Saltos collated reports left by families on social media platforms, begging for help to remove the cadavers of their loved ones from their homes and produced a map. The map indicates that the vast majority of these reports came from either the city centre, where there was a large flow of people, or in the peripheral areas in the north of the city, where there are higher population densities and lack of infrastructure, he said. Although this data is not conclusive, it provides an idea of the dynamics of the virus, he added. 



Despite being the commercial capital of Ecuador, Guayaquil is one of the most unequal cities in the country. It has the highest poverty rate, at 14 percent, and the highest rate of workers in the informal economy. Nearly half of the working population in the city work in the informal sector, according to the national statistics institute. The informal sector includes jobs like street vendors and domestic workers, those who live off their daily wages with no social security benefits, and earn well below the national minimum wage of $400 per month.

President Lenin Moreno reportedly cut nearly 4,000 jobs in the healthcare sector nationwide last year. During the pandemic, the government also failed to provide protective gear to hospitals or assure long term job security for new recruits, so many healthcare workers refused to fill necessary positions, said Ramirez. At least 117 doctors and nurses lost their lives while treating COVID-19 infections in the province of Guayas alone, according to local unions.



Apart from saturated hospitals, one of the biggest struggles for families is paying for medication and mortuary services, as high demand has shot up prices. Paracetamol that normally costs $0.25 a pill can no longer be found in pharmacies, but is being sold for $4.00 in informal commercial areas, said Viteri. Some families have also been forced to go into debt, as they try to pay the high costs of a coffin and cemetery plot, which could range from $3,000 to $5,000, for their deceased family members. 



https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/coronavirus-pandemic-exposes-inequality-ecuador-guayaquil-200527151935203.html

The typical pay package for CEOs at the biggest U.S. companies topped $12.3 million last year, and the gap between the boss and their workforces widened further,



Median pay for CEOs in the survey climbed 4.1% last year. For the typical worker at their companies, it rose 3.2%. It would take two lifetimes for the typical employee at most S&P 500 companies to make what their CEO did, or 169 years, according to data.



CEOs in the AP’s survey had a median compensation valued at $12.3 million last year, which means half made more and half made less. Besides salary and cash bonuses, that includes stock awards and option grants that CEOs will get the full value of only if the company’s stock price rises in the future. In many cases, big chunks of the compensation were for stock and options that companies granted their CEOs in 2019 for their performance in 2018 and earlier years. 





For the first time since the AP’s annual pay survey began in 2011, a woman is at the top of the list: Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices. She had compensation valued at $58.5 million. CEOs such as Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai and Intel’s Robert Swan had packages that were valued even higher that Su’s, but were excluded because the AP’s survey looks only at S&P 500 bosses who have been in the job for at least two years, in part to avoid distortions caused by sign-on bonuses. (The AP’s compensation study included pay data for 329 CEOs at S&P 500 companies who have served at least two full fiscal years at their companies, which filed proxy statements between Jan. 1 and April 30.)



The 4.1% rise in median pay was a slowdown for S&P 500 CEOs, who had seen their pay jump 7.2% the year before and by even more in earlier years. Much of the slowdown was because of a drop in how much cash the CEOs got for hitting various performance targets.  At Eastman Chemical, for example, the value of CEO Mark Costa’s compensation dropped 11% to $14 million last year, according to the survey, in part because he fell short in some performance metrics set by the board of directors. Eastman’s board said Costa exceeded the goals set for “growth and innovation” in 2019, but he only partially met the targets for how much cash the company generated, as well as for employee safety and other measures. He received $377,000 in what the company calls its “unit performance plan,” down from the $1.5 million he got from the plan a year earlier. 



A CEO’s salary, though, typically makes up less than 10% of total compensation each year. What will hit CEOs’ pocketbooks more is what happens to companies’ share prices, which will affect the value of stock and options they were already granted, as well as the bonuses they would have been in line for. 



”The risk is that if there is a strong rebound in the market, that could lead to windfall profits for executives,” said Borrus of the Council of Institutional Investors, which represents pension funds and other big investors. 



https://apnews.com/13827540beb28669fa7847de43b52ac4

Socialists have diagnosed what ails the world and have identified the disease as capitalism. It is capitalism which is the virus that infects the entire world. Socialists have also prescribed the cure: revolution to take control of the means of production by working people who make up the vast majority of society. The cure isn’t easy. There is only one remedy for working-class ills and that is to overthrow the present social system, based upon the private ownership of the means of living, and to set up in its stead a system based upon the common ownership of those things. Since this involves the abolition of the capitalist claes, they will certainly resist it to the utmost extremity of their power. 



The essential first step in the working-class revolt is for the toilers to get control of the armed forces of the nation. These armed forces, as we are continually pointing out, are controlled by Parliament. It is therefore necessary for the workers to organise in a political party for the capture through the ballot of the Parliament. When they have captured this capitalist stronghold they will have control of the machinery of government, and will be able to proceed to their emancipation secure in the control of the means of dealing with any capitalist rebellion. As socialists we hold that the franchise presents to the workers the way to their emancipation. Until the workers learn to use this instrument properly they are not fit or ready for socialism.



Democracy is a product of struggles and sacrifices of the working class. The campaigns for freedom, equality and justice and the social and political movements for livelihoods have helped to deepen democratic practices all over the world. But capitalist democracy has failed people with false promises of prosperity and empowerment. The vampire class are getting ready for another inevitable feast of blood sucked from the working class. All around us we see rising nationalism, populism and the conservative forces sapping the strength of democracy. Top–down bureaucratic decision-making normalise authoritarian tendencies. We are manipulated, we are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by a process we can never discern. The sociali controlm suppressng and repressing us is invisible, camoflaged by a complicit media. Capitalism directs and steers our hopes, fate and futures for the sake of its profit and to protect the interest of the ultra-rich.



There is no shortcut to progressive mass movements, which can change the course of history and fortify our democratic future. It can only be achieved through collective struggles based on our collective interests. Such a political organisation exists in the Socialist Party, founded upon sound principles, principles which have stood the searching test of years, and have proved sufficient to keep the organisation true to working-class interests. We invite every man and woman to study them in a critical, challenging spirit, and to reveal any flaw he or she may find in them. If they prove sound, the worker’s duty is clear.

G20 nations remain committed to the Paris agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise well below 2°C and further limit it to 1.5°C by 2100. Despite their public commitments to the Paris agreement, G20 countries continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. Key findings include that support for the fossil fuel industry has “stayed steady” since the Paris agreement

Oil Change International research analyst Bronwen Tucker said, “Government money must instead support a just transition from fossil fuels that protects workers, communities, and the climate—both at home and beyond their borders. Instead of bankrolling another major crisis—climate change—our governments should invest in a resilient future.”



Most of this fossil fuel finance flowed to wealthier countries,” the report says, noting that China, Canada, Japan, and Korea provided the most public finance for dirty energy projects from 2016 to 2018.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/26/citing-dual-threat-covid-19-and-duterte-coalition-calls-congress-block-us-arms-sale