The world community’s attention may be upon the Gaza ceasefire but  Israel’s police have not relented in its repression of Palestinians making their peaceful protests presence known. 

Hundreds of runners took part in an event in solidarity with Palestinian families facing forced expulsion in occupied East Jerusalem on Friday which began in Sheikh Jarrah and ended 3.5km (2 miles) away in Silwan. Dozens of Palestinians living in the two neighbourhoods face the threat of losing their homes to Israeli settlers. The runners were wearing white T-shirts with “7,850” printed on them, representing the number of people facing forced expulsion in the city.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 23 runners were injured when Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades and used batons at the run.

Elsewhere, 20 people were injured in separate demonstrations that took place on Friday against Israeli military outposts and illegal settlements near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Israeli police attack Palestinians running to protest expulsions | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

 California banned the sale of assault weapons in 1989.

San Diego Federal District Judge Roger Benitez overturned the ban on assault weapons on Friday, ruling that it violates the constitutional right to possess arms. Benitez said Americans have the right to own semi-automatic rifles.

“Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle,” the judge said in his ruling’s introduction. “Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are better.”

Many gun-rights activists are part of the MAGA movement that claim Biden is not the legitimate president and that Trump lost the election due to election fraud. America’s lauded 4th Amendment had precious little effect in upholding liberty if that was indeed the case (which, of course, it was not.)

  Spencer Cox, The Republican governor of Utah,  has invited residents of his state to join him in a “weekend of prayer” for rain, to combat a drought emergency.

“I’ve already asked all Utahns to conserve water by avoiding long showers, fixing leaky faucets and planting water-wise landscapes,” Cox said, “But I fear those efforts alone won’t be enough to protect us. We need more rain and we need it now. We need some divine intervention. That’s why I’m asking Utahns of all faiths to join me in a weekend of prayer from 4 June through the sixth.”

He added: “By praying collaboratively and collectively, asking God or whatever higher power you believe in for more rain, we may be able to escape the deadliest aspects of the continuing drought.”

Other governors have prayed to end droughts. In 2007, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, a Republican, held a prayer service for rain in Atlanta. Four years later in Texas, Rick Perry, also a Republican called for prayer during extreme dry conditions.

God ignored both as he will Cox.

Utah governor urges residents to pray for rain as drought bites | Utah | The Guardian

 As in Ireland, the Catholic Church in Canada performed a role of undertaking social services on behalf of the government. 

 The remains of 215 children of the First Nations were found in unmarked graves last month at the Kamloops Indian Residential school in British Columbia. The school was Canada’s largest and was operated by the Roman Catholic church between 1890 and 1969.

 In all, nearly three-quarters of the 130 schools for Canada’s Native Americans were run by Catholic missionary congregations. From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their native languages. They also lost touch with their parents and customs. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died.

The Canadian government apologized in parliament in 2008 and admitted that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced in 2018 that the pope could not personally apologize for residential schools.

Marc Miller, Indigenous services minister, said, “There is a responsibility that lies squarely on the shoulders” on the Catholic bishops of Canada.

Canada calls on pope to apologize after Indigenous children’s remains found | Canada | The Guardian

Free to Work

Pandemic galloping from sea to sea,

Health service buckles, but it does not crack,

Gathering itself to staunch the attack,

Calling out for volunteers who are free

And willing to give their time to assist.

Four hundred thousand step forward to say,

‘We will do whatever and hang the pay

And when things get tough we will persist.’

They manufactured by various means

Face masks and washbags that hadn’t been procured,

Drove, phoned, delivered, and then they ensured

Centres were staffed and prepared for vaccines.

Yet it’s often been said down the ages,

People will simply not work without wages.

D. A.

JUNE 2021 PDF

 All Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are currently online on Discord. Please contact spgb.discord@worldsocialism.org for instructions on how to join.

 The blog has previously posted upon vaccine nationalism and how the poorer nations are suffering from shortages of Covid vaccines. Updated reports reveal little has changed. While some politicians in the developed world are boasting that they are inoculating young healthy adults who are at very little risk, in the undeveloped countries, the very vulnerable are being neglected.

“Africa needs vaccines now,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said  “Any pause in our vaccination campaigns will lead to lost lives and lost hope.

Only 1% of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa – and that comparative percentage has been declining in recent weeks. From Africa to Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, the same issues have been replicated.

Only 28 million doses have been delivered across Africa so far – that’s less than 2% of the continent’s population – at a time when some wealthier countries have vaccinated well in excess of half their populations.

Africa needed at least 20 million AstraZeneca doses in the next six weeks to give second shots to all those who had received the first dose. In addition, another 200 million doses of approved vaccines are needed to enable the continent to vaccinate 10% of its population by September.

Vaccine inequality exposed by dire situation in world’s poorest nations | Africa | The Guardian

  A report by  Fair Tax Foundation singled out Amazon, Facebook, Google’s owner, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft said they paid $96bn less in tax between 2011 and 2020 than the notional taxation figures they cite in their annual financial reports.

The six firms named handed over $149bn less to global tax authorities than would be expected if they had the paid headline rates where they operated.

Overall, they paid $219bn in income tax over the past decade, 3.6% of their total revenue of more than $6tn. Income tax is paid on profits, but the researchers said the Silicon Six companies deliberately shift income to low-tax jurisdictions to pay less tax.

The report found that Amazon, the internet retailing and cloud services provider run by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, collected $1.6tn of revenue, reported $60.5bn of profit and paid $5.9bn in income taxes this decade. Amazon would have been expected to pay $10.7bn in taxes on those profits based on international tax rates, the report said. The tax paid as a percentage of profit was just 9.8% over the period 2011-20, the lowest of the Silicon Six.

Facebook, run by Mark Zuckerberg, who has a personal fortune of $123bn, has paid just $16.8bn in income taxes this decade, despite making profits of $133bn and revenues of $328bn, according to the report. The tax paid as a percentage of profit was just 12.7%, the second-lowest of the so-called “Silicon Six” after Amazon.

Paul Monaghan, chief executive of the Fair Tax Foundation, said the group’s analysis provided “solid evidence that substantive tax avoidance is still embedded within many large multinationals and nothing less than a root-and-branch reform of international tax rules will remedy the situation”.

‘Silicon Six’ tech giants accused of inflating tax payments by almost $100bn | Tax avoidance | The Guardian

 China, as expected, which ended its one-child rule has now relaxed its two-child policy and will permit couples to have three children.

China’s population has grown at its slowest pace in decades and faces a demographic problem with an ageing population and a reduced number of working age to support the elderly.