As we all know promises made in an election campaign are seldom kept.

Almost a year ago Biden pledged “On day one, I will eliminate President Trump’s decision to limit asylum and end the MPP program ”

Now two of his appointees, say the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), will not be immediately suspended and that Biden will “need time” to undo Trump’s immigration policies.

Incoming national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Spanish wire service EFE that policies including “Remain in Mexico,” will not be immediately suspended.

“…putting the new policy into practice will take time,” he stated, qualifying Biden’s previous pledge that the program will end “early in his administration.”

 More than 66,000 asylum-seekers have been turned away at the U.S.-Mexico border and forced to live in tent cities without access to sufficient medical care, suitable shelter, or legal aid has led to a humanitarian crisis in northern Mexico as people wait for their asylum claims to be processed in U.S. courts.

Susan Rice, Biden’s new domestic policy adviser placed the reason for the delay upon the pandemic. She said Trump’s policy will continue for an unspecified period of time under the Biden administration.

 However, on Monday public health experts issued a statement urging the incoming Biden administration to use “effective, evidence-based public health measures” to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 at the southern border—not “bans, expulsions, and asylum denials.”

“The Trump administration has misused public health authority as a ploy to attempt to justify expulsions that endanger human lives,” said Monette Zard, associate professor and director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. “The Biden administration should end this abuse of public health authority, ensure public health decisions are made by public health officials without pressure to advance migration policy or other political objectives and use public health measures to safely process the cases of families, adults and children seeking protection at our borders.”

Back in May, the campaigners Human Rights First accused Trump of using the “pandemic as pretext” in order to carry out “its long-held ambition to eliminate humanitarian protections for asylum-seekers.”

In July, the International Rescue Committee issued its own report saying the administration was using the pandemic as an excuse to turn away asylum seekers, and wrote that the U.S. government is capable of meeting its humanitarian obligations while mitigating the risk of spreading Covid-19. 

Rice indicated that the Biden administration may focus on changing immigration policy through legislative steps rather than executive authority. If so, then that will be a very protracted process.

From “Day One” to We Will “Need Time,” Team Biden Walks Back Vow to End Trump Attack on Asylum Seekers | Common Dreams News

 About 150,000 children in the UK could be lifted out of severe poverty practically overnight.

Estimates by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) charity show that 35,000 jobless households will be capped this month, drastically limiting the amount of social security benefits they can receive, and plunging many into – or deeper into – poverty.

A further 41,000 households will be capped between January and March next year, it predicts, meaning that with 170,000 already capped – numbers have more than doubled since the pandemic started – about 250,000 households will soon face deep hardship as a result of the policy. That rapidly expanding number of capped families on universal credit will have to cope with average income losses of £62 a week, with some in high rental areas like London losing up to £200 a week. The cap restricts total benefit awards including housing rental costs to £20,000 a year for families outside of London and £23,000 a year for those in the capital, regardless of the family’s needs. Benefit cap rules mean claimants who have worked full-time solidly for 12 months prior to unemployment have a nine-month “grace period” before the cap is imposed. Many of those to be capped this month will have signed on to universal credit in March after losing their job at the start of the pandemic. Although claimants can escape the cap by finding a job of more 16 hours a week at the minimum wage, or by moving to cheaper housing, CPAG says the scarcity of jobs means most will have had no chance to find work or increase hours. The benefits cap was introduced in 2013 as an “incentive” to push claimants into work, though research for the DWP found cutting people’s welfare payments was more likely to leave them further from the job market.

Alison Garnham, CPAG’s chief executive, said the cap would be a “nasty surprise” for households who would lose crucial social security support despite in most cases having no realistic prospect of earning more to become exempt from the cap. She said: “The cap is increasing child poverty and in the context of a coronavirus recession is transparently nonsensical and wrong. At a minimum it should be suspended immediately to prevent the most vulnerable families from being pulled further into poverty.”

CPAG estimates dropping the policy would lift 150,000 children out of very deep poverty (meaning their family income is less than 40% of the median UK income) at a cost of £500m,  less than the cost of the “eat out to help out” subsidy scheme.

There are about 750,000 children in deep poverty in the UK, a household income after housing costs of less than £235 a week for a couple with two children. 

In the UK, 2 million families, including a million children, likely to struggle to afford to feed themselves, stay warm, or keep clean as the recession gets worse, according to recent estimates by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Scrap benefit cap to lift 150,000 children out of poverty, says charity | Poverty | The Guardian

 The Institute of Health Visiting said their findings have laid bare the damage the pandemic had done to families, with the youngest and most vulnerable suffering most.

61% of health visitors in England reported an increase in cases of child neglect. Four out of five reported a rise in domestic violence and abuse, and perinatal mental illness.  65% of health visitors had caseloads of more than 300 children under five, 29% had caseloads of more than 500 and 12% caseloads of more than 700. One health visitor reported a caseload of 3,000 children.

The institute said the optimum maximum caseload for effective practice was 250 children, and fewer in areas of high vulnerability. 

Covid-19 had affected babies and young children in disadvantaged families disproportionately as a result of factors such as overcrowded housing with lack of outdoor space, the impact of poverty and parental stress and anxiety, it said.

The institute also said cuts in public health budgets meant health visiting was already in a “depleted state” before the pandemic, with a 31% reduction in health visitors since 2015. This left many services “ill-prepared to meet the rapidly rising levels of need” since the early weeks of the first lockdown and many vulnerable babies and young children without the support that they needed, it said.

Babies and children ‘forgotten and failed’ in Covid response, say health workers | World news | The Guardian

 The UK government’s partial public-sector pay freeze will hit workers who are already paid less than their counterparts in private companies, according to new research by the Resolution Foundation. It suggests that the pay squeeze by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, may not achieve his aim of narrowing the gap between government and private workers.

2.6 million public sector workers whose pay will be frozen, including teachers and police, earn 7.9% less than their private sector counterparts once differences such as experience and location are taken into account, according to the analysis.

Unions said the pay freeze was a “kick in the teeth”, especially for key workers who had played a vital role in fighting the pandemic. 

Sunak said that pay rises for public sector workers – apart from NHS workers and the lowest-paid – could not be justified at a time when average earnings in the private sector were falling. “Coronavirus has deepened the disparity between public and private sector wages,” he said.

The government’s austerity pay freezes after the 2008 financial crisis have meant the “pay premium” for the public sector has fallen to zero once factors such as education and age are taken into account, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Hannah Slaughter, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “The government has justified the coming public sector pay freeze on the basis of the pay premium these workers will experience as a result of the pandemic. But this is a very poor description of the impact of the policy, with the freeze largely falling on those already experiencing pay penalties relative to the private sector. Ministers must be mindful that while public and private sector pay do move in line with each other over the longer term, there are risks in making that adjustment next April, when the economic challenges of the pandemic will still be immense, and consumer confidence needs supporting.”

Public-sector pay freeze will hit those earning less than private counterparts – report | Society | The Guardian

 The coronavirus crisis has prompted a surge in usage of services such as broadband and mobile phones, as millions of people shifted to home working and lockdown restrictions shut down high streets across the country.

Almost a fifth of UK households have struggled to pay their TV, internet and phone bills this year, with some resorting to cutting spend on food and clothes to make payments, according to research from Ofcom. 

4.7m homes had experienced difficulty paying their telecoms bills in 2020. Of those, more than one million have cut back spending on items such as food or clothes.

“Lockdown has laid bare our dependence on a reliable internet connection,” said Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s network and communications group director. “So it’s important that affordable options are available so everyone can stay connected, particularly those who have fallen on hard times.”

Alistair Cromwell, the acting chief executive at Citizens Advice, said: “Since the March lockdown began, internet access has been vital to home working, running small businesses, accessing essential services like healthcare and continuing education. It is crucial that those who are struggling financially are not locked out.”

Millions in UK struggling to pay internet and phone bills, says Ofcom | Money | The Guardian

  Japan’s government approved a ninth consecutive rise in military spending. 

 The Ministry of Defence will get a record 5.34 trillion yen ($51.7bn) for the year starting in April, up 1.1 percent from this year.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is continuing the military expansion pursued by his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, to give Japan’s forces new planes, missiles and aircraft carriers with greater range and potency against potential foes, including neighbouring China. Japan is buying longer-range missiles and considering arming and training its military to strike distant land targets in China, North Korea and other parts of Asia.

A planned jet fighter, the first in three decades, is expected to cost around $40bn and be ready in the 2030s. That project, which will be led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries with help from the US company Lockheed Martin, gets $706m in the new budget. Japan will spend $323m to begin the development of a long-range anti-ship missile to defend the Okinawan island chain in its southwest. Other big purchases include $628m for six Lockheed F-35 stealth fighters, including two short-takeoff and vertical-landing (STOVL) B variants that will operate off a converted helicopter carrier.

The military will also get $912m to build two compact warships that can operate with fewer sailors than conventional destroyers, easing pressure on a navy struggling to find recruits in an ageing population. Japan also wants two new warships to carry powerful new Aegis air and ballistic missile defence radars that have much as three times the range of older models. The government has not yet estimated the cost of the plan, which replaces a project cancelled in June to construct two ground Aegis Ashore stations.

Japan sets record military budget with stealth fighters, missiles | Military News | Al Jazeera

 On the SOYMB blog’s daily trawl through the media sites a number has reported Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu getting his vaccine. 

Few of those news outlets, however, mentioned that the Israeli squatters in the Occupied Territories will soon be given their vaccines, but the Palestinians on the West Bank will not be receiving any for a long time and it will be way via the COVAX scheme.

The 1949 Geneva Convention (Article 56):

“To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.”

 Two million Palestinians in Gaza only have 60 ICU or intensive care beds, and not all of them are functional due to the Israeli blockade.

 Palestine’s health ministry, Kamal Shakhri, is warning of a health care “catastrophe” this winter as coronavirus cases skyrocket toward 2,000 or possibly even 3,000 a day (the US equivalent of 220,000 to 330,000 a day– one of the worst rates in the world). On Saturday, in the West Bank, the health department in Ramallah reported 1,750 new cases of the coronavirus and 25 deaths. In Palestine over all, there are only 1.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people. Compare to Germany with 8.3 beds per thousand people.

There are roughly 3 million Palestinians in the Palestinian West Bank, so their daily 25 deaths are the equivalent of 2,750 American deaths daily, one of the worst rates in the world. If 0.9% of all infected die, and they have over half a million active cases in the territory, we can expect 5,490 to die out of the current situation.

Call it what you will, apartheid, racism, segregation, colonialism, but some will call it genocide.

Everyday War Crimes: Israeli PM Netanyahu Gets Covid Vaccine, Squatters Get Vaccine, But Not Occupied Palestinians | Common Dreams Views

Despite the misery of millions, ten of the richest people in the world have boosted their already vast wealth by more than $400bn (£296bn) since the coronavirus pandemic began as their businesses were boosted by lockdowns and financial crises across the globe.

 Americans for Tax Fairness estimates the collective wealth of America’s 651 billionaires has risen by $1.1tn over the same period. Frank Clemente of Americans for Tax Fairness said:

“Their pandemic profits are so immense that America’s billionaires could pay for a major Covid relief bill and still not lose a dime of their pre-virus riches. Their wealth growth is so great that they alone could provide a $3,000 stimulus payment to every man, woman and child in the country, and still be richer than they were nine months ago.”

Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, has watched his wealth rocket by $70bn since March to a record $185bn as hundreds of millions of people trapped at home turned to the online delivery giant to keep themselves fed and entertained.  During the pandemic, his wealth has grown by 66%.

 His gains pale in comparison to those of Elon Musk, chief executive of electric car company Tesla. Musk’s fortune soared to $153bn, up from $25bn in March, as investors bet that the pandemic would lead governments to speed up the switch from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Musk, 49, owns 20% of Tesla and is now the world’s second-richest person, up from 35th in the global league table of billionaires back in January. Tesla shares have risen almost sevenfold since March as investors bet that the company would be a clear leader in an electric future. From Monday, the firm will be included in the blue-chip S&P 500 index – news which has led to a further surge in demand for shares over recent weeks. 

Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest person, has seen his fortune double since the pandemic began, as demand for luxury brands in his LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton stable bounced back. Arnault’s wealth increased from $69bn in March to $148bn, to make him the third-richest person on the planet. 

Bill Gates of Microsoft  and the fourth-richest person, has an estimated $120bn fortune. Gates’s wealth has increased by about $20bn since March.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who saw his wealth increase by about 80% to $100bn,

Warren Buffett, whose fortune increased by 26% to $85bn.

 Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, whose wealth swelled by 50% to $88bn.

 Google’s Larry Page increased his wealth by half to $76bn, his co-founder, Sergey Brin, saw a similar increase to $74bn, 

Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, saw his fortune rise 47% to $75bn.

Ana Arendar, the head of Oxfam’s inequality campaign, said the fact that the richest of the rich have made so much money during the coronavirus pandemic “proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the global economic system is not fit for purpose”.

“Allowing the wealth of a tiny few to explode while hundreds of millions suffer is nothing short of a dereliction of duty,” she said of global governments’ inaction on widening inequality. “Extreme poverty is rising for the first time in a decade and hundreds of millions of people face dire hardship; in many cases failing into debt, skipping meals and being forced into destitution,” Arendar said. “Governments need to stop pandering to the richest…”

Luke Hildyard, executive director of the High Pay Centre, a thinktank that focuses on excessive pay, said: “People perhaps fail to appreciate the vast extent of billionaire wealth. To give you some perspective, just the increase in the net worth of these 10 individuals over the past 10 months is more than the estimated amount that the UK government has spent this year fighting the health and economic consequences of the coronavirus on behalf of 66 million people.”

Ten billionaires reap $400bn boost to wealth during pandemic | E-commerce | The Guardian

Fine words and but such sentiments are no solution. Tinkering around with the re-distribution of wealth does not go to the root cause of inequality. We need an economic system change

 A powerful racial myth has been exposed.  A Home Office report has concluded that there is no credible evidence that any one ethnic group is over-represented in cases of child sexual exploitation.

For many in Britain today the term “grooming gang” immediately suggests Pakistani-heritage Muslim men abusing white girls. What started as a far-right trope had migrated into the mainstream, meeting little resistance along the way. The racial stereotype gained credence and the “grooming gangs” narrative fed into the agenda of the far right, but it was not only there that the issue was racialised

But Home Office researchers now tell us that “research has found that group-based offenders are most commonly White”. The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes. The horrific and widely reported crimes committed in places such as Rochdale, Oxford and Telford were real: but racist stereotyping and demonisation deflected from that. The report reveals that there was discord in its advisory group of experts, campaigners and others. Some members apparently wanted an even greater focus on Pakistani men, hinting at an appetite for producing policy-led evidence rather than evidence-led policy.

The claims that “grooming gangs” were not properly investigated due to “political correctness” and a fear of being accused of racism are heavily undermined by decades of research highlighting the consistent over-policing of minority communities. What’s more, the whole history of the UK’s responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse is littered with failings – as shown by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, Operation Yewtree and numerous other investigations and inquiries. There were also regrettable consequences for child protection, since victims and offenders who don’t fit the stereotype can be overlooked.

This misdirected focus can be found in the Home Office report itself. Its title and executive summary both imply it covers “group-based child sexual exploitation” in the whole. But it fails to include a whole range of problems that might reasonably fit into that category, such as abuse that occurs online, and in schools, care homes and other institutions. Instead, it follows the crowd by dwelling on child sexual exploitation “in the community”. This construct is vaguely defined and poorly justified, although certainly more acceptable sounding than “grooming gangs” – the broadly equivalent term that has no legal meaning but plenty of racial and political baggage.

Child sexual abuse is not a “Muslim problem” but is endemic to virtually all communities. Look at the numbers: the sheer scale makes the ubiquity of abuse inevitable.

 An estimated one in 13 adults in England has been sexually abused as children. In 2019/20, police across the UK recorded more than 73,518 sexual offences against children, and the Home Office review itself reminds us that only around one in 10 victims actually disclose child sexual abuse to an official at the time.

The common denominator is not immigration, race, culture or Islam. Child sexual abuse is the product of a complex interplay of patriarchy, power, exploitation, opportunity and disregard for children. The past decade has shown that too many people in power are insufficiently concerned when sexual abusers are not from Asian or Muslim backgrounds.

A new Home Office report admits grooming gangs are not a ‘Muslim problem’ | Child protection | The Guardian

 Governments around the world have breached the rights of seafarers during the Covid-19 pandemic, creating a “humanitarian crisis” in which hundreds of thousands of workers are stranded onboard ships, said the UN’s International Labour Organization’s committee of experts. The ILO panel warned that a lack of action by governments had risked seafarers being subjected to “forced labour”.

Seafarers had reported physical and mental exhaustion, anxiety and sickness after spending months on board ship during the pandemic. Hundreds of people were denied medical care ashore, resulting in  deaths.

The pandemic had laid bare the essential role of seafarers in the world economy, the committee said, noting that 90% of trade, including food and vital medical supplies, is moved by sea. It expressed “deep concern” that while ports around the world managed to operate uninterrupted during the health crisis, seafarers continued to face “extreme difficulties” in trying to disembark and transit through countries for repatriation. 

Seafarers were being forced to work beyond their contracts, denied access to medical care and deprived of their rights to repatriation, shore leave and annual leave, it said.  The panel called on governments to take action to grant seafarers access to medical attention, to enable them to be repatriated when contracts are finished and to allow crew changes.

Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), welcomed the “unequivocal ruling and recognition from the ILO committee of experts of the serious and ongoing forced labour risk of governments’ failure to resolve the crew change crisis and comply with international law. What is happening is unacceptable and a serious violation of fundamental human and labour rights.”

“This ruling clearly sets out that it is both legally and morally wrong for countries to continue to expect seafarers to work indefinitely, supplying the world with food, medicine and vital supplies, while depriving them of their fundamental rights as seafarers, as workers, and as humans. This landmark ruling is a clear vindication of what seafarers’ unions and shipowners have been saying for the past nine months.”

‘Humanitarian crisis’: UN panel decries Covid rules that trapped crews at sea | Shipping industry | The Guardian