Ominous warnings keep coming non-stop: some of the world’s developing nations are heading towards mass hunger. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night while the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared — from 135 million to 345 million — since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine. The WFP says it requires $22.2 billion to reach 152 million people in 2022. However, with the global economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the gap between needs and funding is bigger than ever before.

What seems like a cruel paradox is that the US Department of Agriculture estimates that a staggering $161 billion worth of food is dumped yearly into landfills in the United States. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said last November food waste in the United States is estimated at between 30–40 percent of the food supply.

“Wasted food is the single largest category of material placed in municipal landfills and represents nourishment that could have helped feed families in need. Additionally, water, energy, and labor used to produce wasted food could have been employed for other purposes’, said the FDA.

Professor Dr David McCoy, Research Lead at United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), described the heartbreaking image of food being dumped in landfills while famine and food insecurity grows, must also be juxtaposed with the ecological harms caused by the dominant modes of food production which in turn will only further deepen the crisis of widespread food insecurity.

“The need for radical and wholesale transformation to the way we produce, distribute and consume food has been recognized for years. However, powerful actors – most notably private financial institutions and the giant oligopolist corporations who make vast profits from the agriculture and food sectors – have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Their resistance to change must be overcome if we are to avoid a further worsening of the hunger and ecological crises.” 

Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director at the Oakland Institute, stated that according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global food production and stocks are at historic high levels in 2022, with only a slight contraction compared to 2021.

“Skyrocketing food prices seen this year are rather due to speculation and profiteering than the war in Ukraine. It is outrageous that WFP has been forced to expand its food relief operations around the world due to speculation, while also having to raise more funds as the costs of providing food relief has increased everywhere”, he said.

Mousseau pointed out that WFP’s costs increased by $136 million in West Africa alone due to high food and fuel prices, whereas at the same time, the largest food corporations announced record profits totaling billions. Louis Dreyfus and Bunge Ltd had respectively 82.5% and 15% jump in profits so far this year. Cargill had a 23% jump in its revenue. Profits of a handful of food corporations that dominate the global markets already exceed $10 billion this year – the equivalent of half of the $22 billion that WFP is seeking to address the food needs of 345 million people in 82 countries.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that it is important that all governments and the private sector cooperate to bring them to market. Without fertilizer in 2022, he said, there may not be enough food in 2023.

Getting more food and fertilizer out of Ukraine and Russia is critical to further calm commodity markets and lower prices for consumers

Danielle Nierenberg, President and Founder, Food Tank said the amount of food that is wasted in the world is a huge environmental problem–if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’ve done a good job over the last decade of creating awareness around food waste, but we haven’t done enough to actually convince policymakers to take concrete action…” 

Millions Go Hungry– While Billions Worth of Food Go into Landfills | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

The SOYMB blog does not hold any confidence that governments will place people’s priorities before business profits.

 Chief executives of the UK’s 100 biggest companies have seen their pay jump by 39% to an average of £3.4m,  compared with £2.5m in 2020 during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when many bosses took a voluntary pay cut as they placed millions of employees on furlough. CEO pay has also surpassed the £3.25m median recorded in 2019, before the pandemic according to research by the High Pay Centre thinktank and the Trades Union Congress.

The jump in executive pay means that the average UK CEO now collects 109 times that paid to the average British worker, up from 79 times in 2020.

The data also shows that FTSE 100 CEOs’ annual bonuses jumped to £1.4m compared with £828,000 in 2020. Nine in 10 of the bosses received a bonus.

In total, the FTSE 100 firms spent more than £720m on pay awarded to 224 top executives. 

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said the growing disparity between pay at the top and that paid to workers is fuelling the cost of living crisis. 

“Workers deserve a fair share of the wealth they create. But right now, CEO pay is soaring while working people experience the biggest real wage falls in 20 years, she said. “These unbalanced pay policies have seen the gap widen between workers and bosses this year, adding to the cost of living crisis.”

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: “Very high executive pay is a big part of the cost of living problem. If large employers are paying millions more to already very wealthy executives, that makes it harder to fund pay increases for low and middle income workers.”

The highest paid FTSE 100 CEO, according to the research, was Sebastien De Montessus of Endeavour, which operates goldmines in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senegal. He was paid £16.9m. The second-highest paid boss was Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, who was paid £13.9m.

Average pay for FTSE 100 chiefs jumps by 39% to £3.4m | Executive pay and bonuses | The Guardian

Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (IWCA) in 1978to protect American Nativ e children from forced removal from their families, tribes, and culture and preserve tribal sovereignty.

It addressed the nationwide problem of state child welfare agencies taking Native children from their families and placing them in non-Native homes, in an attempt to force Native children to assimilate and adopt white cultural norms. Before ICWA, public and private agencies were removing 25 to 35 percent of Native American/Alaska Native children from their homes, and 85 percent of those children were placed in non-Native households.

Beginning in the early 1800s, the architects of the Federal Indian Boarding School Program designed the program to erase the Indigenous identities of Native people. The government snatched children as young as four years old from their families and sent them to militarized boarding school institutions designed to destroy their Native identities and culture, often hundreds of miles away from their tribal homelands. Any markers of their Indigeneity — language, clothing, traditional hairstyles, and even their names — were prohibited in these institutions. Indian boarding schools were places where Native youth were stripped of their culture: many children died at these schools from outright neglect, malnutrition, untreated illness, and as a result of physical violence carried out against them.

In 1958, the Bureau of Indian Affairs created the Indian Adoption Project. The project’s explicit goal was to assimilate Native children into white culture through adoption and the intentional destruction of Indigenous family units and tribal communities. During this era and continuing today, practices rooted in ethnocentric stereotypes operating under the guise of “child protection” resulted in the baseless separation of thousands of Native children from their families and homelands.

This November, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Brackeen v. Haaland, a case that challenges the constitutionality of ICWA. If the Supreme Court rules ICWA unconstitutional, it could have far-reaching consequences for Native children, families and tribes while simultaneously putting the existence of tribes in jeopardy. Brackeen v. Haaland is the largest threat to Native children, families, and tribes before the Supreme Court in our lifetimes. If ICWA is overturned, states would once again be allowed to tear Native children from their families, tribes, and culture while simultaneously threatening tribes’ very existence. The legal arguments made by the plaintiffs challenging ICWA in Brackeen undermine key tenets of federal Indian law, and threaten many other laws upholding tribal sovereignty. The outcome of Brackeen v. Haaland could put centuries-long legal precedent upholding tribal sovereignty — including tribes’ right and ability to preserve their unique cultural identities, raise their own children and govern themselves — in jeopardy.

Native Families’ Right to Stay Together is at Stake at the Supreme Court | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org)

 Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest tea producers, exporting tea to more than 20 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Nearly 150,000 people work at more than 200 Bangladeshi tea plantations, mostly located in the Sylhet region in northern Bangladesh.

But tea pickers, most of whom are female, work long hours and earn some of the lowest wages in the country. Most tea workers are low-caste Hindus, the descendants of labourers brought to the plantations by colonial-era British planters in the 19th century. They say little has changed for tea workers over the generations. Tea garden workers are among the lowest paid in the country.

Researchers say tea workers – who live in some of the country’s remotest areas – have been systematically exploited by the industry for decades. The United Nations says they are one of the most marginalised groups in the country, with limited access to basic facilities and education.

“Tea workers are like modern-day slaves,” said Philip Gain, director of the Society for Environment and Human Development research group. “The plantation owners have hijacked the minimum wage authorities and kept the wages some of the lowest in the world.”

The tea workers have been holding a strike for nearly two weeks to demand raise in daily wages amid rising inflation. They say the current daily wage – 120 taka (about $1.25) – was barely enough to buy food, let alone other necessities such as health and education. The workers’ union is demanding a 150 percent (300 taka or $3.15 a day) rise in their daily wages. 

“No tea worker will pluck tea leaves or work in the leaf processing plants as long as the authority doesn’t pay heed to our demands,” said Sitaram Bin, a committee member of the Bangladesh Tea Workers’ Union.

“Nowadays, we can’t even afford coarse rice for our family with this amount,” Anjana Bhuyian, a tea plucker, explained. “A wage of one day can’t buy a litre of edible oil. How can we then even think about our nutrition, medication, or children’s education?”

Thousands hit the streets after fuel prices were hiked by more than 50 percent two weeks ago.  Protesters blocked the Sylhet-Dhaka highway as they escalated the strike.

Luchee Kandu and her husband work on a plantation. 

“We hardly get any type of facilities, don’t have enough money for our children’s education, we barely get 3kg flour as ration once a week. Some days we don’t even get to eat, which is why we are protesting,” Kundu pointed out in Srimongal, known as Bangladesh’s tea capital.

Why are Bangladesh tea garden workers protesting? | Workers’ Rights News | Al Jazeera

 People can’t seem to catch a break. The top-down assault on their rights is relentless and will continue next year and the year after. The ruling class is unable and unwilling to solve any problems but they have many plans for arrangements that keep the majority of people marginalized and disempowered. 

Relying on the rich and their politicians will not advance the interests of working people and the general interests of society one iota. It will not give rise to a human-centered economy. It will not bring about security, stability, prosperity, and peace for all. Only the people themselves have an objective interest in opening the path of progress to society and must rely on themselves to do so. Constantly begging the politicians of the rich for a few crumbs here and there is the old way of doing things. It doesn’t work. It is time to build a new world where the people occupy center-stage and conduct all the affairs of society on a conscious human basis.

U.S. Conditions

“Public perception of the economy is the lowest since 2008.”

“Food prices rise fastest rate since 1970s.”

“Egg prices in US jump 47% as food inflation hits highs not seen since 1979.”

“US natural gas prices spike to 14-year high.”

“Up 43% over last decade, water rates rising faster than other household utility bills.”

“More Americans are going hungry, and it costs more to feed them.”

“98 Million in US skipped treatment or cut back on essentials to pay for healthcare this year.”

“Workers are picking up extra jobs just to pay for gas and food. Prices are rising faster than wages, and more Americans than ever are working two full-time jobs simultaneously.”

“‘I can’t even afford groceries.’ HALF of U.S. food banks report growing numbers of households needing handouts — Biden’s plan to end hunger by 2030 comes unstuck as prices of eggs, butter and other basics soar. More than 38 million people in the U.S. do not get enough food to live an active, healthy life, the Department of Agriculture says.”

“Around half of older Americans can’t afford essential expenses: report.”

“As many as 125,000 active-duty service members and their families experience food insecurity in the United States.”

“The value of the federal minimum wage is at its lowest point in 66 years.”

“54 billion for Ukraine while in the U.S. millions suffer in poverty.”

“Two-thirds of low-wage firms that cut worker pay in 2021 spent billions on stock buybacks.”

“Jobless claims at 8-month high as layoffs edge higher.”

“Layoffs are in the works at half of companies, PwC survey shows.”

“Walmart lays off corporate employees [about 200] after slashing forecast.”

“Peloton to slash 780 jobs and hike prices in push to turn profit.”

“Amazon’s 100,000 job cuts reflect industry-wide adjustments to economic uncertainty.”

“Small business owner confidence hits new low, survey says.”

“Over $540M Liquidated as Bitcoin, Ethereum Plummet.”

A June 2022 report from The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found that, “The average gap between CEO and median worker pay in our sample jumped to 670-to1, up from 604-to-1 in 2020. Forty-nine firms had ratios above 1,000-to-1.” IPS examined compensation at 300 corporations.

“The labor force participation—the proportion of the population over the age of 16 in work or seeking work—is continuing to fall. It was 62.1 percent in July [2022], down from 62.4 percent in March [2022]. Before the onset of the pandemic, it was 63.4 percent.”

“Americans loaded up on $40 billion more in debt in June [2022], Fed says.”

“Credit-card debt is soaring. Accounts for about $890 billion of Americans’ staggering $16 trillion in household debt.”

“Data shows number of low-income audits could triple as IRS grows.”

“”We’re Witnessing A Housing Recession”: Existing Home Sales Crater 20% In July As Affordability Collapses.”

“Rising housing costs have made housing largely inaccessible and unaffordable to most Americans, but have acutely impacted communities of color and low- to moderate-income families over the past several decades.”

“Buying a home in America is now the LEAST affordable it’s been in 33 years as average mortgage payments rose to $1,944 in June compared to $1,297 in January due to higher rates and record home prices.”

“Homebuyer Competition Falls to Lowest Level Since Early Months of Pandemic.”

“Americans born between 1981 and 1996, the most educated and most diverse generation in U.S. history, were once considered harbingers of economic progress and promise. But now, even well into their careers, most of them lag behind the financial and familial strides of previous generations.”

Nearly 75% of New York City (NYC) schools will experience big funding cuts in the coming weeks (Fall 2022). The NYC school system is the largest public school system in the country with about 1.1 million students and roughly 80,000 teachers.

“When kids go back to school this fall, pandemic-era free lunch will be gone. Debt incurred by US families who can’t pay lunch fees runs up $262 million a year.”

“‘Never seen it this bad’: America faces catastrophic teacher shortage.”

“A spate of horrific attacks in New York has people fearful of returning to work.”

“Starbucks must rehire 7 Memphis employees who supported a union, a judge says.”

International Conditions

“Low growth, high inflation: World faces increasingly challenging global environment.”

“There is a global debt crisis coming – and it won’t stop at Sri Lanka.”

“Growing recessionary trends in major economies.”

“IMF warns of ‘gloomy outlook’ for global economy, slashing growth estimates.”

“‘Grotesque greed’: UN chief Guterres slams oil and gas companies.”

“Shipping firm Maersk, a barometer for global trade, warns of weak demand and warehouses filling up.”

“The U.S. was the worst-performing of the major Group of Seven economies in the second quarter, the latest data show.”

“A winter energy reckoning looms for the west.”

“Railway workers in France go on strike [July 2022] demanding higher wages.”

“UK economy shrinks in 2nd quarter [2022], sharpening recession fear.”

“UK inflation rate rises to 40-year high of 10.1%.”

“UK is facing Dickens-style poverty, ex-PM warns.”

“Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths gripping Britain is only tip of the iceberg.”

“Millions will join breadline in recession-hit UK, NIESR warn.”

“UK energy bills to hit £4,200 in January [2023].”

“Bank of England launches biggest interest rate hike in 27 years, predicts lengthy recession.”

“Germany must cut gas use by 20% to avoid winter rationing, regulator says.”

“Norway’s central bank hikes rates by 50 basis points in bid to tackle surging inflation.”

“Turkey shocks markets with rate cut despite inflation near 80%.”

“Saudi Aramco profit surges 90% in second quarter amid energy price boom.”

“Tunisia: Unemployed graduates demand the Authority finds solution to their unemployment.”

“Zambia is a desperately hungry poor country.”

“More than 1,200 people are detained indefinitely in Australia with no criminal conviction.”

“New Zealand’s central bank raised interest rates on 17 August – a seventh hike in row. And it signaled that further increases will follow.”

“Japan wants young people to drink more alcohol.”

“Soaring unemployment in Myanmar follows junta rollback of labor rights.”

“Argentina hikes rate to 69.5% as inflation surges to 30-year high.”

“Bank of Mexico raises interest rates to record 8.5 percent.”

“Chile economy on brink of recession amid rampant inflation.”

 Avanti West Coast, the worst-performing rail operator in Britain, which has severely cut back its services, is revealed to have paid out £11.5m in shareholder dividends last year.

Avanti, jointly owned by FirstGroup and Italian rail operator Trenitalia, over the same period, was paid a franchise subsidy of £725m to help cope with the impact of the pandemic.

The number of trains running from London Euston to Manchester has fallen from three an hour to just one. The operator was second bottom in the performance table for late trains in 2020-21 and was bottom in 2021-22. It has received more than 50,000 complaints over the last two years, the highest number of any operator.

Ministers were accused last week of rewarding Avanti for failure after it was paid £17m in performance and management fees in 2020-21, including about £4m in payments for “operational performance”, “customer experience” and “acting as a good and efficient operator”.

Avanti paid shareholders £11.5m despite ‘abysmal’ service for rail users | Rail transport | The Guardian

 

On April 4, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Climate scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts. But high emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye; they are adding fuel to the flames. They are choking our planet, based on their vested interests and historic investments in fossil fuels, when cheaper, renewable solutions provide green jobs, energy security, and greater price stability.”

We are no longer ruled by kings and queens, but we are not free of the top-down structures designed to enable their rule. Power now rests in the hands of global financiers who rule by their control of our access to money. They enjoy the support of economists who assure us that the lust for power through wealth is inherent to human nature, and that maximizing our individual financial return ultimately maximizes the well-being of everyone…

The deeply flawed economic theory that drives this disaster ignores or denies three foundational truths:

Money has no intrinsic value. It will buy only that which is for sale. It will be useless on a dead Earth.Science now confirms what thoughtful humans have long recognized: Life exists only in communities of living beings that self-organize to create and maintain the conditions on which life depends. The Indigenous peoples of South Africa call it ubuntu: “I am because you are.”While we know from daily experience that there are demented souls among us who gain pleasure from harming other people, most people derive their greatest pleasure from caring for and sharing with others…

 “…Despite unprecedented scenes on our screens this summer of wildfires obliterating entire streets in English villages, there are still those who refuse to accept that global heating is a thing. These people call themselves climate skeptics, but they are deniers pure and simple, and almost invariably of the libertarian hard right. Climate breakdown offends their worldview, as they see it as a threat to the free-market, capitalist framework that they worship as a god. Indeed, it is a threat to capitalism, and capitalism will not tackle the climate emergency, not survive it. No system predicated on greed and short-term profit, rather than the greater good, will prevail against the storm that is coming, and, ultimately, the deniers will reap the whirlwind along with everyone else…” – Bill McGuire, volcanologist and Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London.

https://truthout.org/articles/capitalism-wont-fix-the-climate-crisis-it-will-also-not-survive-it/

 Is it 30 years already? Perhaps it does not seem as long as that because the conflict is frozen, as though it persists in some eternal realm outside the flow of time. The positions of the two sides remain irreconcilable. The main change followed in the wake of the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, when Russia and a handful of its allies – Syria, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and the Pacific island of Nauru – recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. This change, however, made a diplomatic resolution of the conflict even more distant: now Abkhazia and South Ossetia are even less likely to surrender their statehood, while Tbilisi is as adamant as ever in asserting its territorial integrity within the borders of Soviet Georgia.

Of course, time flows on. There have been many important changes in the world situation in the course of these 30 years – changes that cannot but affect the Caucasus in general and Georgia and Abkhazia in particular. In no sphere is this truer than in that of climate change.

Global warming is very much in evidence both in Georgia and in Abkhazia. A farmer on Shiraki Plain in eastern Georgia (Kakheti) reports a temperature of 18 degrees Centigrade in January 2019 – a time of year when ‘its normally below freezing’ [1]. One result is more crop diseases. Meanwhile, the average year-round temperature in Abkhazia has increased by 1.8 degrees Centigrade in recent years [2].

While both eastern Georgia and Abkhazia are getting warmer, precipitation has changed in opposite directions in the two regions. The farmer on Shiraki Plain notes a sharp decline in rainfall and consequently in the level of groundwater. ‘There was no snow at all this year,’ he reports. Drought, exacerbated by ‘strong dry winds that erode fields and scatter seeds,’ has put paid to the traditionally high soil fertility of the area.

In the Abkhazian capital of Sukhum, by contrast, the amount of rainfall has roughly doubled since the turn of the century, when it was already at a high level – a meter and a half (1,500 millimeters) per year. ‘The water level is rising in rivers, eroding the banks and destroying the surrounding infrastructure… We see that long-term rainfall creates serious problems for agriculture [in Abkhazia].’ Presumably the section of the Black Sea littoral to the south that belongs to western Georgia faces the same problem.

So eastern Georgia endures drought while Abkhazia and western Georgia face flooding — consistent with the worldwide pattern of increasing spatial concentration of precipitation. Is there some way to channel excess rainfall from west to east, across the rugged terrain in between?

Much worse is certainly to come in the next 30 years. Expanding areas of the earth’s surface will turn into uninhabitable deserts and swampland. Low-lying coastal cities will be inundated. Extreme weather events will become ever more extreme and ever more pervasive.

Given the rising threat of climate chaos, what sense does it make to continue to waste our attention on trivia like ‘territorial integrity’ and the location of state borders? Let’s decide territorial disputes by arbitration – if the sides can agree on an arbiter – or by wrestling matches between champions, or just by tossing a coin. We might even dismantle existing states and set up a world administration. Then we can focus single-mindedly on the real problems facing our species and our planet.   

Notes

[1] See the website of the UN Environment Program: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/restoring-fortune-fields-georgia

[2] Talk by Roman Dbar, director of the Institute of Ecology of Abkhazia, at the Discussion Club of the World Abaza Congress, February 28, 2020. See: https://abaza.org/en/global-climate-change-and-the-role-of-abkhazia-in-these-processes-were-discussed-at-the-wac-club

Stephen Shenfield

Specialist on politics and society in Russia and the post-Soviet region. For several years he produced the Research and Analytical Supplement to Johnson’s Russia List. USA.

 India does not have a national policy or a law to deal with refugees. The country is, however, not a signatory to international laws such as the 1951 UN Convention and the 1967 Protocol, which secure the rights of refugees to seek asylum and protect them from being sent back to life-threatening places. Refugees entering the country without a visa are treated as illegal immigrants under the Foreigners Act or the Indian Passport Act. An absence of documents can mean that refugees coming to India have no access to basic facilities like healthcare, education and employment.

In 2019, the Modi government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which offers amnesty and expedites the path to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim “illegal immigrants” from the neighbouring countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees were provided an allowance by the state government and allowed to seek jobs. India has for years supported the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees who followed him into exile and sought asylum in the country.

Hours after Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s tweet that there are plans to provide housing and security to the Rohingya community in the capital, New Delhi, the government said the refugees would be held in detention centres until they were deported.

According to Human Rights Watch, an estimated 40,000 Rohingyas are in India – at least 20,000 of them are registered with the UN Human Rights Commission.