COVID-19

Not Everyone Is Feasting

November 30, 2021 Sasha Abramsky, Truthout. Educate! COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Food Insecurity, Pandemic

As the COVID pandemic upended the economy in the spring and summer of 2020, tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs and became ever more vulnerable to hunger. In consequence, the country’s network of food banks saw a sudden spike in usage. Just prior to, and at the start of the pandemic, food banks distributed 1.1 billion pounds of food in the first quarter of 2020. By the fall of that year, they were handing out 1.7 billion pounds. Since then, that dizzying increase has leveled off or fallen somewhat in many places, but that doesn’t mean the country’s no longer suffering an epidemic of food insecurity. To the contrary: Large food banks around the country are still reporting far higher levels of need — and of food distribution to attempt to meet that need — than was the case prior to COVID.

Carers Of The World Vs. Covid-19 Criminals

November 29, 2021 Varsha Gandikota-nellutla, Progressive International. Resist! COVID-19, Health Care, Human Rights, Vaccines

As we enter the third year of the Covid-19 crisis, two battles are underway. One is led by the carers of the world in overcrowded hospitals, fighting to end the pandemic. Another is by corporate executives in closed boardrooms, fighting to prolong it. The question at the very center of both is this — who will control medical recipes worth billions of dollars, and millions of lives? As some countries roll out booster programs, less than 6% of Africa’s more than a billion people have been fully inoculated. Big pharmaceutical companies are letting the pandemic go on — and why not, according to a recent estimate, Pfizer is expected to make astronomical profits —$107bn in cumulative sales by the end of 2022 on its Covid-19 vaccines, now being dubbed a “megablockbuster.”

Portugal’s Home Working Laws Are A Model For The Post-Pandemic World

November 27, 2021 Andrew Kersley, Tribune Magazine. Create! COVID-19, Portugal, Work From Home, Worker Rights and Jobs

When Covid first spread to the UK, the only thing that might have topped the public consciousness more than the pandemic itself were debates about ‘working from home’. From its effectiveness and impact on office economies to the future of work itself, these debates have since been inescapable. But as cliché as it is, this shift in the way we work has completely changed what we understand as the rights of the worker—as well as what it means to work. A huge number of jobs can’t be done remotely. Even during lockdowns, as many as 10.6 million people, or a third of the overall workforce, were employed in key worker industries. But more and more of are likely to be working from home in future.

We Need Far More Radical Thinking Than Any COP26 Deal

November 18, 2021 Paul Rogers, Open Democracy. Organize! climate crisis, COP 26, COVID-19, Wars and Militarism

Three issues arise directly from COP26. Firstly, the architects of the COP21 Paris agreement, Christiana Figueres and Laurence Tubiana, believe that yet more negotiations will have to follow COP26 next year. Secondly, the respected Climate Action Tracker put the consequences of what had so far been agreed, both before and during the summit, at a 2.4°C rise in temperature. Thirdly, and perhaps most daunting of all, even if a firm agreement is reached to keep the increase to 1.5°C, we are already experiencing the severity of climate change at the present 1.2° level. When extreme weather events such as floods, wildfires and storms affect the Global North, they attract plenty of attention. There is still much less focus on the far greater impact of extreme weather on the Global South, which is a persistent source of bitterness given the failure of richer countries to implement the agreement for $100bn of support for poorer states.

Cubans Are More Excited About School Reopening Than Regime Change

November 17, 2021 Medea Benjamin, Mintpress News. Educate! COVID-19, Cuba, Schools, US Imperialism

Havana - “If you build it, they will come,” said Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams. In Cuba, they didn’t come. Dissidents on the island, with their U.S. backers, had been working feverishly for months to turn the unprecedented July 11 protests into a crescendo of government opposition on November 15. They built a formidable structure, with sophisticated social media (including an abundance of fake news), piles of cash from Cuban Americans and the U.S. government, and declarations of support from a bipartisan Congress and all the way up to the White House. Even after the Cuban government denied the protesters a permit on the grounds that they were part of a destabilization campaign led by the United States, anti-government forces insisted that they were undeterred and were ready to take the risks.

School Bus Drivers In Nationwide Strikes Over Poor Pay And Covid Risk

November 17, 2021 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. Resist! Bus Driver, COVID-19, Public schools, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

Yellow school buses are part of the American streetscape, familiar to families across the US and an easily recognizable symbol the world over. But the drivers of the vehicles that shuttle America’s children to and from school are now caught up in the wave of labor unrest sweeping across the US in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Strikes, walkouts, protests or sick-outs among school bus drivers have taken place this fall in many states including North Carolina, New Mexico, Maryland, Florida, Indiana, Georgia Pennsylvania and New York among others. Some school districts have periodically closed schools due to bus driver shortages or changed school schedules to accommodate the shortage. Other districts have raised pay and offered sign-on bonuses to try to lure workers into vacant school bus driver positions.

Campaigners Petition UN To Investigate Discriminations In Global COVID-19 Vaccine Roll-Out

November 12, 2021 InterPressService News. Resist! COVID-19, Racism, United Nations, Vaccine apartheid

Geneva - An international coalition of human rights law groups, public health experts, and civil society organizations is taking legal action against the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland, on the grounds that these countries are in violation of international human rights law by failing to intervene on what has been an inequitable and racially discriminatory roll-out of the vaccine and other COVID healthcare technologies. In an appeal to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the coalition charges that by failing to lift intellectual property barriers on all COVID-19 medical technologies through a TRIPS waiver (or to effectively implement it through technology transfers), the US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland are in violation of the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a human rights convention ratified by nearly all countries in the world.

Nicaragua’s Elections – The Reality

November 6, 2021 Yader Lanuza, Tortilla con Sal. Educate! COVID-19, Electoral Politics, Nicaragua, US Imperialism

The Nicaraguan elections are on Nov. 7, 2021. The US government, the media that does its bidding, and even some self-described “leftists,” present a Nicaragua in “turmoil” and “crisis” – and the elections as a farce. These attacks against the Sandinista government also emanate from academics, intellectuals, and journalists with ties to the members of the now-defunct MRS, an organization with no political relevance or popular support whose members pretend to be leftist to an international audience but support the Nicaraguan right-wing and do the bidding of the US – betraying both Sandinismo and Nicaragua.

COVID Hit The Working Class Hardest, But The Traditional Left Is Deaf To Them

October 31, 2021 Dakotah Lilly, RT. Strategize! Class Struggle, COVID-19, Left, Media

The ruling class across Europe and in the US would rather see people divided than united against oligarchy, that’s why Left populism coupled with the working-class outlook represents a greater threat to the establishment. In the aftermath of the recent German Federal election many people were wondering how Die Linke (The Left) had become so relegated to the sidelines as to lose 30 seats and become the smallest party in Germany’s parliament. Many liberal publications were quick to place blame on Sahra Wagenknecht, one of Die Linke’s most prolific politicians, for the release of her book “The Self Righteous.” In the book, Wagenknecht attacks “lifestyle leftists” for whom being on the Left has become more about labels, identity, and lifestyles rather than the working-class roots that made leftist politics such a threat to the political establishment in the first place.

Deadly US Sanctions Are Exacerbating The Pandemic Globally

October 28, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Truthout. Educate! Class Struggle, COVID-19, Health Care, US Sanctions

There was a sigh of relief for people who are concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic when President Biden took office in January. After a year of COVID denial, Biden promised to “follow the science” and put more effort into containing the virus than the Trump administration did. But 10 months later, a new report by the Department of the Treasury makes it clear that “following the science” only applies when it protects the profits of the wealthy class. On January 21, President Biden issued a National Security Memorandum that, in a section titled, “COVID-19 Sanctions Relief,” ordered various departments to “review existing United States and multilateral financial and economic sanctions to evaluate whether they are unduly hindering responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide recommendations to the President.”

COVID-19 Prevention No Match For Crowded, Poorly Ventilated Housing

October 28, 2021 Juan Moreno Haines, Shadow Proof. Educate! COVID-19, health, Prison, Prisoner rights

In the months since COVID-19 wreaked havoc inside California’s 35 prisons and claimed 240 incarcerated lives, practically nothing has been done to address the crowded and poorly ventilated housing units that have helped the virus spread. At San Quentin State Prison, COVID-19 infected three-quarters of its incarcerated residents and dozens required hospitalization. It killed 28 prisoners and a correctional sergeant, prompting a court to call the incident the “worst epidemiological disaster in California correctional history” last October. A near full-scale shutdown from March 2020 to May 2021 didn’t thwart the virus’ disastrous effect on San Quentin residents. The deaths took place while prisoners spent more than 23-hours-a-day locked inside their cells with two people assigned to each one.

Diné Organization Files Petition Against United States, Cites Human Rights Violations

October 22, 2021 Darren Thompson, Native News Online. Resist! COVID-19, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Navajo nation

For decades, the people on Navajo Nation have had no drinking water, due to uranium mining. Today, the Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) submitted the additional documents needed for a petition it filed in 2011 against the United States over the issue, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In a Washington Post Live program on Tuesday, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said up to forty percent of Navajo people do not have running water or electricity in their homes, including his own family. “I’m the President of the Navajo Nation, my family does not have running water, and yet, I am the President of the Navajo Nation,” said Nez during the livestream.

Half A Million South Korean Workers Walk Off Jobs In General Strike

October 21, 2021 Jia Hong And Ju-hyun Park, Truthout. Resist! COVID-19, National Strike, South Korea, Worker Rights and Jobs

Today, South Korea ranks third in highest annual working hours and as of 2015 it was third in workplace deaths among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Over 40 percent of all workers are considered “irregular workers.” As in the U.S., many of these irregular workers labor in the gig economy, beholden to tech giants’ apps. With an economy and society dominated by corporate conglomerates known as chaebol, South Korean people face increasingly bleak prospects. The top 10 percent of earners claimed 45 percent of total income in 2016, real estate speculation has led to a housing crisis, and privatization in education and health care are expanding disparities. As South Korea undergoes blowback from the effects of COVID-19 on the global economy, these crises have only sharpened.

Workers At Beverage Giant Refresco Defeated A ‘Notorious’ Union Buster

October 20, 2021 Alice Herman, In These Times. Resist! COVID-19, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As the spread of Covid-19 forced millions of workplaces to close in March 2020, Cesar Moreira continued to report to a bottling plant in Wharton, N.J., where he works as a batching technician. During 12-hour shifts, Moreira mixes vats of powdered concentrate and sugar to churn out brand-name beverages like Gatorade and Arizona Iced Tea. Management for Resfresco Beverages Inc., the owner of the plant and one of the largest bottling companies, told workers these operations fell under the umbrella of “essential services.” Moreira was incredulous. “One batch of 8,000 gallons of lemon-lime Gatorade contains 5,500 pounds of liquid sugar,” he says, speaking to In These Times in Spanish. That the company would risk the health of its employees to maintain the supply of sugary drinks angered him.

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