HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN CRISIS

"The dire situations in cyclone-battered Myanmar and quake-tossed southwestern China and the impulse of many to offer relief have a lot to do with human nature. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors likely did it, and non-human primates do it. We are hard-wired to help others, to drop everything in crisis situations, scientists say. "People do really respond in these crisis situations where it's really a short-term matter of life or death," said Daniel Kruger at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. The motivation to give dates back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, he said." (Yahoo News, 19 May)) RD

THE BEAR NECCESSITIES

"The polar bear should be removed from the endangered species list because its protected status will hamper drilling for oil and gas in Alaska, the state's Republican Governor has demanded." (Times, 23 May) RD

MEDIEVAL NONSENSE

"Over the past year alone I have received requests from around 350 people who think they are possessed by an evil spirit," says Father Joerg Mueller, who heads a group of priests, doctors and therapists to deal with the problem. "Therapy hasn't worked for them; they want exorcisms - a prayer that can free them." ... "Father Gabriele Amoth, the Vatican exorcist-in-chief, has performed the ritual more than 40,000 times. The Vatican aim appears to be to place one exorcist in each diocese to ensure that the distressed do not drift away from the Church." (Times, 22 May) RD

MORE MADNESS

"The Harry Winston Opus 8 looks like a seventies LCD watch, but it's actually hand-wound and mechanical, with the elements displaying the time pushed up by a tiny disc. Only 50 were made, from white gold, and they sold out fast. The price? Around £215,000." (Times Magazine, 24 May) RD

ADSPEAK NONSENSE

Joan O'Connor, Coca-Cola spokeswoman, on Glaceau Vitaminwater, the company's first bottled water since the Dasani disaster : "This is not water; it’s an active lifestyle brand." (Times, 24 May) RD

CAPITALIST MADNESS

"Even Giorgi Armani has now designed a pen - all understated black with silver embellishment. The fountain pen will be on sale in Harrod's from June for £2,300." (Times, 23 May) RD

Nature loss 'to hurt global poor'

Damage to forests, rivers, marine life and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor, a major report is to conclude.

G8 environment ministers meeting in Japan last weekend agreed a document noting that "biodiversity is the basis of human security and... the loss of biodiversity exacerbates inequality and instability in human society". But the main CBD target agreed by all signatories at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992 - to "halt and begin to reverse" biodiversity loss by 2010 - is very unlikely to be met.

A new International

Even in the 19th Century it w2as recognised that capitalism was a world wide system and that the working class required an international workers association to effectively resist the bosses .

Once again trade unions are recognising the global effects of the employers and are re-organising appropriately .

The Finiancial Times reports a historic alliance between Unite, Britain's biggest trade union, and the almost 1m-strong United Steelworkers union in North America is about to create the first transatlantic union, with more than 2.5m working members.

The move is designed to provide greater protection for workers whose jobs are threatened by the spread of global capitalism. The UK and US partners hope unions from other countries will join the alliance, increasing its strength.

Amicus had previously signed co-operation deals with USW and the International Association of Machinists in the US, and the IG Metall union in Germany, while the T&G had forged working relationships in the US with the Teamsters and SEIU, the services sector union.

Previous examples of cross-border union co-operation include T&G's support for the Teamsters' campaign against FirstGroup, the UK-based bus and train operator accused of frustrating attempts by unions to organise workers at its expanding US business.

"One of the main reasons for the merger between Amicus and the T&G was our desire to create an international trade union that would be able to deal with multinational companies on an equal footing and organise working people in even greater numbers," said Derek Simpson, Unite's joint general secretary last year."Multinational companies are pushing down wages and conditions for workers the world over by playing one national workforce off against another. The only beneficiaries of globalisation are the exploiters of working people and the only way working people can resist this is to organise and band together."

the last post

Mail late ? Lost letter ? Package damaged ? That local post office shut down ?

Never mind . Royal Mail's boss has been rewarded for his efficiency ...at least according to Royal Mail bosses .

Chief executive Adam Crozier earned more than £3m last year.

Mr Crozier got just over £1m in pay and pensions, plus a bonus of almost £2m.

Royal Mail said Mr Crozier had exceeded expectations and met all the targets set for him.

Losses for 2007 had widened to £279m, compared with a loss of £10m a year earlier.

Its stamped letters business made a loss for the first time in the last financial year.

2,500 post offices were being closed to save money

THE REALITIES OF CAPITALISM

"Dagaari, Somalia - The global food crisis has arrived at Safia Ali’s hut. She cannot afford rice or wheat or powdered milk anymore. At the same time, a drought has decimated her family’s herd of goats, turning their sole livelihood into a pile of bleached bones and papery skin. The result is that Ms. Safia, a 25-year-old mother of five, has not eaten in a week. Her 1-year-old son is starving too, an adorable, listless boy who doesn’t even respond to a pinch." (New York Times, 17 May) RD

LEGAL TAX DODGERS

"Some of Britain's biggest listed companies, including several that have threatened to re-domicile abroad, paid little or no corporation tax in Britain in 2007. Research by The Times shows that the FTSE-100 companies - Cadbury, Standard Chartered and British American Tobacco, which have a combined market capitalisation of £75 billion, employed almost 11,000 UK staff and generated more than £6 billion in global profits, - paid zero corporation tax in Britain last year." (Times, 20 May) RD

AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?

Socialists are always told that we are dreamers. That capitalism is the only system possible and that we should accept it. When we talk of the millions that have died in wars, famines and natural disasters we are told that even inside socialism natural disasters will occur. We accept that, but what of the recent natural disasters that have occurred inside China and Burma? Attempts to relieve the effects of the Burmese disaster have been hindered by a ruling clique fearful of their grip on power and in China the evidence seems to point to an awful natural disaster made more awful by capitalism's production of cheap buildings to keep down costs. Inside socialism no one will die of hunger or war and when natural disasters occur we will deal with them in a compassionate fashion. This may appear dream-like to supporters of capitalism, but that is only because they support the nightmare society of capitalism. RD

RYANAIR! WHAT'S RYANAIR?

"Users of private jets have struck on an exciting new way to save the planet. Instead of flying solo on a jet, the super-rich can now team up to share a plane. The brainwave comes from The Private Jet Club, which suggests that its mile high version of the car pool would be ideal for people who desperately need to get to their second home in France, or to a conference or a trade event." (Times, 20 May) RD

Lazy Workers !!!

From the BBC

A 30-year-old Toyota worker who collapsed at one of its plants had died of overwork.
It emerged that the man had worked 106 hours of overtime in his final month, most of it unpaid.

Unions say that companies generally see working unpaid overtime as a sign of loyalty. Toyota has a reputation for using employees' ideas to improve production methods and efficiency and reduce costs.

And they dare call workers lazy

A SENSE OF VALUES?

"The massacre of the silverback Senkekwe, along with five other rare apes, made the cover of US magazine Newsweek under the headline "Gorilla Warfare". In Britain, the "Murders In The Mist" prompted The Sun to launch its own campaign, and around the globe people wrote in to media outlets, telling of the sleepless nights and trauma the images had caused. For Anneke van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch, it was a case of gritting one's teeth. "Kill a mountain gorilla in Congo and it gets much more coverage than five million dead," she says. "It irks me every time." Trawling through the archives of British newspapers for the first four months of 2008, the point is hammered home. The slaughter of elephants in Congo to make ivory chopsticks appears to be the most widely reported story. Another popular item is the arrest of sorcerers suspected of stealing or shrinking human penises. Breaking the trend of wildlife stories and wild tales are Financial Times articles about Congo's vast mineral resources, a Guardian feature on plans to build the world's biggest dam across the Congo river and a report about Kinshasa's vibrant music scene in this newspaper. Conspicuously absent are dispatches about the humanitarian crisis, the legacy of the worst conflict since 1945, and a crisis that is still killing an estimated 1,200 people every day. Although Congo's war officially ended in 2002, malaria, cholera and malnutrition mean that the equivalent of the population of Manchester will be wiped out this year. (Independent, 12 May) RD

THE STUPIDITY OF CAPITALISM

"Even if the shot isn't dazzling, now the golf-ball marker can be. Tri Mark Golf's luxe version is handcrafted from 18-karat white gold and studded with diamonds, citrine, amethyst and peridots. It's also highly functional, with a numbered measuring system that lets golfers figure out how many putter heads away the ball is. And when not dressing up the green, it can be put on a chain and worn as a necklace; buy it for $10,500 (trimarkgolf.com)." (NewsWeek, 5 May) RD

A STRANGE KIND OF FREEDOM

"An Afghan journalism student sentenced to death for insulting Islam denied the charges before an appeals court Sunday, saying he only confessed to questioning the religion's treatment of women because he was tortured.. ...Afghan media have flourished since the fall of the hard-line Taliban regime following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Newspapers and TV and radio stations have opened nationwide. But journalists face violence for news stories that criticize government leaders, warlords and religious clerics or challenge their often authoritarian views. (Yahoo News, 18 May) RD

LAND OF THE FREE?

"The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come. The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." (New York Times, 17 May) RD

WORDS OF WISDOM

"Albert Einstein regarded religions as "childish" and "primitive legends", a private letter he wrote a year before his death has revealed. The great scientist's views on religion have long been debated, with many seizing upon phrases such as "He [God] does not throw dice" as evidence that he believed in a creator. But the newly-unveiled letter, a response to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, has cast doubt on the theory that Einstein had any belief in God at all towards to the end of his life. In the letter, dated January 3 1954, he wrote: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." (Daily Telegraph, 13 May) RD

Marketing kids and education

David Buckingham, a professor at the Institute of Education, University of London and a leading authority on children and the media, said that the "privatisation" of schools could be affecting children's education...The involvement of commercial companies in the running of schools - that's something which potentially has implications for children's wellbeing," he said.
"From my point of view commercial resources in classrooms - Shell's introduction to the oil industry, Coke machines in schools - there's a continuum from there to commercial companies that provide school meals, to commercial companies being involved in education on all sorts of levels including management...Carphone Warehouse, Microsoft, Dixons and Granada Learning are all running academies. The schools minister, Lord Adonis, has said that every school should be in partnership with a business, and the government is promoting trust schools, which see businesses helping to run and advise schools.
Buckingham said the links went further than academies. Firms were increasingly sponsoring school sport, music classes and homework clubs, in what amounted to "privatising" state schools, he said...Buckingham said there was convincing evidence that the amount of marketing to children was intensifying and it was happening at a younger age.