Poorer people are much more likely to die from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than wealthier patients due to damp housing and low pay, researchers have found. The research, carried out by Asthma + Lung UK and published in BMJ Open Respiratory Research, builds on previous findings that poorer people with COPD are five times more likely to die than the wealthiest people with the condition.

A survey of nearly 6,000 people living with COPD, one of Britain’s most common lung conditions, found that structural inequalities had a significant bearing on whether a patient would survive. Symptoms include breathlessness, a constant cough, wheezing and coughing up phlegm. An estimated 30,000 people die from COPD each year in the UK.

Of the nearly 4,000 people who suffered two or more acute attacks a year, such as breathlessness or severe coughing, 55% earned less than £20,000 a year and 13% lived in a cold, damp house.

More than 1.3 million people in the UK are affected by COPD, a group of lung conditions that include emphysema and chronic bronchitis, but many more are believed to have the disease without knowing.

Research in 2020 found that the mortality rate between the richest and poorest patients with COPD has grown in the past 11 years. The poorest 10% of patients are now five times more likely to die with the condition than the wealthiest, compared with four times more likely in 2009/11.

Prof Nick Hopkinson, medical director of Asthma + Lung UK, said: “One of the impacts of inequality is that it affects some of the most vulnerable people in society and it increases the risk of dying from lung disease. COPD is one of the biggest health problems in the UK and one of the biggest causes of hospital admissions so failure to deal with this is causing big problems for the health and social care system.”

The research found that of those who experienced two or more COPD exacerbations a year, 62% were more likely to smoke and 53% were more likely to have experienced occupational exposure to dust, fumes and chemicals.

Asthma + Lung UK said just 25% of people with COPD receive proper care. It urged patients to get a self-management plan, access to pulmonary rehab, help to stop smoking, a flu and pneumonia jab and support managing other conditions.

Low pay and damp housing driving UK lung disease deaths, study finds | UK news | The Guardian

 Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has lashed out against the “mixing” of European and non-European races, in a speech that immediately drew outrage from opposition parties and European politicians.

“We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán. He added that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were “no longer nations”.

Orban sympathises with the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which claims there is a plot to dilute the white populations of the US and European countries through immigration. He said it was “an ideological trick of the internationalist left to say the European population is already mixed race”. He named demographics, migration and gender as the main battlefields of the future.

Next month, he is due to travel to Dallas, Texas, where he will address CPAC, a large gathering of American conservatives. Earlier this year, CPAC hosted a special session of the conference in Budapest.

Viktor Orbán sparks outrage with attack on ‘race mixing’ in Europe | Hungary | The Guardian

At no time since the Second World War has the talk of war, the fear of war, and the imminent probability of another global war, so weighed so heavily upon the minds of men and women.

War fever and nationalist hysteria are ugly, not just for itself but also for where it springs from. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, once again the world is in balance despite all the past assurances that capitalism could solve the problem of war with a little more good intention and a few more skilful diplomats. However, capitalism is a social system which by its nature prohibits co-operation; free access to its wealth goes against its basic principles. It is a system in which the means of production and distribution are monopolised by a minority and used to produce articles for sale on a market with a view to profit. In order to make profit those articles have to be marketed in competition with those of rivals. It is this competition that leads to war in the modern world: in the last resort capitalism’s trade struggles to acquire or defend markets, territories rich in minerals and other resources and exploitable populations—and the trading routes to connect these—lead to armed conflict.

Although these disputes are the sole concern of rival groups of capitalists, they need to persuade the other class in society, the working class, to actually participate and convince them to sacrifice themselves. For the people who fight in them, the wars of capitalism are a futile shedding of much blood. There is a greater task awaiting fellow workers: the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by a socialist society, in which the means of life will be the property of all. Socialism will be a cooperative society in which everyone will stand equally and there will be free access to the world’s wealth. It will be a constructive society, not one based on destructive power.

Workers are not to be told that the Russian invasion is a quarrel over markets and trade-routes, and strategi alliances fought out in the interests of the capitalists. They will be told anything but that—the humbug, the lies the media, the Tory and Labour leaders where the sincere and the insincere join together to persuade the workers that it is war to preserve peace, democracy and the independence of Ukraine.

The independence of Ukraine is a lie and a myth. For years the meaning of the word has been foreign to Ukrainian capitalists and workers. For years Ukrainian capitalists have been in the pockets of the EU capitalists. The ruling class of Ukraine is propped up by fascists. The war represents a quarrel between the capitalists of Europe over the wealth they own and want to own. The working-class interests are not at stake. The Socialist Party will play no part in obscuring the issue in this quarrel between the capitalists of Europe.  A basic understanding of capitalism would indicate that the only freedom workers ever fight for in wars is the freedom of their national, capitalists to do exactly as they wish to make a profit.

All these economic and geo–strategic interests are the interests of competing groups of capitalists and of the states under their control. Working people have no stake in the game. Should matters come to war they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. As socialists, we ask working people on both sides of the conflict to reflect upon this and act accordingly.

The members of the Socialist Party are unique in opposing all war – not just certain types of war or certain situations. This is based on a recognition that the interests of the working women and men who usually make up the cannon-fodder and collateral damage of war can never be aligned with states and governments. We oppose the monopoly that the global owning class have over ownership of the Earth’s productive resources that are the usual spoils of armed conflict.

The way things are organised is neither natural nor inevitable, but created by people. People have a wealth of skill, intelligence, creativity and wisdom. We could be devising ways of using and distributing the earth’s vast resources so that no one starves or lives in abject poverty, making socially useful things that people need — a society which is life-affirming in all its aspects. when enough of us want it we will be able to combine those two remarkable human capacities, the emotional and the rational, in order to take things into our own hands and run our own society, our own world, in the interest of all people. Only then will peace be possible.

 The Low Pay Commission says the “taboo” around reporting abuses is a major barrier to enforcing the legal minimum pay.

 A heatwave in northern Greenland melted nearly six billion tonnes of ice in just three days 

Greenland lost enough ice over three days to put West Virginia under a foot of water (yahoo.com)

“The northern melt this past week is not normal…” Ted Scambos, a University of Colorado scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CNN.

 China’s population has slowed significantly and is expected to start to shrink ahead of 2025, the state-backed Global Times reported, citing Yang Wenzhuang, head of population and family affairs at the National Health Commission.

Birth data released late on Sunday showed that the number of new births in 2021 was the lowest in decades in several provinces. The number of births in central Hunan province fell below 500,000 for the first time in nearly 60 years.

China is battling to reverse a rapid shrinkage in natural population growth as many young people opt not to have children due to factors including the high cost and work pressure. A change in China’s laws last year to allow women to have three children has not helped, with many women saying the change comes too late and they have insufficient job security and gender equality.

China’s population expected to start to shrink before 2025 | Reuters

Eight months ago there were zero unionized Starbucks stores. Starbucks workers officially reached 200 union election wins across more than 30 U.S. states, a remarkable achievement in the face of a full-throttle union-busting campaign by the coffee company’s management.  Starbucks workers have lodged hundreds of unfair labor practice charges in recent months, accusing the company’s management of firing union organizers, slashing hours, and illegally threatening to deny pay raises and other benefits to unionized stores.

In addition to the number of elections won thus far, experts have also taken note of the union’s strikingly high win percentage and the dozens of unanimous victories it has scored at locations across the country, an indication of Starbucks workers’ overwhelming desire to organize in the face of poor treatment.

Workers at 316 Starbucks locations have filed for union elections with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

“Starbucks Workers United has won an amazing rate—about 5 of 6 elections,” wrote labor journalist Steven Greenhouse. “It has won 52 unanimous votes.”

“Across the country, Starbucks workers are striking against poor working conditions and the company’s open hostility to Starbucks Workers United’s nationwide union drive,” said Robert Reich, the former head of the U.S. Department of Labor. “In one year, 200 U.S. Starbucks stores have unionized. I’m amazed by what these courageous baristas have achieved.”

For Starbucks employees who have voted to unionize, the hard work is far from over: They now must win a contract, an arduous task given the CEO and management’s open disdain for the collective bargaining push. At some locations that have won union elections, Starbucks workers have walked off the job to protest management’s refusal to engage in contract negotiations as required by law. 

‘Historic Moment in American Labor’: Starbucks Workers Notch 200th Union Win (commondreams.org)

  2.3 billion people going severely or moderately hungry last year, according to a global report by the World Food Program and four other U.N. agencies.

Food prices had been steadily climbing worldwide because of drought, supply chain issues, and high energy and fertilizer costs. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says food commodity prices were up 23% last year. Russia’s war in Ukraine further sent the price of wheat and cooking oils up, fueling a global food crisis.

Food prices have risen by nearly 14% this year in emerging markets and by over 7% in advanced economies, according to Capital Economics. In countries where people spend at least a third or more of their incomes on food, any sharp increase in prices can lead to crisis. Capital Economics forecasts that households in developed markets will spend an extra $7 billion a month on food and beverages this year and much of next year due to inflation.

Food prices accounted for about 60% of last year’s increase in inflation in the Middle East and North Africa, with the exception of oil-producing Gulf countries. The situation is particularly dire for Sudan, where inflation is expected to hit 245% this year, and Iran, where prices spiked as much as 300% for chicken, eggs and milk in May, sparking panic and protests.

In Somalia, where sugar is a source of energy, in May, a kilogram of sugar cost about the equivalent of 72 cents in Mogadishu, the capital. A month later, it had shot up to $1.28 a kilogram.

There’s concern that the impact of all these factors will lead more countries to resort to food export bans, which are felt globally. When Indonesia blocked the export of palm oil for a month in April, palm oil prices spiked by at least 200%. Other examples of their impact include Kazakhstan’s restrictions on grains and oil on prices in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan; Cameroon’s rice export restriction on Chad; and Tunisia’s fruit and vegetable restrictions on Libya. Malaysia banned exports last month of live broiler chickens. India imposed restrictions on the export of its wheat. India also announced it would cap sugar exports this year. Even if that doesn’t reduce India’s sugar exports compared with previous years, news of the restriction was enough to cause speculation among traders

‘Day by day’: Trade bans, inflation send food prices soaring | AP News

 The basis of capitalism is production for profit, so in its remorseless drive for profit it leads to trade wars and eventually military conflict. It is the nature of the capitalist beast to maim and kill and all attempts to civilise it are doomed to failure.What of the workers? They have almost nothing to lose, except their lives and their health, and these they lose in war: not in the outcome of war, but in war itself, whatever the outcome. The working class have no interest at stake which warrants their supporting war. Whatever strength they have to influence the issue of war and peace should be thrown against war, no matter what the circumstances of the particular conflict may be. The question put by war-makers, “Are you in favour of peace at any price?” has no meaning to workers who understand their class position. The price of losing a war or of surrendering without waging war is not paid by the working class, but by the capitalist class. What difference does it make to the working class whether the Ukrainian or Russian oligarch dominate? Will they be poor, or suffer from unemployment? Indeed they will, for they do already everywhere. Workers then should throw their weight against war.

It can be said quite categorically that no wars have been about poverty. No nation on earth mobilised its armed forces, because children under the age of five are dying every day from preventable causes and could be saved by a small fraction of the wealth required to maintain the world’s war machines. None of the wars that have occurred this century have been concerned with any of the problems that permanently confront the majority of people in every country – the working class. And yet, despite the incontrovertible fact that wars have nothing whatsoever to do with working people’s interests, it is the workers that, almost exclusively, is called upon to do the suffering, the killing and the dying. It sounds incredible that we workers can be conned again and again into risking our lives when it is patently obvious that we will not be the beneficiaries of victory and that we have not got anything an enemy would want to fight for. Yet the majority of workers will, never be in favour of peace against capitalist wishes while they (the workers) are prepared to support capitalist government, because they will always be ready to accept capitalist reasons for waging a particular war. As with all wars, and threats of war, the conflict in Ukraine is about the squalid interests of the owning class in our society. It is about the ownership and control of wealth; it is about resources, markets or areas of strategic importance. We appeal to workers in all lands to refuse to slaughter one another for and at the behest of, our capitalist masters. We appeal to you to unite with us in the struggle to overthrow the system of capitalism which not only causes war but all the other social problems which our class endures throughout the world.

The Socialist Party having no control over weaponry and armament industry now controlled by the capitalist class, cannot affect and has no concern with the purely capitalist question whether the British capitalists should supply Ukraine with arms to protect their property against foreign capitalist powers. The cause of war is world capitalism, the profit system, and it is that which will have to be removed. If it is not acceptable to see welfare services cut back while Britain spends more than a million pounds an hour on arms, then we must withdraw our support not just from Conservative politicians, but from all of the representatives of the profit system. And that applies equally to the Labour Party.

The Socialist Party in line with working-class interests is not concerned with the outcome of any war between capitalist groups over the right to appropriate the proceeds of the exploitation of the working class.

The Socialist Party knows that war means death, injury and destruction to the working class and, knowing that wars between capitalist groups do not involve any working-class interest does not support any wars iunder any circumstances whatever.

The Socialist Party has one object—socialism—and to attain that object knows that the organised working class must gain control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces. When such control has been achieved the working class will know how to use the armed forces for so long as it may be necessary to defend socialism against a violent non-compliant minority or an undefeated foreign group of capitalists.

 War casts a black cloud over all who witness it—civilians as well as combatants. Death and mutilation, ruined health, the destruction of homes and the frustration of hopes and plans; pain and anguish and the aftermath of sorrow being bequeathed to the following generations.

We see a cynical line-up of ‘humanitarian angels’ backing Ukraine in its war against Russia — a war which is bringing a food crisis to tens of millions of helpless men, women and children around the world. None of the great powers hold  any concern for ordinary people. Refugees are a price they are only too happy to pay. This war is one from which the working class can hope for no gain and which they should denounce from all angles. War, after all, is only the method by which the capitalist class redistributes its loot. When wealth is socially owned, this will be seen as the strangest and most self-destructive exercise possible. It is in the nature of the capitalist system to perpetuate conflict between the classes and between the nations. Commercial rivalries set capitalist states and empires one against the other. 

Since our formation our response to the problem of war has clearly distinguished us from other organisations claiming descent from Marx and Engels and the early socialist pioneers. We analyse events in class terms. We approach problems from what we see as being the real interests of the world working class. For the Socialist Party capitalism and war are inseparable. There can be no capitalism without conflicts of interest.  Our duty as socialists is to oppose the wars of the ruling class of one nation with the ruling class of another, and refuse to participate in them. This has been our consistent view. We can conceive of no situation in which we would give our support to either side in any of capitalism’s armed struggles.

So long as the working class continue to support capitalism so long will its wars, and preparations for war, continue. We have argued that because wars are the outcome of economic and strategic conflicts between the capitalists of the various nations any attempt to abolish war while those economic conflicts remained will bound to be futile. International peace conferences passing pious resolutions are doomed to failure. An ‘anti-war campaign’, as such, is, from the working class standpoint, absurd. Just as the class struggle cannot be abolished save by abolishing classes, so it is impossible for capitalist nations to get rid of the grim spectre of war, for capitalism presupposes economic conflicts which must finally be fought out with the aid of the armed forces of the State. The only solution to war is to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. 

It is true that men and women hate war and sincerely seek to prevent it. What need can there be for a distinctly socialist attitude towards war? The answer is simple. The sincere desire for peace shown by the capitalist parties is nullified by their over-riding will to maintain the capitalist system of society. The Socialist Party shares nothing in common with the parties that preach peace but continue to prepare for war. Our opponents differ among themselves only as to the number and kind of armaments necessary and the size of the budget to be devoted to acquiring them

We do not appeal for peace and love (though we are not opposed to that of course) rather we call on the workers of this and other countries to recognise their common class interest and to organise consciously and politically to gain the political power necessary to dispossess the owning class – to strip them of their power. The consequences of war have fully justified our attitude of opposition to it. 

Our hostility is no mere theoretical quibble. It goes to the heart of our case against the problem of war. Unlike those on the Left who are choosy as to which wars they pick to object to, we in the Socialist Party are against all of capitalism’s wars. Nor do we single out any particular aspect of war – WMDs, or land mines, or poison gas, or the use of child soldiers – we oppose the system that give rise to these things. The Socialist Party has always opposed the supposed legitimacy of ‘just’ wars. We see that causing more conflict cannot lead to an end to the suffering in the world. War can only be stopped when it is rejected by those who alone must fight it. The ruling class and their media, political ideology, establishment history and all the other paraphernalia of the capitalist propaganda machine can never acknowledge this because to do so would invalidate the origins of their own power. As to the other myth they peddle concerning mankind’s inherent violence, we can only look within ourselves for the answer. If you sincerely believe in the efficacy of a humanitarian war to solve the world’s problems then you simply deny the evidence of history.

The workers have no country. What they do have is a common interest in making the world the common heritage of all who live in it. Under the cloak of patriotism and national defence, with the blessing of the media and the politicians, workers are thrown against each other in battle. They do not know that they are fighting to defend or to extend the interests of the class that lives by robbing them of the fruits of their labour.