It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, October 01, 2024
No to Foreign Military Intervention in Haiti!
Yes to Haitian Self-Determination!
by Black Alliance for Peace / September 30th, 2024
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) urges the leaders of the nations of the Americas to oppose the upcoming United Nations’ decision to renew the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti for another 12 months. Additionally, we call on these regional leaders to challenge the United States’ proposal to convert this MSS into a full-fledged UN Peacekeeping mission by 2025.
On October 16, 2022, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) sent a letter urging the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation to “respect Haitian sovereignty and support the Haitian masses in their stand against the ongoing occupation of their country by foreign powers” by using their veto power and voting against another armed intervention and occupation into Haiti. In this letter, we outlined why the Haitian people perceive the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) as a foreign occupation that has undermined their independence and sovereignty since 2004. On October 3, 2023, we and over 100 social and civic movements and organizations throughout the Americas, including in Haiti and the diaspora, issued a joint statement denouncing the UN Security Council’s approval of the U.S.-orchestrated, Kenya-led MSS to Haiti. In these, we laid out demands in line with those of Haitian civic and social organizations. The Haitian people are resolute in their opposition to foreign intervention and remain steadfast in their commitment to self-determination.
As we articulated in our previous letter and statement, Haiti has endured a long history of U.S. intervention and occupation. The Haitian people recognize that their current challenges stem directly from the persistent meddling of the United States, the United Nations, and the Core Group. They are unequivocal in their belief that all U.S.-led foreign interventions over the past decades have been illegal and illegitimate. Notably, the current Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) lacks legitimacy, having been authorized under the auspices of an illegitimate and U.S.-installed Prime Minister, Ariel Henry. Subsequently, the U.S., with the support of CARICOM, established a nine-member “Presidential Council” and Prime Minister, neither of which has any legal status or legitimacy in Haiti, all without the backing of the Haitian populace or the opportunity for a democratic selection process. Importantly, the U.S. demanded that those permitted on the “Presidential Council” consent to foreign intervention (the MSS). Thus, the entire process that led to the imposition of a foreign force in Haiti is fundamentally fraudulent.
We find it extremely worrisome that the U.S. has enlisted foreign proxies—such as police and military forces from Kenya, Jamaica, and Belize—to implement its foreign policy objectives in the region. It is equally alarming that these foreign forces, as part of the MSS, enjoy effective immunity for their actions in Haiti. Given the traumatic legacy of the last UN peacekeeping mission (MINUSTAH, 2004-2017), which was marred by violence, sexual exploitation, and a cholera epidemic, we view the MSS as a threat not only to Haiti’s sovereignty but also to the health and wellbeing of its people, particularly its children.
The Black Alliance for Peace also challenges the U.S. claim of addressing “gang violence” in Haiti. We assert that the U.S. and the so-called “international community” (including France and Canada) are fully aware that the current “gang violence” is funded and supported by Haiti’s oligarchs and the U.S.-backed political elite. This group imports weapons into the country and pays young men to instigate chaos, which is then used to manufacture consent for further invasion and occupation of Haiti. This is similar to the way the U.S. and France have increased the problem of “terrorism” in West and East Africa as a ruse to create U.S. military forces in that region, which we see in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The awareness of these underlying dynamics is underscored by the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Canada on several members of Haiti’s economic and political elite, including former Haitian president Michel Martelly, who was installed by the U.S.
In a time of global upheaval, marked by a live-streamed genocide in Gaza and violent clashes between cartels and police in Mexico, it is perplexing that the U.S., France, and Canada are advocating for foreign occupation of Haiti—a country facing internal conflicts that do not threaten regional or global security. We must question the U.S. insistence on maintaining a military presence in Haiti at this juncture.
As an anti-war and anti-imperialist organization, the Black Alliance for Peace warns that the U.S. aims to use Haiti as a staging ground for a permanent military base in the region to, as articulated in its foreign policy documents, secure “U.S. national security and interests” and manage rival powers, presumably Russia and China.
We once again call on your countries to respect Haitian sovereignty and support the Haitian masses in their ongoing struggle against the relentless occupation by foreign powers. Only the Haitian people can determine their own solutions. Their leaders must not be selected by the U.S. or any other foreign entity. Allowing continuous U.S. and Western control over Haiti’s political apparatus not only threatens to extinguish the nation’s hard-won sovereignty, but also weakens the sovereignty and self-determinative capacities of every other nation in the Caribbean, Central, and South America.
As we know, Haiti is a laboratory for U.S. and Western imperialist policies and practices of domination and intervention. What is visited upon Haiti will inevitably be visited upon other nations in the hemisphere. We have seen this in Honduras as the U.S. ambassador acts like a government representative in a foreign land, against the sovereignty of that nation and its President, Xiomara Castro. This is a strategy that was fine-tuned in Haiti under the Obama-Clinton foreign policy apparatus and continues to this day.
We ask that you, leaders throughout the Americas, reject the old colonial divisions that have made the region more susceptible to U.S. intervention, sabotage and neocolonial rule, and use regional mechanisms like CELAC to support Haitian sovereignty. As nations have stood in solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua against imperialist assaults, sanctions, and subterfuge aimed at undermining their sovereignty, so should you oppose the interventionist crimes and colonial impositions visited upon Haiti and its people by the U.S., UN and Core Group. As the overwhelming majority of nations and people of the Americas have decried the zionist genocide in Gaza and the ongoing violation of the sovereignty of Palestine and Lebanon, so should you fight against the imperialist actions that have resulted in instability, violence, and mass death in Haiti. There can be no “Zone of Peace” in the Americas if there is no peace and freedom for the people of Haiti.
The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, unequivocally opposes continued foreign armed intervention in Haiti. We stand firm in our demand for an end to the relentless meddling by the United States and Western powers in Haitian affairs. We urge your governments and nations to stand in solidarity with the Haitian people in their fight for liberation by opposing the extension of the MSS and any future plans to convert this mission into a UN peacekeeping operation.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Jewish Chronicle Scandal: Why Was There No Uproar over Its Long Record of Pro-Israel Fake News?
The paper's disinformation is making waves only now, after it printed claims based on forged Hamas documents. But the JC has been peddling falsehoods for years.
by Jonathan Cook / September 30th, 2024
Britain’s best-known Jewish newspaper has found itself thrust into the centre of an embarrassing and long-overdue storm over its involvement with the shadowy manoeuvrings of the pro-Israel lobby.
It raises questions about the degree to which parts of the British media are – inadvertently or otherwise – colluding in Israeli disinformation.
The 180-year-old Jewish Chronicle, or JC as it is now known, lost four of its big-name columnists on Sunday, after it was revealed that the paper had published a story based on a forged document concerning Israel’s war on Gaza. Jonathan Freedland, David Aaronovitch, Hadley Freeman and David Baddiel swiftly quit the paper.
The Chronicle, it emerged, had apparently failed to make the most rudimentary checks on Elon Perry, a mysterious British-based Israeli freelance journalist who has written nine stories for the paper since Israel’s war on Gaza began nearly a year ago. All have now been excised from its website.
Investigations by the Israeli media revealed that Perry’s CV, which included claims that he had been a professor at Tel Aviv University, a former elite Israeli commando and a longtime journalist, was a tissue of all-too-obvious lies. His only journalism appears to be the nine stories he published in the JC.
The Chronicle similarly failed to check before publication the veracity of his most recent article, which cited a Hamas document supposedly in the possession of Israeli intelligence. But the Israeli military says it has never seen such a document.
The forgery did, however, neatly bolster a narrative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been desperate to build – one that allows him to avoid engaging in negotiations with Hamas that could end the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. The International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, has ruled Israel’s actions there to be a “plausible” genocide.
Netanyahu is under huge pressure – both from his own generals and from large sections of the Israeli public – to negotiate a ceasefire so that dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza can be released. Their families have been leading ever-larger protests in Israel against the government.
‘Wild fabrication’
According to Perry’s report for the Chronicle, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning, under cover of negotiations, to smuggle himself, other Hamas leaders and Israeli hostages out of Gaza through its border with Egypt. They would then have been spirited away to Iran.
Happily for Netanyahu, the report closely echoed his own claims about Hamas’s intentions.
A few days after the JC’s article was published, his wife, Sara, reportedly met with the families of the hostages, citing the story as confirmation that Netanyahu could not compromise on his tough stance on negotiations.
But the credibility of the Chronicle’s story fell apart the moment it was subjected to the simplest scrutiny.
According to the Israeli media, Israeli intelligence and military sources described the story as a “wild fabrication” and “100 percent lies”. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s spokesperson, also discounted the story as baseless.
As has been noted in these pages before, Israeli officials, including Hagari, are no stranger to falsehoods and deceptions themselves, especially during Israel’s nearly year-long war on Gaza.
The reason this particular deception has come unstuck so quickly, it seems, is only because Netanyahu and Israel’s top brass have been feuding for weeks over the prime minister’s refusal to negotiate the hostages’ release and reach a ceasefire.
The generals are reported to be increasingly incensed by Netanyahu’s intransigence, and his determination to widen the war on Gaza into a dangerous regional confrontation to save his own skin.
They believe he is putting his own narrow, selfish interests – keeping his ultra-rightwing coalition together and himself in power, thereby delaying his corruption trial – before national security.
The likelihood of a regional war increased dramatically this week when ordinary electronic devices exploded across Lebanon, killing more than 30 people and wounding thousands more. Israel has not admitted responsibility, but no one is in any doubt it was behind the attack.
The Israeli military might have seen a chance to settle scores and embarrass Netanyahu by exposing the Chronicle’s report as fake news.
Israeli disinformation
Military sources have also derided another, earlier report by Perry, calling it “bullshit”. That story claimed many of the surviving hostages were being used as human shields to protect Sinwar.
And it is not just the JC peddling Israeli disinformation. The Israeli military criticised a report on Hamas published this month by Germany’s Bild newspaper, which alleged that another “Hamas document” – this one supposedly found on Sinwar’s computer – showed the group was negotiating in bad faith and “manipulating the international community”.
Again, usefully for Netanyahu, this fabricated story suggested that any effort to secure the hostages’ release through negotiations was futile.
The JC’s editor, Jake Wallis Simons, has responded to the spate of resignations at his publication by blaming Perry: “Obviously it’s every newspaper editor’s worst nightmare to be deceived by a journalist.”
The issue, however, is not that Perry perpetrated a sophisticated deception on the JC. Rather, the paper apparently failed to make even the most cursory checks that his “exclusives” were grounded in fact.
At the very least, a routine call to the Israeli military spokesperson’s office should have sufficed to discount Perry’s last two articles.
It looks suspiciously like the Chronicle, which over the past two decades has been growing ever-more hawkish on matters relating to Israel, had no interest in checking the truth of the story, because it fitted its own preferred narrative.
But potentially, the JC’s failings were worse. There is more than a suspicion that Netanyahu’s office was behind the forgeries, using them as part of an influence campaign.
That is a conclusion reached by several senior Israeli analysts.
One, Shlomi Eldar, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “It was clear to me this was a leak from the Israeli prime minister’s office, which is using deception to manipulate the foreign press into further tearing apart Israel’s divided society and saving Netanyahu from the intensifying protests.”
Lack of scrutiny
The question is: had the Chronicle grown so used to publishing as news what amounted to undeclared press releases from Netanyahu’s office that it had become largely indifferent as to whether the information it received was actually true?
Given the lack of scrutiny from other British media outlets about the veracity of the JC’s stories, had it grown complacent, certain it could regurgitate Israeli government disinformation with no danger of being exposed?
It is unlikely we will ever know. But the implications were certainly troubling enough that four of its leading columnists felt that remaining with the paper would damage their reputations.
Freedland, who is also a columnist at the Guardian, wrote an open letter to Wallis Simons on social media, in which he observed: “Too often, the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.”
One such example was a tweet (since deleted) from Wallis Simons last December, when Israel had already killed thousands of Palestinian men, women and children. Over a video of a huge explosion killing untold numbers of Palestinians in Gaza City, the JC’s editor wrote: “Onwards to victory.”
Freedland is certainly right that the Chronicle has long promoted a highly partisan, hardline, pro-Israel agenda – one that has helped stoke a climate of fear among British Jews and readied them to be more indulgent of Israel’s genocidal policies.
Collapse of journalism
So why did Freedland find no reason to resign until now, if the Chronicle’s partisan journalism began long before the latest scandal?
I and others have been noting for some time scandalous breaches of both the law and media ethics by the JC.
Over the past six years, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the feeble “regulator” created and financed by the billionaire-owned corporate media, has repeatedly found the paper guilty of breaching its code of practice.
According to the research of journalist and academic Brian Cathcart, in the five years to 2023, the paper broke the code an astonishing 41 times. The Chronicle has also lost, or been forced to settle, at least four libel cases.
Writing about these failings, Cathcart called the large number of violations “off the scale” for a small weekly publication. He further noted that the spate of serious findings by IPSO against the JC should be seen in the context of the media regulator’s dismal record in upholding complaints – 99 percent are dismissed.
Notably, despite the JC’s unprecedented violations of the code, IPSO has refused to launch an investigation or exercise its powers to fine the paper.
The Chronicle subsequently went on the offensive against those it had defamed: “In a climate of rising antisemitism, we will never be cowed by attempts to bully us into silence.”
A spokesperson for IPSO told MEE it was “carefully reviewing developments at the Jewish Chronicle”, adding: “We have no further comment to share at this time.”
Chief attack dog
There are reasons for the great latitude IPSO has shown the Chronicle.
As Cathcart has noted, were the press “regulator” to investigate the JC for its journalistic failings, it would be hard to stop there. Other outlets, such as Rupert Murdoch’s titles, would have to be investigated too.
Critics contend that the whole purpose of IPSO, established a decade ago, was to stop meaningful media regulation in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry into abuses such as the phone-hacking scandal.
But there is another reason for IPSO’s endless indulgence. The Chronicle played a critical role in advancing one of the British establishment’s most important recent disinformation campaigns: making former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn unelectable by smearing him and his supporters as antisemites.
Notably, many of the JC’s press-code violations and libel settlements related to its false allegations against either Palestinian solidarity organisations or members of the Labour left. The Chronicle served as the chief attack dog on Corbyn and his allies, stoking fears among prominent sections of the Jewish community. It began that campaign early on, when Corbyn first emerged as a candidate for the leadership.
Those fears were then cited by the rest of the corporate media as evidence that Labour was riding roughshod over the Jewish community’s “sensitivities”. And in turn, the Labour left’s supposed indifference to Jewish sensitivities could be ascribed to its rampant antisemitism.
The more the left denied it was antisemitic, the more its denials were cited as proof that it was.
The four columnists who quit the JC on the weekend all actively contributed to fomenting a political climate in which Corbyn’s leadership could be depicted as an existential threat to British Jews.
In 2019, Stephen Pollard, Wallis Simons’s predecessor as editor of the JC, was open about his paper’s crucial role against Corbyn: “There’s certainly been a huge need for the journalism that the JC does in especially looking at the antisemitism in the Labour Party and elsewhere.”
A year later, as he stepped down as the paper’s chairman, Alan Jacobs made the same point. Wealthy donors who had been bailing the paper out financially “can be proud that their combined generosity allowed the JC to survive long enough to help to see off Jeremy Corbyn and friends”, he noted.
Israeli meddling
There is already plenty of evidence that, during Corbyn’s time as Labour leader, Israeli officials were actively meddling in British politics to stop him from reaching power.
Corbyn, as a longtime and vocal critic of Israel’s illegal occupation and an advocate of Palestinian rights, was seen as too much of a threat.
Shai Masot, a spy operating out of Israel’s London embassy, was secretly filmed by an undercover Al Jazeera reporter orchestrating a smear campaign against Corbyn, using pro-Israel lobby groups inside the Labour Party.
Despite its devastating revelations airing in 2017, Al Jazeera’s four-part documentary was mostly ignored by an establishment media that was actively helping to propagate such smears.
The JC played a critical role in all this. It led the pressure on British institutions, including the Labour Party, to adopt a new definition of antisemitism that conflated criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews. Israel was the original driving force behind this new definition.
Faced with a barrage of criticism from the JC and the wider establishment media, as well as from pro-Israel lobby groups inside his own party, Corbyn walked into the trap set for him.
The new definition adopted by Labour made it impossible to engage in meaningful support for the Palestinian people without violating one of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s examples of antisemitism related to criticism of Israel.
Despite this new skewed definition, the JC still felt the need to push further in advancing its smear campaign – the main reason it has been found by IPSO to have broken its code of practice so frequently, and been forced to settle libel cases in recent years.
The JC had not responded to a request from MEE for comment by the time of publication.
Huge losses
The Chronicle was incurring huge losses even before it had to pay out large sums in legal bills. In 2020, the Kessler Foundation finally put it into liquidation.
Since then, it has been unclear who owns the paper. Whoever it is, they appear to have very deep pockets.
The consortium that acted as a front for the real buyer included a who’s who of public figures deeply opposed to Corbyn.
The head of the consortium was Robbie Gibb, a former Conservative spin doctor who now sits on the BBC Board, overseeing editorial standards.
Many observers are now, belatedly, pointing out Gibb’s deep conflict of interest. He is closely associated with the JC and its highly partisan, pro-Netanyahu agenda, while also holding a key position in guiding the BBC’s supposedly impartial editorial standards on Israel and Gaza.
Gibb had not replied to a request for comment from MEE by the time of publication.
‘Wrong sort of Jew’
Freedland and the other JC columnists who resigned last weekend expressed no public concerns earlier about the systematic editorial failings at the JC over many years because, it looks to me like those failings sat just fine with them – as they did with the British establishment.
Getting rid of Corbyn was a goal shared across the narrow political spectrum of the two main establishment tribes in the Conservative and Labour parties. The means – any means, it seems – justified that end.
Freedland had not replied to a request for comment from MEE by the time of publication.
On Monday, after resigning from the JC, columnist Hadley Freeman expressed concern that the paper had become a vehicle for Netanyahu’s agenda and was now failing to represent much of the British Jewish community.
“I strongly want there to be a mainstream Jewish national newspaper in this country that represents the plurality of views of Jews in this country,” she told BBC Radio 4. She went on to note: “That’s not why I joined a British Jewish newspaper, to represent the views of Netanyahu.”
And yet, she and other JC columnists spent years denying that very same “pluralism” to the substantial number of left-wing Jews who supported Corbyn, including the group Jewish Voice for Labour. Their voices were either ignored, or dismissed because they were considered the “wrong sort of Jew”.
Under Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, left-wing Jewish members of Labour have been almost five times more likely to be investigated for antisemitism by the party than non-Jewish members.
None of the JC’s columnists appear to have raised concerns about this pattern of discrimination, or the party’s institutional attacks on the rights of its Jewish members to express their political views.
Over the past year, that trend has continued. The “wrong sort of Jews” have once again found themselves ignored by the establishment media when taking part by their thousands in marches against the genocide in Gaza, or helping to lead protests on British and US campuses.
In an article published by the Times of Israel in June, Freeman asserted that “the progressive left hates the Jews”. She forgot to mention that the many Jews attending the Gaza protests and student encampments also belong to that progressive left.
Siding with the generals
The JC’s demonisation of fellow Jews in the Labour Party was not a red line for its celebrated columnists – nor was the paper’s cheering on of what the World Court has called a “plausible” genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
In fact, it was precisely the relentless bullying and silencing of voices critical of Israel through the Corbyn years that helped pave the way for Israel’s current slaughter and maiming of tens of thousands of Palestinian children.
With almost any criticism of Israel denounced as antisemitism, Netanyahu’s ultra-right government was given a free hand to indiscriminately pulverise the enclave.
It could rely on western politicians like Starmer, now Britain’s prime minister, to rewrite international law and defend as a “right” Israel’s decision to starve Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants through a blockade on food, water and power.
So why have the JC’s four columnists suddenly found a backbone and decided to quit? The answer appears to be far less principled than they would have us believe.
The JC is finally in crisis, beset by scandal, only because the Israeli establishment is deeply split on negotiating a ceasefire and bringing home the hostages.
Israel’s parade of lies as it carried out a genocide in Gaza disturbed no one in power; it passed without comment, prompting no significant investigations by the western media.
The lies have registered on this occasion because Israel’s generals have decided that this one time, the truth matters – and only because the top brass have a score to settle with Netanyahu.
Are the JC’s columnists really taking a belated stand for journalistic integrity? Or have they simply been forced to choose a side as the rift within the Israeli establishment deepens – on one side, the generals who carried out the slaughter of Gaza’s civilians, and on the other, a far-right prime minister who wants that slaughter to continue indefinitely?
The columnists might have changed camps, but both camps are led by monsters.
Drivers of electric vehicles are more likely to be at fault in road traffic crashes than drivers of petrol and diesel cars
Are electric vehicles riskier? A comparative study of driving behaviour and insurance claims for internal combustion engine, hybrid and electric vehicles
Lero
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Lero researchers Dr Barry Sheehan, Kevin McDonnell and Professor Finbarr Murphy, University of Limerick, Ireland following the publication of 'Are electric vehicles riskier? A comparative study of driving behaviour and insurance claims for internal combustion engine, hybrid and electric vehicles' in Accident Analysis & Prevention. Photo by Brian Arthur.
Drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) are more likely to be involved in at-fault road traffic accidents than drivers of petrol and diesel cars, research by Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software, at University of Limerick and Universitat de Barcelona, reveals.
In the analysis of insurance claims and data from onboard sensors, due to be published in the November issue of the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, the Lero researchers reveal a number of key findings:
Electric and hybrid drivers exhibit different behaviours than drivers of traditional vehicles.
Electric vehicles record more at-fault claims than traditional vehicles.
Electric vehicles are 6.7% more expensive to repair than traditional vehicles.
The research is authored by Kevin McDonnell, Dr Barry Sheehan, Professor Finbarr Murphy, all from Lero at University of Limerick, and Professor Montserrat Guillen of Universitat de Barcelona.
Lero researcher and co-director of the Centre of Emerging Risk Studies theKemmy Business School, Dr Barry Sheehan, said EV drivers have a higher chance of experiencing an at-fault claim than drivers of cars with internal combustion engines (ICE).
“Our research finds that despite their lower average mileage than internal combustion engines, lower road exposure for EV drivers does not reduce their risk of experiencing an at-fault insurance claim. When analysing at-fault claims, we find a 4 % increase in crashes from EVs and a 6 % increase for hybrids (HYBs) compared to internal combustion engines.
“However, when tested with statistical models, hybrids do not display any further concerns of increased at-fault claim risk. These results indicate that EVs have a higher risk profile than traditional internal combustion engine vehicles.
“Our research shows drivers' driving behaviour changes significantly when switching to hybrids or EVs. These results mean EVs are more likely to experience an at-fault claim than internal combustion engines,” added Dr Sheehan, Associate Professor in Risk and Finance at UL.
Lero researcher and lead author Kevin McDonnell said their analysis of each fuel type shows that EVs and hybrids have lower average mileages than internal combustion engines.
“This suggests that internal combustion engines should have a higher probability of incurring an at-fault claim than alternate energy fuel-type vehicles. However, the claims data contradicts this assumption by providing evidence of increased at-fault claim occurrences in EVs through predictive modelling and risk analysis,” he added.
Lero’s Professor Finbarr Murphy, Executive Dean of the Kemmy Business School at UL and co-author said that, given the increased likelihood of incurring an at-fault insurance claim with less mileage, significant first-party damages, and battery costs, alternative energy vehicles are riskier and have a higher financial burden than petrol and diesel cars.
The study used telematic data from 125 million commercial fleet vehicle trips involving 14,642 vehicles recorded from January 2022 to October 2022 in the Netherlands. It also used an insurance claims dataset during the same period.
Lero Centre is based at University of Limerick, Ireland and funded by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland, formerly Science Foundation Ireland.
Are electric vehicles riskier? A comparative study of driving behaviour and insurance claims for internal combustion engine, hybrid and electric vehicle
Social networks help people resolve welfare problems - but only sometimes, new research finds
Sharing a social welfare problem with several friends, family or support services doesn’t always mean the issue is more likely to be resolved, finds new research.
Bangor University
Lead researcher Dr Sarah Nason, from Bangor University’s School of History, Law and Social Sciences explained: “Debt, benefits, special educational needs, healthcare issues, these are everyday problems that many of us face, and it’s only natural to turn to people you know and trust for help and advice. However, we found that having to talk to more people or support services was an indicator that the problem was more complex and difficult to resolve.”
The team studied four distinct areas across England and Wales: Bryngwran, a village on Anglesey in North Wales; Deeplish, a district of Rochdale in Greater Manchester; the town of Dartmouth in Devon; and three wards in the London borough of Hackney.
In total, the researchers conducted individual interviews with 191 people, mapping out who they spoke to on a regular basis, such as friends, family, work colleagues or community volunteers, and who they might turn to with any problems relating to social welfare. They also asked how many of these contacts knew each other, to determine how well-connected the person’s social network was.
The researchers also spoke to community organisations and local authorities, identifying available sources of formal and informal advice and community support in each area.
They found that individuals living in the rural communities in Devon and North Wales had larger networks with more interconnections, compared to smaller, less well-connected networks of people in the urban locations in Hackney. In Deeplish in Rochdale, social networks were comparatively small, but quite well-connected. This was linked to ethnicity, with the primarily South Asian participants in Deeplish also having networks with the highest proportion of family members. For those with White ethnicity, people who identified as English generally had smaller social networks than those identifying as British or Welsh. The most interconnected networks were amongst people who identified as Welsh.
The researchers also found greater similarities between social networks within each case study community than between those of people with individual characteristics, such as age, gender, employment status or disability across the case study areas.
Dr Nason said: “Our research isn’t intended to be statistically representative of the case study areas, as we only spoke to a relatively small group of people in each community. However, from those interviews and from our analysis, location and ethnicity appear to be important factors in understanding how people relate to their community and access support. This highlights how important it is to provide local, community-based and culturally sensitive support and advice rather than ‘one size fits all’ services at a national level.”
Although many services are moving to ‘digital by default’ rather than offering face-to-face support, digital services did not meet many people’s needs. In all case study areas, interviewees said that accessing help and advice locally and in-person was important to them, with local access being seen as essential to many people.
Despite the differences between the four areas studied, the researchers found that the size and connectedness of social networks had a limited impact on the likelihood of people’s social welfare problems being resolved.
The biggest factor in resolving problems was the nature of the problem itself. Across all four areas, people with welfare benefits or financial problems were more likely to have received help from formal advice services and to have their problems resolved, than those with problems around housing, social care, special educational needs provision or mental health services.
“There are well-established processes for dealing with welfare disputes or debt, and although these can be daunting, with the right support and advice these issues generally get resolved,” said Dr Nason. “However, it’s noticeable that the problems which were least likely to be resolved relate to local authority services which have seen substantial budget cuts over recent decades, and where services are stretched to the point of failure. Stronger social networks and more support and advice can’t completely compensate for this lack of investment in public services.”
Other factors impacting people’s ability to get help were lack of education around rights and entitlements, limited awareness of advice services, feelings of stigma or shame in seeking help, and loss of trust in the state. However, the significance of each of these factors was different across the case study areas. For example, stigma/shame was perceived as a particular issue in rural North Wales, lack of formal education was a challenge in Rochdale, and mistrust of the state was highest amongst marginalised communities in Dartmouth and younger people in Hackney.
The study highlights the important role played by community centres or hubs, which provide vital services to their local community, including social welfare advice. However, the researchers caution that these organisations are often under-resourced and cannot be a substitute for more formal legal advice services.
“Across all the communities we studied, the local hubs or centres were really valued by people, providing day-to-day support such as food banks,” explained Dr Nason. “However, some problems that people face need specialist legal advice, and these community centres rely on being able to signpost people on to more formal services. Without proper funding for the formal advice sector, problems continue. Communities may be able to access help, but there won’t be access to justice.”
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Social networks help people resolve welfare problems - but only sometimes, new research finds
Honey, I shrunk the city: What should declining Japanese cities do?
A study on factors that contribute to population changes based on city size
Osaka Metropolitan University
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Medium-sized and small cities must consider new policies for declining populations.
Credit: Haruka Kato, Osaka Metropolitan University
Aging societies and population decline have been on the rise globally, but in Japan, the situation has exasperated tenfold. A staggering 36.21 million people, or 28.9% of the populace, are 65 and over. Further, 74.6% of Japan’s 1,747 cities are categorized as shrinking, with urban policies struggling to keep up with the decline. However, the factors that correlate with population changes in cities of varying sizes have not been clarified.
Dr. Haruka Kato, a junior associate professor at Osaka Metropolitan University, examined these multidimensional factors using the Economic, Social, and Educational (ESE) dataset, which is a cross-sectional dataset of 270 indicators of each Japanese city. This study used the machine-learning algorithm XGBoost, which analyzed the nonlinear relationships between the population change from 2005 to 2010 and the other 269 indicators.
The results revealed that most shrinking cities in Japan are medium-sized or small. Regarding the multidimensional factors, the rate of population change is strongly correlated with social-related indicators, such as changes among persons ages 0-14 in small cities, natural population change in medium-sized cities, and migration rates in large cities. Additionally, population changes correlated with the financial strength index as an economic-related factor in medium-sized cities. Furthermore, population changes correlated with the designation of underpopulated areas as an urban-planning-related factor in small cities.
“These results imply that urban policies should be designed according to the size of the city,” said Dr. Kato. “Medium-sized cities should effectively formulate policies other than urban planning, such as childcare initiatives that would contribute to improvements in natural population change and the financial strength index. Meanwhile, small cities need to consider designating underpopulated areas.”
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Journal
Environment and Planning B Urban Analytics and City Science
Understanding the global distribution and drivers of the human microbiome is crucial for public health and environmental management. Previous studies focused mainly on regional gut microbiomes, leaving a gap in our understanding of how socioeconomic factors shape these communities on a global scale. This study addresses that gap, offering valuable insights into the interplay between economic conditions, human health, and microbial diversity in sewage.
Conducted by the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, this research (DOI: 10.1007/s11783-024-1889-z) was published on August 1, 2024, in Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering. The study examined 243 sewage samples from 60 countries across seven continents, using a metagenomic framework to identify 95.03% of human-associated microbial species. It revealed the climatic and socioeconomic factors that drive microbial diversity and composition in sewage.
The research identified distinct global patterns in the human sewage microbiome (HSM), with species richness increasing at higher latitudes and notable differences between developed and developing regions. Economic factors, such as export values and social security, were found to play a key role in shaping microbial diversity in sewage. Developed regions like Europe and North America exhibited more uniform microbial communities while developing regions showed greater variability. These findings highlight the influence of local socioeconomic conditions on the human-associated microbes found in sewage, suggesting that sewage analysis could serve as a powerful tool for monitoring public health and environmental changes. This study provides new insights into how human activities and economic conditions drive global microbial diversity.
Dr. Jianjun Wang, the lead researcher, stated, “Our findings highlight the critical role of socioeconomic factors in shaping the human microbiome. The distinct microbial patterns across continents, linked to economic variables, open new possibilities for using sewage as a non-invasive tool for global health monitoring.”
The insights from this study could have a significant impact on public health and environmental strategies. By utilizing sewage analysis, authorities can gain a better understanding of microbial diversity linked to socioeconomic conditions, enabling the development of targeted interventions to mitigate health risks and improve ecosystem management globally.
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) urges the leaders of the nations of the Americas to oppose the upcoming United Nations’ decision to renew the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti for another 12 months. Additionally, we call on these regional leaders to challenge the United States’ proposal to convert this MSS into a full-fledged UN Peacekeeping mission by 2025.
