Independence?

1700 lay-offs confirmed as Hall's of Broxburn is closed by the Dutch parent company, Vion.

Foreign investors in Scotland employ over 600,000 staff and have a turnover of over £145 billion.

 In 2010, within manufacturing, foreign-owned companies accounted for 40.9% of Gross Value Added and 30.5% of employees. Within services, foreign-owned companies accounted for 17.8% of GVA and 13.3% of employees,(agriculture, the financial sector and some of the public sector. are not included in the statistics) The remainder being UK (excluding Scotland) owners

Fact of the Day

A recent report by the humanitarian aid and research organisation DARA, found that 400,000 deaths each year today are attributable to climate change, with air pollution causing another 1.4 million fatalities annually

Fact of the Day

The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030, depression will become the leading cause of disability worldwide. This burden is greatest for poor countries, where 75 percent of patients with severe mental disorders don’t receive the treatment they need. Just one in ten people with depression is treated, despite considerable evidence that generic medications and psychotherapy treatments by non-specialists are effective and cost-effective.

the rich

The number of global millionaires will increase by about 18 million reaching 46 million by 2017, The US will remain on top of the wealth league with $89 trillion by 2017, with 16.9 million millionaires, and Europe with 15.4 million, according to Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report released on Wednesday. China may see its number doubling by 2017, raising the total to almost 2 million. India's millionaires to increase by 53% to 84,000 by 2017.  95% of individuals in India have less than $10,000, whereas this percentage is only 60% in China. Just 0.3% of Indians has a net worth over $100,000. However, due to India's large population, this translates into 2.3 million people. At present, India has 237,000 members of the top 1% of global wealth holders, which equates to a 0.5% share worldwide. There are 1,500 UHNW (ultra high net worth) individuals with wealth over $50 million, and 700 with more than $100 million worth of assets.

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, with a personal fortune of $19.3 billion, is the richest Indian, China-based research firm Hurun said followed by Arcelor-Mittal chief LN Mittal, whose wealth is pegged at $16.9 billion. In terms of personal fortune, Ambani and Mittal are followed by Azim Premji of Wipro ($12.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharmaceuticals ($8.5 billion), Pallonji Mistry of Shapoorji Pallonji & Co, the largest shareholder in Tata Group ($7.9 billion), Shashi and Ravi Ruia of Essar Energy ($7.2 billion) and Adi Godrej of Godrej Group ($6.9 billion). Four others who make it to the list of top 10 billionaires are Kushal Pal Singh of DLF ($6.3 billion), Kumara Mangalam Birla of Grasim Industries ($5.8 billion), Shiv Nadar of HCL Technology ($5.7 billion) and Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel ($5.7 billion). Savitri Jindal, non-executive chairperson of O.P. Jindal Group, is the richest Indian woman with personal fortune of $5.6 billion, For determining India's 100 wealthiest persons, the report says the minimum cut-off mark for finding a place in the list was $330 million. While the manufacturing sector produced 17 wealthiest Indians, pharmaceutical sector came second with 12, followed by real estate segment that contributed 10 .

In terms of single countries, the US leads by a huge margin with 37,950 UHNW individuals, equivalent to 45% of the group. The recent fortunes created in China have propelled it into second place with 4,700 representatives (5.6% of the global total), followed by Germany (4,000), Japan (3,400), United Kingdom (3,200) and Switzerland (3,050). Numbers in other BRIC countries are also rising fast, with 1,950 members in Russia and 1,500 in Brazil, and strong showings are evident in Taiwan (1,200), Hong Kong (1,100) and Turkey (1,000).

Down and Out Down-under

It was the country many Scots and Europeans sought to make their new home in hope of a better life for themselves but today one in eight Australians lives below the poverty line. According to the international definition of poverty, which is having a disposable income less than half that of the median household, more than 2.2 million Australians live in poverty. In 2010 the poverty line for a single adult was a disposable income of less than $358 a week and $752 for a couple with two children. More than half a million children live below the poverty line, almost half in lone-parent families. If you're a single person that means you have just over $50 a day to cover everything. Single people with two children had $80 a day to pay for everything. New South Wales has the highest number of people in poverty (835,000), followed by Victoria (526,700), Queensland (430,900), Western Australia (211,300), South Australia (165,200) and Tasmania (56,000).

Penny Wilson, Victorian Council of Social Service, said even some people with jobs cannot make ends meet. "We do hear about people who actually have to make a choice between paying for their accommodation, whether that be a mortgage or rent, paying for food and paying for essentials such as clothing or school books for their children,"

RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION?

During the current economic recession it is commonplace to hear of workers being unable to sell their houses because of tumbling prices and difficulties in obtaining mortgages but one part of the housing market is unaffected by economic difficulties. "An estate agent to the rich and famous is celebrating after selling £3billion worth of property - on the same London street. Trevor Abrahmsohn has cornered the market on one of the world's wealthiest roads, The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London - known as 'Billionaires' Row'. Over the last 35 years he has handled 150 house sales on the street at an average value of £20million at today's prices." (Daily Mail, 12 October) To those members of the owning class who think nothing of spending £20million on a house their is no economic crisis. RD

A DEADLY SOCIAL SYSTEM

In its unending drive for more and more profit the capitalist system ruins lives but it also ruins the world's environment and biodiversity. "Reducing the risk of extinction for threatened species and establishing protected areas for nature will cost the world over $76bn dollars annually. Researchers say it is needed to meet globally agreed conservation targets by 2020. The scientists say the daunting number is just a fifth of what the world spends on soft drinks annually. And it amounts to just 1% of the value of ecosystems being lost every year, they report in the journal Science. Back in 2002, governments around the world agreed that they would achieve a significant reduction in biodiversity loss by 2010. But the deadline came and went and the rate of loss increased." (BBC News, 12 October) Governments can make sympathetic noises and even pass pious resolutions but profit making comes before biodiversity so more and more species of flora and fauna are doomed. RD

For World Socialism

There is a system called capitalism, and it is simple – increase capital from constant reinvestment of capital, invest profits to regenerate more profits.  The Socialist Party  is  against all forms of capitalism: private, state and self-managed.  It makes no difference whether the capital is domestic or foreign, who personifies it, how big and small it is. Capitalist exploitation occurs despite all of them.

 We are for communism, which is a classless society in which all goods are distributed according to need. We are opposed to all ideologies which divide the working class, such as religion, sexism and racism. And we are against nationalism and patriotism. Cultural freedom and diversity should not be confused with nationalism. That specific peoples should be free to fully develop their own cultural capacities is not merely a right but a requirement. The world would be a drab place without its magnificent mosaic of different cultures.

Nationalists argue that people long to have their very own country. Nationalism, though it is a seemingly noble effort to realize social unity, is the twenty-first century's great plague. Nationalism continues to hypnotize us with unrealistic visions of heaven-on-earth. Nationalism divides human beings territorially, culturally, and economically.  National identity is used by the state to legitimize its actions. Nationalism is regressive.

A cold winter

During winter 2010-11 over 25,000 more people died in the UK compared with non-winter periods. Many of these deaths can be directly attributed to fuel poverty. Around four million households in the UK currently suffer from fuel poverty.

£8m profit every day but Scottish Gas bills are due to rise again. Millions of Scots face a winter of rising fuel bills, as the UK’s largest energy supplier is today expected to announce an inflation-busting increase for gas and electricity charges. A 9 per cent increase by Scottish and Southern Energy will come into effect on Monday next week, and other major suppliers have refused to rule out a similar rise.

Citizens Advice Scotland said it was growing increasingly concerned about low-income families this winter. Margaret Lynch, chief executive, said: “We know that at least one-third of Scots are already living in fuel poverty."

Robina Qureshi, of the charity Positive Action in Housing, said: “More and more people are just keeping their houses cold, and that has an impact on illness and their children’s health.”



Last winter, more than eight in ten households rationed their energy use because of cost.

SOME GOOD NEWS

Every day in the newspapers socialists can read all the bad news that capitalism throws up. Millions starve, while food is destroyed: children dying for lack of clean water and lately a 14 year old girl shot in the head by some Pakistan religious zealot because she dared to attend a school. So what is the good news? "The number of people with no religious affiliations is growing at an unprecedented rate, according to research. A third of adults under 30 in the US now say they have no faith. .... The US study was undertaken by the Pew Research Centre, a Washington based think tank. According to the latest British Social Attitude Survey, published last month, religious affiliation among Britons has fallen from 68 per cent in 1983 to 53 per cent in 2011." (Times, 10 October) RD

A LIFETIME OF MISTREATMENT

Having worked all their lives many workers hope that having made it to retirement age they will be able to enjoy some leisure and contentment in their remaining years. Alas for many workers that is not to be. "A former matron and five nurses who worked for a care home have been arrested over "serious allegations" of mistreatment and neglect of "very vulnerable" elderly residents. The arrests follow a five-month police investigation into a number of reported incidents at Hillcroft nursing home in Slyne-with-Hest, near Lancaster. The mistreatment is said to have taken place within the home's challenging behaviour unit which cares for vulnerable adults with advanced Alzheimer's, police said." (Daily Telegraph, 10 October) Needless to say the victims of this harsh treatment are all members of the working class. Members of the owning class can afford the best that money can buy. RD

Fact of the Day

Following on from this fact

More efficient food production and the reduction of food losses would feed an additional billion people and dramatically help maintaining the planet's natural resources and improve people's lives. Researchers in Aalto University, Finland, have proved a valid estimation, for the first time, for how many people could be fed with reducing food losses. The world's population is an estimated seven billion people. An additional one billion can be fed from our current resources, if the food losses could be halved.

Food-free days or a free food new day?

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, global wheat production is expected to fall 5.2% in 2012 and yields from many other crops grown to feed animals could be 10% down on last year. Prices for wheat have already risen 25% in 2012, maize 13% and dairy prices rose 7% just last month. Food reserves, [held to provide a buffer against rising prices] are at a critical low level.The 2012 global grain harvest in total is expected to be 2,236m tonnes, compared with 2,309m tonnes in 2011, a drop of about three per cent, but this is about four per cent in per capita terms, as 80m people per year are being added to the world population. As a result, corn prices hit eight dollars a bushel in August, the highest level ever recorded.

The US government is expected to announce that drought and heat damage to crops this year has reduced its wheat, maize and soy harvests by more than 10%. Because the US is by far the world's biggest grower and exporter of grains, this is expected to have repercussions around the world. The maize harvest is expected to be the lowest in nine years.

Middle class?

The debate on what constitutes "middle class" turns “philosophical” at times. Some definitions include concepts such as professional status, education, and the variety of cultural and consumption habits

 In Brasil a study says 35 million people rose from the lower to the middle class in the last 10 years, and that the middle class grew from 38 percent of the population in 2002 to 53 percent this year, in this country of 192 million people. The problem is the criteria used to classify who is middle class: a per capita income of between 145 and 510 dollars a month. The definition covers people with very different income levels, living conditions and consumption habits, which should also be taken into account.

 The minimum monthly wage in Brazil is 311 dollars, higher than the threshold set by the government to classify people as middle class! Isn’t someone who earns the minimum salary poor?

Marxism defines class based on who owns or does not own the means of production.

EXPERTS GET IT WRONG AGAIN

Economic "experts" are forever telling us that capitalism is a wonderful society and are always quick to inform us of the latest "trends" in the market. In fact they haven't a clue. "Risks to global financial stability have increased in the past six months despite efforts by policymakers to make the financial system safer, according to the International Monetary Fund. It said little progress had been made in making the system more transparent and less complex, and that confidence in it had become "very fragile". .... On Monday, the IMF downgraded its forecast for global growth. It estimated growth in 2013 to be 3.6%, down from 3.9% in its previous forecast in July." (BBC News, 9 October) Capitalism by its very nature is an unpredictable society based on economic slumps and booms. Rather than listen to the "experts" workers should abolish the whole outmoded system. RD

Fact of the day

Scotland wastes an astonishing £1 billion a year throwing away perfectly good food. As much as one-fifth of the food and drink people buy ends up being dumped in the bin, costing the average Scottish household £430 a year – yet most of it could be consumed.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/revealed-how-scots-throw-away-1bn-worth-of-food-each-year.19076921

much the same there

Scotland recently had Martha Payne, who drew attention to the sad state of school dinners in her blog which the shamed local authority tried to ban .

In eastern Germany more than 11,000 schoolchildren were recently affected by gastrointestinal sickness -- most likely because of what they ate at school. Experts now believe that frozen strawberries from China are behind the massive outbreak of the norovirus

Germany has 11 million children attending 45,000 schools, and the number of them being fed at these schools is rising (a third of all 11- to 15-year-olds already go to school without having had breakfast). As a result, the school catering business is becoming highly competitive and growing at an annual rate of 5 percent. Already today, the five largest school catering companies generate combined revenues of some €160 million ($208 million) in the country. By far the largest of these is the French company Sodexo. The self-described specialist in "quality of life services" offers an extremely broad range of services, from nursing care to cleaning to catering. The company's global sales are estimated at €18 billion, and its 391,000 employees make it one of the 25 largest employers in the world. The family of company founder Pierre Bellon is believed to be the richest family in France. The company and its products quickly fell under suspicion of being at least partially responsible for the mass outbreak of illness in eastern Germany because many of the affected establishments were supplied by its industrial kitchens. Sodexo quickly became sector leaders with rock-bottom prices of €1.55 ($2) per meal and many employees working for low wages, according to the NGG union. Today, 65 Sodexo kitchens supply 200,000 daily meals all across Germany.

The fundamental problem remains the lack of willingness to pay enough for good food. Even Horst de Haan, the head of Sodexo operations in Germany, complains of enormous price pressure "The tendering rules call for an agency to accept the cheapest price," he says.

Berlin's Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district decided that they weren't going to pay more than €2.10 for school lunches. And experts like Ulrike Arens-Azevedo,  professor of nutrition at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, explained "one cannot cook healthy food over the long term for such low prices."

Meanwhile, school children in rich cities, such as Konstanz in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, receive subsidized school lunches that cost roughly €4.50 each, use ingredients from the region and are 40 percent organic. In Gera, on the other hand, a city in the eastern state of Thuringia, meals can't cost more than €2.30, and parents are solely responsible for paying for them. Even the catering companies only receive a fraction of the cost of these low-priced meals. In addition to having to pay all of the 19 percent in value-added tax themselves, they are also responsible for energy, transportation and personnel costs. "Maybe 50 cents of the €2 are left to the caterer to pay for the ingredients," says Polster, the head of the DNSV advocacy association. "That already makes one wonder of what kind of quality they are."

Sarah Wiener, a celebrity chef, calls for schools to receive higher food subsidies. "By having meals at such a low culinary level, we cement a taste for industrial food," she says. "We shouldn't put the profit maximization of a sector over the well-being of our children."

much the same here

InIn America real wages for the bottom 80 percent of households have remained relatively stagnant since the late 1970s. People survived these stagnant wages by working more hours, bringing more family members into the paid labor force, and borrowing more, thanks to easy access to credit. This put enormous stresses on many working families as they got caught on a work-consume-borrow treadmill. But for many, this was the only way to attain or maintain a relative decent standard of living. Overwork and debt masked the reality of falling and stagnant wages.

The total amount of credit card debt exploded, thanks in part to aggressive “debt pushing.” In 2006, there were 6 billion credit card solicitations sent out.The majority of home financing was for second mortgages, not new home acquisitions. Access to easy credit was the drug that enabled millions to live beyond their means.  The consumption engine driving the economic boom between 2000 and 2008 was based on borrowing, not real wage increases. When the economy seized up in 2008 and access to easy credit ground to a halt, so did the consumption engine. Millions of people lost their jobs or a significant household income.

Adapted from here
http://www.alternet.org/books/most-us-will-not-have-better-life-unless-we-turn-tables-super-rich?paging=off

food for thought

New data from the United Nations reveals that there has been progress in reducing the number of hungry people worldwide. But an estimate that nearly 870 million people, one in eight, suffered from chronic undernourishment over the last two years. The vast majority of these people, 852 million, live in developing countries, which means that 15 percent of the developing world suffers from hunger, while 16 million people are undernourished in developed countries.

The FAO estimates that childhood malnutrition causes the deaths of more than 2.5 million children every year.

The situation is particularly bad in Africa, where the number of hungry has grown in the last twenty years from 175 to 239 million.

Food is transported all across the world. Even though according to researchers we currently produce food for 11 billion people there exists food shortages and millions starve.  Yet 1.3bn are obese, condemned to artificially cheap, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor processed food. Today's hunger is permanent and global. It is hunger by design. This does not mean that those who design the contemporary   food systems intend to create hunger. It does mean that creation of hunger is built into the capitalist structure of industrial  production and globalised distribution of food for profit. The dominant myth of big agro-buiness is that it produces more food and is land-saving. However, the more industrialised agriculture spreads, the more hungry people we have. And the more commercial agriculture spreads, the more land is grabbed.

"Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy." writes environmental activist Vandana Shiva.

Much of her argument is for ecological and sustainable systems of food production that work with nature and not against and  has value, yet as socialists frequently encounter, when those social scientists deem technology as a root cause they overlook the economic imperative to create profit for a particular class which according to ourselves is the real root cause. Unless this is addressed directly then no amount of campaigning for reform will change the reality producers and consumers face. Food production reformers talk within an economical and  political vacuum with no real attention given to genuine solutions.

ANOTHER MEDIA ILLUSION

One of the illusions that is presented by the media about the working class is that they are lazy, work-shy and always ready to take a day off work if they think they can get away with it, but the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's recent report seems to prove that this is a media illusion. "Millions of workers are 'too frightened' about losing their job to take time off work when they are sick, even if they are very ill, a report reveals today. The authoritative report says a culture of 'presenteeism' is sweeping Britain as workers decide to come into the office, rather than stay home in bed. A third of bosses have seen an increase in the number of workers 'who struggle into work when unwell' over the last year, according to the report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development." (Daily Mail, 9 October) RD

There's gold in them thar hills...

Scotgold has predicted that jewellery buyers will pay a premium for gold from the firm’s Cononish mine near Tyndrum, where production is set to begin in early 2014. 15 to 20 major Scottish jewellers had shown an interest in the mine, which will be capable of producing around 5,000 ounces of gold a year.

Chairman John Bentley urged Scottish institutional investors to “put their hands in their pockets” and support the project, which will be Scotland’s first commercial gold minehe firm has other prospects in Argyll and Bute, including the River Vein area and Sron Garbh, where it has encountered some “very interesting” signs of platinum, although chief executive Chris Sangster stressed this work was at a very early stage He said: “The level of geological data in Scotland, and probably the rest of the UK, is worse than Burkina Faso, Ghana or Mali. Geophysics for the UK was done in 1955, and we suffer from a lack of fundamental data.”

Fundamentally....

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell...There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.” espoused Congressman Paul Broun, a medical doctor,  from Georgia, who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology responsible for crafting US government policy.

A recent Gallup Poll suggests that 46 percent of Americans think God made humans within the past 10,000 years, while only half the nation believes in evolution.

MONEY TO BURN

Being rich has lots of problems. For instance what do you spend all that loot on? A couple of American fat cats have thought of a couple of ways. "Bob R. Simpson is the co-chairman of the Texas Rangers. He also just spent one million dollars on a penny from the forties. Sounds crazy to us, but what do we know about pennies? Oh yeah! We know that they are usually only worth a penny, which usually equals one cent. So what's the deal, Bob? Also, in an unrelated story, some 15-year-old girl in Texas drove a $300,000 Lamborghini to school. Rich kids will do the darnedest things." (Yahoo News, 21 September) Starving kids? Who cares? Let the kid drive the old banger to school. RD

CAN OF BEANS, ANYONE?

The owning class like to outdo each other in the conspicious consumption of luxuries and to satisfy their needs Electrolux has launched what must be the world's most expensive domestic kitchen. "An arsenal of blast-chillers, sous-vide vacuum packers and ovens powered by computer hard drives, all apparently designed for super-rich MasterChef obsessives, has gone on sale with a lettuce-wilting price tag of £76,000, rising to more than £200,000 if you want the very best ovens. Cupboards, drawers and work surfaces are your own business, adding upwards of £100,000 for the best finishes, say designers. Welcome to the quarter of a million pound kitchen. ... "I am sure some people will buy it only because they believe it's the pinnacle of what is on the market," said Henrik Otto, the designer. "But on the other hand they probably have a private chef who will use it for them. [The market] is people who holiday in the Caribbean, fly there on their private jet and own their own island." (Guardian, 20 September) In a society where millions of people try to exist on on couple of dollars a day billionaires are spending a quarter of a million pounds on a kitchen. That is capitalism in action. RD

Equal Education for All ?

Only seven children from the poorest areas in Edinburgh got grades last year that could place them at St Andrews University or other very competitive courses at Edinburgh and Glasgow. Figures released by the Scottish government under freedom of information legislation also revealed that only 220 of the poorest children within Scotland, who are defined in their background areas via postcode, achieved high grades. Just 2.5 percent of the 8,842 fifth year students from the poorest areas got three or more As in their higher exams. Edinburgh’s state schools are falling behind far more poorer areas in Scotland, as only 1.4 percent of children from its most deprived neighbourhoods are achieving the minimum needed grades for universities or degree courses. As few as 50 got grades good enough to compete for places at Oxford.

Professor Lindsay Paterson, professor of educational policy at Edinburgh university, said "It's not just that Edinburgh's figures are extremely low but that the inequality in Edinburgh is extremely high."

SOME STAGGERING STATISTICS

The basis of capitalism is the working class producing a surplus value over the cost of their wages that allow the owning class to live in ease and luxury. How great that surplus value has become in modern capitalism was recently illustrated by some American statistics. "Just how rich are the Waltons? According to the latest edition of the Forbes 400, released yesterday, the six wealthiest heirs to the Walmart empire are together worth a staggering $115 billion. ..... The average Walmart worker earns just $8.81 an hour. At that wage, the union-backed Making Change at Walmart campaign calculates that a Walmart worker would need 7 million years to earn as much wealth as the Walton family has (presuming the worker doesn't spend anything)" (Mother Jones, 20 September) RD

A FRUIT AND NUT CASE

Capitalism is a social system based on class ownership and sections of the owning class are always in disputes over this ownership. They have legal battles sometimes leading to military battles over the ownership and access to sources of raw materials and markets. Recently there has been a legal dispute over the ownership of a particular colour. "Is chocolate the first thing you think of when you see Pantone 2685C? It might be if I tell you that it is the technical name for Cadbury Daily Milk's distinctive purple. And it does indeed "belong" to Cadbury, after a decision in the High Court yesterday that the confectioner's purple packaging constitutes a trademark." (Times, 2 October) This dispute arose over Cadbury's rival Nestle objection to Cadbury registering the colour as a trademark in 2004. Nestle had already lost in 2008 but decided to appeal the judgement of the Registrar of Trade Marks. Only capitalism with its emphasis on ownership could have highly trained legal minds battling for years over who "owns"a colour. Madness. RD

Fact of the Day

India's health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said 39 million Indians are pushed to poverty because of ill health every year and around 30 per cent in rural India did not go for any treatment due to financial constraints. 60 per of total health expenditure in India was paid by the common man from his own pocket in 2009. The report states that about 47 per cent and 31 per cent of hospital admissions in rural and urban India were financed by loans and sale of assets.

Slaving away in the hospitals

Fears that patient safety may be put in danger by overworked and tired staff were raised today amid warnings that some surgeons and nurses in the Lothians have been working seven days a week solidly for three months. Staff are said to be clocking up 72 hours every week.

Some NHS Lothian staff members – such as surgeons, anaesthetists and  theatre nurses – are being offered extra shifts at evenings and at weekends, as part of the effort to reduce the number of patients waiting longer than the target of 12 weeks for treatment.

NHS Lothian employee director and former vice-chairman Eddie Egan, who raised the issue with the board. He said: “We need to get the waiting list numbers down, but I’m speaking to people working seven days a week and they’ve been doing that for three months in high-pressure environments. I am concerned that staff are being put under pressure. People are feeling  morally obliged to turn up, even if they’re exhausted, because they know patients will be cancelled if they don’t. It’s  potentially putting patients in danger. If you’re working seven days a week, in evenings and are possibly on call, it  reaches a point where you have to query – are people safe?”

 MSP Margo MacDonald said "Think of people with driving jobs who are not allowed to drive for too many hours because they need sleep and rest. If that’s true for drivers it’s certainly true for surgeons and nurses.”

Tom Waterson, Lothian branch chairman for Unison, said  “No-one should be working more than 48 hours in one week,” he said. “The working time directive was not brought in to save money, it was brought in to protect health.”

desperate and in despair

Researchers say a “hidden” population of people refused asylum have been allowed to live on Scottish streets with zero benefits and no right to work in the UK. Hundreds of failed asylum seekers are living in Scotland on less than the UN’s global poverty target of £0.77 ($1.25) a day. Pregnant women, children and people with disabilities are among those who have been left destitute on Scotland’s streets, according to the Scottish Poverty Information Unit. The independent study was commissioned by the British Red Cross, Refugee Survival Trust and the Scottish Refugee Council.

Morag Gillespie of SPIU, said the levels of poverty she found were “dreadful” and that many interviewees were literally penniless with no legitimate means of income. The report states that 1,849 destitute people were given emergency grants from a charity called the Refugee Survival Trust from 2009 to 2012. Almost half (49 per cent) were homeless, including families with children, 26 people with mental health issues, four disabled people and five pregnant women and two new mothers. The asylum seekers came from 67 countries, most often Iran, Iraq and Eritrea. Some interviewees had been in the asylum system for more than a decade.

Gary Christie, of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: "We see people who have been tortured in Iran yet have been refused protection; others fleeing for their lives from the violence of war in Somalia but who don’t meet the terms of the refugee convention or pregnant women whose cases have been turned down and don’t qualify for any support until they reach 32 weeks." He goes on to explain “People are literally being starved into leaving Scotland. People have lost their asylum cases but are left in limbo as there is no way of returning them to their countries. Either the person will not return voluntarily or there is no practical way of achieving the return, as the country won’t accept them back or there is no safe passage to get there. These people are left with no accommodation, no right to work, no benefits and no food. Some people can remain in such a situation for months or years, which is a disgrace.”

The richies of Arabia

 Saudi Arabia has 1,265 wealthy people with a total net worth of $230 billion. The United Arab Emirates ranked second with 810 with a total net worth of $120 billion, followed by Kuwait in the third place with 735 individuals with a total net worth of $125 billion and Qatar in the fourth place has 300 with a total net worth of $45 billion. Syria has 215 people whose total net worth was $23 billion.

 Overall, the total number of the wealthy in the Middle East reached 4,595 people (population of the Arab world over 367 million in 2012) with a total net worth of $710 billion.

The overall number of millionaires around the world has risen to 18,738 with a total net worth of $25.8 trillion.

Against all this wealth there are millions of people living in extreme poverty. On a global level, the World Bank estimates published at the beginning of March 2012 indicate that the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per capita/day amounted to about 1.29 billion in 2008, which is equivalent to 22 per cent of the population of the developing world. 43 per cent exist on less than $2 a day

As the old sayings by Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, cousin of Prophet Mohammed, says: "The rich are fortunate at the expense of the poor"

Quote of the Day

Ryanair's Michael O'Leary said  that being paid his €1.2m (£1m) pay, 20 times more than his average employee,  is too little, claiming to work "50 times harder".

Fact of the Day

Bill Gates is in possession of $60,000 million. If he sat perfectly still and did nothing, his income at a nominal 5 per cent a year would equate to $3,000 million a year. That’s roughly $8 million a day.

who owns the north pole - part 53

In August, China sent its first ship across the Arctic to Europe and it is lobbying intensely for permanent observer status on the Arctic Council, the loose international body of eight Arctic nations that develops policy for the region, arguing that it is a “near Arctic state” and proclaiming that the Arctic is “the inherited wealth of all humankind,” in the words of China’s State Oceanic Administration. Its scientists have become pillars of multinational Arctic research, and their icebreaker has been used in joint expeditions. In Canada, Chinese firms have acquired interests in two oil companies that could afford them access to Arctic drilling. During a June visit to Iceland, Premier Wen Jiabao of China signed a number of economic agreements, covering areas like geothermal energy and free trade. In Greenland, large Chinese companies are financing the development of mines that are being developed around discoveries of gems or minerals by small prospecting companies, said Soren Meisling, head of the China desk at the Bech Bruun law firm in Copenhagen, which represents many of them. A huge iron ore mine under development near Nuuk, for example, is owned by a British company but financed in part by a Chinese steel maker. Chinese mining companies have even proposed building runways for jumbo jets on the ice in Greenland’s far north to fly out minerals until the ice melts enough for shipping.

High-level Chinese diplomats have visited Greenland, where Chinese companies are investing in a developing mining industry, with proposals to import Chinese work crews for construction. Greenland’s minister for industry and mineral resources was greeted by Vice Premier Li Keqiang in China last November. A few months later, China’s minister of land and resources, Xu Shaoshi, traveled to Greenland to sign cooperation agreements. Western nations have been particularly anxious about Chinese overtures to this poor and sparsely populated island, a self-governing state within the Kingdom of Denmark, because the retreat of its ice cap has unveiled coveted mineral deposits, including rare earth metals that are crucial for new technologies like cellphones and military guidance systems. Michael Byers, a professor of politics and law at the University of British Columbia, said“Despite the concerns I have about Chinese foreign policy in other parts of the world, in the Arctic it is behaving responsibly,” he said. “They just want to make money.”

European Union vice president, Antonio Tajani, rushed here to Greenland’s capital in June, offering hundreds of millions in development aid in exchange for guarantees that Greenland would not give China exclusive access to its rare earth metals, calling his trip “raw mineral diplomacy.”

“We are treated so differently than just a few years ago,” said Jens B. Frederiksen, Greenland’s vice premier, in his simple office here. “We are aware that is because we now have something to offer, not because they’ve suddenly discovered that Inuit are nice people.”

Thomas R. Nides, United States deputy secretary of state for management and resources, said the Arctic was becoming “a new frontier in our foreign policy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/science/earth/arctic-resources-exposed-by-warming-set-off-competition.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120919

Who owns the North Pole - Part 52

A Russian Orthodox bishop has lowered a "holy memorial capsule" into the sea at the North Pole in an attempt to "consecrate" the Arctic and reassert Moscow's claims to the territory.

The service was held by Bishop Iakov on the ice alongside the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya during a polar expedition titled "Arctic-2012", organised by the country's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

The metal capsule carried the blessings of the church's leader, bearing the inscription: "With the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the consecration of the North Pole marks 1150 years of Russian Statehood." Bishop Iakov, who is thought to be the first Russian priest to visit the pole, emphasised that the consecration symbolised efforts "to restore Russia's position and confirm its achievements in the Arctic".

 A conservative Moscow think-tank suggested in July that the Arctic Ocean should be renamed the "Russian Ocean" and this week it was announced that MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft will be based in the region by the end of the year.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9571743/Russia-consecrates-North-Pole-to-reassert-ownership.html

The climate change death toll

Findings contained in the “Climate Vulnerability Monitor”—a study sponsored by 20 nations and conducted by the humanitarian and development research organization DARA—point to unprecedented harm to human society and current economic development if runaway carbon emissions are not contained and new models of energy generation and consumption are not pursued. The study estimates human and economic impacts for 184 countries in 2010 and 2030 across a wide range of separate effects. Indicators of impact range from issues such as hunger and skin cancer, to permafrost thawing and sea-level rise, indoor and outdoor air pollution, and fisheries, biodiversity and forest deterioration.

 The cost will be 100 million dead.

workers health and safety - not a priority

Thousands of people are being killed or seriously injured at work because of drastic cutbacks at the UK Government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE), experts are warning. An 80-page report by Stirling University blames a steep rise in major workplace injuries on deep cuts in funding, staff, inspections and enforcement. Just one in 20 major injuries are now investigated by the HSE, and only one in 170 results in prosecution.

Over the past five years the number of major and fatal injuries at work in the UK has increased by 2700 per year, the report says. In the same period, the proportion investigated by HSE has fallen from 8% to 5%, while those prosecuted dropped from 1% to 0.6%. Scotland suffers higher workplace sickness rates than the rest of the UK, yet only 1% of the 2500 fatal and major injuries per year results in prosecutions. The HSE has only one part-time medic to cover Scotland's 2.5 million workers

The HSE's budget has been cut by 13% from £228 million in 2009-10 to £199m in 2011-12, with further cuts planned. Its staff numbers have been reduced by 22% from 3702 in 2010 to 2889 in June this year. The Sunday Herald reported that the number of industrial sites inspected by Scottish Environment Protection Agency had been cut by one-third in a year.

 The HSE is becoming a "threadbare" agency, say the report's authors, Professors Rory O'Neill and Andrew Watterson, from Stirling University's Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group: "Workplace safety inspections are now so infrequent it is unlikely most workers will ever encounter an inspector in a working lifetime...Between the catastrophes, the slow disaster of more routine environmental and workplace harm continues unabated and largely unpoliced" 

Prospect, the trade union that represents HSE inspectors and specialist staff, has warned that cutbacks have reduced proactive inspections of high-hazard sites by one-third, while most workplaces are exempt from unannounced, preventive inspections.

 Efforts by the health and safety watchdog to prevent the 8000 deaths caused each year by work-related cancers have been condemned as "feeble" according to Professor Andrew Watterson. An HSE board meeting report said cancers were to blame for 8000 of the 12,000 deaths a year due to occupational illnesses.

In addition, there were 14,000 new cases of workplace cancers registered every year. By far the biggest killer is asbestos, which is responsible for nearly 4000 deaths a year. Up to 1.8 million tradespeople are at risk of getting mesothelioma and cancers of the lung, larynx and stomach from exposure to asbestos in buildings. But the HSE, a government body, has recently ended its "hidden killer" campaign aimed at highlighting the dangers. Up to 800 deaths a year are caused when stonemasons, quarriers, foundry workers and others inhale silica dust. More than 600 deaths are attributed to exhaust emissions from diesel engines, including of drivers, miners and construction workers. There is evidence that the stress of prolonged night shifts can trigger more than 500 fatal breast cancers a year. Other major causes of occupational cancers are paints, welding, a toxic chemical used in dry cleaning and radon, a radioactive gas.

 Watterson wants the HSE to crack down on companies that expose workers to cancer risks. He accused the HSE of failing to respond to repeated calls for action since the 1980s, saying: "It appears to lack expertise and staff to address this subject, partly due to the rundown of its occupational medicine staff and the massive Westminster cuts that it has received." Inspectors are being pulled back from checking on plants packed full of cancer-causing chemicals, Watterson alleged.

second class citizens

A committee of MSPs has said it is "appalled and horrified" by the discrimination suffered by Gypsies and travelling people in Scotland. The Equal Opportunities Committee said there had been repeated failures on access to health and social care for the travelling community. Many encampments were of poor quality and located beside landfill sites. Its report said very little had changed for travellers over the past 15 years.

The committee's convener, Mary Fee MSP, said: "If we were to substitute any other ethnic minority instead of Gypsy/travellers in our report there would be uproar at the obvious racial discrimination."

dirty glesgae

Glasgow is the most polluted city in the UK – and the fifth worst in Europe – for key traffic-related emissions, according to a new report.

It was the only city in Britain, except Leicester, shown to be failing European standards on nitrogen dioxide, which is caused by exhaust fumes and industrial pollution. The report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) ranked Glasgow at No5 for the toxic gas out of nearly 400 cities assessed. It is one of only ten places that breached the NO2 limit in 2010, the year it was supposed to be met.

The deadly dioxide exacerbates lung disease and related respiratory problems. The EEA warned that poor air-quality levels were wiping two years off people’s lives in the most polluted cities. WWF Scotland director Dr Richard Dixon said: “This report identifies that nitrogen dioxide is causing health problems for people in Glasgow and bringing forward their deaths. It is killing people."

health rationing

Heart attack patients in Scotland are repeatedly being denied the latest life-saving treatments to save money, a leading cardiologist has warned.  Professor Keith Oldroyd, director of research and development at the flagship Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank, said Scotland lagged years behind the rest of the UK and Europe when it came to introducing new drugs and techniques.

Professor Oldroyd said cardiologists had been waiting for 18 months to start using a drug called ticagrelor, which has been shown to increase the survival chances of heart-attack victims. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has only agreed to its use in a small number of exceptional cases. Professor Oldroyd explained : "There is a single reason for this restriction and that is cost containment..." (our emphasis)

the poison of nationalism

Thousands of people took part in a pro-independence march and rally in Edinburgh yesterday. In response Socialist Courier posts some relevant quotations from various famous figures.

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."  -  Albert Einstein, The World As I See It, 1934

Political scientist Benedict Anderson describes nations as socially constructed "imagined communities," because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion."

"So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbours. The citizen of the universe would the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer." - Voltaire, "Fatherland" in "Miracles and Idolatry" (Selections from the Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)

"It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars" - Arthur C. Clarke, "The Exploration of Space" (1951)

"Our true nationality is mankind." - H.G. Wells

"I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world." - Eugene V Debs

"The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The workers have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got" - Communist Manifesto

“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and a common fear of its neighbors.” - W.R. Inge

"The love of one's country is a splendid thing.  But why should love stop at the border?"   - Pablo Casals, Spanish cellist and composer

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." - E.M. Forster

Dr. Samuel Johnson said "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Oscar Wilde said "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." - George Bernard Shaw

“Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy” - George Bernard Shaw

“Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen” - Ambrose Bierce, American writer

“Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.” -  Guy de Maupassant, French writer

"Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill and calling for larger spurs and brighter beaks.” - "The Colonel's Daughter" by Richard Aldington

"Tell people that patriotism is bad and most of them will laugh and say: ‘Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but my patriotism is good!’ ” - Leo Tolstoy

“Patriotism is a superstition, one far more injurious, brutal and inhumane than religion.” - Gustave Herve

Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition." -  Emma Goldman, "What is Patriotism?" (1908)

"Humans fighting over who owns the land is like fleas fighting over who owns the dog" - Crocodile Dundee.

Fact of the Day

Men from low socio-economic backgrounds living in deprived areas are ten times more likely to die by suicide than men from high socio-economic backgrounds living in the most affluent areas.

 Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-uk-middle-aged-men-die-suicide.html#jCp

the capitalist myth

 America is famed for its principles of equality but researcher Richard Florida says America is plagued by wider class divisions than many other nations. "The likelihood that a person will remain in the same income bracket as his or her parents is greater in the United States than in France, as well as Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Singapore -- and even Pakistan," 

 A report by United for a Fair Economy on the 2011 Forbes 400 rich-list reveal 40% of the individuals received a "significant economic advantage in their lives by inheriting a sizeable asset from a spouse or family member." Strikingly, more than a fifth received sufficient wealth to make the list from this inheritance alone. The truth is that Americans have never had an equal opportunity to become wealthy. Too much attention is paid to stories of personal success, without noting that these are the exception, not the rule.

"Each story calculatedly glamorizes the myth of the 'self-made man' while minimizing the many other factors that enable wealth, such as tax policies, other government policies that favor the wealthy, and the importance of being born to the right family, gender and race."

According to the report: The net worth of the Forbes 400 grew fifteen-fold between the launch of the list in 1982 and 2011, while wealth stagnated for the average U.S. household. The richest 0.1% receive half of all net increases in capital gains. The racial wealth divide is starkly apparent from the overwhelming whiteness of the list. The 2011 Forbes 400 had only one African American member. Women accounted for just 10% of the 2011 list, and of the women on the list nearly 90% inherited their fortunes.

 Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. If a poor guy robs a 7/11 for $20, he'd get 20 years in jail. If a Wall Streeter, steals a billion through fraud; he'd get special tax breaks! In the early days of the American Civil War J.P. Morgan purchased 5,000 dangerously defective Hall's Carbines being liquidated by the U.S. Government at a cost of $3.50 each. The rifles were later resold to the government as new carbines at a cost of $22.

The SNP - Tories in Kilts!

The SNP finance secretary John Swinney confirmed civil servants and NHS staff would have to accept another year of real-terms pay cuts, as he unveiled his spending plans to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government deal means a third year of falling salaries for many public sector staff, who have already endured a two-year freeze imposed by ministers and local government chief

Unions accused Mr Swinney of “slavishly” following the Tory-Lib Dem coalition’s austerity plans, saying he could have juggled his spending priorities to give public-sector workers in Scotland a better deal. Lynn Henderson, the PCS union’s Scottish secretary said his proposals made him look like “George Osborne in a kilt... It is time for Mr Swinney to pay up and time for the Scottish Parliament to utilise the powers it has to invest in the economy and protect public services, not rob Peter to pay Paul.”. He sought to sugar the pill by guaranteeing he would commit to the £7.50-an-hour living wage but that extra help for low-paid workers was given short shrift by union leaders. They said it would probably affect only about 15,000 people out of more than 500,000 who work in Scotland’s public sector.

The 1 per cent pay deal is set to be a focal point for an anti-austerity march organised by the unions next month in Glasgow and London. Union leaders said strike action would then be considered in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK. The leader of Unison, Dave Prentis, has already warned that, if negotiations to boost pay and conditions are not successful, there will be “co-ordinated action”.

 Local government chiefs, who set pay for teachers and other council workers, said they were to begin talks on their 2013 pay package, with no guarantee even the 1 per cent deal could be matched.

who owns the North Pole - part 51

Arctic ice is melting faster than ever expected, according to new data, leading oil companies and northern countries to jockey for position to access newly accessible wealth unlocked by global warming. In the past four years energy giant Shell alone has spent more than $4.5bn trying to develop offshore fields near Alaska’s sometimes frozen coast. Along with unlocking new resources, melting ice of the Arctic could open up profitable sea routes.

“The economics of the Arctic are going to be the driving force of how the region is shaped for years to come,” Heather Conley, an Arctic expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Al Jazeera. “Platinum, oil and gas, and rare earth minerals are shaping how the Arctic will develop...This rapidly transforming Arctic means coastal states have new borders [due to melting ice] they have to pay attention to,” Conley said. “In the past two or three years, coastal states have had to reposition their security forces to be able to protect those borders.” Under maritime law, countries can assert sovereignty up to 200 miles from their coast line. Article 76 of the UN convention allows states to extend control if they can prove their continental shelves – underwater geological formations - extend further than 200 miles. So far, the battle for unclaimed land has focused more on geological charts, rather than nuclear submarines. “It will be difficult to balance the desire for economic gains with strong environmental stewardship,” Conley said. If one adds in competing claims from rival states and rising sea levels due to melting ice, things in the Arctic are likely to heat up, just like global temperatures.

The Arctic Council, a body established in 1996 to discuss environmental and policy issues, includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the US. Some NGOs, including the World Wildlife Fund, have permanent observer status on the Council. China wants permanent observer status on the council, but it has yet to be granted. "China has a great interest in northern sea routes being opened for trade,” Christian Le Miere, a maritime security expert in London, told Al Jazeera. “It has built a second nuclear icebreaker, which shows it is looking at Arctic transit and has been making a diplomatic push on Iceland, which it sees as a potential transport hub.”
 There are obvious tensions. Countries, “Russia and Canada especially”, are using nationalist rhetoric in the far north, but that is likely linked to politicians who want to look tough for domestic audiences, maritime analyst Le Miere said. There are, however, clear moves for states to assert their presence in areas where they previously paid scant attention.
“There are some increases in military capacity” but mostly in patrolling and surveillance. Northern countries are trying to create a “new security state” to manage warming territory, he said adding that the “increase to project power outside of national territory is quite limited” said Kristofer Bergh, an analyst at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden. One potential flash point could be the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range with potential resource riches, claimed by Canada, Russia and Denmark.

Unequal wages

 Banking and insurance industries windfalls accounted for 36 per cent of the £37 billion of bonuses across the economy, the ONS revealed, despite just 4 per cent of total employees working in the finance and insurance industry. Workers in the banking and insurance industries pocketed average bonuses of £12,000 in the last financial year dwarfing payouts in the wider UK economy, where bonuses averaged £1,400. (although we should realise that averages does not mean ordinary bank workers achieved such high bonuses which were reserved for the City financiers)

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “It is a disgrace that the lure of big bonuses fuelled the recession and yet today’s figures show finance workers still bringing home more in bonuses than many public service workers get paid in a year. The pay freeze is having a devastating impact on the families of nurses, home care workers, paramedics, dinner ladies and millions more public service workers. At the other end of the spectrum the government is happy to sit back and let the bonus culture go on. It is time to tackle this divided Britain and put an end to this damaging pay freeze.”

Fact of the Day

More than half of Germany's privately-owned assets are held by the country's richest 10%. Meanwhile, less than 1% is owned by the bottom 50%, according to a new German government report.

 40% of full-time employees suffered a decline in wages once inflation was factored in.

Fact of the day

Britain possesses 10,100 multi-millionaires who have a combined wealth of £690 billion,

Glasgow has 158 “ultra-high net worth individuals” and Edinburgh 134, according to research firm Wealthinsight.

Fact of the day

Fact of the Day

Earth’s richest 1,000 individuals now control as much wealth as the poorest 2.5 billion people on the planet. This capitalist class uses its vast wealth to control the media, influence politicians, and bend laws to their favour.