Will COVID-19 make prison a death sentence?

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The global prison population is 11 million and 102 countries have prison occupancy levels of more than 110% with 20 countries at double their capacity limit.  Bukavu prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, exceeds its capacity by 528%.  In a Sierra Leone prison for females 64 inmates live in a space designed for 18.



 Social distancing and personal infection control are almost impossible in overcrowded settings where poor ventilation and sanitation are likely increase the speed at which the virus spreads. In Bangladesh 10 doctors serve 68 prisons, while Ghana has two doctors covering 46 prisons with 15,000 inmates.



 In prisons the mortality rate is already up to 50% higher than in the outside world.



Florian Irminger, executive director of Penal Reform International (PRI), said: “Prison systems globally were at crisis point before the coronavirus pandemic. Now prisons across the world are ticking time bombs set to be devastated by this virus because of overcrowding, lack of basic healthcare, limited access to clean water … and inhumane living conditions.”



Outbreaks of Covid-19 and deaths from the virus have been recorded in prisons in numerous countries including China, Iran, Kenya, India, Belgium, Spain and the UK. There are grave concerns about the impact the pandemic will have on prisons across sub-Saharan Africa, where the full force of Covid-19 is yet to be felt.

Doreen Namyalo Kyazze, PRI’s Africa programme manager in Kampala, said: “It is frankly terrifying to think how Covid-19 will impact on prisons in the region, which are some of the most severely overcrowded in the world and are extremely lacking in healthcare services, as well as the most basic sanitary conditions.”



Sarah Belal of the Justice Project Pakistan explained that the virus has lifted the lid on existing systemic issues: “The capacity of our prisons is 63,000 but we have 74,118 prisoners … there is just no way we have the capacity to manage with the number of people that are in our prisons, neither do we have the resources. In Punjab alone, before Covid-19 there were 108 vacant posts for medical officers, there is usually one in each prison … 10% of Punjab prisons did not have ambulances, and the rate of tuberculosis and hepatitis was rampant. You are looking at a population that is already extremely vulnerable to dying of an infectious disease like Covid-19.”

he UN assistant secretary general for human rights, Ilze Brands Kehris, has called on states to reduce their prison populations, including by releasing those who are vulnerable to the virus or are low-risk offenders.
Measures have already been taken in some countries that have suffered outbreaks. In France, courts were asked to delay short-term prison sentences, while states including Iran and Kenya opted to release some people from prison early.
In the UK, where the Ministry of Justice confirmed earlier this week that 15 prisoners have died from Covid-19, the government’s temporary release scheme to combat the spread of the virus had to be suspended after six inmates were mistakenly freed. Plans to release 4,000 risk-assessed prisoners within two months of release are due to resume this week.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/23/pandemic-potentially-a-death-sentence-for-many-prison-inmates-experts-warn



To CCS or not?

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How do we significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late?



Some say by carbon capture and storage (CCS), what is in essence the process of separating carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, or from gases produced in electricity generation and industrial processes, then injecting the captured CO2 into geological rock formations typically located several kilometers underground? 
CCS technology features in a number of government and industry proposals. But it is still not on track and is in fact far behind where it will need to be within decades to meet the necessary targets for global emission reductions.
Part of the problem is how these technologies are still very much at the developmental stage, despite using them since the 1970s. 
“In terms of the actual efficiency of carbon capture, it’s not nearly as effective as people claim it is,” said Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. His research into two CCS projects, factoring in production and processing emissions, found they trapped only between 10-11 percent of net carbon emissions averaged over 20 years. “It’s never better to capture carbon than it is to use that money to replace coal or gas,” Jacobson said.

Questions also surround just how meaningfully CCS technologies are currently contributing to carbon emission reductions. For example, CCS is being used to funnel CO2 back underground to stimulate oil fields that are running dry, in a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR) — a way, say CCS critics, not so much of reversing course on global warming but of prolonging the life-blood of the fossil fuel industry. Strictly speaking, such technologies fall under the umbrella of carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS.



“You have biofuels. Nuclear power. Coal and carbon capture. They all claim that they can do things, and all they need is another billion dollars to solve it,” said Jacobson. “It becomes a part of what people assume is working, whereas really, it’s just a pyramid scheme.”



https://truthout.org/articles/is-carbon-capture-and-storage-a-climate-solution-or-a-pyramid-scheme/

The Anti-Union Campaign Continues

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US corporations are cracking down on unionization efforts as workers try to organize. 



Companies, including grocery chains Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, airport concession operators, local authorities and even a furniture company owned by the billionaire Warren Buffett have moved to control efforts to unionize as workers become increasingly concerned about workplace safety during the pandemic emergency.



As workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic have organized protests and strikes, several employers have responded by stepping up attempts to oppose unionization, repeal workers’ rights won in bargaining, and fire workers en masse who had recently publicized intent to organize a union in their workplace.



 The Trader Joe’s chairman and CEO, Dan Bane, sent a  blatant anti-union letter to all employees on 31 March opposing labor unions, and calling attempts to recruit staff “a distraction”, the latest in a series of memos and actions taken by the company to suppress union organizing efforts calling for hazard pay and adequate protections for grocery store workers during the pandemic.



A Trader Joe’s employee in New Jersey said, “It’s in bad taste and shows the greed this company has instead of taking proactive measures to keep the crew and customers safe.”



Concession workers at Orlando international airport have filed official complaints against their employer, HMSHost, over the lack of coronavirus safety protections, which included continuing to hold anti-union captive audience meetings during the pandemic. A union election for workers to join Unite Here scheduled for late March was delayed and is currently being rescheduled due to the pandemic.



“I tried to refuse to go because we were short-staffed,” said Rosanny Tejeda, a Starbucks barista at Orlando international airport for about one year before recently being furloughed. Tejeda claimed the meeting did not adhere to social distancing or take into account any coronavirus safety precautions, and she was targeted throughout the meeting for wearing a union pin. “They didn’t care about our health when they sent us to those meetings,” said Tejeda. “To them, the union was a more important issue than the coronavirus. They made sure to give us papers about the union, but didn’t give us training or protective equipment for us in the stores.”
Citing the pandemic, the manager of Clark county, Nevada, unilaterally suspended all union contracts with the county. The decision affects about 9,000 workers, including hospital workers at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas.
The Teamsters union has filed federal unfair labor practice charges of unlawful termination against CORT furniture, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, accusing the furniture rental company of retaliating against workers for supporting unionization just as the pandemic broke in the US.



Anthony Salcedo, a driver at the warehouse for nearly four years who was laid off, said: “They’re telling us the reason why they terminated us is because of work reduction, but how is there work reduction if you are hiring contractors to do our work? It’s obvious why we were terminated. It wasn’t because of work reduction, it was because we were supporting a union.”
Several other companies have been accused of opposing union organizing efforts among workers during the pandemic. Amazon-owned Whole Foods is using a data-powered heat mapping tool to monitor unionization risks among its over 500 stores throughout the US, as workers have held sick-out protests in response to a lack of protections for workers during the pandemic. Workers at the online clothing retailer Everlane and the art logistics company Uovo have filed federal labor charges accusing the companies of firing workers during the pandemic for union organizing.



“It’s an absolute disgrace they would take advantage of a pandemic to frustrate workers’ ability to organize and get better representation for themselves so they’re not risking their lives to perform essential services,” said Celine McNicholas, government affairs director at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “This is an extreme moment we’re in, but unfortunately this is the traditional employer playbook in opposing workers’ efforts to organize and collectively bargain for better pay and better health and safety provisions,” added McNicholas.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/labor-unions-trader-joes-workers-coronavirus-us

Planet of the Humans (video)

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Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs (2020). Planet of the Humans | Full Documentary By Socialist Party of Canada







This 2020 Gibbs-Moore exposé compliments the case for non-market Socialism rather well. 




It’s fact-filled sleuthing explicitly cites the profit motive as root cause of the double-speak hypocrisy much of the ‘green movement’ suffers — a movement which is doing little if anything to mitigate climate warming or ecological collapse in authentic and meaningful ways — if what Gibbs & Moore report is correct.




This is not to denigrate the well-meaning intentions behinds the sentiments of making the earth a greener saner place; the documentary more importantly shows the obscured control by global capital usurping well-known non-profits that claim they are fighting the good fight for the environment when in fact they are naively complicit in its delay. 




The documentary further underscores what Gibbs and Moore see as the sea-change behaviour needed to move away from using incredibly wasteful amounts of energy capitalists demand to keep their profits circulating; they illustrate it is not average citizen clamouring for such energy, but rather the swindling class who currently own and monopolize the global means of life for solely their own gain.




A film worth spending the 1hr 45mins viewing, if for anything, to inform oneself on the growing debate to chuck capitalism for good — a sentiment implicitly echoed by popular groups such as ‘FridaysForFuture’ and ‘Extinction Rebellion,’ who although having fast growing global influence, appear to have cultural amnesia about the futility of reformism to chart deep and systemic improvement of society where-in equal access to the means of life — one free of the capitalist yoke — is globally generalized. 




The film is free to view until May 21, 2020 

Pygmy Lance





No more capitalism but a culture of care

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A new report by the National Priorities Project (NPP) at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), examining the federal budget illuminates the deep connections between the climate emergency and the U.S. military, arguing that the shift to a green economy requires a just transition away from both fossil fuels and endless war.




The report, entitled No Warming, No War: How Militarism Fuels the Climate Crisis—and Vice Versa (pdf), says that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic “has utterly changed life as we know it” and warns against working toward a return to an old normal which was “defined by unfettered capitalism that thrives on the devastation of our planet, the devaluation of human life, and the use of military force to perpetuate both.” The report also takes aim at the corporations—both military contractors and energy giants—that reap massive profits from the devastation of war and fossil fuel extraction. The analysis specifically calls out Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman as well as BP, Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil.




“On a local and global scale, humanity and community have been co-opted by profit and violence. This ‘normal’ has now brought us to the brink of an existential crisis as climate change continues nearly unabated,” co-authors Lorah Steichen and Lindsay Koshgarian write in the foreword. “In the face of both COVID-19 and the climate crisis, we urgently need to shift from a culture of war to a culture of care.” On a warming planet, migration is rising. Instead of responding with solidarity, the US is escalating border militarization while defunding climate solutions.



Half of all international wars since 1973 have been linked to fossil fuel resources, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East. According to NPP:

 “The U.S. military spends an estimated $81 billion a year to protect the world’s oil supplies—even before accounting for the Iraq war.”



The U.S. military—with an annual budget exceeding $700 billion—is “among the biggest polluters” on the planet, producing about 59 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, more than countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. A B-52 consumes as much fuel in an hour as the average car driver uses in 7 years. “To achieve climate justice, we must transform the extractive economy we have now that is harming people and ecosystems,” the report says. “Resisting militarization is core to building an economy that works for people and the planet. As such, we must pursue solutions to the climate crisis that challenge the violent and oppressive systems that have fuelled war and warming for generations.”



One of the report’s five conclusions is there is enough for everybody.



Never give up and never give in

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A bloggers for world socialism we address social issues central to the concerns of our fellow-workers around the world, including health, migration, peace, climate, poverty, sustainable production, social justice, women, children and gender justice, human rights, indigenous peoples, and much more. Our mission is to help build people and communities ability to manage their own affairs, respecting no sovereign boundaries or national allegiances. The reality is that humanity’s access to  wealth, health and housing have long been imperilled prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the health crisis is being used as an excuse to grab political power, to tighten internal security laws and infringe further on  civil liberties and democratic rights. It has resulted in a rise in racist and xenophobic attitudes and a resurgence of populist nationalism around the world.



  But, nevertheless, COVID-19 has paused the unbridled pursuit of profit and capital. When the world reopens we have the task to transform, global and local arrangements to protect humanity and the planet, from the ravages of capitalism and its social inequalities.



Many of the major problems we must overcome are global and national divisions add to the complexity of their solutions. Everyone breathes the same air so pollution in the atmosphere is a world issue.



What we’ve been shown by the COVID-19 pandemic is that it is solidarity or death. However, this coronavirus catastrophe can point towards an alternative future. We find ourselves at an unprecedented moment where there need not be a “return to normal” and to go back to the way they were before. Business–as–usual was a highly polluting and an ecologically unsustainable economy locking us into catastrophic climate change. We simply cannot afford to do that. We can do things differently. 


Rather than wanting it all to go back to “normal”, let’s imagine another future where people have everything they require for fulfilling, meaningful and prosperous lives. Where our everyday needs are provided for by sustainable and renewable resources. A future that is equitable, more secure, and more satisfying – and all within our planet’s ecological limits. We know it is in our power to change the way we do things. 


Over the last few months, nearly all of us have adapted our life-styles and changed the way we work in order to protect ourselves and other people from Covid-19. As family, as friends, as neighbours, as co-workers, we have made clear that we value cooperation and compassion more than anything else. We as individuals have taken bold decisions for the collective good. We have been reminded of our sense of community. What we now decide will determine the quality of life for billions of people for generations to come. In order to create a sustainable world, it requires the end of capitalism. The pandemic lockdowns has revealed what the world looks like without as much pollution and without meaningless “work” performed by the exploited for the benefit of the privileged and pampered. Another world is possible, and we’ve just gotten a glimpse of it.





Lebanon Slavery

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Some 250,000 migrant domestic workers – most from sub-Saharan African countries such as Ethiopia and Ghana, and southeast Asian countries including Nepal and the Philippines – reside in Lebanon. General Security had said in 2017 that two domestic workers die every week in Lebanon.

Domestic workers in Lebanon are legally bound to their employers through the country’s notorious kafala system, which only allows them to end their contracts with the consent of employers.

The system has led to widespread abuse, ranging from the withholding of wages, to physical and sexual assault. Camille Abousleiman, Lebanon’s former labour minister, has called it “modern-day slavery”.
Diala Haidar, a Lebanon campaigner at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera, “The Lebanese labour law explicitly excludes domestic workers from labour protections enjoyed by other workers such as minimum wage, overtime pay, compensation for unfair dismissal, and social security. The labour law needs to be amended to recognise domestic workers as workers and grant them full labour protections.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/lebanon-arrests-suspect-putting-nigerian-worker-sale-200423135002619.html

Insect Holocaust

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The biggest assessment of global insect abundances to date shows a worrying drop of almost 25% in the last 30 years, with accelerating declines in Europe that shocked scientists.  Other experts estimate 50% of insects have been lost in the last 50 years.



  Insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals and are essential to the ecosystems humanity depends upon. They pollinate plants, are food for other creatures and recycle nature’s waste. Losses of insects are driven by habitat destruction, pesticides and light pollution.



The research, published in the journal Science, also examined how the rate of loss was changing over time. “Europe seems to be getting worse now – that is striking and shocking. But why that is, we don’t know,” said van Klink. In North America, the declines are flattening off, but at a low level.

Elsewhere, data is much more sparse. “But we know from our results that the expansion of cities is bad for insects because every place used to be more natural habitat – it is not rocket science,” said van Klink. “This is happening in east Asia and Africa at a rapid rate. In South America, there is the destruction of the Amazon. There’s absolutely no question this is bad for insects and all the other animals there. But we just don’t have the data.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/23/insect-numbers-down-25-since-1990-global-study-finds



Billionaire Bonanza

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 As the pandemic-fuelled U.S. unemployment rate approaches 15 percent, America’s billionaire class is experiencing a wealth surge.



Between March 18th and April 23th, as more than 26 million U.S. workers lost their jobs, the combined wealth of America’s billionaires increased by $308 billion, a 10.5 percent increase.  After a brief decline, the collective wealth of 614 U.S. billionaires has surpassed than their 2019 levels.




The Jeff Bezos wealth surge is unprecedented in modern financial history.  As of April 15, his fortune had increased by an estimated $25 billion since January 1, 2020. This is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of Honduras, $23.9 billion in 2018.




Between January 1, 2020 and April 10, 2020, 34 of the nation’s wealthiest 170 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by tens of millions of dollars.




Eight of these billionaires — the “pandemic profiteers” –have seen their net worth surge by over $ 1 billion.  


Billionaires that have profited off of America’s urgent need for video conferencing, include Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, owner of Skype and Teams, and Eric Yaun, founder and CEO of Zoom.


Between 1990 and 2020, U.S. billionaire wealth soared 1,130 percent in 2020 dollars, an increase more than 200 times greater than the 5.37 percent growth of U.S. median wealth over this same period.


Between 1980 and 2018, the tax obligations of America’s billionaires, measured as a percentage of their wealth, decreased a staggering 79 percent.


The billionaire share of America’s increased wealth has risen throughout the past four decades. Between 2006 and 2018, nearly 7 percent of the real increase in America’s wealth went to the country’s 400 wealthiest households.


https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/23/us-billionaire-wealth-surges-covid-19-pandemic-worsens

Big Parma Fails

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Public health experts have warned for years that the world is at risk of a major pandemic, and advocates say Big Pharma showed little interest in developing vaccines – or even antibiotic and antiviral medications — until the latest outbreak offered an opportunity to rake in public funding and turn out massive profits with minimal risk. Now that COVID-19 has spread across the planet, the industry boasts that at least 310 clinical trials for treatments and vaccines for the virus are underway across the world, including 40 in the United States.



Antibiotic and antiviral drugs are usually prescribed for short periods of time and therefore generally don’t yield blockbuster sales. The pharmaceutical industry has gradually abandoned vaccine development over the past 50 years as it focused on lifestyle drugs and treatments for chronic conditions such as cancer that are in consistent demand. Drug companies also substantially decreased their investment in treatments and vaccines for emerging infectious diseases over the past decade. In 2018, only 1 percent of the global pharmaceutical industry’s research and development spending focused on emerging infectious diseases.



Drug companies have historically pleased investors by promoting vaccine development programs during disease outbreaks, then quietly dropping them later.  Despite an outbreak raging in the Republic of Congo, the British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline recently gave up its effort to develop a vaccine for Ebola. In 2017, the  French drug maker Sanofi pulled out of a partnership with the U.S. Army to develop a vaccine for the mosquito-borne Zika virus.



“Big Pharma’s business model is one of maximizing shareholder value — and it hinges on short-term returns,” Dana Brown, director of The Next System Project, a research and development lab said. “There’s little if any gain for shareholders when companies invest in vaccine development…. A number of companies report losing money on Ebola or SARS vaccines programs.”



Last year, there were only six active clinical trials of vaccines and therapeutics for coronaviruses involving private drug companies, and all of them depend heavily on public funding. Had there been more sustained interest in the private sector, researchers would have more tools for combating the current outbreak, such as more platform technologies for vaccine development.



 “With COVID-19, the US government has eliminated many risks that often dissuade drug companies from vaccine investments,” wrote David Mitchell and Ben Wakana with Patients for Affordable Drugs in a blog post. “By bankrolling research, sponsoring clinical trials, and eliminating all liability for drug corporations, American taxpayers are heavily subsidizing drug corporations’ search for a COVID-19 vaccine.” 



Generous government incentives have turned the pandemic into a massive business opportunity, but private drug companies will only remain involved if there is money to be made. The large role of private companies in the vaccine quest raises concerns about their commitment to research as well as patient access to the vaccine itself. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) partnership has no “access provisions” requiring private companies that benefit from public funding to make the medicines they develop accessible and affordable for patients. Private companies will likely want exclusive licenses and marketing rights in exchange for their investment in COVID-19 drug development, advocates say. This could create huge shortages of a vaccine, particularly in lower-income countries.



“This is simply an instance in which a competitive, market environment is not an apt vehicle for solving the problem,” Brown said. “Only an open, collaborative approach to coronavirus vaccine development can assure a safe and effective vaccine will be made accessible to all — and it would speed up the process of discovery as well.”



https://truthout.org/articles/before-covid-19-big-pharma-was-neglecting-vaccine-and-antiviral-research/



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