The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says more than 3 billion people worldwide cannot afford a healthy diet. 

“Reduced access to nutritious food has resulted in negative impacts for many. Families will find it difficult to put food on the table. The fortunate ones will skip meals while those without will have to go to bed with an empty stomach,” Erdelmann said, adding that “for the most vulnerable people, hunger will have a lasting effect on their lives.”

A new Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) report,  “A one health approach to food – The Double Pyramid connecting food culture, health and climate”, raises concerns that in some African countries, the consumption of cheap sources of high-quality protein, vitamins, and minerals – such as eggs – remains low. 

690 million people globally lack sufficient food. COVID-19 has worsened these conditions, and it’s projected that between 83 and 132 million more people will join the ranks of the undernourished because of interrupted livelihoods caused by the pandemic. 

Its Global Nutrition Report showed that 88% of countries face a serious burden of either two or three forms of malnutrition, namely undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency or overweight or obesity. Recent findings include that child and adult obesity have increased in almost all countries, burdening already struggling global health care systems. 

The Barilla report notes that healthy diets’ affordability is “compromised especially in low- and middle-income countries.”

New Report Calls for Improved Eating Habits in a World of Extremes | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

 The head of the IRS calculated that tax evasion in the U.S.A. may total $1 trillion a year.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Chuck Rettig told a Senate panel Tuesday that previous tallies of the tax gap — which came to a cumulative amount of about $441 billion for the three years through 2013 — didn’t include some tax evasion-techniques that weren’t on their radar at the time. New estimates include the use of cryptocurrency, he said. Offshore tax evasion, illegal income that goes undetected by the IRS and underreporting from pass-through businesses also contribute to a larger than previously known tax gap, Rettig said.

“I think it would not be outlandish to believe that the actual tax gap could approach and possibly exceed $1 trillion per year,” Rettig told the Senate Finance Committee.

Most individuals earn their income through wages, where taxes are automatically deducted from each paycheck. However, income from pass-through entities, such as partnerships and limited liability corporations isn’t subject to automatic withholding, giving the owners more opportunity to skirt tax obligations.

A study released last month, which included two IRS officials as authors, found that the richest 1% of Americans don’t report about 20% of their income to the government. Those individuals are able to use pass-through businesses and offshore structures to shield their income from the IRS’s view, the study said. Collecting that money would boost tax collections by $175 billion a year, the study found.

Pay up: US tax dodgers are costing US $1 trillion, IRS says | Tax News | Al Jazeera

 The Rose, the Thistle and the Daffodil

The rose, the thistle and the daffodil

Are credited with national pride and power,

As if by simply picking a flower

There’s an expression of popular will,

By which to divide each from another.

All claim their soil is unique, special, pure,

But it turns out to be simply manure.

Folk defined by denying the brother

Or sister accident of birth has placed

The wrong side of a cartographer’s line,

As if a border lets people resign

Capital’s rule. It remains to be faced.

Rose, thistle and daffodil pay no heed

To maps or boundaries when sowing their seed.

D. A. 

 The International Monetary Fund has called on governments to close the income gap between the richest and poorest that has worsened during the Covid pandemic, by spending more and taxing wealthy households.

 The organisation said surveys showed governments would have the support of the public if they shifted the burden of taxation away from low and middle earners to better-off members of society,  warning that the economic shock triggered by the pandemic could undermine public attitudes to the fairness of taxation and welfare systems and lead to social unrest.

It called for governments “to provide everyone with a fair shot”. The IMF said despite government finances coming under pressure from health and welfare spending during the pandemic, ministers needed to “enable all individuals to reach their potential – and to strengthen vulnerable households’ resilience, preserving social stability” and, in turn, broader economic stability.

The IMF said trends during the pandemic that have accelerated a move to digital services would damage the job prospects of unskilled workers and lead to higher rates of long-term unemployment.

“Against this backdrop, societies may experience rising polarisation, erosion of trust in government, or social unrest. These factors complicate sound economic policymaking and pose risks to macroeconomic stability and the functioning of society,” it said.

The IMF added, “The pandemic has confirmed the merits of equal access to basic services – healthcare, quality education, and digital infrastructure – and of inclusive labour markets and effective social safety nets. Better performance in these areas has enhanced resilience to the pandemic and is key for the economic recovery to benefit all and to strengthen trust in government.”

More than 100 countries have approached the IMF about receiving help since the pandemic led to the biggest contraction of the global economy since the 1930s. A package of loans worth $500bn (£360bn), mostly for poorer countries, is due to be announced next week at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. The expansion of the IMF’s special drawing rights, extra funds to help developing countries cope with the economic effects of Covid-19, is expected to go ahead after the US Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the US would reverse its previous opposition.

“With limited fiscal space, governments will need to prioritise efficiency gains toward those most affected by the Covid-19 crisis before scaling up spending. At the same time, governments should plan medium-term policies for better basic services and better protection from income shocks while fostering a job-rich and inclusive recovery. If governments are unable to meet the challenge, the erosion of trust could lead to more polarised politics in which some call for a smaller government, while those affected by illness or job loss would urge for more government services.”

IMF calls for tax hikes on wealthy to reduce income gap | International Monetary Fund (IMF) | The Guardian

Countries are legally obliged to treat sewage before it is released into waterways. Discharges of untreated human waste are permitted only in exceptional circumstances.

New figures show the scale of untreated human effluent discharged in England into rivers and seas increased from 292,864 incidents in 2019 to 403,171 in 2020 – a 37% rise.

Hugo Tagholm, of Surfers Against Sewage, said: “Water companies making rampant profits at the expense the health of our rivers, ocean and people has to stop.”

The Rivers Trust’s deputy technical director, Michelle Walker, said: “The 2020 data indicates that, appallingly, almost one in five overflows across England are discharging more than 60 times per year, a number which is supposed to trigger an EA investigation. This is a staggering statistic.”

Raw sewage discharges into seas and rivers by water companies

Anglian Water – spill events: 17,428; duration in hours: 170,547

Welsh Water – spill events: 3,969; duration in hours: 21,300

Northumbrian – spill events: 32,497; duration in hours: 178,229

Severn Trent – spill events: 60,982; duration in hours: 558,699

Southwest Water – spill events: 42,053; duration in hours: 375,37

Southern Water – spill events: 19,782; duration in hours: 197,213

Thames Water – spill events: 18,443; duration in hours: 215,886

United Utilities – spill events: 113,940; duration in hours: 726,450

Wessex Water – spill events: 28,994; duration in hours: 237,035

Yorkshire Water – spill events: 65,083; duration in hours: 420,419

Water firms discharged raw sewage into English waters 400,000 times last year | Water | The Guardian

While in the United States a study has found potable drinking water to be polluted and contaminated.

Testing of the samples showed:

More than 35% of the samples had PFAS, potentially toxic “forever chemicals”, at levels above CR’s recommended maximum. 

Almost every sample tested had measurable levels of PFAS, a group of compounds found in hundreds of household products. These chemicals are linked to learning delays in children, cancer, and other health problems. 

About 8% of samples had arsenic, at levels above CR’s recommended maximum. E

xposure to even low levels of arsenic can pose health risks over the long term. A 2014 study  found an association between water with arsenic of 5 ppb or greater and a five- to six-point IQ reduction in children.

In total, 118 out of 120 samples had detectable levels of lead. 

It is unsafe at any levelWe sampled tap water across the US – and found arsenic, lead and toxic chemicals | US news | The Guardian

  A handful of wealthy nations are on track to deliver vaccines to all adults who want them in the coming months, while dozens of the world’s poorest countries have not inoculated a single person. As it stands, 30 countries have not received a single vaccine dose.

Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s access to medicine program said right now , “it’s not even clear the goal is to vaccinate the world”.

The disparity has been called “vaccine apartheid”.

Many have  called for the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to share technical know-how in an effort to speed the global vaccination project beyond existing vaccine supply. Many see a bigger fight in patent laws, and are drawing on experience advocating for greater access to antiretroviral drugs for HIV.

“There’s no question poorer countries are having a hard time affording doses,” said Dr Howard Markel, a pandemic historian at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “Even if they were at wholesale or cost there are a lot of different markups.”

“This is a classic case where you have an industry that has a very direct stake in protecting itself, and there’s very little understanding among the public how much is at issue,” said Dean Baker, an economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Activists argue pharmaceutical companies should share production know-how, and be appropriately compensated. One part of this fight centers on a provision of international trade law called the Trips agreement, or more formally, the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. Put in force in 1995, Trips requires all member states to recognize 20-year monopoly patents for pharmaceuticals, including vaccines.

“What Trips was about was imposing US-European style copyright on the whole world,” said Baker. “Most developing countries had very little idea what they were dealing with.”

Annual or booster Covid-19 shots appear increasingly likely – in part driven by the possibility variants could emerge in populations without vaccine access – and as pharmaceutical companies eye future profits.

Coronavirus: how wealthy nations are creating a ‘vaccine apartheid’ | Coronavirus | The Guardian

According to data from the University of Maryland and Global Forest Watch the rate at which the world’s forests are being destroyed increased sharply last year, with at least 42,000 sq km of tree cover lost in key tropical regions.

The loss was well above the average for the last 20 years, with 2020 the third worst year for forest destruction since 2002 when comparable monitoring began.

The losses were particularly severe in humid tropical primary forests, such as the Amazon, the Congo and south-east Asia. These forests are vital as carbon sinks in the regulating the global climate, as well as for their irreplaceable ecosystems. Losses from this type of forest alone amounted to 4.2m hectares (10.4m acres). Brazil’s forested areas fared the worst, with 1.7m hectares destroyed, an increase of about a quarter on the previous year. Altogether, 12.2m hectares of tree cover were lost in the tropics in 2020, an increase of 12% on 2019, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). 

Destruction of world’s forests increased sharply in 2020 | Trees and forests | The Guardian

 Low-paid key workers would not be able to afford to buy the average priced home in 98% of Great Britain. Years of rising prices have put homeownership out of reach of many key workers, who have also experienced pay freezes and had to channel their wages into paying high private rents, rather than being able to save for a deposit.

Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director of campaign group Generation Rent, said: “Raising a deposit is just one half of the equation; you must also be able to afford the monthly repayments, and a 95% mortgage comes with a higher interest rate.”

The Guardian’s analysis, which was based on the sums needed for a 90% mortgage, found that a nurse on the median wage of £33,920 a year would not be able to raise a big enough mortgage to buy the median-priced property in almost three-quarters of local authorities nationwide. A nurse with a partner on the average wage would be locked out of the market in more than a fifth of areas.

 The median salary for a senior care worker in the UK stood at £21,243 in 2020. Based on these earnings, with a 10% deposit to put down, a senior care worker would be able to afford the average priced property in just six council areas in Great Britain, locking them out of 98% of areas. If this individual applied for a joint mortgage with a partner on the average UK salary of £31,461, the couple would be unable to afford the average property in four-in-10 local authorities across Britain.

A postal worker with a partner on the average wage would be priced out in more than one-third of local authorities. A postal worker earning the median income of £24,028 would be able to secure a mortgage on the average-priced home in just 13 local authorities

Bus drivers, even within a couple, they are unable to afford the average property in 31% of local authorities. A bus driver on a single wage of £27,191 would be priced out of nine-out-of-10 council areas.

  While a teacher could not afford a mortgage in 60% of areas across Britain. A secondary school teacher earning £40,881 – would be unable to afford a typical property in almost a fifth of council areas.

Covid frontline workers priced out of homeowning in 98% of Great Britain | UK news | The Guardian

 Financial corporations started administering the pensions of Argentinians in 1993 and of Bolivians in 1996. Argentina and Bolivia are among only 30 countries (of the world’s 192) that experimented with privatization of their pension systems. Today, the majority of these countries are reversing the privatization of pensions.  Private insurance corporations are suing Argentina and Bolivia for loss of potential profits as a result of the reversal of privatization of their pension programs. If Argentina and Bolivia lose the disputes, it means that impoverished citizens and elderly pensioners will have to compensate wealthy financial corporations. These cases affect the lives of millions of Argentinians and Bolivians.

Pension policy is not about securing profits for private insurance corporations. Pension systems exist to provide income security in old age—to ensure that older persons retire with adequate pensions.

 Pension privatization failed because of  inadequacies in the private pension system:

• Coverage rates decreased or stagnated under private pension systems.1

• Pension benefits deteriorated, making private pensions very unpopular.2

• Old-age poverty worsened due to low pensions.

• Gender and income inequality increased.3

• Private systems were expensive: The high transition costs of privatization created large fiscal pressures.4

• Private pension administrators incurred high administrative costs and extracted excessive profits through these extraordinary administrative fees.5

• Financial and demographic risks were transferred to individuals; pensioners had to suffer the loss of benefits when these risks occurred, such as during the global financial crisis.

• Social dialogue severely deteriorated.1 In Argentina, coverage rates for men fell from 46% (in 1993, prior to the reform) to 35% (in 2002) and for women to only 31%; in Bolivia, they stagnated.

2 In Bolivia, after privatization, the replacement rate fell to 20% of the average salary during working life; this is far below ILO international standards.

3 In Bolivia, the proportion of elderly women receiving a contributory pension fell from 23.7% in 1995 to 12.8% in 2007 as a result of privatization.

4 In Argentina, initial estimations put the cost at 0.2% of GDP; later the World Bank increased the cost estimate to 3.6% of GDP, 18 times the original estimate; in Bolivia, the actual transition costs of the reform were 2.5 times the initial projections.

5 In Argentina, administration costs jumped from 6.6% of contributions in 1990 before privatization to 50.8% in 2002; in Bolivia, from 8.6% in 1992 to 18.1% in 2002 after privatization.The corporations are using the World Bank’s business-friendly International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)