Formed in 1984 during the military dictatorship (1964–85), the Landless Workers’ Movement ( Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST) grew out of agricultural workers’ and peasants’ occupations of latifúndios, gigantic estates held by wealthy individuals and corporations. Over the past four decades, these farmers have taken control of millions of hectares of land across Brazil, forming the largest social movement in Latin America.

Approximately 500,000 households live in these MST-led occupations, meaning that the MST has organised about 2 million people into its ranks. The settlements’ residents organise themselves through various democratic structures, create schools for their children and community kitchens for the indigent and develop techniques for agroecological farming towards fulfilling their own needs and for sale in the marketplace. The MST is now rooted in the social landscape of Brazil, from the Amazon in the north to Arroio Chuí, Brazil’s southernmost point.

The central concept for the MST to elaborate this theory is agrarian reform. According to one of the members of the MST’s national coordination, Neuri Rossetto, this reform project fights “for an agricultural model centred on the production of healthy food for the Brazilian population alongside the struggle to democratise land ownership.”

Around 100,000 families live on encampments (acampamentos), which are occupations of fallow land to which they have not been given formal access; 400,000 families live on settlements (assentamentos), whose land they now hold by right through liberal provisions in Chapter III of the country’s 1988 Constitution, Article 184, which states that the government can “expropriate, on account of social interest, for purposes of agrarian reform, rural property that does not perform a social function.”

However, it is important to note that the Brazilian state nonetheless attempts to evict families from these legal encampments.

The MST organises peasants to improve not only their control over land, but also over agricultural production, including by avoiding toxic chemicals which destroy both the workers’ land and health. This project is now linked to an interest amongst consumers for food whose components do not harm them and whose production does not destroy the planet. The possibility of uniting the majority of the country’s 212 million people in pursuit of agrarian reform galvanises the MST.

Is the MST a social movement or a political party?

Neuri explains:

“We are aware of the responsibilities and the need to improve our political forces, both in their organisational and ideological senses, in order to have a greater influence in the class struggle. However, we do not claim to assume the role of a political party in its strict sense, as we believe that this political instrument is beyond our scope. This does not mean to say that we have a supra-partisan or non-partisan stance. We believe that the articulation of working-class movements, trade unions, and political parties is fundamental in the construction of another sociability which is alternative and contrary to the bourgeois order. … [W]e do not underestimate the importance and strength of political action and popular mobilisations as an educating element for the subaltern classes. The popular masses learn and educate themselves in popular mobilisations. There, in the mass movement, lies the political strength of the organisation; this is where the political-ideological level of the masses is raised.”

In other words, the MST is part of a process to build the organisational and ideological strength of the peasantry and it works alongside trade union movements and other organisations to create a political project for social emancipation. The MST has participated in building the Popular Project for Brazil (Projeto Brasil Popular), which, as Neuri says, “aims to consolidate a historic bloc that promotes anti-capitalist, emancipatory struggles and immediate economic gains that meet the needs and interests of the working class.” Advancing the confidence and power of the working class and peasantry is, therefore, central to the MST’s activity. 

Taken from here

Will the Morning Come? – Consortium News

 Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being blamed for the food crises that have arisen across much of the world. 

A March 2022 World Bank report refers to the food security crisis as a “food price crisis,” emphasizing that it’s not caused by shortage of food. The two major factors they have identified as driving the crisis are, “profiteering by major grain trading agribusinesses, which have already shown dramatic increases in profitability in January-March 2022 as they have raised their prices without being questioned, as everyone assumes that this is the result of war-driven supply shortages. The other is financial speculation in wheat futures markets, which can drive up prices even in spot markets.”

Global stocks of rice, wheat, and maize – the world’s three major staples – remain historically high. For wheat, the commodity most affected by the war, stocks remain well above levels during the 2007-2008 food price crisis. Estimates also suggest that about three-quarters of Russian and Ukrainian wheat exports had already been delivered before the war started.” 

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) monthly ‘Cereal Supply and Demand Brief’ confirms this. The FAO’s forecast for global cereal production in 2022 has been raised by 7 million tonnes in July from the previous month and is now pegged at 2,792 million tonnes and is only 0.6 percent short of the output for the same period in 2021. According to the FAO, the shortfall caused by the Russia-Ukraine war has not impacted global wheat stocks much, thanks to higher-than-normal harvests.

An assessment by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES), too confirms that there is currently no risk of global food supply shortages. The IPES too identifies it as a “food price crisis,” but goes on to identify the causes. Stating that “the failure to reform food systems has allowed the war in Ukraine to spark a third global food price crisis in 15 years,” the report points to “fundamental flaws in global food systems – such as heavy reliance on food imports and excessive commodity speculation – for escalating food insecurity sparked by the Ukraine invasion,” adding that “these flaws were exposed, but not corrected, after previous food price spikes in 2007-8.”

An analysis of global wheat prices by economists C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh reinforces this. Examining FAO data and projections from May 2021, much before the Russia-Ukraine war commenced, they find that the estimated global production of wheat in 2022 is likely to be lower than in 2021 by less than 1%, but around 2% higher than the average of 2018-20. Similarly, global trade in wheat is also projected to fall slightly when compared to 2021, but it will still remain higher than in 2018-20.

Navdanya, an organization founded by environmental activist Vandana Shiva, goes even further: it points to the evidence outlined above and says that the present crisis is the direct outcome of a broken global food system that exists primarily to serve agribusiness giants.”

The report, titled Sowing Hunger, Reaping Profits – A Food Crisis by Design, traces the crisis to excessive financial speculation, increased commodity future pricing and increased volatility in the market, all of it adding up to bigger gains for corporate players, even as it drives up food prices globally. As Shiva puts it, “what the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has once again laid bare is just how fragile globalized food systems are, and how quickly a fluctuation in the market goes on to detrimentally affect the poorest. The current globalized, industrial agrifood system creates hunger by design.”

 Rolling Stone magazine report summed it up, “this crisis… is in some sense artificial, given that it is not driven by any actual shortage of food in the world,” adding, “Commodity traders make money off wild price swings, shippers make money off people desperate for grain, fertilizer manufacturers make money off farmers desperate to maximize their yields, and proto-fascist politicians are happy to exploit rising food prices as evidence of the failure of democracy.”

Taken from here

No Russian Roulette: The Hunger Emergency And The Global Corporate System | Countercurrents

 China’s much-heralded Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is already the world’s biggest, having given more than 2,000 power plants a taste of emissions trading, regulating about 4.5 billion tonnes of annual CO2 output from the power industry. Nearly 200 million tonnes of carbon changed hands in the first year of operations at a total value of 8.5 billion yuan ($1.26bn).

A year on, “In terms of the impact, in terms of environmental gains, clearly it’s been limited,” said Matt Gray, co-founder of TransitionZero, a climate think-tank.

Fraud remains one of the greatest challenges and China has yet to fully address it, according to Shawn He, a Beijing-based lawyer who advises firms on carbon compliance. “I’m afraid the penalties for such malpractices … are too small to intimidate.”

A year on, China’s CO2 market fails to drive big emission cuts | Climate Crisis | Al Jazeera

 “Unprecedented price surges mean that for many people across the world, the food that they could afford yesterday is no longer attainable today,” said Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Development Programme, in a statement. “This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed and with that, the threat of increased social unrest grows by the day.”

People around the world are facing increasing pressures on their day-to-day lives. 

According to the United Nations, more than 70 million people in developing countries have been pushed into poverty in the three months since March due to the spike in food, fuel and fertilizer prices.

Even in richer nations, household budgets are feeling the squeeze. In May, the World Economic Forum found one in four people were struggling financially across 11 developed countries.

A Civil Unrest Index by data analytics firm Verisk found 75 countries will likely see protests this year.

Almost half of Haitians are short of food, with hunger set to worsen with inflation at 26%.

Pakistan is facing a deepening economic crisis with inflation surging to 21.3% in June. Fuel prices have risen by about 90% since May after the government scrapped subsidies in a bid to cut its surging deficit and resume an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme. At the end of June, Pakistan’s central bank held only enough reserves for roughly six weeks of required imports.

Argentina is grappling with inflation at more than 60%, and spiking gas import costs. It struck a $45 billion debt deal with the IMF earlier this year, but many Argentines believe it will lead to a rise in poverty and have taken to the streets to demand its rollback.

Tunisia has seen inflation hit a record 8.1%. This has prompted protests – including a nationwide strike in June by the largest trade union which opposes government plans to freeze wages and cut subsidies as part of the deal to secure the $4 billion loan from the IMF.

In Kenya, inflation is running at a five-year high of nearly 8%, driven by jumps in the price of staples such as wheat flour, cooking oil and petrol. Kenya is also facing the worst drought in more than 40 years, creating widespread hunger and leaving it even more dependent on costly imports.

Inflation is triggering chaos worldwide. Where are the hotspots? (trust.org)

An  assessment by Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, is one of the most dire yet.  The assessment applies to seven member states of IGAD, from Djibouti to Uganda.

More than 50 million people across the East Africa are expected to face acute food insecurity this year. 300,000 in Somalia and South Sudan are projected to be under full-blown famine conditions.

There is a risk of famine in eight areas of Somalia through September “in the event of widespread crop and livestock production failures, spiraling food costs, and in the absence of scaled-up humanitarian assistance,” the assessment by IGAD said.

Three million people face “emergency and catastrophic levels of hunger, risking death,” the International Rescue Committee said in a statement, noting that “people have already started dying from starvation and the window to prevent mass deaths is rapidly closing.”

The number of people going hungry in Somalia due to drought has nearly doubled since the start of the year, according to the IRC, which saw a 265% increase in admissions for children under 5 with severe malnutrition at just one clinic in Mogadishu between April and May.

Even if the new U.S. funding is fulfilled, “the humanitarian response plan for the region would be funded at 40% of the assessed need,” the group warned. “After just over three months, the $1.9 billion appeal for the humanitarian response in Ukraine was 85% funded — a demonstration of the capacity for resource mobilization when the political will exists.”

East Africa bloc says 50 million face acute food insecurity (sfgate.com)

  Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro supports heavy-handed tactics by police in their fight against organized crime, and has said gangsters should “die like cockroaches.”

 Rio de Janeiro‘s civil and military police regularly carry out deadly raids in the city’s sprawling favelas.

At least 18 people died, one police officer, 16 alleged criminals and a female bystander, on Thursday when police raided the Alemao complex to take down an alleged criminal organization. The operation involved around 400 officers, four aircraft and 10 armoured vehicles.

“There are signs of major human rights violations, and the possibility of this being one of the operations with the highest number of deaths in Rio de Janeiro,” the state public defender’s office said in a statement.

After the raid, locals could be seen bundling injured people into the back of vehicles to be taken to hospital as police watched. Gilberto Santiago Lopes, from the Anacrim Human Rights Commission, said police refused to help.

“We had to carry them away in a beverage truck, and then flag a local resident in their car to take them to hospital,” he said. “The police don’t aim to arrest them, they aim to kill them, so if they’re injured, they think they don’t deserve help.”

“We’re scared to live here,” one local screamed after the raid. “Where are we? Afghanistan? In a war? In Iraq? If they want a war, send them to Iraq.”

At least 18 people killed in police raid in a Rio de Janeiro’s Alemao favelas (france24.com)

 Australia has seen its lowest birthrate in more than a decade.

In 2020, there were 295,796 babies born to 291,712 mothers. This represents a fall from 66 women per 1,000 giving birth in 2007 to 56 per 1,000 in 2020.

There has also been an increase in the average age of first-time mothers, from 28.3 years in 2010 to 29.6 years in 2020. The average age of all mothers has continued to increase over time, with mothers now giving birth at an average age of 30.9 years, up from 30 years in 2010.

It also shows there was a decline in the proportion of teenage mothers, from 3.8% in 2010 to 1.8% in 2020. Two in every seven mothers aged 35 or over were giving birth for the first time.

Australian birthrate falls to lowest in over a decade | Australia news | The Guardian

 Thousands of Israeli settlers have attempted to set up new illegal settlement outposts in six locations across the occupied West Bank. The event was organised by the Nachala settler movement, which says that its goal is “to establish new communities in Judea and Samaria,” using the Hebrew name for the occupied West Bank.

Groups of Israeli youth and families arrived at the earmarked locations in buses, on foot and in vehicles throughout Wednesday, bearing Israeli flags and camping tents under the protection of the Israeli army and police. They gathered in locations near the occupied West Bank cities of Ramallah, Salfit and Hebron.

The Israeli settlers were allowed to spend the night at the locations but the majority of the encampments were removed by Thursday, according to Israeli media reports. Israeli forces blocked roads and set up checkpoints for Palestinians across entrances to towns and villages.

Palestinians fear revenge attacks after settler outposts removal | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed.

The vast total captured by petro-states and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. 

“I was really surprised by such high numbers – they are enormous,” said Verbruggen, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a former lead author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. “It’s a huge amount of money,” he said. “You can buy every politician, every system with all this money, and I think this happened. It protects [producers] from political interference that may limit their activities.”

The rents captured by exploiting the natural resources are unearned, Verbruggen said: “It’s real, pure profit. They captured 1% of all the wealth in the world without doing anything for it.” 

The average annual profit from 1970-2020 was $1tn but he said he expected this to be twice as high in 2022.

The profit-grabbing is holding back the world’s action on the climate emergency, he said: “It’s really stripping money from the alternatives. In every country, people have so much difficulty just to pay the gas and electricity bills and oil [petrol] bill, that we don’t have money left over to invest in renewables.”

 Prof Paul Ekins, at University College London, says, “But the fact remains that, over the last 50 years, companies have made a huge amount of money by producing fossil fuels, the burning of which is the major cause of climate change. This is already causing untold misery round the world and is a major threat to future human civilisation.

Verbruggen said oil-rich nations, such as Russia and those in the OPEC cartel, including Saudi Arabia, kept rents high by restricting supply: “They change the fundamentals of the markets.” Military action, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and political action, such as the embargo on oil exports from Iran, had also increased the rents, he said. If all available oil and gas could be freely supplied to the market, the price of conventional oil would be $20-30 a barrel, Verbruggen said, compared with about $100 today.

 If the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, the target agreed by nations in the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Mark Campanale, at Carbon Tracker, said, “ …this means [international oil companies alone] forgoing around $100 trillion of potential revenues. You can see why oil oligarchs and nations controlled by political elites want to keep their fossil fuel rents, the source of their power.”

May Boeve, the head of campaign group 350.org, said: “These profits have enabled the fossil fuel industry to combat all efforts to switch our energy systems…”

Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years | Fossil fuels | The Guardian

The climate and ecological crises are a legacy of systemic racism and people of colour suffer disproportionately from their harms, a Greenpeace UK report says. Globally, the report says, it is people of colour who, despite having contributed the least to the climate emergency, are now “disproportionately losing their lives and livelihoods” by the millions because of it.

“The environmental emergency is the legacy of colonialism,” the report says. This was because colonialism had “established a model through which the air and lands of the global south have been … used as places to dump waste the global north does not want”, the report says. It adds that similar inequalities are visible in the UK, where almost half of all of the waste-burning incinerators are in areas with high populations of people of colour. 

In London, black people are more likely to breathe illegal levels of air pollution, and black people in England are nearly four times as likely as white people to have no access to outdoor space at home, it says.

The report traces the roots of the environmental emergency to colonialism, slavery and the plunder of resources from the global south. Greenpeace says it is making environmental justice a central pillar of its work.

“We argue that the outcomes of the environmental emergency cannot be understood without reference to the history of British and European colonialism, which set in motion a global model for racialised resource extraction from people of colour.”

Climate emergency is a legacy of colonialism, says Greenpeace UK | Greenpeace | The Guardian