MADRID, Jul 14 2022 (IPS)* – While the world’s big private business pours billions of dollars in producing automatic machines and assuring their optimal functioning, barely no money has been invested in the hundreds of millions of human workers, who are left shockingly unprotected, treated like cheap robots, or even worse.
Teenage girls harvest tomatoes on a farm in the state of Sinaloa, in northern Mexico. Credit: Courtesy of Instituto Sinaloense para la Educación de los Adultos (Sinaloa Institute for Adult Education)
For example, of all domestic workers worldwide -overwhelmingly women- up to 94% lack access to the full range of protections, covering medical care, sickness, unemployment, old age, employment injury, family, maternity, invalidity and survivors’ benefits.
Let’s look at NATO’s reaction to Russia’s ill-considered and international law-violating military action in Ukraine.
From a conflict-analytical point of view, it is reasonable to say that Russia is responsible for the war but that NATO with it reckless expansion against all promises given to Russia and a series of expert warnings is responsible for the underlying conflict.
It can safely be concluded that the Western/NATO response has moved beyond the proportionality principle, beyond rationality and a realistic image of the world and its own role in it:
NATO leaders express limitless hatred of everything Russia; historically hard and time-unlimited economic sanctions have been imposed – using the illegal method of collective punishment; weapons for an estimated US$ 60-100 billion will be pumped into Ukraine to defeat Russia there.
NATO has added US$ 350 billion in military expenditures since the US-instigated regime change in Kiev in 2014 and, since then, prepared Ukraine for a role in NATO. The 2% goals is now a floor, not a ceiling.
12 years of Tory rule have devastated the UK economy. But none of the leadership candidates want to change course.
The Conservative Party is set to elect a new leader | Composite by James Battershill/openDemocracy/Alamy stock photo
12 July 2022 (openDemocracy)* — The campaign to replace Boris Johnson as UK prime minister kicked into full gear this week. First out of the blocks was former chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is currently the bookies’ favourite to win the race.
(UN News)* — In addition to tackling COVID and the monkeypox outbreak, the UN health agency has also been keeping a close eye on the puzzling spread of hepatitis in previously healthy children, which has left dozens needing lifesaving liver transplants.
According to a new update on Wednesday [13 July 2022] from the World Health Organization (WHO), 35 countries in five regions of the world have now reported more than 1,010 probable cases of unexplained severe acute hepatitis, or liver inflammation, in youngsters, since the outbreak was first detected on 5 April.
(UN News)* — Rising COVID-19 cases are not only putting further pressure on already stretched health systems and workers but also triggering an “increasing trend of deaths”, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists at the regular weekly press briefing on Tuesday [12 July 2022].
Unsplash/Yoav Aziz | An uptick in COVID-19 cases in New York prompts people on a busy street to don protective masks.