In Sudan, the United Nations estimates that at least three million children under five are malnourished. UNICEF says 20 percent of them suffer from severe acute malnutrition. Without treatment, about half will die, the UN agency says in a report.

A poor harvest has made the humanitarian crisis worse. Food prices have skyrocketed, leaving many more families struggling to feed their children. Staple food prices are 250 to 300 percent higher than they were last year.

As food prices in Sudan soar, malnutrition worsens | News | Al Jazeera

 The latest figures from the Bureau for Economic Analysis show that the profits of the U.S. coal and oil industry increased 340% between the first and second quarters of 2022.

 Companies selling petroleum and coal products made an estimated $49.7 billion in profits from April to June, compared with $11.3 billion from January to March.

Meanwhile, executives in the nation’s transportation and warehousing sector enjoyed a nearly 40% increase in profits during the same time period, pocketing $124.4 billion in the second quarter after taking home $89.4 billion over the first three months of the year.

Chevron made $11.6 billion in Q2, up from around $6 billion last quarter, and up from 247% a year ago.

‘Their Price Strategies Are Bearing Fruit’: Oil and Coal Profits Surge 340% (commondreams.org)

Are they going to surrender their wealth for a green world?

 In the United States the game called either football or soccer in the rest of the world is always called soccer. American football is very different. In fact, I don’t see why it should be called foot-ball at all, because the ball is not kicked around the field, as in soccer, but carried. 

The ball carrier can be ‘blocked’ or ‘tackled’ by a member of the opposing team. Let’s number the players shown in the photo from left to right. No. 1 is tackling No. 2. He can grab him around any part of the body below the neck and throw him to the ground. (A change to the rules in 1976 barred ‘initial contact with the head or face while blocking and tackling.’) No. 2 is said to be ‘taking a hit.’ He may be able to hand the ball to his team mate No. 3 before he is thrown. No. 4 seems to be readying himself to tackle No. 3 if that happens.

Over 4 million boys and young men play American football each year. Of these 100,000 are college students and over a million attend high school (age 16+). The majority are even younger. Some are only 5. 

Injuries are frequent. Some are fatal. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, there were 16 deaths in the 2014 season. However, I easily found half a dozen reports of football deaths of school students down to age 10 in local newspapers for the month of September 2022 alone.   

The most common cause of death is severe concussion or other injury to the head or spinal cord. But death can result even from minor injuries like a gashed knee, because players ignore them and continue to play. By the time they are treated infection has set in.

It is often claimed that rule changes and protective equipment have greatly reduced the risks of the game. The effects of equipment are mixed: while it may protect the wearer, it can also harm players with whom the wearer grapples. This is especially true of plastic helmets (the earliest helmets were made of leather) and metal plates over sensitive areas like the shins.

Kathleen Bachynski has written a fascinating history of American football (No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis, University of North Carolina Press 2019). Institutional football began in the late nineteenth century at elite Ivy League colleges in the northeast and at military academies. From there it spread to other colleges and after World War Two to high schools. Schools for younger children refused to organize games, but their place was taken by junior football leagues.

Football was controversial from the start. It was opposed by some physicians, theologians and mothers (the historical record rarely conveys the voices of concerned mothers directly, but contains numerous attacks on their ‘overprotective’ attitudes). In 1905 Professor Shailer Matthews of Chicago’s Divinity School urged that football be abolished: a game, he exclaimed, should ‘not require the services of a physician, the maintenance of a hospital, and the celebration of funerals.’ (Ivy League colleges hired physicians and built hospitals nearby to ensure that medical assistance would be immediately available. When the game was adopted by less wealthy schools this was no longer the case: an injured player might lie on the field for 45 minutes before an ambulance arrived.)

Supporters praised football above all as ‘a mimic battlefield’ — an ideal means of preparing boys for war as well as for the vicissitudes of life in a highly competitive society: ‘Where better could students experience the thrills of success and the agony of failure?’ The idea of football as training for war has a long pedigree: the Duke of Wellington supposedly said that ‘the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton’ (the most prestigious British school for upper class boys). And even today successful high school football players are given nicknames like ‘War Daddy.’ 

As socialists we encourage boys to muster their moral courage, refuse to play American football, and defy any who hypocritically call them ‘sissies’ – you can go to hell with your stupid games and you can go to hell with your stupid wars!

A Note on Girls and Women in Football

Most football players (97%) are male, but some are female. The main role of girls and women in football remains cheerleading, which also causes many concussions and other injuries. I am not aware of any academic studies of the subject.   

Football and War – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

Stephen Shenfield

  At the U.N. General Assembly 66 countries called urgently for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine through peaceful negotiations. 

Bangladesh – “We want the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. Due to sanctions and counter-sanctions, …the entire mankind, including women and children, is punished.”

India – ” We are often asked whose side we are on. And our answer, each time, is straight and honest. India is on the side of peace and will remain firmly there…We are on the side that calls for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way out. We are on the side of those struggling to make ends meet, even as they stare at escalating costs of food, fuel and fertilizers.”

Senegal – “We call for de-escalation and a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, as well as for a negotiated solution, to avoid the catastrophic risk of a potentially global conflict.”

Saint Lucia – We call upon all parties involved to immediately end the conflict in Ukraine, by undertaking immediate negotiations to permanently settle all disputes in accordance with the principles of the United Nations.”

66 Nations at UN Say ‘End War in Ukraine’ – Consortium News

 “Syria is fast becoming a forgotten conflict”, says Lukas van Trier, Country Director for War Child’s Syria Response.

The 11-year conflict remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. Millions of Syrians have fled across borders, making them also the largest group of refugees globally. Many of those who remain live in squalid, overcrowded conditions and are routinely exposed to all forms of violence. 

Violence has intensified in recent months. Over 100 people – including children – have been killed by airstrikes since June, resulting in the largest displacement recorded since March 2020.

“Airstrikes – often on buildings where displaced families are sheltering – have become more regular”, says Adel Aldahien, War Child Child Protection Specialist. “People are living by the day, in a constant state of fear. Children are dropping out of school and going out to work in a desperate bid to feed their families”, she continues.

Children Paying the Highest Price of Increase in Violence in Syria – Syrian Arab Republic | ReliefWeb

 Tulum is the jewel of Mexico’s Riviera Maya where ancient ruins perch above white-sand beaches. Tulum was declared a “world yoga capital” in 2017. Almost 4 million more tourists arrived into the state’s airports in July and August, compared with the same period in 2019. The opening of a new international airport in Tulum next year will drive up visitor numbers even further. Unrestricted development has largely cut off public access to the 80-mile stretch of beaches, leaving the local Maya people – who work mostly as builders, cleaners, chefs and taxi drivers – isolated from their ancestral sites of natural beauty as they cannot afford to visit the seaside cafes and restaurants.

The 12,000-strong community who live in the 137-hectare (340-acre) hamlet of 2 de Octubre are facing eviction as developers forge ahead with plans to build on land sold by the Quintana Roo state government to meet demand for high-end property in the popular beach town. Condos primed to replace the simple dwellings could each sell for up to $300,000 (£280,000) – putting them far beyond the reach of local people, many of whom earn about $20 a day amid some of Mexico’s starkest disparities of wealth and an absence of social housing. Indigenous people are being forced further away from the most desirable areas to make way for foreigners who can afford the high prices. Nor can they bear the costs of buying their own land in a town dominated by foreign capital.

Tensions are brewing in step with rapid gentrification and social change, which has seen the poverty rate jump to 62% – the highest in the country. While there is no shortage of low-paid service-sector jobs, the threat of eviction hangs over the local people who helped transform Tulum from wilderness to a thriving town of at least 50,000 people.

“It is a mockery: these are the hard-working people whose hands have built Tulum,” says Rafael Barajas, president of a local community organisation. “Violence in the state is deep-rooted and a modern apartheid keeps communities isolated and in poverty.” he pointed out, “Lands have been effectively stolen and sold to unscrupulous investors and hotel owners, who operate with impunity”. The businesses want the Mayans to do their shifts but then disappear at night,” adds Barajas. Leaders of a campaign started this year to resist eviction have refused reported offers of land about 10 miles away, not least because commuting to work each day would eat into already meagre paypackets.

Attempts by police to evict locals have met resistance, including people building barricades that often end up ablaze. In late July, almost 100 police officers descended on the hamlet – which sits in the shadow of a recently built luxury development and lacks drainage or running water – and fired teargas while a bulldozer attempted to knock down homes.

Mexican tourism boom: Tulum’s locals fight evictions as developers move in | Global development | The Guardian

  The number of families struggling to manage their telecoms bills has doubled over the last year – from 15% to 29% of customers nationwide – the highest level the regulator has recorded.

8 million UK households are facing problems paying their mobile, broadband, pay-TV and streaming bills, prompting the media regulator to call on the biggest telecoms companies to reconsider the inflation-busting price rises planned for the spring.

Ofcom found in its annual affordability survey that one in seven families have cut back spending in other areas, such as on food and clothing, to afford their communication services, while 9% have cancelled a service.

Ofcom called on telecoms providers to scrap the formula used for annual price rises in April. The mechanism – used in some form by many providers including BT, TalkTalk, Shell Energy and Vodafone – increases bills by the rate of inflation in January as measured using the consumer prices index, plus 3.9%.

“The cost of living crisis is putting unprecedented strain in household budgets,” said Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s networks and communications group director. “This includes a much stronger emphasis on offering and promoting social tariffs, as well as thinking carefully about whether significant price rises can be justified at a time when the finances of their customers are under such pressure.”

“Restricting the services of someone who is particularly reliant on them, to push them into paying outstanding bills, should be avoided or limited,” said Ofcom. “Disconnection should only ever be used as a last resort.”

Record 8m households in UK struggle to manage telecoms bills, says Ofcom | Telecommunications industry | The Guardian

“I do not want to be carried home in a zinc-lined coffin or stain my hands with somebody’s blood because of the war of one person that wants to build an empire.”

 It is estimated that almost 200,000 Russians have fled to neighbouring nations to avoid being called up for military service in Ukraine. 

The Interior Ministry of Georgia said over 53,000 Russians have entered the country since last week, while Interior Ministry officials in Kazakhstan said 98,000 crossed into that nation. The Finnish Border Guard agency said over 43,000 arrived in the same period. Media reports also said another 3,000 Russians entered Mongolia, which also shares a border with the country.

Over 194,000 Russians flee call-up to neighboring countries | AP News

Orthodox View

Patriarch in robes sown with gilded thread

Before his glistering altar stands,

Holding the Gospels in jewelled hands

Firmly proclaiming what those scriptures said

About swords, plough shares and the Prince of peace,

While praising the president and his state

And damning their enemies to their fate,

His cheek unturned. It is time to release

The apostles of war to bless with shell

And shot hospitals, nurseries and schools,

Wherever the innocent or such fools

Seek refuge in such a Christian hell.

This prelate seeks power as his word dies

On his lips, with him being Lord of the Flies.

D. A.