About 14% of food produced globally — and 20% of fruits and vegetables — goes bad between harvest and retail, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, small farmers lose up to one-third of their stored grain to insects and mold.
In the half century since Bangladesh gained its independence, the capital, Dhaka, has grown from a small city of a million to a megacity of 20 million people who now live there, with 400,000 arriving each year. Dhaka could become the world’s fourth most populous megacity by 2030, according to the UN.
Residential buildings keep getting higher with no regard for planning laws. There is little space between buildings, electricity cables are slung low in a tangled mess and the sewage system, which is still cleaned manually, is routinely overloaded by heavy rains.
Dhaka’s air quality routinely ranks among the worst in the world and the roads are so congested that traffic has slowed to almost walking speeds of 4 mph, down from 13 mph a decade ago
Once described as a “basket case” economy in 1971 by Henry Kissinger, who had opposed its creation. Half a century later, the country’s leaders often take pride in pointing out that they have proved him wrong. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted in October the country’s economic growth would still hit 4.4% in 2021 despite the coronavirus pandemic halving the previous year’s growth.
Dhaka-based industries that have spawned a rapidly-growing class of super-rich, who live in leafy neighbourhoods, dine out on international cuisine and shop in gleaming malls or abroad. While industry has thrived, there is been a lack of comprehensive strategy to support the city’s residents. Corruption has made things worse, leaving the powerful able to exploit laws or, in the case of the Keraniganj suburbs, buy up land for affordable housing projects then sell them at prices beyond the reach of ordinary workers.
These industries feed on a constant flow of migrants fleeing deprivation or climate disasters, who move to places like the Kallyanpur and Korail slums, or the suburbs between Dhaka and satellite towns built for garment factories.
Parveen Begum, 45, whose home in the coastal Bhola district was engulfed when the river flooded.
“There are problems here. There is also work here. As the crisis in our village increased, I came to Dhaka to find a living.” Parveen and her husband pay 2,000 taka (£16) a month to rent a single room, in which they must keep the light on permanently because there is no natural light. Outside, the drains regularly clog with sewage. “It’s not that I’m good here but there are more job opportunities than in the village,” she says. “We don’t want to live in this dirty slum, we’re always wishing we could go back.” She believes that unless there is investment in rural Bangladesh the higher wages will compel many more people to leave their villages for the city.
“…you cannot simply have a decent city life, even if you have a nice apartment,” says Dr Shahadat Hossain, an urban planning expert at the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. “You cannot see any park developments, children go to school and come home and stay inside … social infrastructure is absolutely missing,” he says. “Your relation with the city is with your apartment, your workplace and the school your child goes to, but you have no relationship with anything in between because the roads, the community you live in, is foreign to you.”
Asaduzzaman Asad preceded most in his migration to the capital, arriving from the western district of Jhenaidah in 1966, when Dhaka was still the capital of East Pakistan, .
“This town was very small. The number of three-storey buildings were few and you mostly just saw tin-roofed homes. There were ponds and canals and very few people. It was peaceful,” says Asad. But he is now worried the city is becoming an intolerable place to live. “We need decentralisation, we need good medical treatment in villages, good education and alternative livelihoods,” he says. “We can easily predict the future of Dhaka. If this unplanned development continues, this city will become uninhabitable.”
The UK likes to play lip-service to the cause of human rights. Recently it earned kudos for imposing sanctions upon the Burmese generals and their businesses.
However, in a call to thousands of civil servants on Tuesday, Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, had a very different message.
“I squarely believe we ought to be trading liberally around the world. If we restrict it to countries with European convention on human rights-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future.”
The UK has imposed no sanctions on any Chinese official even though it has said three times that China is in breach of the Sino-British declaration on Hong Kong by introducing repressive security laws. Nor has it supported sanctions against China over the persecution of the Uyghurs.
The highlights from the last 12 months of billionaire wealth growth:
– The combined wealth of the nation’s 657 billionaires increased more than $1.3 trillion, or 44.6 percent, since the pandemic lockdowns began. Over those same 12 months, more than 29 million Americans contracted the virus and more than 535,000 died from it. As billionaire wealth soared over, almost 80 million lost work between March 21, 2020, and Feb. 20, 2021, and 18 million were collecting unemployment on Feb. 27, 2021
– There are 43 newly minted billionaires since the beginning of the pandemic, when there were 614. A number of new billionaires joined the list after initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock in companies such as Airbnb, DoorDash, and Snowflake.
– The increase in the combined wealth of the 15 billionaires with the greatest growth in absolute wealth was $563 billion or 82 percent. The wealth growth of just these 15 represents over 40 percent of the wealth growth among all billionaires. Topping the list are Elon Musk ($137.5 billion richer, 559 percent), Jeff Bezos ($65 billion, 58 percent) and Mark Zuckerberg ($47 billion, 86 percent).
All but three states saw the wealth of their billionaire residents increase. Topping the list in total wealth growth are California at $551 billion, Washington at $134.6 billion, and New York at $116.4 billion. The top three states with the greatest percentage increase in wealth are Michigan at 164 percent, Arizona at 110 percent, and Hawaii at 107 percent.
Pandemic
A long pandemic of capitalism
Infects the world. Credit cards, bitcoin, cash
Are the viruses causing the rash
Of hopes dashed, the often deadly schism
Between abundance and falling wages,
Between the multi-billionaire
And all with more than a fair share of despair:
The contagion of capital rages.
Worker’s lives are made precarious
By profit trumping well-being and health,
Common weal succumbing to private wealth.
While political quacks prescribe various
Palliatives, there’s but one vaccine for all
The world, the working class taking control.
D. A.
Players for Norway’s national team will not be penalised by Fifa for championing human rights in Qatar when they wore T-shirts that read “Human rights On and off the pitch”.
Laws of the game prevent players from using equipment that bears “any political, religious or personal slogans”, but on Thursday Fifa said they would be taking no action regarding the protest.
“Fifa believes in the freedom of speech and in the power of football as a force for good,” a spokesperson for the governing body said. “No disciplinary proceedings in relation to this matter will be opened by Fifa.”
The Dutch FA said it would not boycott the tournament, in line with Amnesty’s recommendations, but would “use the current spotlight on the World Cup and make our own contribution to efforts to improve the plight of migrant workers in Qatar”.
On Thursday the English FA issued a statement saying it intended to engage with the tournament in a “socially responsible” manner and that there was “still much more to be done” on human rights in the country.
A Guardian report said that more than 6,500 migrant workers have died in the country over the past decade.
Fifa takes no action over Norway protest as FA voices Qatar concerns | World Cup 2022 | The Guardian
Tony Turner, renowned for his eloquence as a public speaker, was a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain from 1931 to 1955, when he resigned in order to end a bitter internal conflict over his controversial views.
The name of Tony Turner figures not only in SPGB folklore but also in my family history. My uncle Alan was in the SPGB at that time. Like many other party members, he avoided conscription as a Conscientious Objector with the help of Tony Turner (while too young to fight in World War Two, he still faced National Service, which continued until 1960). To quote from Stan Parker’s ‘mini-biography’ of Tony Turner:
He appeared at the Fulham Conscientious Objectors Tribunal … to plead the case of many members before Justice Hargreaves. The judge very early on became satisfied simply with an assurance from Tony that the person was a bona fide member for their exemption to be granted. The Services didn’t really want socialists upsetting the rest of the lads.
The first postwar decade was the SPGB’s heyday, with membership rising to 1,200. The SPGB benefited from the optimistic left-wing trend in society that gave the Labour Party a landslide victory in 1945 and enabled it to enact a series of social reforms, the most significant being the creation of the National Health Service. But the party’s advance also owed something to the popular appeal of Tony Turner.
In the early 1950s, however, an internal conflict over socialist theory tore the party apart. Tony Turner advocated an approach to socialism as the cause of all humanity and denied any special connection between socialism and the working class. This approach was difficult to reconcile with the Declaration of Principles adopted by the SPGB at its founding in 1904, which follows Marx in viewing socialism as an outcome of the struggle of the working class. Tony Turner felt obliged to leave the party in 1955, and many of his sympathizers left with him.
The Turner Controversy
The Turner Controversy remains relevant because the ambiguity with which Turner and his opponents wrestled has deep roots in socialist thought. On the one hand, socialists have indeed always aspired to a classless society that will be better for everyone, for the entire human community. On the other hand, the working class, as the class directly exploited and oppressed by the capitalist class, surely does have a special interest in its own emancipation – that is, in socialism.
The period of the Turner Controversy corresponds to the first half of the period during which the SPGB published an internal discussion journal by the name of FORUM. Although all 43 printed issues of FORUM are available on this website (here), their contents are of limited value for an appreciation of Turner’s thought. Tony was in his element on the soapbox, not in the study. He wrote very little. He contributed only one quite short article to FORUM – ‘A Working Class Party – Or a Party Working for Socialism?’, No. 17, February 1954, p. 5 – and it takes the rather awkward form of a list of 25 ‘propositions.’ True, we have plenty of articles by his opponents in which Turner is alleged to have said this or that on one or another occasion, but we have no way of verifying exactly what he said, let alone what he meant.
Let me then reproduce what seem to me Turner’s most important ‘propositions’ (some I have shortened, but without changing the basic meaning):
[1] Socialism is in the interest of every human being throughout the entire world.
[5] The economic interests of the working class are opposed to the economic interests of the capitalist class.
[9] Socialism alone … can give complete expression to social interests.
[12] A socialist party is not a class or group party.
[14] A socialist party does not appeal to any class or group as such. It appeals to mankind…
[20] A socialist party cannot aim at gaining control of the governmental machinery. [It] relies on socialist understanding, not law and armed force.
[23] Socialists do not talk, or write about, or organize for, Socialism as capitalists or workers, as black or white people, or on the basis of sex, but as human beings understanding and wanting Socialism.
Different kinds of interests
One point that is absolutely crucial, though Turner himself does not stress it: he draws a distinction between different kinds of ‘interests.’ In Proposition 5 he accepts a class approach to ‘economic’ interests, by which he presumably means monetary interests. Such interests, however, are meaningful only within capitalism. There cannot be a monetary interest in establishing socialism, because socialism abolishes money. The interests to which socialism gives complete expression are ‘social’ interests; elsewhere he calls them ‘human’ interests. These non-economic interests already exist in capitalism, but capitalism can give them only partial expression.
The interest referred to in Proposition 1 must therefore be a ‘social’ or ‘human’ interest. Everyone, including capitalists, does indeed have a social or human interest in socialism, because everyone depends on society, everyone is a human being. Most capitalists, however, have at most a weak awareness of their social or human interest, being concerned mainly with their economic interest. They wish to keep their wealth, status, and privileges and dread the prospect of losing them. It is in this sense that the interests of the capitalist class and of the working class are – as Clause 7 of the Declaration of Principles says – diametrically opposed.
To illustrate the divergent meanings that people attach to the word interest, consider the way of life of a typical billionaire. She (or he) lives in the lap of luxury, with obsequious lackeys at her beck and call, ready to cater to her every whim. Surrounded by adulation, she never hears even a whisper of disapproval or disagreement. Probably she is quite content with this arrangement. She perceives it to be in her interest. An idealistic critic, however, would argue that it is actually doing her great harm — corrupting her character, spoiling her taste, narrowing her vision, impeding full development of her capabilities – not, therefore, in her ‘real’ – i.e., human – interest at all.
A common interest in survival
Nowadays the social or human interest is even more compelling, and diverges even more sharply from the economic interest of the capitalist class, as a result of the emergence of weapons of mass destruction and the ecological crisis. There is now a very material sense in which all people share a common interest in socialism as the sole means of ensuring the survival of the human race. This was already clear to perceptive observers in the 1950s, although there is no sign of this theme in the debate between Turner and his opponents.
Unfortunately, the common interest in human survival does not eliminate the difference between the social interest of humanity and the economic interest of the capitalist class. The interest in human survival is a relatively long-term interest, while capitalists tend to focus on the short term. This tendency was reflected in a famous riposte that the economist John Maynard Keynes once made to an argument about the long term: ‘In the long run we are all dead.’ In other words, who cares about future generations?
In the short term it is members of the working class who bear the brunt of environmental degradation, while those most responsible for it are the best protected from its effects. It is working class areas that are exposed to chemical and radioactive pollution from mining operations, factories, toxic waste dumps and other sources. The capitalists maintain their country estates in idyllic, unspoiled surroundings – although even they cannot escape the ultraviolet rays that penetrate through holes in the ozone layer. In the imaginary future world of Alexander Zinoviev’s The Human Anthill, nature survives only in small enclaves that people must pay to enter, the price being beyond the reach of all but the wealthy.
Conclusion
In several very important senses, therefore, socialism is indeed, as Tony Turner declared, in the interest of every human being. In other senses socialism remains above all in the interest of the working class. To a considerable extent it is both possible and desirable to reconcile and combine Turner’s ‘human approach’ with the traditional Marxian ‘class approach’ set out in the SPGB’s Declaration of Principles. Any difference that remains after such an effort can surely be tolerated by comrades sincerely pursuing the same goal. Even at the time of the controversy, as Ken Smith remarks in his obituary of Tony Turner, ‘many members felt the difference should have been containable in a party seeking world revolution.’
Granting that Turner’s opponents had valid points to make, it is depressing to read the harsh and sometimes personally insulting language in which he was lambasted. Perhaps we can at least learn something from this sad episode in the history of the World Socialist Movement.
For more on Tony Turner’s life, see here.
For a longer account of the controversy, taken from Robert Barltrop, The Monument: The Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (Pluto Press, 1975; now rare), see here.
Stephen Shenfield
Crises, conflicts, climate change and COVID-19 has resulted in a “rapid rise in hunger”, according to United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Amir Abdullah.
“Humanitarian aid can never be enough to manage these cascading shocks that keep breaking down food systems and pushing people into food and water crises,” he said.
He also explained that no matter how much improvement is made in food production, it will all be futile unless the issue of water security is addressed.
“We can deliver food assistance but if farmers don’t have adequate access to water resources for food production, people will just continue being hungry,” he said. “And if people don’t have access to clean water, they can’t retain the nutrition they need even if we provide them with food assistance…In the coming decades, many regions around the world are expected to experience increased water scarcity driven by climate change and exacerbated by increasing competition for water resources,” Abdullah said. “The battle for water will be one of the next ‘great challenges,’” he added.
Betty Chinyamunyamu, CEO of the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi, said the past decade has witnessed an “onset of weather crises” which have made it extremely difficult for farmers to plan their sales.
“Increased incidences of new pests, diseases and unpredictable weather patterns make it more difficult for farmers to plan their farm enterprises. So when they’re not sure whether they are going to have a flood or whether they are going to have drought, it becomes very difficult to engage in initiatives that would otherwise be very rewarding for them,” Chinyamunyamu said.
The gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived parts of Wales has increased, particularly for women. The study, carried out by Cardiff University and Public Health Wales, covers the years before the Covid crisis.
Women in the most deprived parts of Wales can expect to live approximately six years less (life expectancy 79 years) than those in the least deprived areas (85). For men, there was a seven-year gap between the most and least deprived areas (74 v 81 years).
Female life expectancy in the most deprived areas rose by 1.2 years between 2002 and 2018 but in the least deprived areas the increase was 2.53 years, the research concluded. For men in the most deprived areas, life expectancy rose 1.97 years, whereas in the least deprived areas it increased by 3.02 years.
For women, the gap in life expectancy was driven by deaths from respiratory disease, cancer, circulatory conditions, drug and alcohol-related deaths, the report said.
For men deaths from respiratory conditions, digestive disease, drug and alcohol-related conditions, suicides/accidents and circulatory conditions were to blame.
The lead author, Jonny Currie, a primary care and public health doctor, said, “Our analysis highlights crucial areas for action to consider as Wales recovers from the pandemic – both to build a fairer society for our population and one that is resilient to any future pandemics.”
The study’s co-author, Ciarán Humphreys, a consultant at PHW, said: “Many conditions contribute to the gap in life expectancy between the least and most disadvantaged communities. This shows that we must look beyond simple medical explanations to the root causes and to the wider conditions in which people live.”
Life expectancy gap rises between most and least deprived in Wales | Wales | The Guardian
Acute hunger is likely to soar in more than 20 countries in the next few months, the UN has warned.
34 million people are struggling with emergency levels of acute hunger known as IPC (Integrated food security Phase Classification) 4, meaning they are ‘one step away from starvation’. Northern Nigeria, Yemen and South Sudan top the list of places facing “catastrophic” levels of acute hunger. Some are in other regions, from Afghanistan in Asia, Syria and Lebanon in the Middle East and Haiti in Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin America is the region hardest hit by economic decline and will be the slowest to recover, the report found, while in the Middle East, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon are seriously affected by rapid currency depreciation and rocketing inflation.
“The magnitude of suffering is alarming,” said FAO director-general Qu Dongyu.
“We are seeing a catastrophe unfold before our very eyes,” said WFP executive director David Beasley. “Famine – driven by conflict, and fuelled by climate shocks and the Covid-19 pandemic – is knocking on the door for millions of families.” Three things were needed to stop “millions from dying of starvation”, he said – a halt in fighting, increased access to vulnerable communities and a step up in donations.
7 million people across South Sudan are projected to face crisis levels of acute food insecurity during the period from April to July, the report found, while more than 16 million Yemenis are expected to be experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity by June, an increase of 3 million since the end of last year. Other countries identified as among the worst hunger hotspots are Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Sudan and Syria.
Over 30 million people ‘one step away from starvation’, UN warns | Hunger | The Guardian
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