-Prince on 26 January after three masked men burst into an emergency room, dragged a patient outside and shot him dead. It was the second such incident in six months that forced MSF to close to protect staff.

The humanitarian crisis is expected to intensify this year, with no obvious political solution in sight.