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. 

Humanitarian & Food Aid Can Never be Enough to Manage Cascading Disasters | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

 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

 “They always find something more important. Whether it’s in Germany, whether it is in France, or in the United Kingdom. Give me one European country whose government is known for taking a principled vocal position on human rights? The examples are too few and far between.” 

  Agnès Callamard, former special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings at the United Nations and now newly appointed secretary general of Amnesty International 

 The media was full of headlines about Bristol rioters protesting the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill who were using the slogan ‘Kill The Bill’.

As always the case, the news reporting was slanted and one-sided.

For those who wish to know what really happened from the side of the demonstrators, the blog recommends this link for an account of what actually took place.

What actually Happened in Bristol – and How a Narrative is Built (libcom.org)

The Court of Appeal has overturned the convictions of 14 men sentenced for their involvement in pickets in 1972. Two dozen trade unionists who picketed during the national builders’ strike were charged with offences including unlawful assembly, conspiracy to intimidate and affray.

The actor Ricky Tomlinson was convicted and jailed for two years. He said: “Whilst it is only right that these convictions are overturned, it is a sorry day for British justice. My thoughts today are with my friend and comrade Des Warren.”

 Six of the 14 who brought the action have since died, including Dennis Warren, who was jailed for three years.

Arthur Murray, who was convicted of affray and unlawful assembly and sentenced to six months, said: “We were innocent all along, yet it has taken us nearly 50 years to clear our names.” He added: “Serious questions need to be asked about the role of the building industry bosses in our convictions and the highest offices of government who all had a hand in our trial and conviction. Make no mistake, our convictions were a political witch-hunt.”

Tomlinson echoed his remarks, saying: “We were brought to trial at the apparent behest of the building industry bosses, the Conservative government and ably supported by the secret state. This was a political trial not just of me, and the Shrewsbury pickets – but was a trial of the trade union movement.”

Terry Renshaw said: “The police and the prosecuting authorities used every trick in the book to secure guilty verdicts, even if it meant trampling over our rights and manipulating the evidence.”

 The numbers of young people out of work in the UK have reached new highs – with young people accounting for nearly two-thirds of job losses since the pandemic.

 437,000 fewer 16- to 24-year-olds were in paid employment, a 10% fall in 12 months. In all, more than half of under-25s have been furloughed or lost their jobs.

“There’s nearly half a million fewer young people in work than a year ago,” said Laura-Jane Rawlings, the chief executive of Youth Employment UK. “The pandemic has simply raised the barriers and put the hopes of thousands of young people on hold.”

It would take 1,000 new jobs and training places a day to get back to pre-pandemic levels by October 2021 and avoid a 50% rise in the numbers of 16- to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training.

“The government needs to be honest with young people. We simply cannot create enough job opportunities,” said Leigh Middleton, the chief executive of National Youth Agency. “Without concerted action, we fear youth unemployment could rise to over 1 million when furlough ends.”

Students who would normally have worked in the hospitality sector have not signed on as unemployed, they have disappeared from the employment register altogether. This has the effect, along with other young people who give up trying to find a job, of bringing down total participation rate to 79% in the three months to January. Then there are the number of workers not being paid while their job is on hold.

Tony Wilson, the head of the Institute for Employment Studies, explained that new hiring by companies outside the very largest firms is continuing to fall back and all of the improvement is being driven by fewer people leaving work rather than more people getting new jobs.

“This is proving to be a disaster for young people, who now account for nearly two-thirds of the fall in employment and none of the recent growth,” he said.

The lockdown and government support schemes mask a weakening labour market and when the furlough scheme ends in September, a spike in unemployment will follow.

Almost two-thirds of people who lost jobs in UK pandemic are under 25 | Unemployment | The Guardian

UK furlough scheme cushions Covid blow, but job losses loom | UK unemployment and employment statistics | The Guardian

Water is the basis of all life. Without water we have no health, wealth, equality, or education.  But, do governments adequately prioritize clean water? The answer, in far too many parts of the world, is a resounding no. 

Globally, there are still 2.2 billion people without access to safe drinking water and 4.2 billion who don’t have a safe place to go the toilet.

 Girls and women are forced to continue the time-consuming, back-breaking work of fetching water, and are left exposed to the indignity and dangers of going to the toilet in fields and streets.

As many as  one in four — 24% — of health care facilities lack basic water services, 

One in ten — 10% — have no sanitation service, and one in three — 32% — lack hand hygiene facilities at points of care. 

Data has shown that even where there is adequate washing facilities, frontline health care workers can be 12-times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 compared with individuals in the general community.

Why Water & Sanitation Systems are Vital for the Economy | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

 WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was “shocking” how little had been done to avert an entirely predictable “catastrophic moral failure” to ensure the equitable distribution of vaccines worldwide.

The gap was “growing every single day, and becoming more grotesque every day,” he told a press conference.

“Countries that are now vaccinating younger, healthy people at low risk of disease are doing so at the cost of the lives of health workers, older people and other at-risk groups in other countries,” Tedros said. “The inequitable distribution of vaccines is not just a moral outrage. It’s also economically and epidemiologically self-defeating.”

He continued, “Some countries are racing to vaccinate their entire populations — while other countries have nothing.”

Tedros said rich countries were giving themselves a false sense of security. The UN health agency chief said the more transmission of the virus, the more variants are likely to emerge — and the more of those that spring up, the more likely they are to evade vaccines.

Tedros said countries were in a race against time to bring down transmission and wealthy nations needed to match their promises of solidarity with action on getting vaccines to poorer nations.

“Unless we end this pandemic as soon as possible, it can keep us hostage for more years to come,” he warned.

56 percent of the doses have been administered in high-income countries accounting for 16 percent of the global population. Just 0.1 percent have been administered in the 29 lowest-income countries, home to nine percent of the global population.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said nations were grasping at straws, thinking that simply administering lots of vaccine doses would be a “golden solution” to end the crisis.

“I’m sorry: it’s not,” Ryan said. “The disease is on the march again in countries where we have an opening up, natural fatigue, low vaccination coverage, poor surveillance and control measures in place,” he said, calling the combination “a recipe for larger outbreaks”.

“I’m afraid we are investing way too much in this (vaccines) as the only solution to fix our problems,” he said.

Covid-19: Growing global vaccine inequity ‘grotesque’, says WHO (france24.com)

 Don’t be fooled by crocodile tears about the reduction of army numbers and other cuts. The UK is beefing up its military forces for a global role, not defence of these islands.

Space is another area of investment with the Ministry of Defence to prioritise more than £6.6bn for research and development over the next four years.

A £2bn investment in the the Tempest Future Combat Air System over the next four yearsAn increase in drones. Sir Mike Wigston, the head of the RAF, predicted that by 2040, 80% of “planes flying on operations” in combat zones such as Syria and Iraq would “not have a human in them”. Air chiefs also want to develop “high energy” weapons – a form of laserWhile a third of the army’s Challenger tanks will be scrapped, the remaining 148 will be upgraded, at a cost of £1.3bn. £1.5bn to be invested over the next decade to build a “digital backbone” to share and exploit vast amounts of data and the creation of the National Cyber Force.