World military expenditure reached an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in 2021. This prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Military spending rose for the seventh consecutive time despite the economic fallout of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

 Doctors and scientists have warned for years that over-prescribing antibiotics for trivial complaints or infections caused by viruses which do not respond to antibiotics threatens to lead to the spread of resistance to this critically important class of drugs. It is estimated about 750,000 people die every year from drug-resistant infections and it is feared that, by 2050, this number could reach 10 million and cost more than $100tn to global health services, according to the Union for International Cancer Control.

In addition, they have stressed that the problem is being intensified by the widespread use of antibiotics on farms where they are given to animals – most often pigs and poultry but sometimes also cattle – in order to keep them in poor, basic conditions where disease spreads easily. Scientists have uncovered evidence that dangerous versions of superbugs can spread from pigs to humans. The discovery underlines fears that intensive use of antibiotics on farms is leading to the spread of microbes resistant to them.

The discovery of the link has been made by Semeh Bejaoui and Dorte Frees of Copenhagen University and Soren Persson at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institute and focuses on the superbug Clostridioides difficile, which is considered one of the world’s major antibiotic resistance threats.

“Our finding indicates that C difficile is a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance genes that can be exchanged between animals and humans,” said Bejaoui, who is due to present her study at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in Lisbonon Sunday. “This alarming discovery suggests that resistance to antibiotics can spread more widely than previously thought, and confirms links in the resistance chain leading from farm animals to humans.”

C difficile infects the human gut and is resistant to all but three antibiotics in use today. Some strains contain genes that allow them to produce toxins that can trigger gut inflammation and life-threatening diarrhoea in the elderly and in hospital patients. The bacterium is considered one of the biggest antibiotic resistance threats in developed countries. In the US, it caused an estimated 223,900 infections and 12,800 deaths in 2017 and cost the healthcare system more than $1bn.

Margaret Chan, former director general of the World Health Organization. “Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world,” she said. “We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units.”

However, medical authorities have pointed out that two-thirds of antibiotics are not used on humans at all but are given as agricultural additives. This is done to stave off illnesses and infections in animals that are being kept in conditions that would otherwise cause disease.

Pigs can pass deadly superbugs to people, study reveals | Antibiotics | The Guardian

People eligible for removal to Rwanda will be those judged “inadmissible” under the rules of the UK asylum system. The rules, introduced in January 2021, apply to those who arrived in the UK via another “safe” country, such as France, and therefore their asylum claim is considered their responsibility. Boris Johnson claims that “tens of thousands” of people who have arrived in the UK without authorisation could be given a one-way ticket to Rwanda.

The Refugee Council said that last year of the 8,593 people only 172 people could have been sent to the east African country had a deal been in place. It estimates that this year the number is not likely to be much higher.

So far only 2% of people considered under the rules are ultimately served with decisions classifying them as inadmissible.

Enver Solomon, the CEO of the Refugee Council, said: “This analysis shows the real impact this bill will have on desperate men, women and children who are simply trying to find safety when fleeing the dangers of war and persecution.

“Punishing people, treating them like criminals and human cargo to be expelled to Rwanda is not only inhumane, cruel and nasty but it will do nothing to address the reasons why people take perilous journeys to find safety in the UK. It will do little to deter them from coming to this country, but only lead to more human suffering and chaos – at a huge potential expense of nearly a billion pounds each year.”

Refugee data analysis casts doubt on Boris Johnson’s Rwanda claim | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian

 The Socialist Party learned of election hustings to which its candidate in Lambeth had not been invited. The reason offered was that it was to be limited to those deemed by the organisers as “major parties”. Naturally, this is unacceptable and we insisted upon being permitted to participate. To no avail. 

 Danny Lambert, the Socialist Party candidate in Clapham East ward, has now issued a statement that we fully expect to be read out at the commencement of the meeting. 

“I make no apology for raising the nature of the present world economic system – capitalism – in a local election. Local councils have to run things inside the framework of capitalism and that restricts what they can do. They are also restricted in that most of their money comes from central government.

The priority under capitalism is profit-making. Having to respect this priority means that what the central government can make available for local social services and amenities takes second place. That’s why they are never as good as they should be, in spite of the efforts and promises of the other parties. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work for the benefit of all. Only a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources can do that.

If you like to know more about Socialism as the alternative to capitalism, call in at our Head Office in Clapham High Street or visit spgb.net.”

 Not just about a miners’ strike but also about racism and sexism.

 According to the President of the World Bank, David Malpass, the world is facing a “human catastrophe” from a food crisis arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Malpass warned that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.

“It’s a human catastrophe, meaning nutrition goes down. But then it also becomes a political challenge for governments who can’t do anything about it, they didn’t cause it and they see the prices going up,” he said.

The World Bank calculates there could be a “huge” 37% increase in food prices, which is “magnified for the poor”, who will “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling. And so that means that it’s really an unfair kind of crisis. It hits the poorest the hardest.” The price rises are broad and deep, he said: “it’s affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up”.

There was enough food in the world to feed everybody, he said, and global stockpiles are large by historical standards, but there will have to be a sharing process to get the food to where it is needed.

Party Politics

The law’s the law, without fear or favour

Or it’s no law at all, merely the whim

Of law makers who feel they’re free to trim

Statutes to suit themselves. How they savour

The power of impunity they presume

Is theirs by right as they’re elevated

Above the common herd who are fated

To be the law’s dupes. There is always room

For any self-promoting succeeder

To cross fingers and then apologise

If caught breaking his own rules or telling lies,

Especially the Prime Misleader.

The blindfold on Justice slips and, too late,

Sees herself as a hostage of the state.

D. A.

Oxfam report, entitled “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe,” estimated that at least a quarter of a billion more people could be pushed into extreme poverty, defined as receiving below $1.90 per day, bringing the total to 860 million.

The number of people estimated to be living below the poverty line of $5.50 per day is already 3.3 billion, almost half the world’s population.

At the same time, billionaire wealth “has seen its biggest increase ever” with more accumulation at the top to come.

“Large corporations appear to be exploiting an inflationary environment to boost profits at consumers’ expense: soaring energy prices and margins have pushed oil company profits to record levels, while investors expect agriculture companies to rapidly become more profitable as food prices spiral,” Oxfam stated, adding, inflation is rising rapidly and will far outstrip wages growth this year.

Poorer countries are being bled white by the international banks, multilateral lending institutions, including the IMF, and investment houses. Debt servicing for all the world’s poorer countries is estimated at $43 billion for this year, equivalent to nearly half their spending on food import bills, healthcare, education and social protection combined. For the lowest-income countries, in 2021 the amount spent on debt servicing and repayments was 171 percent of their combined spending on healthcare, education and social protection.

The report warned, “Several developing countries are likely to default on their debts in coming months, and will try to stave off bankruptcy as they try to maintain vital imports…”

Oxfam Report: Poorer Countries Going From Crisis To Catastrophe| Countercurrents