Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland join UN Security Council

Brooke Forbes | Newcastle Law School, AU

JANUARY 4, 2023 07:28:12 PM

The UN Security Council Tuesday welcomed new members Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland. This is the first time Mozambique and Switzerland have held seats in the security council.

The council consists of 15 countries. Five of them–China, France, Russia, the UK and the US–are permanent members with veto powers. The other ten members are elected by the 193-nation General Assembly for two-year terms, allocated by whatever global region the countries are located in.

Japan UN Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane, President of the Security Council for January, commented at the flag ceremony on the need to “uphold the rule of law and consider what we can do for the many people whose security and livelihoods are under threat today.” Ishikane said there were three key elements to success in the role:

Firstly, an active contribution to global peace and security. Secondly addressing the common challenges of international community based on the idea of human security. Thirdly, strengthening the rule of law.

The council, which takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression, is the only UN body authorized to use force to maintain or restore international peace and security. The council can also authorize sanctions, but according to the UN’s website, the council “calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement.”

UN News reported that 192 UN Member States participated in the election.  The five newly-elected countries are taking the place of India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway. Their terms ended December 31, 2021. The newly-elected countries will join Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates around the UN Security Council’s signature horseshoe table.

Legality of Israel’s occupation referred to UN court

Maureen Clare Murphy 

Rights and Accountability

5 January 2023

Israeli settlers attempt to establish a new settlement in the northern West Bank in October 2015. Yotam RonenActiveStills

Last week, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and Gaza.

The resolution asks the court to set out the legal consequences of Israel’s violation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian land since 1967.

This includes “measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status” of Jerusalem and the “adoption of discriminatory legislation and measures.”

The resolution also asks the court to determine “the legal consequences that arise for all states and the United Nations” as a result of its findings.

The International Court of Justice is the UN’s tribunal for settling legal disputes submitted by states and requests for advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it through the UN system.

Though both are based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice is a separate body from the International Criminal Court, which opened an investigation into the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip last year.

Advisory opinions issued by the ICJ are non-binding.

Ignored

This will not be the first time that the ICJ has weighed in on Israel’s activities in occupied Palestinian territory.

In 2004, the court ruled that Israel’s construction of a massive wall in the occupied West Bank was illegal and must be stopped immediately and that reparations should be made for damage caused.

The 2004 advisory opinion had little effect on the ground in Palestine and is one of many recommendations made by UN organs concerning Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights that has gone ignored – both by Israel and third states.

Ahead of last week’s vote, the Palestinian Human Rights Organization Council stated that despite the limited material effect of the 2004 advisory opinion, “the case supported the undeniable right of the Palestinian people to their self-determination under international law and emphasizes the illegality of all annexations and settlements.”

Additionally, the court’s 2004 ruling found that Israel’s wall in the West Bank amounted to de facto annexation of occupied territory.

Al-Haq, a leading Palestinian human rights group, said that the new advisory opinion “may incur, for the first time, important obligations on third states and the international community to bring the occupation to an end.”

Palestinian human rights groups championed the resolution, which was drafted by the UN’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee and then submitted to the General Assembly.

Al Mezan, a Palestinian rights group based in Gaza, said that the adoption of the resolution “is a significant milestone in the struggle against Israel’s apartheid settler-colonial regime.”
The rights group noted that many European states either abstained or voted against the measure despite it coming “at a critical time when a new far-right Israeli government has been installed.”



That government, Al Mezan noted, has “vowed to legalize dozens of illegal settlements and annex the West Bank as a top priority.”

Indeed, Israel is seeing through with those pledges by destroying Palestinian structures in Jerusalem and the South Hebron Hills and issuing forcible transfer notices affecting 1,000 people in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern West Bank this week.

European double standards

The failure of many European states to support the resolution seeking an advisory opinion on Israel’s prolonged occupation throws the double standards by which international law is applied into sharp contrast.

While imposing unprecedented sanctions on Russia over its invasion and occupation of Ukraine, European states have paid only lip service to opposing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

European Union officials even welcomed the new Israeli government led by extremists who have pledged to formally annex West Bank land and complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that began in 1948. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has stated that he plans to work with the new government on “further improving” relations with Israel.

While Borrell continues to talk about promoting a two-state solution, Zvika Fogel, a member of the new Israeli parliament, said that “the occupation is permanent.”

Fogel belongs to the Jewish Power party headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s new national security minister who now oversees Israel’s police and paramilitary Border Police that operate in the West Bank.

Fogel is former chief of staff of the Israeli military’s “southern command,” which includes the Gaza Strip.

In 2018, soon after the launch of Great March of Return protests along Gaza’s boundary with Israel, Fogel championed the use of lethal force against Palestinians who approach the boundary fence, including children.

He said that shooting and killing children was a reasonable “price that we have to pay to preserve the safety and quality of life of the residents of the state of Israel.”

More than 215 Palestinian civilians, including more than 40 children, were killed during those demonstrations, and thousands more wounded by live fire during those protests between March 2018 and December 2019.

A UN commission of inquiry found that Israel’s use of lethal force against protesters warrants criminal investigation and prosecution and may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UN investigators called for sanctions on those responsible and for the arrest of Israeli personnel “alleged to have committed, or who ordered to have committed” international crimes in relation to the Great March of Return protests.

Those recommendations went ignored by the same states who have thrown their support and money behind war crimes trials and other punitive measures after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

UK
Why Labour think they’ve rumbled Rishi

Nick Cohen

5 January 2023, 

Rishi Sunak gives his first major speech of the year at Plexal, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, 4 January 2023 (Getty Images)

Labour’s leaders do not rate Rishi Sunak. I don’t mean by this that they think his policies range from the wrongheaded to the disastrous – we can take these opposition criticisms as a given. I mean that as professional politicians they look at the Prime Minister and see a rank amateur.

‘He’s rubbish,’ a member of the shadow cabinet told me. ‘I mean’ he continued bursting into derisory laughter during his speech yesterday, ‘what the hell was that maths thing about?’

In case you missed it, from the morning papers through to lunchtime on Wednesday, the PM’s New Year message was that he wanted children to study maths until they were 18. Leave aside that we do not have enough maths teachers as it is, and that, even if we did, they would soon be on strike, and focus on the frivolity of making a vague announcement about an unfunded programme for teaching teenagers in the middle of a national emergency.

‘There are people dying on trolleys,’ the Labour politician continued. ‘Doctors in tears on the television, and he wants to lead the news agenda with maths.’

Labour thinks that even now Sunak is behaving like a chancellor rather than a Prime Minister

To be fair, by yesterday afternoon, Sunak was holding a press conference to address the health and economic crises. But Labour politicians compared his bloodless statement with how Tony Blair handled the winter health emergency of 2000. Blair went on a Sunday morning television show and made a sweeping commitment to inject at least £12 billion of extra money into the NHS, and raise health spending to European levels. Gordon Brown was furious. (He invariably was.) ‘You’ve stolen my f***ing budget,’ he shouted at Blair. But Labour honoured Blair’s promise nevertheless.

Matching French or German health spending per head in 2022 would require an additional £40bn or £73bn respectively. But no commitment to bring the UK up to European health levels came from Sunak. When he finally tore himself away from the urgent question of maths lessons, he promised to cut waiting lists

How was he going to do that? He did not say.

He then promised that inflation would fall in 2023. Well, it will surely fall as last year’s massive rises drop out of the retail price index. The issue is not whether inflation will fall but whether living standards will rise, and on that Sunak offered nothing beyond the airy platitude that he wanted to create ‘better-paid jobs and opportunity across the country’.

A nice thought, that raised the question how he intended to create high-paying jobs. Answer came there none.

As the years of Tory rule end, there is something almost spectral about Sunak. Jeremy Hunt and the rest of the Tory leadership. Like Jeremy Corbyn at a wreath-laying ceremony near the graves of Black September terrorists, they are ‘present but not involved’. As the economic crisis deepens, they appear to be vanishing before our eyes, like figures fading from a picture left in the sun: the ghostly leaders of a zombie government.

The corruption of the Johnson administration and the ideological frenzy of the Truss interregnum have been replaced by a weird stillness. There’s no passion, vision, or coherent programme – just disjointed statements that might have been written by a ChatGPT bot and uttered by a hologram.

In private, Labour’s Treasury team who took on Sunak when he was chancellor, say that Rachel Reeves noticed how uncomfortable he was with spontaneity.

‘He can only manage manicured moments,’ one said. ‘He’s not reactive. He can’t think on his feet. He hated coming to the House and doing Treasury questions because he was in an environment he could not control.’

Labour thinks that even now Sunak is behaving like a chancellor rather than a Prime Minister: micromanaging rather than providing leadership.

If you doubt this analysis, look at the scene over Christmas when Sunak met a homeless man who said he wanted to work in the City. Any competent PM would have pointed to the schemes his government had to help people out of homelessness, and the pathways to training and jobs it offered. They’d have promised that their aides would point him towards agencies that could help.

All the lame Sunak could say was ‘I used to work in finance, actually’. Before adding that there weren’t just jobs in London but all over the country.

Natural politicians are sharper than that. They are present and involved.

Everyone I spoke to in Labour thinks Sunak is beatable. They do not believe he will stand up well to the hubbub and scrutiny of a general election campaign, when the ability to think on your feet is paramount and not every moment can be manicured.

‘He will wilt under the spotlight, like Theresa May,’ one shadow minister predicted.

Well, loyal Conservatives among the Spectator readership might cry, Keir Starmer is hardly charisma central. It’s a fair point, and I concede it. But Starmer is visibly growing in confidence. Proof, if you need it, that it’s amazing what a 20-point poll lead can do for a chap’s self-esteem.

Until he became PM, Labour worried about the damage Sunak could inflict. During the Tory leadership election before last (at least I think it was the one before last, but perhaps I am losing count) they feared Sunak more than Liz Truss. They worried about losing the Indian diaspora vote. They thought that the popularity Sunak had earned during the Covid crisis would carry over.

They are still nervous about the next election. And rightly so. Losing general elections is what Labour does. This nervousness explains Starmer’s caution, when to my mind, the atrocious state of the UK, demands radical measures.

Perhaps we will see a little more flesh on a programme for government in the next few weeks as Labour emphasises how it will use state purchasing power to ‘buy, make and sell in the UK.’

We will certainly see today, as Starmer delivers his first speech of 2023, an attack on Sunak’s reputation for fiscal prudence, backed with an attempt to persuade the media to focus on the extraordinary level of fraud the Conservatives have allowed to flourish.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is campaigning on the billions of pounds in false benefits claims and over-payments that have vanished in the past two years, often into the pockets of organised crime.

Rachel Reeves is emphasising how nothing Sunak does works. In no particular order, he has given us the jobs retention bonus, which was heavily criticised on value for money grounds and cancelled. Sunak promised a replacement but it never appeared. The kickstart scheme was another Rishi innovation. Yet Sunak himself effectively admitted in June 2021 that the scheme was off target and paltry when set against the needs of the neglected young. He said that 31,000 Kickstarters had started their jobs. But the target for placements was 250,000 by December 2022, Needless to say, he failed to meet it. The PM’s green homes grant, unveiled when he was chancellor, was another disaster: the £2 billion insulation scheme was cancelled before the money was spent, breaking the government’s promise to deliver 100,000 new jobs across England

I could go on, but as Labour, and indeed Johnson, Truss and Sunak’s opponents in the Tory party, have realised, fraud and profligacy are his weak points. Labour’s focus groups loved him when he was handing out furlough payments but were horrified by the covid swindles.

Although wary of betraying the slightest sign of overconfidence, the opposition is convinced it can beat him. It is going for Sunak hard because it thinks that, when the history of this strange period is written, he will be seen as an empty space: the prime minister who never was.



WRITTEN BY

Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is the author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.

A Comet Zooming Toward Us Could Soon Be Visible With the Naked Eye

Its name is a mouthful, but Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could be the brightest of 2023.


Eric Mack
Jan. 5, 2023

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) as observed from Mount Fuji, Japan.
SpaceWeatherGallery.com/Akihiro Yamazaki

The new year is less than a week old, but what's expected to be the brightest comet of 2023 could be within our sights soon. 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was first discovered in March by the Zwicky Transient Facility, aka ZTF, in Southern California, and it's been speeding in the direction of the sun ever since. As the space snowball comes closer, it brightens and is now just weeks from making its closest passes by both the sun and Earth. This makes January and February prime time to try to see it for yourself, perhaps even without the need of a telescope, if it continues to shine ever brighter. 

The comet has traveled hundreds of billions of miles from the Oort cloud in the outer reaches of the solar system, drawn by the gravity of the sun on its very long and elliptical orbit. It will finally reach perihelion, or its close pass by the sun, on Jan. 12. If it survives the intense heat and pressure from the encounter without breaking up, it will then begin to head back out to deep space, passing by Earth along the way in early February.

The comet is expected to be closest to Earth on Feb. 1, according to NASA, at which point it could become a magnitude six object, just bright enough to see with the unaided eye, though binoculars and very dark skies always help. 

The behavior of comets is rather unpredictable, as they can brighten, dim or completely disintegrate with little warning. But if trends and the integrity of the cosmic cruiser hold, the moonless sky on Jan. 21 could mark a good night to start venturing out to try to spot it, according to the British Astronomical Association. 

You can practice trying to spot the comet now with a backyard telescope as it continues to brighten (hopefully) until Feb. 1. By far the easiest way to locate it is with a site like In The Sky or the excellent mobile app Stellarium. 

If you happen to get any great photos, please share them with me on Twitter, @EricCMack. 

Stellantis CEO Warns of More Auto Plant Closures

The logo of Stellantis is seen on a company's building in Velizy-Villacoublay near Paris, France, February 23, 2022. 

REUTERS/Gonzalo FuentesREUTERS

By Joseph White and Aishwarya Nair

Reuters
Jan. 5, 2023, 

(Reuters) -Chrysler parent Stellantis NV Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares said on Thursday that more auto plant closures will happen if high prices for electric vehicles (EV) cause vehicle markets to shrink from pre-pandemic levels.

Automakers will risk losing pricing power as chip supplies recover, Tavares said at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas.

The comments come as lack of affordability looms over the U.S. EV market at a time when top EV makers are raising prices amid high inflation.

More U.S. consumers want to buy an electric vehicle but are concerned about rising prices, a survey by consulting firm Deloitte showed on Wednesday.

"Nearly 7 in 10 prospective EV buyers in the United States expect to pay less than $50,000 for their next vehicle," according to the survey conducted between September and October 2022.

Stellantis said last month it would indefinitely idle an assembly plant in Belvidere, Illionois, citing high EV costs. Tavares told reporters said similar actions "will happen everywhere as long as we see high inflation of variable costs."

The auto industry must absorb 40% higher costs for EVs, he added.

The company had flagged that increasing costs related to the electrification of the automotive market as the most impactful challenge affecting the auto industry.

"If the market shrinks we don't need so many plants," Tavares said. "Some unpopular decisions will have to be made."

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru and Joe White in Detroit; Editing by Rashmi Aich) Deloitte showed on Wednesday.

Who Is Alex Mashinsky, the Man Behind the Alleged Celsius Crypto Fraud?

By Reuters

|

Jan. 5, 2023, 

Who Is Alex Mashinsky, the Man Behind the Alleged Celsius Crypto Fraud?

More

FILE PHOTO: Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius Network, gestures as he talks about bitcoin speculation during an interview with Reuters in New York City, U.S. in this still image taken from video, January 5, 2021. Reuters TV via REUTERS/File PhotoREUTERS

By John McCrank and Hannah Lang

(Reuters) - Alex Mashinsky, a co-founder of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network who prosecutors allege bilked investors out of billions, is a serial entrepreneur who has portrayed himself as a modern-day Robin Hood.

Mashinsky, 57, fraudulently promoted Celsius as a safe alternative to banks, while concealing that it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars in risky investments, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The civil lawsuit seeks to ban Mashinsky from doing business in New York and have him pay damages, restitution and disgorgement.

James' lawsuit is the latest black eye for the crypto sector, which has been rocked by accusations against FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The former mogul, who has been accused of cheating investors and causing billions of dollars in losses, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty.

Mashinsky, a native of Ukraine whose family emigrated to Israel, decided to move to New York after he took a trip to the city in 1988, he told a Forbes podcast.

"I looked around and I'm like, I'm never going back," he said.

Since then, he has founded eight companies, including Arbinet, which went public in 2004, and Transit Wireless, which provides Wi-Fi to the New York City subway.

Mashinsky claims to have created Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a precursor to ride-sharing app Uber, as well as an idea for a cryptocurrency that preceded bitcoin.

Mashinsky became involved in crypto in 2017, when his venture fund Governing Dynamics brought on blockchain company MicroMoney as a strategic partner. He founded Celsius the same year.

In his teens, Mashinsky bought confiscated goods like hairdryers and VCRs from customs auctions at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport and resold them for a profit, according to a 1999 article in the defunct tech publication Industry Standard.

Mashinsky had aspirations at the time to start a business for whole-body transplants: "Give an old person a new body - keep the head, keep the spine, and re-create the rest," he said.

The executive served in the Israeli army from 1984-1987, where he trained as a pilot and served in the Golani infantry units, according to his personal website.

Mashinsky has raised over $1.5 billion for various ventures that generated more than $3 billion when he and other investors cashed out of them, according to his website, which also says he holds more than 50 patents.

"The greatest risk is not taking one," the home page reads.

In hundreds of interviews, blog posts and livestreams as the public face of Celsius, Mashinsky promised its customers that they would receive high returns if they deposited digital assets on his platform, with minimal risk, according to the New York AG's lawsuit.

Neither Mashinsky nor his lawyer immediately responded to requests for comment on Thursday.

Celsius pledged investors would obtain returns of up to 17%, among the highest in the industry. "We take it from the rich," the lawsuit quoted Mashinsky as saying.

By early 2022, it had amassed $20 billion in digital assets from investors. But the company struggled to generate enough revenue to pay the promised yields and moved into much riskier investments, according to the claim.

The company extended hundreds of millions of dollars in uncollateralized loans, and invested hundreds of millions more in unregulated decentralized finance platforms, the lawsuit said.

Mashinsky, who wore t-shirts with slogans such as "banks are not your friends," continued to falsely represent to investors that Celsius was generating high yield through low-risk investments, according to the legal filing.

In an "Ask Mashinsky Anything" YouTube video on June 10, the entrepreneur said "Celsius has billions in liquidity." Two days later, it paused investor withdrawals "in order to stabilize liquidity and operations."

Celsius filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors last July 13, listing a $1.19 billion deficit on its balance sheet.

(Reporting by John McCrank in New York and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Lananh Nguyen and Matthew Lewis)

Bed Bath & Beyond Reportedly Plans Bankruptcy As Meme Stock Crashes Amid ‘Substantial Doubt’ Business Can Continue

Jonathan Ponciano
Forbes Staff

Jan 5, 2023,

TOPLINE

 

Bed Bath & Beyond is reportedly preparing to file for bankruptcy in the coming weeks as the struggling brick-and-mortar retailer faces persistent economic challenges plaguing efforts to turn around its business—further piling on to abysmal losses for a stock that more than tripled amid retail-trading mayhem during the pandemic.

The firm, once coveted by retail traders, is exploring options including restructuring and ... [+]

MOMENT EDITORIAL/GETTY IMAGES

KEY FACTS

Bed Bath & Beyond is in the early stages of readying a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that could come within weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday afternoon, citing people with knowledge of the matter and noting the bankruptcy filing is not a certainty.

The report comes after Bed Bath & Beyond shares crashed nearly 30% Thursday to $1.69—pushing shares down to lows last seen almost 30 years ago—after the firm warned recurring losses in its latest quarters have contributed to “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue.”

The retailer said it expects sales to collapse 33% to less than $1.3 billion in the latest quarter as a result of lower customer traffic and reduced levels of inventory, and it also stated it is exploring actions including restructuring, debt refinancing, selling assets and filing for bankruptcy relief.

“These measures may not be successful,” cautioned the firm, which expects to post a loss of about $385.8 million in its upcoming earnings report.

In a statement, CEO Sue Gove blamed “inventory constraints” and “economic challenges,” including reduced credit limits that barred the firm from purchasing more merchandise, for the worse-than-expected performance.

KEY BACKGROUND

As customers turned to online shopping, Bed Bath & Beyond, which has struggled to build a strong digital presence, became one of the worst-hit brick-and-mortar retailers of the past decade. However, shares of the firm began to surge early last year, at one point more than tripling as retail traders plowed into heavily shorted stocks. The frenzy cooled off but once again intensified when billionaire Ryan Cohen, who has led an as of yet unsuccessful bid to turn around fellow retailer GameStop, disclosed a $120 million investment in the home goods store. That fervor, too, was short-lived, with Cohen cashing out his stake in August.

SURPRISING FACT

Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond have collapsed 95% from a closing high of about $35 in January 2021. However, that pales in comparison to losses since the firm’s heyday in 2014, when shares peaked at more than $80. Fellow meme stock GameStop has collapsed about 80% since its peak nearly two years ago.

FURTHER READING

After 28% Drop In Revenue, Bed Bath & Beyond Stock Needs A Markdown (Forbes)

Bed Bath & Beyond Stock Skyrockets After Billionaire GameStop Chair Cohen Discloses $120 Million Investment (Forbes)

US Shootings: every day in America, 12 children die from gunfire

Guns are literally killing Americans but the powerful gun lobby insists on preventing reform

JAMES
ZOGBY

A woman waits to hear about her sister, a teacher. Jessica Hill / AP

This past week, we crossed the tenth anniversary of the day when an obviously deranged young man wielding a weapon of war massacred 20 little children and six of their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. America has had mass shootings even before that day. But Sandy Hook felt different because the victims were so little and so many, and because then US President Barack Obama spoke so eloquently and tearfully to the nation, capturing our collective grief and the resolve that “our hearts had been broken” too many times and that something must be done to end such killings.

The powerful gun lobby went to work and a short time later the Senate voted down a modest gun reform bill by a vote of 60 to 40

.

A sign outside the National Rifle Association Annual Meeting, in Houston, on May 27. AFP

The numbers since Sandy Hook are staggering – and increasing at an alarming rate. In the four decades before Sandy Hook, there were 1,094 school shootings. But during just the past decade, America has seen an almost doubled number with an additional 948 school shootings – more than 109 of them being mass shootings (defined as an incident in which four or more have been have shot by a gunman).

But school shootings are only a part of the story. Eighty-one million Americans now own 415,000,000 guns. And we use them with regularity on each other. In each of the past three years there have been more than 600 mass shootings – with last year’s 690 being the highest on record. These annual numbers more than double the numbers of mass shootings each year of the previous decade. And this year alone, there have already been 43,000 gun-related deaths, divided almost evenly between murders and suicides.

Every single day in America an average of 12 children die from gunfire. Another 32 are shot and wounded. In fact, guns are the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in the US.

In other words, guns are literally killing Americans, and the politicians are doing nothing about it. Mass shootings have become routine. It is only when the event is so horrific, like Sandy Hook, or Columbine, or Stoneman Douglas, or more recently, Uvalde, that we become shocked. But there is a difference. When the slaughter of children occurred a decade ago, there was still a belief that real change would occur. Many people no longer believe that and have come to settle for minor reforms that amount to but a tweak in the murder machine.

Young Uvalde survivor shares what happened during the attack

It is as if the life has been sucked out of us and we no longer even dare to hope that assault weapons can be banned, that gun sales can be regulated and limited, or that communities can at least ban weapons of war from within their jurisdictions.

We know that in the face of an epidemic of gun violence such common sense measures should be implemented. But we also know that because conservatives in Congress and the courts have both a bizarre ideological interpretation of the Constitution and/or a pathological obsession with guns, saving our children is not a priority.

Michael Goldfarb: After another US school shooting, 'Why?' is the wrong question to ask

Last Christmas, a few “Christian” Republican members of Congress sent out Christmas cards featuring pictures of their families in front of their Christmas trees with each member (including their small children) proudly carrying assault weapons. One featured a note to Santa: “Please bring ammo.” This from the very crowd that rails against “godless liberals, who’ve taken Christ out of Christmas.”

As I have noted many times before, the problem of gun violence is deeply ingrained in American culture. From the mythic lore of the Old West, cowboys fighting Indians or cops chasing robbers, to the romanticisation of the mobsters of the 1920s to today’s video games featuring space invaders and fantasy futuristic weapons that enable our children to have the questionable pleasure of winning by shooting everything in sight – American society is suffering. And some Americans keep feeding its sickness with more guns and the misguided belief that they give us potency, making us strong and secure.

I remember after one monstrous mass murder in a Louisiana movie theatre, listening to a debate on CNN in which one panellist argued that if other patrons in the theatre had been armed, they could have stopped the shooter. I had heard much the same after a plane hijacking. The thought of multiple random shooters firing in a darkened theatre or in a plane at 30,000 feet is a nightmare, not a solution.

We should pass an assault weapon ban, require universal background checks, and certainly keep weapons out of the hands of children and those who are mentally ill. But we must also make a determined effort to address the root causes of our problem: our pathological obsession with weapons, the power of the gun lobby that blocks reform, and a popular culture that normalises killing with guns.

We need to constantly hold up before the gun lobby and those who support them the faces of the children who die, and name and shame those whose actions and inaction allow the slaughter to continue. They are as responsible as the shooters and should be made to feel responsible for forgetting the victims of Sandy Hook, Columbine, Stoneham Douglas, Uvalde and all the other massacres that have occurred on their watch.





The Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial in Newtown, Connecticut. AFP

UK

Having worked as an NHS nurse for 25 years, I know how soul destroying the job can be

(Alamy)

Paulette Hamilton MP
@PauletteHamilto

Working in the nursing profession for over 25 years, I know first-hand nurses are on the front line of all care given.

Nurses work extremely long hours, most shifts are 12 hours long. These heroes dedicate their lives to caring for others day in, day out. But many are still living with the after effects of having worked flat-out through the pandemic, all while trying to do the work of three or four nurses due to staff shortages, adding to workplace stress.

NHS recruitment is a huge problem. It is never helpful to look at the numbers of trainees recruited, but instead how many finish training and receive their much valued registration number. Unfortunately, dropout rate remains high and in some areas of the United Kingdom it is 50 per cent or higher. The money offered to trainees through the NHS Learning Support Fund is not enough and results in many nurses taking up second and third jobs just to make ends meet.

It breaks my heart to say that I just couldn’t do the job now

Nurses are also having to cope with increased workplace violence, due in part to the increased levels of mental health issues in the community. A&E departments are so busy that it can at times seem like a zoo. This only adds to the enormous levels of stress they’re under.

Long waiting lists are also a major issue. This problem is not new, but it is important that the government does not think it is fixed by throwing money at it without root and branch changes. They must accept that the whole system is at breaking point and will need both professionals and people that understand health to come together and have difficult conversations.
Related

All The Promises In Rishi Sunak's Big Vision Speech, And Which Have Been Made Before
By Eleanor Langford
04 Jan

Nurses' pay is struggling to keep up with the cost of living crisis, with inflation levels forcing many hospitals to set up foodbanks specifically for their staff. I’ve met nurses at my own constituency advice surgery in Erdington who simply do not have enough money to eat.

It is soul destroying when you go on duty and know you will have inadequate staffing levels for a nine or 12 hour shift. The implications on the health of staff due to stress can be tragic, leading to long term sickness, nurses deciding to give up the profession altogether, or retiring at an early age. It breaks my heart to say that I just couldn’t do the job now, and the ongoing failure to address staffing levels can be a matter of life or death for patients.

I worked with the Royal College of Nursing for seven years. I know the union inside out and, with its long and distinguished history, I know it would never have considered strike action unless it was the absolute last resort.

Nurses have not been on strike for 106 years and it is extremely important that going forward the government understands that the health service is in crisis. Giving it lip service will not solve the multitude of pressing issues it faces, and ministers need to implement meaningful discussions with the nurses’ union if they want to move forward.

Social care needs fundamental reform which truly brings together health and social care, which at the moment are together in name only. The government must understand that unless problems in social care are addressed, including introducing a workforce plan, the continued pressures in A&E will only get worse.

The power to stop these strikes, that even nurses themselves don’t really want, lies squarely with the government. How can ministers justify refusing to even talk to the unions?

Ministers must do the job they were elected to do and not kick the can down the road any longer.


Paulette Hamilton, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington.