The World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency Unicef warned, in a new report rebuked baby formula makers for “unethical” marketing strategies, accusing them of aggressively targeting expecting parents and health workers and putting shareholder interests before children’s health.

It found that the $55-billion formula milk industry systematically deploys aggressive marketing strategies, spending up to $5 billion a year to sway parents’ decisions on how to feed their infants.

Many countries’ failure to crack down on the marketing of breast milk substitutes means far too many children are still being reared on formula. It is widely recognised that breastfeeding carries huge health benefits. Experts have long extolled the health benefits of breastfeeding, saying that breast-fed children are healthier, perform better on intelligence tests and are less likely to be overweight or suffer from diabetes later in life. Women who breastfeed also have a reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer, research shows.

Despite the known benefits, only 44 percent of babies under the age of six months are exclusively breastfed, as recommended by the WHO and Unicef.  In the past two decades, the sale of formula milk has more than doubled. 

Lead report author Nigel Rollins, of the WHO’s maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health division, blamed the industry’s aggressive marketing practices. Rollins pointed to how companies use pseudoscience to suggest that breast milk is not enough on its own or that formula does a better job of helping babies to sleep through the night.

“This report shows very clearly that formula milk marketing remains unacceptably pervasive, misleading and aggressive,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

UN slams ‘aggressive’ formula milk marketing (france24.com)

 The wealth of the richest one per cent of households is more than 230 times that of the poorest 10 per cent.

The top 1 per cent of households have wealth of more than £3.6m each, while the top 10 percent hold 43 per cent of all the wealth in Great Britain.

This is compared to the household wealth of £15,400 or less for the poorest 10 per cent. 

Among the poorest 10 per cent of households, almost half held more financial debt than they did assets.

The figures according to new analysis from the Office of National Statistics reveal that the richest people in the UK have household wealth that is around 233 times higher than the wealth of some of the poorest in society.

Krishan Shah, a researcher at the Resolution Foundation, reacted to the figures, saying: “With wealth inequality remaining high and unchanged, this means that Britain’s huge absolute gaps in wealth have continued to grow.

The UK’s household wealth found that the median wealth in the South East was the highest in the country, at £503,400. This figure – once adjusted for inflation – has risen by 43 per cent since 2006. Comparatively median household wealth in the northeast stood at £168,500.

Some regions, such as the northeast and Scotland, have seen a decrease in wealth compared to the previous period of April 2016 to March 2018. They both experienced an inflation-adjusted fall in wealth of 7 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.

London also experienced a large decrease of 8 per cent, while the east of England and the west Midlands saw the largest growth – of 14 per cent and 13 per cent for each. 

Households whose ‘household reference person’ [main respondent to the survey] is of white ethnicity are four times more likely to have wealth in excess of £500,000 than households with a black African reference person. Pakistani and Indian households are less likely to hold pension wealth, with home ownership being more important in their asset holdings.

Total net wealth was calculated using four main components. These were “net property” (the value of your house or flat minus mortgage debt), “physical” (household contents, vehicles etc), private pension, and “net financial” (sum of your total savings or investments).

Researchers at the London School of Economics, Arun Advani and Hannah Tarrant, argued that the ONS figures had underestimated the share of wealth going to the richest households and that the analysis failed to account for business wealth.

Wealth of the richest 1 percent more than 230 times that of the poorest 10 percent, ONS says | The Independent

 117,500 tons of herbicides and insecticides are used across America’s farmlands annually, posing a potentially fatal risk to thousands of endangered and threatened species.

Meat and dairy production is driving the use of these pesticides. One-third of agricultural lands in the US is dedicated to corn and soy, primarily to provide calorie-dense diets for fattening up farmed animals.

Corn and soybean production globally accounts for about half of all sales of pesticides. Around three-quarters of the soy produced around the world feeds livestock, along with up to 45 per cent of corn grown in the US.

The most commonly-used substances in the US are glyphosate and atrazine.

Glyphosate can harm or kill 93 per cent of plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. The research also points to adverse effects that glyphosate exposure has on human health, noting that the World Health Organization says it is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

“More than 13,000 lawsuits have been filed in the US alleging that the pesticide causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma”, the researchers state.

Atrazine is banned in 35 countries. It is likely to harm or kill more than 1,000 protected species in the USA.

Converting more and more land for mono-crops like soy and corn is wiping out biologically-diverse habitats. From 2018 to 2019, about 2.6 million acres of US grasslands were converted to row crop agriculture, with 70 per cent used for soy, corn and wheat. 

Stripping out native grasses and vegetation decimates the habitats and food sources of a wide-range of species. Grasslands are also a little-recognised but crucial natural ally when it comes to battling the climate crisis. Grasses can store large amounts of carbon in the soil, sometimes as much as forest soils.

US meat industry using 235m pounds of pesticides a year, threatening thousands of at-risk species, study finds (yahoo.com)

 At least 200,000 tonnes of supermarket own-label food fit for human consumption ends up as animal food or is used to generate energy, according to research by the sustainability group Anthesis.

The surplus food could be going to hungry families instead of going to waste.

Supermarkets wasting 200,000 tonnes of food that could go to needy, say charities | Supermarkets | The Guardian

  “What we are doing is not making it worse for the Taliban, it is making it worse for the people. We are not punishing the Taliban. It is ordinary Afghans that are paying the price of peace.”

 David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee.

 Puerto Rico government employees and supporters have taken to the streets, emboldened by thousands of public school teachers who abandoned classrooms in early February to demand raises and better pensions. Protests have multiplied. Government workers are grappling with rising prices while getting the same salaries they had in 2008.

 Legislators are the only public workers who have an automatic cost-of-living increase for their salaries. Most of the other public employees in Puerto Rico, which is a United States territory, have not gotten pay raises in more than a decade — sometimes two — as the cost of living has risen and the island has suffered a lengthy economic crisis and a government bankruptcy in the aftermath of deadly hurricanes, earthquakes and the coronavirus pandemic.

Power and water bills are nearly 60 percent higher in Puerto Rico than the US average. Groceries are 18 percent more expensive than on the mainland. Many public employees work one or two additional jobs to make ends meet.

‘They’re fed up’: Workers in Puerto Rico take to the streets | Workers’ Rights News | Al Jazeera

 Despite charges of voter fraud, Juan Orlando Hernández was elected president of Honduras in late 2013 with full support from the United States. 

On Feb. 15, nine years after his election and one month after he left office, Hernández was arrested on charges of drug trafficking at the request of the United States, which has also requested his extradition. Once his power was gone, Hernández, the U.S. ally, instantly became the United States’ enemy. When he served the interests of the United States, Hernández was untouchable. 

The real power in Central America is and always will be Washington. Once you no longer serve a purpose, Washington may exhibit that power. Hernández being arrested for drug trafficking by a country that consumes the most drugs in the world is riddled with hypocrisy, but it reminds Central America that the U.S. will always be in charge.

The United States effectively painted Honduras as a backward country, when it is, in fact, a victim of American intervention and condescension. Even now, as the Biden-Harris administration works to end corruption in Central America as a means to end migration, the framing is always the same. Honduras is corrupt. The U.S. is exceptional. Where was that exceptionalism during the Hernández’ administration? The U.S. knew who he was but expressed no problem with him until his arrest.

This American tradition of supporting political criminals will never go away.

Ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández arrested on drug trafficking charges (msnbc.com)

Fircroft College in Birmingham 

19th – 21st August 2022.

This year’s Summer School theme is ‘The Class Divide’.

The Class Divide

The richest 10% of people own more than 80% of global wealth, and the 10 richest men have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people combined. These vast inequalities in wealth reflect how society is split into two classes: the capitalist class get their wealth through owning industries and corporations, and the working class rely on wages or benefits to buy what is needed.

The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion looks at why capitalism is divided into classes and how the antagonism between them impacts the way we live. What is ‘class consciousness’ and how does it develop? To what extent is it meaningful to say that there is a middle class? What classes were there before capitalism, in previous stages of history? And what could a future classless society be like?

The full residential cost (including accommodation and meals from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100; the concessionary rate is £50. 

Book online here or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. 

Day visitors are welcome, but please book by e-mail in advance. 

E-mail enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

 In 2015 and 2016, many people also had little understanding for this attitude. They did not want to take in refugees and migrants. The xenophobic protest movement gave rise to the far-right populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD).

The nonprofit Bertelsmann Foundation in its representative study “Willkommenskultur zwischen Stabilität und Aufbruch,” (Welcome Culture Between Stability and Departure) has now taken a closer look at changes in Germans’ attitudes and identified a trend: Germans are more optimistic about migration and immigration than they were a few years ago.

“In essence, our survey shows that skepticism toward immigration is still widespread in Germany, but it has continually declined in recent years,” says Ulrike Wieland, co-author of the study: “More people now see the potential benefits of migration; especially for the economy. When it comes to perceptions of integration, we find that more respondents than in previous years see inequality of opportunity and discrimination as significant obstacles hampering integration of individuals.”

Many see immigration as a way to help solve Germany’s demographic and economic problems. For example, two out of three respondents see immigration as helping to balance out an ageing society, more than half of those polled said it could also compensate for the ongoing shortage of skilled workers, and half of all respondents expect immigrants to generate additional revenue for Germany’s pension fund.

Germans have overall become more accepting of refugees. But over one-third of respondents (36%) believe that Germany cannot take in any more of them. In 2017, that number stood at 54%. Currently, 20% consider the refugees to be “temporary guests” who do not need to be integrated into society.

“We see that one-fifth of the population is skeptical of refugees or outright rejects them. These people seem to have a worldview that supports the idea of a (far-reaching) social closure against migration,” explains co-author Ulrike Wieland.

However, respondents still remain skeptical. The Bertelsmann Foundation study also clearly shows that there is still a lot of skepticism in Germany when it comes to refugees.

 67% say that immigrants place an additional burden on the welfare state, 66% say they worry about conflicts erupting between people born and raised in Germany and immigrants, and many respondents fear that schools are facing major problems integrating immigrant students.

Skilled immigrants seeking employment or academic opportunities are more accepted (71%) than refugees who are primarily seeking protection (59 %).

Aid worker Christian Osterhaus looks back at when he started working with refugees: “At the time, I really had the impression that German society had opened up and changed and had actually learned a lot.” He believes that interpersonal connections and friendships are the foundation for the path to building a real welcome culture in Germany. Osterhaus was one of hundreds of thousands of people in Germany who set out to help those fleeing civil war in Syria and other countries, and to help integrate them into German society. “We wanted to give these people a new home,” Osterhaus says looking back.

Germans less skeptical of immigration | Germany | News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 16.02.2022

 The Eagle and the Bear

 Again, the bear growls and the eagle flaps,

Claws and talons brandished, bristling with pride,

Each self-righteous, claiming the other lied,

Another squabble over lines on maps

Drawn and redrawn at the beck of capital.

Markets tremble, armies muster and march,

While those with only their labour to sell

Are, too often, employed in martial hell,

Not heeding lessons history has to teach.

How many stones need to be cut and dressed,

Assembled into cenotaphs, then incised

With gilded names of the slaughtered? How prized

Is rhetoric when profits are assessed?

Whichever country victory chooses,

The world entire, and its future, loses.

D. A.