The  evidence of the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims is abundant yet many “anti-imperialists” are in denial, preferring the enemy of my enemy is my friend maxim and offer support for China.

According to this article, the Uighurs are wronged four times over: by China’s oppression, by American imperialist cooptation, by left-wing denialism, and by Muslim leaders’ dereliction.

Not only do we have the United States and its allies decrying China’s human rights violations, and China and its allies denying such violations, and reminding the West of its own abuses of human rights, we now have a group of Western “anti-imperialists” siding with China simply because they feel whatever the US says is suspect, and therefore what China claims is not. World leaders usually regarded as advocates for oppressed Muslims, such as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, have also signed on to what might be called the “Uighur Exception,” in order to avoid offending the Chinese government and jeopardising the development dollars on which they depend.

For many, the Uighur’s plight is yet another card to play in its China-bashing, along with Hong Kong and COVID-19. In a remarkable reversal, Trump went from lauding mass Uighur internment as the “right thing to do” to labelling it as genocide – all while implementing a Muslim ban and incarcerating thousands of migrants in a vast “concentration camp” system of the US’s own. Biden has maintained the bipartisan consensus in accusing China of genocide – having previously served as vice president in the Obama administration, a pioneer in the preemptive collective criminalisation of Muslim communities in the name of counter-radicalisation. Even one-time anti-Uighur agitators like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have joined the bandwagon of performative allyship with the Uighurs against China’s “modern genocide.” What a change in tune from 2009, when Gingrich denigrated the Uighurs as misogynists, “trained mass killers,” and “terrorists,” justifying their wrongful capture and torture by the US at Guantanamo Bay.

Human rights organisations have long been consistent in exposing and opposing China’s persecutory policies against the Uighurs, even when conflicting with the American empire’s realpolitik.

Amnesty International’s first report (PDF) on atrocities against the Uighurs is from 1992, documenting a “pattern of human rights violations [that] appears to have emerged in Xinjiang since 1989,” including secret detentions, extrajudicial executions, and suppression of religious expression.

Human Rights Watch has been calling on the US government to press China on its treatment of the Uighurs since 1998, in the face of then-President Bill Clinton’s reticence for the sake of augmenting US-China trade.

 In 2004, Georgetown University Xinjiang specialist James Millward authoritatively deconstructed China’s sensationalist and unsubstantiated projections of the Uighur “terrorist” threat – the basis of the US’s designation of the Uighur group East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as a terrorist organisation in 2002 to woo the Chinese government’s support for the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Yet some on the left continue to reject reports of China’s oppression and repression as an American imperialist propaganda ploy. The China sympathisers discredit those drawing attention to the Uighur’s persecution by questioning their motives and exposing their association with various anti-China institutions yet all the while ignoring the vast body of evidence.

This includes:

1. Census data showing the long-term demographic replacement of Indigenous Uighurs with the dominant Han ethnic group – encouraged by government incentives for Han migration and settlement.2. Statistics revealing a precipitate decline in Xinjiang birth rates by 33 percent (from 15.88 percent to 10.69 percent), and population growth rates by 46 percent (from 11.40 percent to 6.13 percent), between 2017 and 2018 – misrepresented in the Grayzone as a decrease of only 5 percent, even as it excoriates its ideological opponents for “statistical malpractice” and “data abuse”.3. Counterterrorism laws and “de-extremification” regulations targeting religious practices such as wearing a veil and growing a beard.4. Leaked lists of detainees, such as the Aksu and Karakax lists, detailing the extrajudicial detention of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims for such “offences” as studying the Quran, travelling abroad, or being “generally untrustworthy”.5. Procurement and budget documents testifying to the prison-like securitisation and weaponisation of internment centres, publicly defended as “vocational training” facilities yet equipped with electric cattle prods, riot gear, tear gas, stun guns, specialised interrogation chairs, and spiked clubs.6. A government-issued “telegram” specifying procedures for the operation and expansion of these internment centres, methods of political and psychological indoctrination, and instructions for maintaining “strict secrecy” and “preventing escapes”.7. State “bulletins” indicating the scale of detention – with 15,683 people reportedly rounded up into camps from four prefectures over the course of one week in 2017 alone.8. Official policies such as Physicals for All, mandating mass biometric and DNA collection, and Becoming Family, planting government officials to live with and monitor Uighurs in their homes.9. Policy documents laying out plans for the mass institutionalisation of Uighur children in residential schools, and the mass sterilisation of Uighur women – otherwise known in Chinese state officialese as “baby-making machines”.10. Official government-issued White Papers and other propaganda materials erasing Uighur peoplehood, indigeneity, and identity, and describing the large-scale transfer of Uighurs out of their indigenous territory for labour programs.11. Statements by public officials ordering to “break [the Uighurs’] roots, break their lineage, break their connections, and break their origins,” and referring to Islam as a “malignant tumour,” a “virus,” and a “weed” – evidence of an intent to destroy the Uighur people as a people, defined as genocidal under international law.

 The media sometimes publish scary stories by high-lighting the scientists worse case scenarios. For the average reader we often miss the many caveats that are included in research papers so one has to be wary of some reporting. 

A third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate researchers at Aalto University in Finland have calculated.

Many of the world’s most important food-growing areas will see temperatures increase and rainfall patterns alter drastically if temperatures rise by about 3.7C, the forecast increase if emissions stay high. 95% of current crop production takes place in areas they define as “safe climatic space”, or conditions where temperature, rainfall and aridity fall within certain bounds. If temperatures were to rise by 3.7C or thereabouts by the century’s end, that safe area would shrink drastically, mostly affecting south and south-eastern Asia and Africa’s Sudano-Sahelian zone, according to a paper published in the journal One Earth.

However, if greenhouse gases are reduced and the world meets the goals of the Paris agreement, in limiting temperature rises to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels, then only about 5%–8% of global food production would be at risk.

Livestock farming would be affected, as well as the risks to crop production, he said, and many areas were likely to suffer large increases in water scarcity. The researchers examined the impacts of climatic changes on 27 of the most important food crops and seven types of livestock.

By the end of this century, in a high-emissions scenario, there could be as much as 1.5m sq miles (4m sq km) of new desert around the world, the research found.

Under 1.5C to 2C of warming, the boreal forests of northern America, Russia and Europe would shrink from their current 7m sq miles to about 6m sq miles by 2100. In a high emissions scenario, only 3m sq miles would remain, the researchers forecast.

Although rising temperatures could increase food production in some areas that are currently less productive, such as the Nordic regions, that would not be anywhere near enough to offset the loss of important food producing regions in the south, said Matti Kummu, associate professor of global food and water at Aalto University and lead author.

“There will be winners as well as losers, but the wins will be outweighed by the losses, and there is just not enough space for food production to move – we are already at the limits,” he said.

Third of global food production at risk from climate crisis | Climate change | The Guardian

Yet another round of fighting that started back in 1948 when the state of Israel was first established, and it is another conflict where the Palestinians have no chance whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel. The return of the Jewish diaspora saw a new forced exile, that of the Palestinians. The World Socialist Movement is always spontaneously on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the state of Israel clearly exposes it as the oppressor. But just because we sympathise with the victims of Israeli oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular among Palestinians.

 According to Israeli propaganda, the only way to stop rocket attacks on Israel from happening is to counter-attack with their far more lethal air attacks. The message drummed into Jewish-Israelis is that “we” have no choice but to defend ourselves against an enemy bent on driving “us” into the sea. Likewise, Palestinians are told that Israel is intent upon committing genocide upon them, if not physically, but by making them a non-people. 

The World Socialist Movement consider both Netanyahu’s government and Hamas as terrorist in the sense both indiscriminately target civilians. Israel uses terror on a much larger scale than Hamas, solely because it has a much greater ability.

 Either side could avoid war by reaching compromises upon the other side’s political demands and making concessions. But a solution of the emergence of conciliation is not easy to envisage in view of the prevalence of supremacist, sectarian and racist outlooks in both Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian society. The ethnic religious nationalism of Jewish zealots who advocate the expulsion of all non-Jews from “Greater Israel” has resulted in distrust of Jews by many Palestinians. 

This year has seen two well-informed reports from reliable sources, B’tselem and Human Rights Watch, that Israel has transformed itself into an apartheid state. It confirms what was said in 2003 when former Italian prime minister Massimo D’Alema that during a meeting with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon told him that apartheid South Africa’s “Bantustan” system was the best solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The Palestinian people can perhaps be forgiven for perceiving their struggle to be one against a Middle–Eastern form of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

It is easy to see why the poverty-stricken in the Palestinian refugee camps might view the promise of Palestinian self-government as an answer. Sadly, like the Zionists, Palestinians have fallen for  a dangerous myth about the past; in their case, the myth that Palestine belonged to them. It was no such thing: most Palestinians struggled along on tiny plots of land, under the weight of massive debts, exploited by a class of landlords. Palestine did not belong to the Palestinians, any more than modern Israel belongs to working–class Israelis.  In 1930, the average rural family in Palestine was in debt to the tune of £P27, which was approximately such a family’s yearly income. On 1936 figures, one-fifth of one per cent of the population owned a quarter of the land! Clearly pre-Israeli Palestine did not belong to the Palestinian peasants: in 1948 they were driven off land which was not theirs.

 They have yet to realise it, but the workers of the region regardless of the  national boundaries where they now live — have an identity of interest.  Let’s hope that they come to recognise their common interests and reject the nationalism and religious bigotry that engender false divisions, violence and racial hatred. When it comes to the nationalist and religious fervour, there is nothing at all with which we as socialists can identify, for both are abstractions that have imbued the workers of the region with a false consciousness that prevents them identifying their real class interests.  While the focus is understandably  on the genuine  grievances of the Palestinian against oppression, we need to add that the majority of Israel’s Jewish population  also live lives of relative poverty, and within a system that depends upon exploitation and division. The hopes of Jewish workers of a life free from persecution have not been answered by the setting up of the state of Israel.

We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of all lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life.  Socialists aspire to is a world without national frontiers in which free movement is possible and where all people live together as equals. Socialists are sickened by the violence of the Gaza conflict. The slaughter in Gaza underlines yet again the urgent need to work not for  a “two-state” solution or “one-state”, but the “no-state” solution as the only one that can ever give permanent peace. 

We sympathise with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars. No longer obsessed with ethnic conflict, “Jews” and “Palestinians” will be able to refocus on the social, economic and ecological problems spawned by the “normal” peacetime functioning of capitalism. A space for socialist ideas will open up in this small corner of the world. The real war – the class war between master and wage slave – is yet to begin.

We need to take the use of science and technology out of the hands of a handful of profiteers and make it accountable to and controlled by a harmonious socialist society and then it will be possible to really harness science as a mighty lever for benefiting mankind and the environment. We need  to radically transform the way we relate to one another and to nature. It is crucial to understand that the widespread damage to our environment originates from the normal functioning of the system and not from any malfunction or aberration.

The central driving forces of the system as a whole is endless growth driven by commerce seeking maximum profitability. The ruling class has no good ideas about how to address the existential crises of the destruction of our ecosystems. Today’s giant predatory corporations have vandalised our world.  It is profits and accumulation of capital which motivates the operations of the economic system. If anyone believe that by just protesting and appealing to the good will and humanitarian instincts of the predatory financiers and industrialists will change the situation for the better, they are  building upon illusions. To appeal to the good will, common sense and even self-interest of the big financiers and industrialists is to expect them to be able to abandon the lucrative profits, exploitation and oppression which are linked to pollution. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humanity. It is capitalism that causes the growing devastation of our natural environment. Either we get rid of this outmoded and increasingly decrepit system or it will devastate humankind.  

The only viable way forward is to achieve socialism, a class-free and state-free society on a world scale where people do not oppress and exploit each other and where we live in harmony with our natural environment. To create world socialism it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalism. We believe that people have the human right to sharing  all the resources available for the makings of a good life. This means clean water, air, and soil.

The ‘blame-the-people’ approach to the breakdown of our ecological balance diverts the justifiable anger of the people from the ruling class that is responsible for the deteriorating conditions. The root of the problem is not people nor their numbers but capitalism itself. The truth is that our ruling elite does not care what happens to the ecology so long as their investment portfolios are yielding high dividends. We have to stop fooling ourselves. There is a calculated gamble that is being pursued by the ruling class. If we are to survive, we are going to have to get out of the game, before  the stakes have gotten too high and we are risking civilisation’s existence.

Some people insist that it doesn’t have to be this bad. We can clean up the planet. But the trouble is structural. 

 Chemicals, called 6:2 FTOH,  linked to a range of serious health issues such as kidney disease, liver damage, cancer, neurological damage, developmental problems and autoimmune disorders,  are still being used in greaseproof pizza boxes, carryout containers, fast-food wrappers, and paperboard packaging. Chemical giants DuPont and Daikin knew the dangers of the PFAS compound  in food packaging since 2010, but hid them from the public and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

The companies told the FDA that the compounds were safer and less likely to accumulate in humans than older types of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” and submitted internal studies to support that claim.

But Daikin withheld a 2009 study that indicated toxicity to lab rats’ livers and kidneys, while DuPont in 2012 did not alert the FDA or public to new internal data that indicated that the chemical stays in animals’ bodies for much longer than initially thought.  

Had the FDA seen the data, it is unlikely that it would have approved 6:2 FTOH, said Maricel Maffini, an independent researcher who studies PFAS in food packaging. 

Although Daikin may have broken the law, it and DuPont, which has previously been caught hiding studies that suggest toxicity in PFAS, are not facing any repercussions.

“…oversight is lax,” Maffini said.

Chemical giants hid dangers of ‘forever chemicals’ in food packaging | Pollution | The Guardian

As the United States prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, along with with all their political poodles, leaving behind units of special forces and hired mercenaries to continue to protect the Afghan government from the Taliban, the latest calculations of the cost of that war has been released 

Microsoft Word – Davidson_AlliesCostsofWar_Final.docx (brown.edu)

 The U.S. had the highest number of allied fatalities in Afghanistan between October 2001 and September 2017—2,316. During that period, 455 troops from the U.K. died, along with 158 Canadians, 86 French, 54 Germans, and 48 Italians.

Significant sums of military spending was used in Afghanistan. From 2001 to 2018, while the U.S. spent $730 billion, the U.K. spent $28.2 billion, Canada $12.7 billion, Germany $11.1 billion, Italy $8.9 billion, and France $3.9 billion.

 Each nation also provided from 2001 to 2018 billion of dollars in foreign aid to Afghanistan which still remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The US donated $32.32 billion, Germany gave $5.88 billion, the UK’s contribution to aid was $4.79 billion, Canada, 2.42billion , Italy, almost one billion and France, just over half a billion in foreign aid.

Nationalism, By Jingo!

Between green fields of the Somme and Flanders

All those young officers and other ranks,

Most civilians in uniform, thanks

To a populist conceit that panders

To national myths and visceral sentiment,

Illusions of sovereignty wrapped in flags

The perfidious politician snags

The heart strings of all those who blindly vent

Their discontents without any vision

Of how matters might be. But, lines on maps

Too often become battle lines, with saps

Filled by the dead. Come moments of decision,

How lots are cast determine gains or losses,

Greener fields, or rank on rank of crosses.

D. A. 

 NHS England-funded  research  analysed the records of 3,347 children who died in England between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020, identified a clear association between the risk of death and level of deprivation, for all categories of death apart from cancer.

It concluded that more than a fifth (23%) of all child deaths might be avoided if children living in the most deprived areas had the same mortality risk as those living in the least deprived areas.

It means about 700 child deaths could be avoided each year in England by reducing rates of social deprivation.

Child deaths are linked to social deprivation in England – NHS report | Inequality | The Guardian