A major survey by the housing charity Shelter has revealed 1.9m households could be suffering physical and mental problems as a result of poor housing conditions as well as uncertainty caused by struggles to pay the rent and repeated evictions.

A quarter of all renters said they were affected by damp and mould and by being unable to heat their homes.

 Almost one in four renters said their housing situation had left them feeling “stressed and anxious” since the start of the pandemic.

“The cost of poor housing is spilling out into overwhelmed GP surgeries, mental health services, and hours lost from work…millions of renters are living in homes that make them sick because they are mouldy, cold, unaffordable and grossly insecure.”” said Shelter’s chief executive, Polly Neate. 

Poor housing harms health of 20% of renters in England, says Shelter | Housing | The Guardian

 About half of the world’s population will suffer from water insecurity by 2050, found The State of Climate Services 2021: Water , a new report from the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO).



The report said:

“More than 2 billion people are living in countries under water stress and 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least one month per year. Meanwhile, water-related hazards have increased in frequency for the past 20 years. Since 2000, flood-related disasters have increased by 134%, most deaths and economic losses occurred in Asia, where warning systems require strengthening, the number and duration of droughts also increased by 29%, and most deaths were in Africa, again indicating the need for stronger warning systems.”



The report said:



”    In 2018, some 3.6 billion people globally had inadequate access to water for one month per year, which is expected to surpass five billion by 2050.

    In 2020, more than 20% of the world’s river basins had experienced either rapid increases in their surface water area indicative of flooding, a growth in reservoirs and newly inundated land; or rapid declines in surface water area indicating drying up of lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, floodplains and seasonal water bodies. Rapid changes in surface water extent and availability are contributing to elevated disaster risks and potentially negatively affecting water-dependent sectors, e.g. agriculture, energy. More than 80% of wetlands are estimated to have been lost since the pre-industrial era. Despite an average of 58% of countries’ transboundary basin areas having an operational arrangement for water cooperation, only 24 countries reported that all their transboundary basins are covered by such.

    Globally, 56% of household wastewater flows was safely treated in 2020, with regional values ranging from 25 to 80%, indicating that progress remains uneven across the globe. Data from 42 countries reporting on the generation and treatment of total wastewater flows indicate that less than a third received at least some treatment in 2015. The situation is similar for industrial wastewater flows, although here data are only available for 14 countries. In all world regions, and in low-, medium- and high-income countries alike, many water bodies were still in good condition; in 2020, 60% of water bodies assessed in 89 countries had good ambient water quality. However, water quality data are not collected routinely in a majority of countries; especially lower income countries rely on relatively few measurements from relatively few water bodies and lack suitable environmental water quality standards. 

Therefore global status and trends cannot be completely assessed.”

 ‘The big winner in Russia’s recent election was the Communist Party, which jumped to almost 20 percent support. The party is today being transformed by a new wave of democratic socialist activists opposed to Vladimir Putin’s rule’   (jacobinmag.com, 2 October).

The ‘democratic socialists’ (a tautological misnomer) had an inspiring electoral slogan*  alongside a stale selection of reformist demands.    

‘“Put Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism next to each other, and you will just gasp,” Gennady Zyuganov [leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma since 12 December 1993] said in a radio interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid. He added that “the main slogan of communism – ‘He who does not work shall not eat’ – is written in the Apostle Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians” found in the New Testament. “We need to study the Bible,” Zyuganov concluded’ (the Moscow Times, 2 September 2021).

Anyone agreeing with Zvuganov should consider reading Emma Goldman’s The Failure of Christianity (1915): ‘The idea conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest indictment against the teachings of Christ, because it sees in the poverty of mind and body a virtue, and because it seeks to maintain this virtue by reward and punishment…”Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” What a preposterous notion! What incentive to slavery, inactivity, and parasitism! Besides, it is not true that the meek can inherit anything. Just because humanity has been meek, the earth has been stolen from it. Meekness has been the whip, which capitalism and governments have used to force man into dependency, into his slave position. The most faithful servants of the State, of wealth, of special privilege, could not preach a more convenient gospel than did Christ, the “redeemer” of the people…’.

Sylvia Pankhurst too: ‘Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance. Our desire is not to make poor those who today are rich, in order to put the poor in the place where the rich now are. Our desire is not to pull down the present rulers to put other rulers in their places’ (Socialism, Workers’ Dreadnought, 28 July 1923).

‘He who does not work shall not eat’ Compare this Bibically-inspired Leninist distortion with the real thing: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ (Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha program, 1875) . Also, the vangardist Lenin again: “If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years” (From a speech in November 1918 quoted by John Reed in Ten Days that Shook the World) with early socialist Flora Tristan: ‘the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself.’

Best start anew, with one aim:

‘Our aim is Communism. Communism is not an affair of party. It is a theory of life and social organisation. It is a life in which property is held in common; in which the community produces, by conscious aim, sufficient to supply the needs of all its members; in which there is no trading, money, wages, or any direct reward for services rendered’ (Sylvia Pankhurst, What is behind the label? A plea for clearness, 1923).

 ‘In China, a politician was revealed to have established an offshore firm to trade U.S. stocks away from prying eyes…. Feng’s company held $2 million in assets and was registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission but is currently inactive.   In 2019, Feng recommended “stricter laws to prevent corruption and white-collar crime involving private companies”‘   (yahoo.com, 4 October).   The only thing surprising about this revelation fro the Pelican Papers is the paltry sum involved.   Consider, the ‘..estimated net worth of the 153 members of China’s Parliament and its advisory body amounts to $650 billion (consortiumnews, 28 July 2020)!  Clearly, ‘China is now an integral and irreplaceable part of global capitalism’ (consortiumnews, 28 July 2020) and in competition with other countries, such as the US, over trade routes, resources and areas of domination. ‘

A new analysis has found prominent companies, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney, are backing business groups that are fighting landmark climate legislation, despite their own promises to combat the climate crisis.  Corporate lobby groups and organizations have mobilized to oppose the proposed $3.5tn budget bill put forward by Democrats, which contains unprecedented measures to drive down planet-heating gases.

Most large US corporations have expressed concern over the climate crisis or announced their own goals to cut greenhouse gases. Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, has said that the climate crisis is the “biggest threat to our planet” and the company he founded, Amazon, has created a pledge for businesses to cut their emissions to net zero by 2040. Microsoft has promised to be “carbon negative” within a decade from now and Disney is aiming to use only renewable-sourced electricity within the same timeframe.

But these leading companies, and others, either support or actively steer the very lobby groups that are attempting to sink the bill that has ambitions to tackle the climate crisis, threatening one of the last major legislative efforts that will help decide whether parts of the world plunge into a new, barely livable climatic state. If enacted, the bill would establish a system to phase out emissions from the US electricity system, provide payments to prop up carbon-free nuclear energy and support the adoption of electric vehicles.

“Major corporations love to tell us how committed they are to addressing the climate crisis and building a sustainable future, but behind closed doors, they are funding the very industry trade groups that are fighting tooth and nail to stop the biggest climate change bill ever,” said Kyle Herrig, president of watchdog group Accountable.US, which compiled the analysis. “Hiding behind these shady groups doesn’t just put our environment at risk – it puts these companies’ household names and reputations in serious jeopardy,” Herrig said.

The US Chamber of Commerce has vowed to “do everything we can to prevent this tax-raising, job-killing reconciliation bill from becoming law”. The leading business lobby group’s board includes executives from companies including Microsoft, Intuit, United Airlines and Deloitte, which have all expressed concern over climate change – Deloitte even includes teaching the climate crisis to employees in its staff training – and have made various promises to reduce emissions.

 The Business Roundtable, has said it is “deeply concerned” about the passage of the bill, largely because it raises taxes on the wealthy. The organization is made up of company chief executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook, who has called for stronger action on the climate emergency from governments and businesses. Other members include Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon, Sundar Pichai, who heads Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Darren Woods, chief executive of the oil giant Exxon.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group that includes Bayer and AstraZeneca among its members, has run adverts attacking the proposed bill.

The Rate Coalition, another lobby group that has Disney, FedEx and Verizon as members, is also planning an advertising blitz to help kill off the legislation.

The National Association of Manufacturers – backed by Johnson&Johnson, Dow and Goodyear – has said it is attempting to upend the bill “in every way you can imagine”.

Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill | US political lobbying | The Guardian

  Lebanon’s spiralling economic meltdown continues and the UN is calling for urgent reforms as extreme poverty deepens and starvation becomes a “growing reality” for thousands of people.

“The situation remains a living nightmare for ordinary people, causing unspeakable suffering and distress for the most vulnerable,” United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi said. “Starvation has become a growing reality for thousands of people,” Rochdi said. “Today, we estimate that more than one million Lebanese need relief assistance to cover their basic needs, including food.” Rochdi said Lebanon’s fate lies in the political will to make its economy viable again, and that humanitarian interventions are not the solution.

“Humanitarian action is meant to be by nature short-term, temporary and unsustainable,” she said. “It is not meant to solve the root causes and drivers of a crisis.”

 78 percent of the Lebanese lives below the poverty line – some three million people – with 36 percent of the population living in extreme poverty. Almost a quarter of the population was not able to meet their “dietary needs” by the end of last year, the UN said.

The Lebanese pound has lost 90 percent of its value against the dollar amid Lebanon’s economic meltdown over the past two years. Buying power has dwindled as millions are locked out of their savings in the country’s stricken banks. A fuel crisis has paralysed much of Lebanon over the past few months, causing large-scale power outages and crippling hospitals. Life-saving medicines have been missing from pharmacy shelves, including cancer treatments. Families have had to dig deeper into their pockets to buy them at inflated rates through the black market if they can afford to do so.

“We’ve never seen these growing needs among the Lebanese population before,” World Food Programme spokeswoman Rasha Abou Dargham told Al Jazeera. The organisation now provides food assistance to one in four people in the country, with demand for food assistance at an all-time high.

UN urges Lebanon to implement reforms as extreme poverty grows | United Nations News | Al Jazeera

 Friday 1 October 19.30 BST (GMT + 1)

  The average national house price was hitting between NZ$937,000 and $1m, nearly eight times the annual household income. 

Real Estate Institute data shows there was a 31% increase over the year to July.

Wellington and Auckland have some of the least affordable property markets in the world – homeownership rates in New Zealand have been falling since the early 1990s across all age brackets, but the drop is especially pronounced for people in their 20s and 30s.

 A spokesperson for Consumer NZ, Gemma Rasmussen,  said that with house prices rising so quickly, even high-income millennials will struggle to save for a deposit without the benefit of intergenerational wealth.

 “We’re heading for a place where there are two New Zealands: the people who have property, they’re secure and their capital gains will continue to grow, and then there are people who are locked out.”

‘Haves and have-nots’: how the housing crisis is creating two New Zealands – a photo essay | New Zealand | The Guardian

The World Socialist Party (New Zealand)

P.O. Box 1929

Auckland, NI, New Zealand

Email: moggiegrayson@gmail.com

 Food policies across the North Africa region was geared towards the expansion of large-scale, commercial agriculture, attracting foreign investment and big agribusiness, export orientation, and a reliance on imports for domestic food needs and production inputs. 

This came at the expense of broad-based rural development and traditional food systems and cultures. The result has been the impoverishment of rural populations and mass migration to urban areas and abroad.

The North African region could be an area for cooperation and solidarity among its peoples. But this will not be brought about by states and local elites that profit from the continuation and expansion of the current agro-food model, with its “free” trade and liberalization of local markets dramatically undercutting small-scale producers.

A new study by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the North African Food Sovereignty Network (NAFSN) shows how traditional farming and local food production deteriorated and how food dependency intensified with communities increasingly reliant on imports. More than 50 percent of calories consumed daily in the Arab region are from imported food, with the region spending around $110 billion annually on food imports. The takeover of land, water, and seeds by domestic and foreign capital continued. 

The TNI-NAFSN study argues, this food dependency is a result of market-based policies dictated by global financial institutions (the IMF, World Bank and WTO), reinforced by UN organizations (UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN Development Programme, UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia), and translated into guiding policy frameworks by regional organizations (Arab Organisation for Agricultural Development/the Arab League). National regimes, in turn, followed these prescriptions. This brought prosperity to a few but left many others facing considerable hardship as markets, resources and policies are increasingly dominated by a handful of powerful corporate actors. 

The economic dislocation wrought by the pandemic has led to a surge in the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition in a region in which, even prior to Covid-19, a significant share of the population experienced food insecurity.

According to the TNI-NAFSN study, small-scale food producers have been among the hardest hit by the closure of food markets (as in Morocco or Tunisia), declining sales of food and agricultural products, and difficulty accessing key production inputs.

Governments and institutional actors across the region have responded to the health and economic crisis in a number of ways, including intervening more assertively in the trade of key foodstuffs, extending emergency aid to various sections of society. However, these measures did not address the root causes of the crisis.

International and regional institutions recommended more or less the same policies as before, with minor adjustments to mitigate negative effects, rather than transforming food systems for social justice and sustainability. Essentially, they recommended perpetuating dependency on global agro-food markets and private capital as key mechanisms to deliver food security in the region. This business-as-usual approach continues to tie people’s food supply to the market mechanisms that prioritize profit for private corporations and the delivery of hard currency to cover the state’s debt obligations.

The TNI-NAFSN study argues the severity of the crisis requires a change of direction — one that is geared towards the rights and agency of laborers and small-scale producers, agro-ecology, and the complete elimination of the structural causes of food dependency and the lack of food sovereignty. By politicizing food systems and putting issues around democratic control at the heart of decision-making, food sovereignty thus offers a radically different pathway out of the current crisis.

COVID-19: A Just Recovery for North Africa’s Food – Consortiumnews