In these days of austerity budgets and cuts to foreign aid defence spending is to go up. 

The largest military investment in 30 years is set to be announced by the prime minister – an extra £4bn a year over the next four years, a 10% increase.

Johnson said that he was making the announcement “in the teeth” of the coronavirus pandemic because “the defence of the realm must come first”.

 Megaprojects risk pushing the world’s remaining forests past a “dangerous tipping point” and making climate targets unachievable, a report say. Tens of thousands of miles of roads and railways are planned alongside mines and dams, opening up the forests of South America, south-east Asia and central Africa to destruction, according to the report by a coalition of 25 research and conservation organisations. Today, almost half of all large mines – more than 1,500 – are in forests.

In 2014, 50 countries and 50 of the world’s biggest companies backed the declaration, pledging to cut deforestation by 50% by 2020 and end the destruction of forests by 2030. But the 2020 goal has been missed and deforestation is rising.

Robert Nasi, the head of the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor), one of the NYDF assessment partners, said: “We are living in a dream world of pledges but a reality of little progress, lack of transparency, vested interests and short termism…”

Five Amazon countries are investing $27bn (£20bn) over the next five years to build or upgrade more than 7,500 miles (12,000km) of roads, the report says, which would lead to deforestation of about 2.4m hectares. In Indonesia, the 2,500-mile Trans-Papua highway will cut through Lorentz National Park, increasing access to more than 50,000 hectares of mining concessions inside the park, while a railway planned for Kalimantan would open areas for coalmining and palm oil production. In Papua New Guinea, two plans would double the length of the country’s road network by late 2022, the report says. In sub-Saharan Africa dozens of international development corridors to export minerals and energy would cut across 400 protected areas and degrade an additional 1,800.

Anthony Bebbington, a mining and expert and report author, explained “Their purpose is to make it easier and cheaper to extract natural capital in ways that benefit economic elites above all.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/19/megaprojects-risk-pushing-forests-past-tipping-point-report

 More than half a million Australians caught up in the nation’s so-called “Robodebt” scandal, which ran from 2016 to 2019.

39 people were murdered by Australian special forces personnel, predominantly from the Special Air Service regiment. None were alleged to have occurred in circumstances in which the intent of the perpetrator was unclear, confused or mistaken.  It includes alleged instances in which newer patrol members were coerced to shoot a prisoner to achieve that soldier’s first kill in an appalling practice known as blooding. Weapons and radios were reportedly planted to support claims that people killed were enemy killed in action. Those killed were prisoners, farmers or other civilians.

Military sociologist Samantha Crompvoets, who was tasked with examining special forces culture and began to hear disturbing allegations of war crimes.

One soldier told her:

“Guys just had this blood lust,” he said. “Psychos. Absolute psychos. And we bred them.”

She heard one allegation that two 14-year-old boys were stopped by SAS, who decided they might be Taliban sympathisers. Their throats were slit.

“The rest of the troop then had to ‘clean up the mess’ by finding others to help dispose of the bodies,” Crompvoets reported. “In the end, the bodies were bagged and thrown in a nearby river.”

12. Princess Beatrice of York

Net worth: $5 million

Country: England

Princess Beatrice is the older daughter of The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York, and one of the Queen of England’s grandchildren. Princess Beatrice is seventh in the line of succession to the throne. 

11. Princess Eugenie of York

Net worth: $5 million

Country: England

Princess Eugenie is the younger daughter of The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York, and is the Queen of England’s granddaughter. She is eighth in line for the throne.

10. Crown Princess Victoria

Net worth: $10 million

Country: Sweden

Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, is the oldest daughter of the King and Queen of Sweden. 

9. Kate Middleton

Net worth: $10 million

Country: England

Princess Kate, also known as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, married Prince William in 2011 

8. Princess Madeleine

Net worth: $10 million

Country: Sweden

Princess Madeleine is the youngest daughter of the King and Queen of Sweden.

7. Princess Sofia

Net worth: $10 million (based on Prince Carl Philip’s net worth)

Country: Sweden

Princess Sofia is the wife of Prince Carl Philip. 

6. Princess Anne

Net worth: $30 million

Country: England

Princess Anne is the only daughter of the Queen of England and is currently 12th in line to the throne. Anne, whose full title is Princess Royal.

5. Caroline, Princess of Hanover

Net worth: $100 million

Country: Monaco

Caroline, Princess of Hanover, also known as Princess Caroline of Monaco, is the oldest daughter of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier. 

4. Princess Stéphanie

Net worth: $100 million

Country: Monaco

Princess Stéphanie is the youngest child of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier. 

3. Princess Charlene

Net worth: $150 million

Country: Monaco

2. Princess Gesine

Net worth: $1.05 billion

Country: Italy

Princess Gesine and her brother Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilj were adopted from an orphanage as babies by an Italian princess, Orietta Doria Pamphilj, Principessa di Melfi, and were raised in the Palazzo Doria in Rome

1. Princess Charlotte

Net worth: $4.2 billion (based on value to U.K. economy)

Country: England

Princess Charlotte is only 3 years old, but she’s already worth billions, Marie Claire U.K. reported. 

 GM workers have been staging two, four-hour strikes daily since Oct. 30 as they demand an end to a wage freeze put in place after the 2018 deal that saved the Korean operations from bankruptcy.

General Motors has issued its strongest warning yet that persistent industrial unrest eventually could drive it out of South Korea.

GM builds as many as 500,000 vehicles a year in South Korea, shipping many to the United States including the popular Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV. The automaker employs about 12,000 people in the country. GM management wants a two-year labor deal instead of the usual one-year agreement, and have offered union members a signing bonus of 8 million won ($7,230) each for 2020 and 2021.

The union, however, wants to stick to a one-year deal and yearly performance bonus of 22 million won each, as well as continued operation at both plants in Bupyeong.

“We are not only striking over wage issues, but also over job security at our No. 2 plant in Bupyeong, which hires about 1,200 workers,” union official Jung Jai-heon said.

Some current and former subcontract workers are also demanding to be hired as full-time staff with the same pay and benefits.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm-southkorea-labor-exclusive/exclusive-gm-warns-labor-unrest-making-south-korea-untenable-idUSKBN27Y0NR

 One in five people in the UK have nominally fallen down the social pecking order because they work in a lower-status job than their parents – with mothers, non-graduates and some black and minority ethnic groups more likely to find themselves “downwardly mobile”, according to the study for the Social Mobility Commission. Having become established in a lower-status occupation, most are likely to stay there,  a finding it says is likely to confirm a growing sense among the public that society is becoming less fair, with opportunities for advancement less equal.

“While there is a lot of attention on upwards social mobility, much less attention is paid to downward social mobility,” said Ben Page, the chief executive of Ipsos Mori, which carried out the research.

Education and affluence provided a buttress against downward mobility, the study found. Graduates were least likely to move into lower-status jobs, especially those who were the offspring of doctors, lawyers, teachers and scientists, and who could draw on parental professional networks and the “bank of Mum and Dad”.

The children of firefighters, police officers and nurses were most likely to be in a lower occupational class than their parents. Women with caring responsibilities often found themselves downwardly mobile because they were either excluded from, or opted to bale out of, high-status jobs because of inflexible, highly competitive work environments that they were unable to combine with bringing up their children.

Black African, Pakistani, Asian and Bangladeshi migrants – often coming to the UK with degrees and professional qualifications – were more likely than their white British counterparts to be downwardly mobile after coming up against “opaque hiring and progression practices that seem to exclude them at every turn”, the study said.

Downward mobility has been on the increase in the UK in recent decades, the study says. While 56% of sons born by 1975 went on to earn more than their fathers, this had dropped to just 33% by 1985, with the majority of sons in recent cohorts earning less than the previous generation.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/18/one-in-five-people-in-uk-in-lower-status-jobs-than-parents-study

Already, 400,000 children go hungry in the capital. He said the number of children living in food poverty will rise by 100,000 as a result of the pandemic unless urgent action is taken. “This is really a tragedy.” 

Mr Read said this “huge figure”  could have a catastrophic impact on education in in the capital, with academic improvements set back by a generation as children struggle to learn without having had enough food. “The issue is massive. We know that food insecurity and hunger has an impact on children’s academic progress, and unless something is done about this now, this is going to set back pupils’ progress for potentially a generation.” He explained, “It is really important that there is action to address issues around food poverty and food insecurity in households. Food poverty has a long-term impact on young people. A healthy diet doesn’t only mean children will do better at school but children who are not well fed are more likely to develop mental health problems and stress, and as they get older they are more likely to suffer from diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.”

Research shows that when pupils are not hungry, there’s an improvement in levels of pupil concentration in class, readiness to learn and behaviour. Mr Read said that when children are hungry it is harder for them to concentrate and they are tired, which affects their ability to reach their potential. “That is what’s really sad,” he added.

The surging rate of hunger is mirrored across the country – with more than 3 million people reporting that they had gone hungry during the first lockdown. The number of adults who are food insecure in Britain is estimated to have quadrupled due to the pandemic. During the first lockdown 16.2 per cent of adults said they experienced food insecurity. In normal times, 3.8 per cent of adults in Britain are believed to experience it.

As Christmas approaches, the stress that families are under will increase. He said: “Christmas has its own layers – the expectations, what it’s meant to mean and how it impacts on family life. It is already going to be different this year because of the lockdown. If on top of that you are worried about what is going to happen to your children during the holidays if you can’t feed them properly, that just adds layers of anxiety and insecurity.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/helpthehungry/help-the-hungry-child-food-poverty-hunger-london-christmas-south-bank-b1723555.html

First Pfizer and now Moderna announce the development of coronavirus vaccine which is effective but will it be free and available to all? The good thing about Moderna’s is that the vaccine can be stored in a regular refrigerator for a month—as opposed to Pfizer which needs special low, low temp cooling.

Much of Moderna’s doses have already been claimed by wealthy countries. According to Global Justice Now, 780 million doses have been sold to rich governments, or 78% of the billion doses the company says it can produce by the end up next year.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, explained,  “Moderna’s is predicted to be the most expensive potential vaccine on the market, at around $35 a dose, even though it has been made with vast public support. The U.S. government has spent over $1 billion in direct support alone. What’s more, well over 78% of what Moderna is likely to produce has already been sold to very wealthy countries.” Dearden went on to say,  “We appreciate that Moderna has said it won’t enforce patents as long the pandemic continues, but this alone is not sufficient to ensure this vaccine benefits humanity. This is truly a taxpayer funded vaccine and should be placed in the public sphere through the World Health Organization so the whole world can benefit.”

Amnesty International detailed in a statement that the United States has paid for 100 million doses from Moderna, with an option of 500 million more, while Canada has ordered 56 million, Japan has ordered 50 million, and the European Commission completed talks with the company for up to 160 million.

“Having already sold most of its potential 2021 vaccine supply to rich countries, Moderna must follow through on its promise to allow others to make the vaccine, and provide the knowledge and technology to do so, once the vaccine has proven to be safe and effective,” declared Stephen Cockburn, head of Amnesty’s Economic and Social Justice Program. Cockburn argued that “companies like Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have a responsibility to respect human rights, and they should play a leading role towards a global solution to Covid-19 by sharing and ensuring affordable prices. They must not act in a way that allows governments to hoard vaccines for a privileged few. “We can only put an end to Covid-19 if companies ensure that those most in need of life-saving vaccines are not left behind…”

Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, put it : “This is the people’s vaccine. The NIH’s vaccine. It is not merely Moderna’s vaccine. Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. We all have played a role. It should belong to humanity.”

No more profit before people.

From here

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/16/it-should-belong-humanity-funded-public-promising-moderna-results-bolster-global