Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) describes himself as a democratic socialist. When asked to explain in more detail what he means by this, he says that he believes that the United States would benefit from having a social system more like those found in the Scandinavian countries.
The Danish Political and Social System
John Scales Avery
I have lived and worked in Denmark for the last half century, teaching at the University of Copenhagen until my retirement, and I am married to a Danish wife.
This gives me some knowledge of the way that the social system works in Denmark, and I will try to describe it for you.
Denmark has a market economy, with private corporations, but it also has cooperatives, owned by the users. The main thing that distinguishes Denmark from a country like the United States is the very high and steeply progressive rate of taxation. Because rich people are taxed so extremely heavily, it is difficult for anyone to become very rich.
10 May 2022 (FAO)* — They are in the lotion that keeps our skin smooth or the herbal tea we sip on Sunday afternoons. They are waiting to be drizzled on salads or tucked into the daily food supplements we take. Wild plants are scattered throughout our everyday existence offering us with food, oxygen and medicine.
(UN News)* — The 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), kicked-off on Monday [9 May 2022], in the Ivorian “economic” capital.
UNDP Lao PDR/Tock Soulasen Phomm | Often, vulnerable communities are situated in areas of poor or marginal soils, which increases the pressure for expansion of agricultural lands.
Against the backdrop of a UNCCD warning that up to 40 per cent of all ice-free land has already degraded, threatening dire consequences for climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods, world leaders are meeting in Abidjan under the theme of “Land, Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity”.
“We are faced with a crucial choice,” Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the participants.
Geneva, 9 May 2022 (WMO)* – There is a 50:50 chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial level for at least one of the next five years – and the likelihood is increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
People require humanitarian assistance, livelihood support, jobs, and long-term investment to help solve the crisis.
WFP/Arete/Andrew Quilty
KABUL, (WFP)* – 19.7 million people, almost half of Afghanistan’s population, are facing acute hunger according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis conducted in January and February 2022 by Food Security and Agriculture Cluster partners, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and many NGOs.
With few ways to earn income on the border, many young men turn to the dangerous but well-paid work of people smuggling.
Graffiti on the US-Mexico border wall | Mike Hardiman/Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved
Advisory: this story contains depictions of violence.
5 May 2022 (openDemocracy)* — I have worked doing a lot of things. I’ve installed internet cables and electricity. Done construction work and sold clothing downtown. One time I even helped tear down a hill with one of those huge machines that you use to make holes.
CAIRO, (WFP)* – The war in Ukraine has dealt a fresh hammer blow to Syria’s ability to feed itself just as the country struggles to deal with levels of hunger that are up by half since 2019, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today on the eve of the annual donor pledging conference held in Brussels.
With years of conflict, a severe economic downturn, and food prices rising relentlessly since 2020, the Ukraine crisis is exacerbating what was already an alarming food security scenario in Syria.
In March, food prices increased by 24 percent in just one month, following an 800 percent increase in the last two years. This has brought food prices to their highest level since 2013.
“Saying that the situation in Syria is alarming is a huge understatement. The heart-breaking reality for millions of Syrian families is that they don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley.
(IWGIA – International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs)* — Organized crime pressures communities to grow poppy and marijuana. The strategy of “combating drug trafficking” militarizes territories and dispossesses Indigenous peoples of their natural resources.
MADRID, May 6 2022 (IPS)* – The world’s leading health and children specialised organisations have once again sounded the alarm bell about what they classify as “shocking, insidious, exploitative, aggressive, misleading and pervasive” marketing tricks used by the baby formula milk business with the sole aim of increasing, even more, their already high profits.
The global formula milk industry, valued at some 55 billion US dollars, is targeting new mothers with personalised social media content that is often not recognisable as advertising. Photo by Lucy Wolski on Unsplash
Rome(FAO)* – The number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent life-saving food assistance and livelihood support continues to grow at an alarming rate.
This makes it more urgent than ever to tackle the root causes of food crises rather than just responding after they occur.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 