The number of foreign-born citizens living in Chile has more than tripled, to 1.5 million, between 2014 and the end of 2019, many fleeing violence and poverty in Haiti and Venezuela – continue to arrive in the country.

José Antonio Kast, a supporter of the dictator Augusto Pinochet, is presently leading the presidential election opinion polls. “The far right have managed to weaponise migration in the run-up to the election,” says Romina Ramos, a sociologist at Arturo Prat University in Iquique. “They are playing on fears of a threat to security and Chilean identity – and Kast has been able to present the arrivals as an invasion which must be fought off.”

“Fundamentally, Kast defends free markets and traditional values, and favours the image of a monocultural Chile of European descent,” says Gilberto Aranda, an academic at the University of Chile who studies rightwing movements. “His advance in the polls is a reaction to the simplistic narrative that everything that has happened over the last 30 years has been negative.”

His programme focuses on conservative family values, moves against corruption and the strengthening of public security. He makes a point of criticising political correctness, inclusive language, identity politics and the perceived “abandonment” of Chilean traditions.

Chile far-right candidate rides anti-migrant wave in presidential poll | Chile | The Guardian

 Despite all their promises  by the Wealthier countries and the pharmaceutical industry to deliver 1.8 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to the undeveloped and developing nations, they have delivered just 261 million doses, or 14%.

“The approach remains focused on inadequate charity and non-binding donation pledges instead of legally binding sharing, collaboration, and cooperation,” reads the People’s Vaccine Alliance report. “This approach will not work.”

“It is painfully clear that the developing world cannot rely on the largesse and charity of rich nations and pharmaceutical companies, and hundreds of thousands of people are dying from Covid-19 as a result,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, a member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance. “This is beyond appalling.”  Only 1.3% of people in low-income countries are vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to Oxfam.

TRY SOCIALISM INSTEAD

 Despite all governments and politicians claims, Greta Thunberg concludes “there are no climate leaders … at least not among high-income nations” 

Greta Thunberg accused countries including the UK of being in denial over the extent of the climate and ecological crisis and using “creative carbon accounting” to augment their green credentials.

In an opinion piece for the Guardian, the Swedish activist says world leaders have been responsible for several years of inaction in reducing emissions which she has termed “their decades of blah, blah, blah”.

Thunberg also accused the UK, the US and China of spinning emissions statistics to make it appear that their levels are lower.

She wrote: “Between 1990 and 2016, the UK lowered its territorial emissions by 41%. However, once you include the full scale of the UK emissions – such as consumption of imported goods, international aviation and shipping etc – the reduction is more like 15%.

“And this is excluding burning of biomass, like at Drax’s Selby plant – a heavily subsidised so-called “renewable” power plant that is, according to analysis, the UK’s biggest single emitter of CO2 and the third biggest in all of Europe. And yet the government still considers the UK to be a global climate leader.

“The UK is, of course, far from the only country relying on such creative carbon accounting. This is the norm.

“China, currently by far the world’s biggest emitter of CO2, is planning to build 43 new coal power plants on top of the 1,000 plants already in operation – while also claiming to be an ecological ‘trailblazer’ committed to leaving “a clean and beautiful world to future generations.”

 Tax evasion and avoidance schemes have cost governments an estimated €150bn (£127bn) in lost revenues, research by a team of experts at the University of Mannheim, in partnership with the German not-for-profit group Correctiv, shows.

Nearly 4 million low-income households are behind on rent, bills or debt payments, up threefold since the pandemic hit, according to a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

It reveals the growing cost of the living crisis facing the UK’s poorest families.

A third of the 11.6 million working-age households in the UK earning £25,000 or less were found to be in arrears on their rent or mortgage, utility bills, council tax bills or personal debt repayments. The findings indicate that 3.8 million households are behind with household bills, 950,000 are in rent arrears, 1.4 million are behind on council tax bills, and 1.4 million are behind on electricity and gas bills.

A third of all low-income families are in arrears, up from 11% prior to the pandemic, it estimated. This rises to 44% of working-age households and 71% of younger households aged between 18 and 24. Families with children and black, Asian and minority ethnic households were particularly hard hit.

“Behind these figures are parents gripped by anxiety, wondering how they will put food on their children’s plates and pay the gas bill; young people forced to rely on friends to help cover their rent and avoid eviction,” said Katie Schmuecker, the JRF deputy director for policy and partnerships.

 The Tory-controlled District Councils Network (DCN), which represents 200 councils in English towns, has warned of a rise in homelessness this winter as a result of the end to government support measures such as furlough and eviction ban. A survey of district councils completed earlier this month found that just under three-quarters reported an increase in homelessness acceptances over the past four months, while nearly two-thirds said people they had housed during the pandemic had recently slipped “back in the homelessness cycle”.

District councils also reported increased numbers of families seeking support, and increases in the numbers of residents with severe mental health and other complex needs using council services. More than a third of councils reported significant increases in referrals to local food banks.

Third of low-income households unable to pay bills, finds research | Household bills | The Guardian

Countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change.

 The World Socialist Movement has described over-populationists – those who subscribe to the dystopian predictions of Thomas Malthus and advocate drastic family planning policies – as pushing against an open door as the trend towards a decline in the numbers of people is already in process.

Lord Adair Turner, former chairman of the Financial Services Authority, said that a gentle decline in birth rates would “deliver significant benefits to human welfare”. Writing in a research paper, he argued that with the right government policy an ageing population would not pose a threat to the economy. Lord Turner, said: “The biggest reason to welcome this demographic shift is that it results from the free choice of empowered people, and in particular women.

Low birth rates and an ageing population have often been seen as a looming crisis, with economists arguing there will not be enough people to work and contribute to the future economy. This, coupled with the rising cost of pensions and health care, has made people increasingly worried about shrinking populations and smaller families. But the report, ‘Smaller Families and Ageing Populations,’ explains this is good news.

In Japan, women give birth to an average of 1.36 children, down from 2.1 in 1974. In England and Wales the figure is 1.6. By 2035, the Japanese population is set to decrease by 9.6 per cent from 125m to 113.1m people. 

The report did acknowledge that labour shortages would become an increasing problem with an ageing population. But it argued automation in the work force and migration would be key to dealing with this issue.

Population decline good news for climate, says former finance chief | The Independent

Despite increasing pledges of action from many nations, governments have not yet made plans to wind down fossil fuel production, a report, produced by the UN Environment Programme (Unep) and other researchers, found.

Fossil fuel production planned by the world’s governments “vastly exceeds” the limit needed to keep the rise in global heating to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, the report explained.  Global production of oil and gas is on track to rise over the next two decades, with coal production projected to fall only slightly. This results in double the fossil fuel production in 2030 that is consistent with a 1.5C rise.

The gap between planned extraction of coal, oil and gas and safe limits remains as large as in 2019 when the UN first reported on the issue. 

The report also found that countries have directed more than $300bn (£217bn) of new public finance to fossil fuel activities since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than that provided for clean energy.

“The research is clear: global coal, oil and gas production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5C,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and a lead author of the report. “However, governments continue to plan for and support levels of fossil fuel production that are vastly in excess of what we can safely burn.”

Inger Andersen, executive director of Unep, said: “The devastating impacts of climate change are here for all to see. At Cop26 and beyond, the world’s governments must step up, taking rapid and immediate steps to close the fossil fuel production gap and ensure a just and equitable transition.”

Detailed analysis of 15 major fossil fuel-producing nations found that the US, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and China all project increases in oil and gas, while India and Russia intend to increase coal production. Only two of the countries expect oil and gas production to decline: the UK and Indonesia.

The new report analysed publicly stated plans and projections and found the production of 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas in 2030 than is consistent with 1.5C. Overall fossil fuel production is 45% more than consistent with even the weaker goal of 2C.

Planned fossil fuel output ‘vastly exceeds’ climate limits, says UN | Fossil fuels | The Guardian

Socialists have always stated that national interests will supersede the welfare of the world. 

 The massive expenditure for war is not a political issue for most Republican or Democratic politicians in the USA. 

While measures that cover a range of programs designed to help working people and address climate change and will cost $3.5 trillion over ten years have become contested debating points, over the same decade, the ten-year cost of $7.7 trillion for the military budget gets passed with very little criticism, despite Biden having reduced America’s military presence in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Among the many industries that are blamed for being damaging to the health of people and the planet is the food processing corporations. 

The foods we consume are a major driver of global heating, contributing similar amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as the UK energy system. Meat and dairy are responsible for more than three-quarters of this impact. Without meaningful reductions in meat and dairy intake, there is little chance of meeting emissions reduction targets, both at national and international levels. From a climate crisis perspective, the Climate Change Committee – the body tasked with monitoring and providing advice on greenhouse gas emissions – recommends a 20% reduction in the consumption of beef, lamb, and dairy in support of the government’s target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. However, the committee’s own report admits that this level of reduction might be too low, and an independent scientific analysis suggested that beef, lamb and pork intake would have to decline by 89%, poultry intake by 66% and dairy intake by 61% for the UK’s food emissions to be in line with limiting global heating to under 2C.

The public health case for reducing meat consumption is similarly strong – tens of thousands of avoidable deaths from cardiovascular diseases and cancers have been linked to red and processed meat consumption in the UK. Yet, despite this public and environmental health emergency, policymakers appear unwilling to take meaningful steps that would help create a healthier, more sustainable food system. Recommended targets and policies continue to be woefully inadequate. The actual recommendation of the Eatwell Guide is even more misleading. Its target value of 70g a day would mean having a serving of red and processed meat five times a week would be totally fine, much in contrast to the current scientific understanding. A comprehensive review of the scientific literature on healthy eating suggested limiting red and processed meat intake to below one serving a week (14g a day), five times below the current recommendation. Updating national dietary guidelines to reflect the latest scientific evidence would therefore be a critical first step for reducing the 30,000 annual deaths associated with red and processed meat consumption in the UK.

Intensive industrial-style livestock farming has featured in numerous criticisms of the global food system. At least eight types of bird flu, all of which can kill humans, are circulating around the world’s factory farms – and they could be worse than Covid-19.

 Scientific evidence from the £150bn-a-year poultry and livestock industries shows that stressful, crowded conditions of factory farming drive the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases, and act as an “epidemiological bridge” between wildlife and human infections. UN bodies, academics and epidemiologists recognise the link between the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and increasingly intensive poultry farming.

Rob Wallace, an American virologist argues that the new strains of flu emerging are adapting to industrial poultry production. With more than 20 billion chickens and nearly 700 million pigs being farmed at any one time, Wallace says the chances of new flu strains and variants emerging and spilling over to humans are high.

 Sam Sheppard, a biologist at Bath University, says overuse of antibiotics, overcrowding and the genetic similarity between animals provide ideal conditions for many bacteria, viruses and other pathogens to merge, mutate, spread and then jump into humans.

Marius Gilbert, an epidemiologist at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, and others have shown how bird flu is linked to the rapid intensification of poultry farming, which is now making bird flu viruses more dangerous.

Michael Greger, author of the book Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, argues that there have been three eras of human disease: first, when we started to domesticate animals about 10,000 years ago and were infected with their diseases, such as measles and chickenpox; then in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the Industrial Revolution led to epidemics of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer; and now, because of the agricultural intensification that is leading to zoonotic, or animal-borne, diseases such as bird flu, salmonella, Mers, Nipah and Covid-19.

“In evolutionary terms, rearing poultry, cattle and pigs in high-intensity, crowded, confined, entirely unnatural conditions may be the most profound alteration of the human-animal relationship in 10,000 years,” he says “We are seeing an unprecedented explosion in outbreaks of new bird flu viruses, which historically have presented the greatest pandemic risk and certainly have the potential to be worse than Covid.”

Since African Swine Fever (ASF) was confirmed in the Americas more than two months ago, the deadly pig disease is now on six continents. The virus is an almost certain death sentence for pigs. The US pork industry – worth $23bn (£17bn) a year – is in a panic, Latin America is on alert, and pork producers in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are haunted by memories of the US-funded eradication of their entire pork population when ASF last hit more than 40 years ago.

Enough chewing the fat, UK politicians: we must stop eating so much red meat | Marco Springmann | The Guardian

Factory farms of disease: how industrial chicken production is breeding the next pandemic | Global health | The Guardian

The US has a silent pig pandemic on its doorstep once again | African Swine Fever | The Guardian