THIRD WORLD USA

54 Million Americans Will Lack Access To Adequate Food By End Of Year

BY : JULIA BANIM ON : 20 DEC 2020 

CBS DFW/PA Images


A new analysis from Feeding America, a US based anti-hunger organisation, has found that 54 million Americans will lack access to adequate food by the end of the year.

The organisation distributed 4.2 billion meals up and down the country between March and October this year. A 60% average increase in food bank users has also been noted over the course of the pandemic, with around four in 10 users being first-timers.

Those who are at highest risk for serious coronavirus-associated illnesses include seniors, individuals with chronic illness and people of colour. In many cases, Feeding America has found that the same individuals will be the ones who are hardest hit by the economic ramifications of the pandemic.

PA

According to the report from Feeding America, unemployment in the US has ‘soared’, resulting in increased demand for food banks and pantries:

Before the COVID-19 crisis began, more than 37 million people, including more than 11 million children, lived in a foodinsecure household.

Pre-pandemic data reflects the lowest food insecurity rates seen since before the Great Recession, but the current crisis is likely to reverse the improvements that have occurred over the past decade.

RED STATES
The four states with the highest projected food insecurity rates for 2020 are Mississippi (24.1%), Arkansas (22.5%), Alabama (22.2%) and Louisiana (21.7%).

Within these four worst hit states, it’s expected that over one in five residents will be food insecure by the end of the year, meaning they won’t have the money or resources required to put food on the table, AP News reports.

It’s estimated that the rates of those facing hunger will be as high as one in six people, escalating from 35 million in 2019 to more than 50 million by the end of 2020. Among children, this rises to an alarming one in four.

PA

Low-wage workers, many of whom were employed in the service industry, have felt the economic impact of the virus the most. However, many of those on higher wages have also been affected.

A September report from the anti-hunger organization, the Food Research & Action Center, found that one in four of those reporting they didn’t have enough food to eat usually had incomes which exceeded $50,000 per year prior to the outbreak.

SCOTLAND

‘I thought I was evil’: Call to ban gay conversion therapy

Justin Beck tells his story as 5000 people sign petition calling on ministers to end controversial practice.

By Sasha Spratt

Faith leaders from around the world are calling for an end to the criminalisation of the LGBT+ community and a ban on conversion practices.

A recent petition to the Scottish Parliament calling on ministers to end the practice in Scotland has gathered more than 5000 signatures and is due to be heard by the Equalities and Human Rights Committee

The charity Stonewall defines “conversion therapy” or “gay cure treatments” as “any form of treatment that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or to suppress a person’s gender identity” – meaning it can happen anywhere and by anyone.

Justin Beck, 36, realised he was gay as a teenager.

Having grown up in a religious family he attended bible study several times a week, as well as regular Sunday services. At the age of 17, he decided to move churches; he wanted to stop being gay.

“I would put myself forward for healing every Sunday, then that would ramp up to things like exorcisms to have demons cast out of me,” said Justin.

Asked if at any point people in the church looked to speak to him about the options available to him and how he may be able to live his life he said: “Everyone knew what it was and the line that I was given all the time is that ‘you just have to have faith’.”

Justin and his partner Paul Hardie.

After six years Justin stopped the therapy. He said being told that he simply didn’t have enough faith “was a slap in the face”.

“I had absolutely zero self-esteem, I hated myself. I wouldn’t look in mirrors or windows, I hated everything about myself,” he said. “I thought I was evil.

“It was a lot to then try and pull myself back together and rebuild my life.”

In 2018, the UK Government pledged to ban the practice, but two years on there’s been little movement.

Wendy Morton MP, Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas, said: “The Global Interfaith Commission’s declaration on LGBT+ lives is an important step towards equality and we fully support its call to end violence, discrimination and the ongoing criminalisation of same-sex conduct in 69 countries.

“The British government is firmly committed to protecting the rights of all individuals and have been clear that conversion therapy, wherever it occurs, is an abhorrent practice and should be stopped.”

Campaigners say it comes in many forms and can cause lasting damage to people’s mental health. Psychology and psychiatry bodies say there is no science to support its effectiveness, but the controversial treatments are still made available through religious and cultural groups.

“[Current UK Government plans] are seeking an approach that covers public health providers and psychologists and a clampdown on regulations on how they go about the practice,” said Tristian Gray, one of the lead petitioners to the Scottish Parliament.

“This would leave out most cases of conversion therapy.” 

Blair Anderson

Blair Anderson, 22, is a law student in Glasgow and is now estranged from his family after they couldn’t accept his sexuality due to their faith.

“When someone in a position of authority with a duty of care is actively trying to suppress someone’s sexuality or gender identity for their own ends – that is the same thing that conversion therapists are trying to achieve.”

The petition calling on Scottish authorities to ban conversion therapy will be heard by the Equalities and Human Rights Committee in the coming weeks.

Extinction crisis or nature at work? Sides still at odds over demise of desert plant species

Botanist Naomi Fraga examines a Tiehm’s buckwheat plant at Silver Peak Range in Esmeralda County, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020.

By John Sadler (contact)

Sunday, Dec. 20, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Tiehm's Buckwheat

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The wildflowers, dusted in fresh snow on the isolated ridge in the west-central Nevada, were dead.

Botanist Naomi Fraga picked up the dried remains of two of the plants, placing them in her bag and slinging it back over her shoulder.

The specimens — of the rare Tiehm’s buckwheat — were leftovers from an event earlier this year that decimated somewhere around half of the global population of the plant.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined the destruction was the work of small mammals, possibly ground squirrels; some environmentalists aren’t convinced.

“When you talk about the extinction crisis, we’re here,” Fraga said. “We’re on the front lines of the extinction crisis right here with this plant.”

Tiehm’s buckwheat grows exclusively on 21 acres in a remote area of the Rhyolite ridge in Esmeralda County, the third least-populated county in the United States.

Much of the flower’s range sits on a site that Australian mining company Ioneer has proposed to turn into a lithium mine. According to the company, the ridge holds North America’s largest deposits of lithium and boron, the former of which is a key ingredient in the batteries used in most electric cars.

The plant has triggered a battle over the future use of the site, with the Center for Biological Diversity, which Fraga works alongside, filing a suit in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to push the Bureau of Land Management to take action to protect the plant and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the plant as an endangered species.

“Basically what we’re asking U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to do here is to recognize the urgent nature of the situation and list the buckwheat as an endangered species under its emergency listing authority,” said Scott Lake, a Nevada legal advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity, has said listing the plant and thereby requiring certain protections was the goal.

“It does not matter if it was a squirrel or a kangaroo or aliens or (Ioneer executive chairman) James Calaway himself,” Donnelly said. “The plant needs to be listed under the Endangered Species Act. It should have been listed when we discovered this damage.”

Protecting Tiehm’s buckwheat, or any species, for that matter, is important because extinction could cause an ecological domino effect on other plants and animals, environmentalists say. A 2016 study in the journal Nature Communications showed that plant extinctions could have more effect on potential animal extinctions than vice versa.

The center’s lawsuit seeks emergency protections for Tiehm’s buckwheat under the federal Endangered Species Act. Monday, the center will file its final briefing in the lawsuit, which is being heard by U.S. District Judge James Mahan. Lake said the case was being considered on an expedited schedule but he couldn’t anticipate how quickly Mahan would make a ruling.

In September, 40% to 60% of the entire population of the Tiehm’s buckwheat was wiped out. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management linked the destruction to mammals in search of a water source during an extended drought.

The agencies determined that ground squirrels likely were behind the destruction. The squirrels, the agencies theorized, dug up the plants to get to the moisture in their roots. The findings contradicted what the Center for Biological Diversity suspected: that the damage appeared to be caused by humans.

Calaway, in a news conference earlier this month, called the center’s early assertions of human-caused damages “irresponsible.”

“The fine work by the responsible federal agency, which we supported in any way we could, provides important information that will help Ioneer develop and implement practical and prudent measures to support the protection and propagation of Tiehm’s buckwheat moving forward,” Calaway said.

He also took exception to the center’s revelation that Ioneer had promised a reward to anyone who finds another population of the flower, Endangered species protections for Tiehm’s buckwheat, which the lawsuit seeks, would trigger barriers to Ioneer’s ability to mine in the plant’s environs.

Though the center has softened that rhetoric somewhat, both Fraga and Donnelly have expressed skepticism at the report’s conclusions.

“It was widespread, incredible damage,” Fraga said. “It was a shock to the system. I couldn’t process it or understand what was happening.”

In a report, three researchers from UNR noted that the taproots’ cuts were “not straight and clean as if they had been mechanically clipped, but were uneven, with ragged edges and bark missing near the ends, suggesting that they had been gnawed off.”

In a news release, the Fish and Wildlife Service said genetic signatures found in scat at the site had a 96.9-99.8 match to ground squirrels. The white-tailed antelope ground squirrel is known to populate the area.

“This is the first time herbivory was documented on Tiehm’s buckwheat and its significance depends not only on its frequency and intensity, but whether damaged plants can recover and survive,” the release read.

Donnelly has said the documentation had meant that a ground squirrel had eaten one of the plants at some point. Fraga, pointing to the gnaw marks on some of the uprooted plants, said that chewing on available roots didn’t necessarily mean a rodent did the initial damage.

Fraga, who visited the site Monday to collect additional samples of the destroyed plants, said it was important to determine how the damage occurred because protections would be deployed differently depending on if humans or animals were the cause.

She also expressed some skepticism about the rodents doing such significant damage over a large area. The destruction occurred throughout the plant’s individual populations, even though those populations are not all in contiguous areas. Scattered populations of the buckwheat of various sizes grow over the range. There are other plants around the site, Fraga said, that could offer similar levels of moisture.

“I just would like to know how the animals are communicating, to be like, ‘Hey we discovered this water source over here. Y’all should check it out over there,’ ” Fraga said.

A few plants, including another buckwheat species, saw some damage, Fraga aid, but the vast majority was focused on the Tiehm’s buckwheat. Entire species of plants lost to development is not an isolated phenomena, Fraga said. Her recent research found around 65 plants in North America have gone extinct, most due to development.

“Some of them have similar life forms, with deep taproots and whatnot, but they weren’t systematically targeted,” Fraga said. “So that seems very unusual, for the damage to be so specific across the entirety of the global range, all within a span of weeks.”

No new damage, she said, has been documented since the onset of winter, with the vast majority damage having occurred in a July-to-August stretch in which no one had been documented at the site. The flowers look rather innocuous and are somewhat difficult to find when they’re dormant, especially when covered with snow.

“It would be hard, I think, for anything, animal, human or whatever, to find the buckwheat and kind of get to work,” Fraga said.

Ioneer has embarked on attempts to expand the range for the Tiehm’s buckwheat. The company funded a UNR research project that studied whether Tiehm’s could be transplanted or whether seeds of the plant germinated in a greenhouse would take elsewhere in the desert to bolster the native population. Those attempts failed and the research has been seemingly abandoned, though Calaway said the mining company was still working to protect the plant.

“Ioneer is actively working with the appropriate agencies on establishing effective measures to mitigate this latest threat from natural causes to both support Tiehm’s, and at the same time ensure America has the critical resources it must have to transition away from fossil fuels,” he said.

Successfully transplanting rare plants into new areas is difficult, Fraga said, due to potential unforeseen elements such as pollinators and the plant’s relationship with local microbes that can prove difficult to reproduce.

“You would need those plants to grow to maturity, flower, make seeds, reproduce and make a new generation to say that what you’ve done is actually successful,” Fraga said. “We’re not trying to establish a garden of plants that we just water and care for every year. What you’re trying to establish is a viable population that persists.”

The already-existing Tiehm’s buckwheat species, Fraga said, benefits from a vast seed deposit under the soil, which helps to propagate new generations. Even so, she said, if every plant was destroyed, it could take centuries for the species to return, and that’s if the seed bank itself isn’t damaged.

Fraga said that it was important to determine what happened to the buckwheat in order to responsibly manage the site. After all, it’s hard to defend against attacks when they’re not known. Ultimately, it may come down to the unthinkable: more damage.

“It depends, I think it depends if it happens again. What’s going to happen next year during the summer?,” Fraga said.

OPINION:
Why the US still has mask and glove shortages

By Doyle McManus
Sunday, Dec. 20, 2020 


There’s been some good news about the pandemic this week along with all the bad: A first vaccine is being rolled out, and another is on the way.

But a long, hard winter still lies ahead, and we’re facing a serious — and completely avoidable — problem: Health care workers once again don’t have enough of the masks, gloves and hospital gowns they need to protect them while they treat COVID-19 patients.

Demand for those mundane but essential items is soaring because of the surge in COVID-19 cases, and it will grow again as the vaccination campaign escalates. But 11 months into the pandemic, the world’s greatest industrial power still hasn’t found a way to meet the need.

In a survey last month, more than half of hospitals’ infection prevention specialists reported that they were wearing their N95 protective masks designed for one-time use five times or more.

A charitable group that distributes supplies to struggling health facilities, Get Us PPE, reports that incoming requests for help are 200% higher than in mid-November.

And in an AARP survey of nursing homes, 19% of facilities reported last month that they were down to less than a one-week supply of PPE.

“The U.S. continues to face shortages of personal protective equipment, testing supplies and other medical supplies needed for the COVID-19 pandemic,” the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reported Nov. 30.

“Big hospitals, well-funded facilities with buying power, are doing OK,” said Dr. Shikha Gupta, Get Us PPE’s executive director. “The problem is worst in non-hospital facilities — independent clinics, rural providers, nursing homes, homeless shelters. Those are the groups that are struggling. There’s no central place for them to find suppliers and supplies that have been vetted.”

When the pandemic arrived in the United States in January, President Donald Trump called for an “industrial mobilization” to meet the country’s medical needs.

At first, the effort was impressive. Congress quickly provided more than $2 trillion in funding. The Trump administration launched a crash program to manufacture ventilators and deliver them to states.

Private industry responded, too. When the pandemic hit, the United States produced about 20 million N95 masks a month; now production is running at about 150 million a month.

But that still isn’t enough to meet demand in a surge, and industry leaders say they can’t get there — not without government funding to pay for production lines that might turn out to be unnecessary if the pandemic ebbs next year.

“We have more demand than we can supply,” the CEO of 3M, the country’s biggest N95 maker, told the Wall Street Journal last month.

How has this happened? Blame the Trump administration.

The administration could have used the Defense Production Act, a law that allows the president to grant or loan money to industries to build factories for critically needed goods.

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied against the idea, and Trump agreed, saying that it would amount to “nationalizing our businesses.”

So after a handful of initial investments in PPE production in April, the administration’s attention turned elsewhere — to vaccines, a more exciting crash project that captured the president’s imagination.

Besides, why invest in more protection for doctors and nurses when the crisis would soon be behind us? Trump and his aides spent most of the presidential campaign assuring voters that the pandemic would soon be over.

Another GAO report last month found that by the end of September, the administration had used less than half of the $1.5 billion initially allocated for PPE and other medical equipment.

The administration hasn’t even met its own targets for replenishing the Strategic National Stockpile of medical equipment, the GAO found. In May, the White House said it planned to increase its reserve of N95 masks to 300 million, but by mid-November the stockpile had only 107 million of the masks.

During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden said he wouldn’t hesitate to use the Defense Production Act to provide more medical gear. But the time for investing in production and supply chains was last summer, when the pandemic briefly slowed down.

Trump and his aides deserve credit for getting ventilators to hospitals last spring, for pushing for vaccine research, and for organizing a massive operation to distribute the antiviral shots.

But the rest of their response to the pandemic — their failure to organize the national testing program Trump promised, the abandonment of any effort toward contact tracing and, most painfully, the failure to ensure a reliable supply of simple items like masks and gloves — will be remembered as studies in public mismanagement.

Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; THE MODI MOB

Nirav Modi’s brother Nehal charged with USD 2.6 million diamond fraud in NY

He has been charged with Grand Larceny in the First Degree

By PTI December 20, 2020 13:42 IST

Representational Image | Pixabay

Nehal Modi, the younger brother of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, has been indicted in New York for fraudulently obtaining diamonds worth over USD 2.6 million from one of the world’s biggest diamond companies in Manhattan.

Nehal, 41, is charged in a New York Supreme Court indictment with Grand Larceny in the First Degree, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr said.

“While diamonds maybe forever, this flawed scheme was not, and now Modi will face the clarity of a New York Supreme Court indictment. My Office will not allow individuals who have the privilege of soliciting business in Manhattan’s iconic diamond industry to defraud our businesses or consumers,” Vance said in a statement on Friday.

According to the indictment, court filings, and statements made on the record in court, between March 2015 and August 2015, Nehal, a former member of Noble Titan Holdings, made false representations to obtain over USD 2.6 million worth of diamonds from LLD Diamonds USA on favourable credit terms and consignment, and then liquidated the diamonds for his own ends.

The statement said that Nehal, “who comes from a well-known family in the diamond industry”, was initially introduced to the president of LLD Diamonds through industry associates.

In March 2015, he approached LLD, claimed that he was pursuing a relationship with Costco Wholesale Corporation and asked the New York-based diamond company to provide several diamonds, worth nearly USD 800,000, to present to Costco for a potential sale.

After LLD provided the diamonds, Nehal falsely informed the company that Costco had agreed to purchase them. Subsequently, LLD allowed him to purchase the diamonds on credit, with full payment required within 90 days. He then pawned the diamonds at Modell Collateral Loans to secure a short-term loan, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said.

Between April and May 2015, Nehal returned to LLD three additional times and took more than USD 1 million worth of diamonds for purported sales to Costco. He made a series of payments to LLD, but used the majority of the proceeds for personal use and other business expenses.

To cover his fraud, Nehal falsely claimed that he was encountering payment issues due to a “Costco fulfillment error” and made repeated promises to satisfy the balance, the statement noted.

In August 2015, Nehal returned to LLD again and falsely claimed that Costco wanted to purchase additional diamonds. This time, LLD permitted him to take the additional diamonds on consignment, with terms explicitly stating that he did not have the authority to sell the diamonds without authorisation by LLD.

LLD also required a partial payment upfront in the event of a sale, as Nehal’s outstanding balance was nearly USD 1 million at that time.

Nehal had already contacted Modell to arrange an additional loan. After picking up the diamonds from LLD, he pawned the majority of the diamonds at Modell to secure two separate loans and sold the remainder of the diamonds to various retailers at a steep discount from the listed consignment price.

LLD ultimately uncovered the fraud and demanded that he immediately pay his outstanding balance or return the diamonds. However, he had already sold or pawned all of the diamonds and spent most of those proceeds. LLD subsequently reported the fraud to the Manhattan DA’s Office.

Nehal’s brother Nirav, 49, is wanted in India on charges of fraud and money laundering in the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case. He remains at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London where he has been lodged since his arrest in March last year.

The Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Nehal on charges of alleged money laundering that is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate. Nehal was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1979, and he knows languages such as English, Gujarati and Hindi, according to the RCN issued by Interpol.

The New York Post quoted Nehal’s defense lawyer Roger Bernstein as saying: “This is a commercial dispute” and that “Nehal is not guilty”.

A video on The Post website shows Nehal walking with Bernstein, who said “we are not discussing anything about the case” when asked about the Interpol notice.

£122m of PPE supplied by PPE Medpro to the NHS

has never been used

That's 25 million kilos of haddock in today's money.

 by Jack Peat December 14, 2020 in News


Hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of Personal Protective Equipment supplied by a newly incorporated firm with links to a Conservative peer has never been used, a BBC investigation has revealed.

PPE Medpro was started up by Anthony Page on the day he quit as the secretary of the company that deals with Baroness Mone’s brand.

Just 44 days later it had won a Department of Health contract – not advertised to other bidders – to supply 25 million gowns for health workers.

As Jolyon Maugham of The Good Law Project noted at the time it was an example of “another hugely lucrative PPE contract awarded to a firm with no obvious qualification beyond links to very substantial donors to the Conservative Party.”

But the real kicker seems to have come a few months later after it was revealed £122 million of its stock has never been used.

The DHSC told the BBC that contracts for the gowns must meet the British Standard for the sterilisation of medical devices or a “technical equivalent”.

PPE Medpro followed this second route. This required the DHSC to seek approval from the health regulator, the MHRA, for them to be used in the NHS.

The DHSC and MHRA declined to comment when asked for details of the approval application made for the Medpro products. There is as yet no record of PPE Medpro or either of its two Chinese suppliers on the regulator’s exemptions list, although it is understood the evaluation process is now under way.

PPE Medpro say they delivered 100 per cent of the contract to the terms specified.

The company said it supplied the equipment “fully in accordance with the agreed contract, which included clear terms as to technical specification and performance criteria of the products”.

“We did so in very challenging circumstances earlier this year and are very pleased to have been able to assist DHSC fully and properly at a time of national crisis,” it added.

Rupert Murdoch receives the Covid-19 vaccine in the UK

THE 1% GET THEIR VACCINATIONS FIRST
AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE

“I strongly encourage people around the world to get the vaccine
as it becomes available," Murdoch said.

by Henry Goodwin December 19, 2020 in News

Rupert Murdoch, the 89-year-old News Corp boss, has become the latest 

public figure to have the coronavirus vaccine, visiting his local GP’s surgery 

on Wednesday evening to receive his first jab.

The controversial media mogul was delivered to a specialist vaccine centre 

in Henley, Oxfordshire by a convoy of Range Rovers – with the practice reportedly

 extending its normal hours at the last minute.

It sent an email out, saying: “Just a reminder – we have been advised 

‘no media coverage’ due to security issues. 

Please note that photography and video are strictly forbidden.”

A statement issued on Murdoch’s behalf said he “had the vaccine at his

 local GP’s surgery after he received a call saying he was eligible.”

“I would like to thank the keyworkers and the NHS staff who have worked 

so hard throughout the pandemic, and the amazing scientists who have made

 this vaccine possible,” he said. “I strongly encourage people around the world

 to get the vaccine as it becomes available.”

People aged over 80 are in the second tier of priority for receiving the vaccine

 – alongside frontline health and social care workers.

Murdoch – an Australian-born US citizen – has been isolating at his Oxfordshire home 

for much of the year. His endorsement of the jab echoes his British newspapers’ 

strong support of vaccination – but there have been different views in more 

extreme corners of his media empire.

On Thursday, Tucker Carlson – the rightwing Fox News host – highlighted a rare

 “bad vaccine reaction” on his programme and suggested people should view the

 “marketing campaign” “nervously”. “It feels false because it is,” Carlson said. “It’s too slick.”

Others were quick to point out the irony of Murdoch receiving the vaccine on the NHS,

 for which his papers have not always been full-throated in its support.

#DEFUNDTHE1%

Pay gap between workers and executives is ‘shocking’, report finds

Ocado's chief executive was paid £58.7 million last year - 2,605 times the £22,500 paid to the average staff member.

 by Henry Goodwin December 16, 2020 in News


The pay gap between companies and their chief executives is “shocking”, unions have said, calling on ministers to end the “runaway train” of inequality in British firms.

A report by the High Pay Centre think-tank revealed that online supermarket Ocado had the biggest pay gulf between those at the top of the company and those on the shop floor.

The company’s chief executive, Tim Steiner, was paid £58.7 million last year – 2,605 times the £22,500 paid to the average staff member. Steiner was therefore paid as much as the average Ocado worker’s yearly salary for just one day of work.

JD Sports was in second place, with its chief executive Peter Cowgill paid £5.6 million – but staff an average of just £18,300. Tesco meanwhile paid its outgoing chief executive 305 times the median pay at the supermarket chain.

Laurence Turner, head of research and policy at the GMB union, said: “This shocking and important report provides a vivid snapshot of the staggering inequalities and exploitation in the world of work on the eve of the coronavirus outbreak.

“There is no business or moral justification for paying an executive an obscene ratio of more than 2,000 times the average worker.

“Action is needed, especially at a time when hundreds of thousands of jobs are under threat and households are struggling to make ends meet. Ministers, employers, and shareholders must all put an end to this runaway train.”

‘Improve fairness at work’

The report found that, across the UK’s 100 biggest stock market listed companies, chief executives earn 73 times the amount paid to workers on average.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said the findings provided “valuable new insight into the corporate cultures and working practices of some of the UK’s biggest employers”.

“These findings show that quite low levels of pay are commonplace for large numbers of workers at many of our major companies,” he added.

“Hopefully the disclosures can help investors, policymakers and of course the companies themselves think more deeply about how to improve fairness at work, and pay for low-paid workers in particular.”

An Ocado spokesperson said: “The pay ratio is particularly high for 2019 due to the inclusion of the growth incentive plan (GIP), which was a five-year award granted in 2014 and vested in 2019.

“The level of the GIP payment recognises the extraordinary performance of Ocado during this period when the business grew from a circa £1.5bn business to the multibillion pound technology-led global business we are today.”

WHY WE NEED SOCIALISM 

UK

Health gap between rich and poor is widening, 

Prof Chris Whitty says

“Ill health and disease concentrating in areas of deprivation is long-standing and needs to be tackled," Whitty said.

The Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report showed that poorer populations spend a greater proportion of their life in ill health; that women are having children later in life, and cases of dementia and mental illness are on the rise.

by Henry Goodwin December 18, 2020 in News


A gulf in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas in England is widening, according to Professor Chris Witty.

The Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report showed that poorer populations spend a greater proportion of their life in ill health; that women are having children later in life, and cases of dementia and mental illness are on the rise.

Life expectancy was the lowest for people living in north Cumbria, County Durham, and in areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 2019, where the average age of death was between 74 and 79, compared with southern areas where it was between 81 and 85.

On average, people in England spend 20 per cent of their life in poor health, and people in deprived areas of the North spend an even larger proportion of their life in ill health.
‘We have to improve it’

The report also showed that babies are more likely to die at birth in the most deprived areas of the UK, and among some ethnic minority groups.

Pakistani and black-Caribbean babies were more than twice as likely to die at birth compared with white babies, according to the latest data available – though the infant mortality rate for all ethnicities is lower than seven infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

Professor Whitty also described it as “striking” that “extraordinary improvements in life expectancy everywhere stalled relatively recently” – though this trend is also echoed in other developed countries.

He said in the report: “Ill health and disease concentrating in areas of deprivation is long-standing and needs to be tackled. Describing and deploring it is not enough, we need to have actionable plans to improve it.”

Speaking about the findings, Prof Whitty added: “Although Covid-19 has dominated the news, and remains an urgent priority, other diseases and health problems such as cancer and cardiovascular disease continue to take a major toll.

“There is wide variation in ill health across the country, and much of this is avoidable. It is possible to raise the health outcomes of the least healthy closer to the outcomes of the healthiest – we should be aiming for that.”

More people are also suffering from multiple chronic conditions, which particularly affects rural parts of the country that have large elderly populations and less accessible health facilities, according to the report.

Heart disease and dementia

The report also showed that women are having less children than in previous years, and parenthood is being delayed as women are increasingly becoming mothers over the age of 30.

It said that heart disease is the leading cause of death in men, while dementia is the leading cause of death in women, and dementia deaths have risen while mortality caused by heart disease and strokes has fallen.

Prof Whitty’s report also showed that suicide rates increased sharply among men and women in 2019, following decades of gradual decline, and highlighted how cases of severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and other psychoses are most concentrated in some coastal and urban areas including London.

Cases of self-harm among young people also increased between 2016 and 2019, with up to 1 per cent of people aged under 24 having been hospitalised due to this in some regions of the South West and the north of the country.

AUSTERITY ECONOMICS

UK

Use your household savings to bail out the economy, Rishi Sunak says

Some noted that Sunak - believed to be one of the richest members of the Cabinet - has more money to spend than most.

 by Henry Goodwin
December 20, 2020
in Politics


Workers who have saved heavily during coronavirus lockdowns must start spending next year to rre the British economy, Rishi Sunak has said.

Parliament warned that nearly three million people could have been excluded from the Treasury’s various support schemes throughout the pandemic.

But, speaking at an online event for Tory party members last weekend, the Chancellor said he “felt good” about the prospects of the UK economy recovering once the pandemic eased.

“I feel good about the bounceback – I think people have been sitting at home, building up some savings hopefully and we would like to go and spend them when we get back,” Sunak said.

His remarks drew swift rebukes – with some criticising the Chancellor for seeking to use household savings to do the Treasury’s job.

Others were quick to point out that Sunak – believed to be one of the richest members of the Cabinet – has more money to spend than most.

It emerged recently that his wife and her family hold a multimillion-pound portfolio of shareholdings that are not declared in the register of ministers’ interests.

Akshata Murty – who married the chancellor in 2009 – is the daughter of one of India’s richest men. Her father co-founded tech giant Infosys, and she has shares in the company worth £430 million – making her richer than the Queen.

The ministerial code complex Sunak to declare any financial interests “relevant” to his job that might constitute a conflict of interests. Ministers are also supposed to declare the interests of close family members.

A report earlier this month, from the Centre for Business and Economic Research, found that households might have saved as much as 19 per cent of their disposable incomes in 2020.

That could equate to as much as £7,100 per households – or £197bn across all households, the Telegraph reported.

The CEBR said: “The £197 billion question, therefore, is what will households do with this money that they have accumulated in 2020 when restrictions ease.

”Of course, a large chunk of these savings will have gone into pensions, which will not be available for spending for some time.”

Related: Richer than the Queen: Sunak family’s huge wealth not declared by chancellor