UK

Cash-strapped drivers 'denied 10p cut in petrol prices' as retailers hiked profit margins

Drivers hit by the cost of living crisis are being denied an extra 10 pence cut in dropping petrol prices because retailers are hiking profit margins, according to new analysis


Fuel prices could have fallen further, according to RAC data 

By Tim Hanlon

News Reporter

5 Oct 2022

Drivers could have received a further 10p cut in petrol prices after a drop in the wholesale cost of fuel but were denied due to major retailers hiking profit margins, new analysis shows.

Many Brits are battling a cost of living crisis where they are struggling to make ends meet due to inflation causing everyday goods to rise in price while energy bills have gone through the roof.

And fresh data reveals that they have also been prevented a saving in fuel costs due to retailers increasing their profits by "10p more than normal" a litre.

The RAC said the average price of a litre of the fuel in the UK fell by nearly 7p to 162.9p in September as oil prices plummeted.

This was the sixth biggest monthly drop in average petrol prices since 2000 but the cut should have been deeper, the motoring services company claimed.

Drivers could be saving a further 10p a litre, analysis shows 

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “Drivers really should have seen a far bigger drop as the wholesale price of delivered petrol was around 120p for the whole month.

“This means forecourts across the country should have been displaying prices around 152p given the long-term margin on unleaded is 7p a litre.

“In stark contrast to this, RAC Fuel Watch data has shown margins to be around 17p a litre – a huge 10p more than normal.”

Supermarkets normally charge around 3.5p per litre less than the UK average but are currently only around 1.5p cheaper.

Mr Williams noted that Morrisons is offering discounted fuel for customers who spend a certain amount of money in store.

This is a type of promotion which “tends only to be seen when supermarkets are benefitting from lower wholesale prices”, he explained.

The wholesale cost of fuel has tumbled since highs in July 

He urged drivers to “shop around for the best deals” rather than “simply assuming” supermarkets are the cheapest fuel retailers because they have been in the past.

The average price of a litre of diesel fell by 3.5p to 180.2p last month.

Fuel prices are at their lowest prices since May 16, with a fall in wholesale costs due to a drop in oil prices.

The highest average fuel prices for the year so far were recorded on July 4, when petrol went up to 191.6p per litre and diesel was 199.2p per litre.

Since then, the cost of filling up a typical 55-litre family petrol car has been cut by more than £14, while refuelling diesel models costs nearly £10 less.

Lewis Corey: The Decline of American Capitalism (8. The Fall in the Rate of Profit) (marxists.org)

The Falling Rate of Profit (marxists.org)

Falling Rate of Profit. The rate of profit is r = s / (c + v)… | by 太阳鱼 | Medium

The falling rate of profit and the long depression | socialist.ca

https://www.socialist.ca/node/3226

2017-01-10 · As the rate of profit falls it reduces the total profit. When profit rates are low and returns on investment are low, and capitalists cease to invest in productive capital (the manufacture of goods and services that people use). As Roberts shows in his study of the three big modern depression periods, capitalists will turn to investing heavily ...

An introduction to Marxian economics 2: the rate of profit

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/publications/an-introduction-to...

The rate of profit measures the return on invested capital over a given period and is usually expressed as a percentage. So, if a capital investment of £ 100,000 turns over in a year and the profit is £20,000 then the rate of profit 

The Theory of the Falling Rate of Profit - New Left Review

https://newleftreview.org/I/84/geoff-hodgson-the-theory-of-the-falling...

The similarity between the bourgeois concept of capital and the crude ‘embodied labour’ conception is reflected in the similarity between the falling rate of profit theory and the neoclassical growth model. The neoclassical economist R. M. Solow published his Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth 29 in 1956.

Falling Rate of Profit: Falsifiable or not? | SpringerLink

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-07808-8_7

2022-07-21 · 1 Introduction. This chapter aims to evaluate some aspects of Alfred Saad-Filho’s interpretation of Marxian value theory (Saad-Filho, 2002, 2018 ), focusing on its implication on the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF). Saad-Filho’s understanding of value theory essentially advanced the logic of Ben Fine, who ...

 ABC News' Linsey Davis spoke with Kevin Hazzard about his new book "American Sirens" and the group of Black men in Pittsburgh who became the first paramedics.

Detained US citizen Namazi allowed to leave Iran


Detained US citizen and former UNICEF official Baquer Namazi has been allowed to leave Iran. (Twitter)

AFP, Washington
Published: 05 October ,2022: 09:31 AM GSTUpdated: 05 October ,2022: 09:56 AM GST

Detained US citizen Baquer Namazi has been allowed to leave Iran and his son has been granted furlough from prison, the State Department said Wednesday, confirming their release.

Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was detained in February 2016 when the 85-year-old went to Iran to press for the release of his son Siamak, who had been arrested in October of the previous year.

The United States has been pressing for the release of these two men and two other Americans amid efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major Western powers.

“Wrongfully detained US citizen Baquer Namazi has been permitted to depart Iran, and his son Siamak, also wrongfully detained, has been granted furlough from prison,” a State Department spokesperson told AFP.

It added that the older Namazi “was unjustly detained in Iran and then not permitted to leave the county after serving his sentence, despite his repeated requirement for urgent medical attention.”

“We understand that the lifting of the travel ban and his son’s furlough were related to his medical requirement.”

The United Nations said last week that the pair had been allowed to leave Iran, after an appeal from its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Both were convicted of espionage in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Baquer Namazi was released on medical leave in 2018 and had been serving his sentence under house arrest.

At least two other American citizens are currently held in Iran.

Businessman Emad Sharqi was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for espionage, and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who is also a British national, was arrested in 2018 and released on bail in July.

A drive to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal resumed in late November last year, after talks were suspended in June as Iran elected ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi.

The 2015 deal -- agreed by Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

But the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under president Donald Trump and reimposed biting economic sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin rolling back on its commitments.

On Sunday, the United States rejected Iranian reports that Tehran’s release of US citizens would lead to the unfreezing of Iranian funds abroad.

“With the finalization of negotiations between Iran and the United States to release the prisoners of both countries, $7 billion of Iran’s blocked resources will be released,” the state news agency IRNA said.

But the State Department dismissed any such link as “categorically false.”

Billions of dollars in Iranian funds have been frozen in a number of countries -- notably China, South Korea and Japan -- since the US reimposed sanctions.

Iranian-American, 85, held in Tehran for six years leaves Iran


By Parisa Hafezi, Arshad Mohammed

DUBAI (Reuters) - Baquer Namazi, an 85-year-old Iranian American who was jailed in Iran on spying charges that the United States called baseless, arrived in Muscat on Wednesday after Iran allowed him to leave for medical treatment, an Omani government office said on Twitter.

Earlier, a lawyer for the Namazi family, Jared Genser, said Namazi was on his way to Muscat “after more than 6.5 years of illegal detention in Iran”, referring to the time Namazi was jailed as well as when he was out of prison but effectively barred from leaving Iran.

“After a brief transit, he will travel on to Abu Dhabi and then undergo a carotid endarterectomy at the Cleveland Clinic (there) to clear out a severe blockage to his left internal carotid artery (ICA), which puts him at very high risk for a stroke,” Genser added in a statement.

His departure from Iran was first reported by Iran’s state media, publishing a video showing him boarding a private plane accompanied by a man in Omani national dress, but it did not say where he was headed.

The video showed him struggling to climb the stairs to board the plane, on which the light blue insignia of the Royal Air Force of Oman could be seen.

Namazi, a former official with the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, holds U.S. and Iranian citizenship and was one of four Iranian Americans, including his son Siamak, detained in Iran in recent years or barred from leaving the country

Namazi was convicted in 2016 of “collaboration with a hostile government” and jailed for 10 years. Iranian authorities released him on medical grounds in 2018 and closed his case in 2020, commuting his sentence to time served.

However, they had effectively barred him from leaving until Saturday, when the United Nations said he would be allowed to leave for medical treatment.

His son Siamak, 51, who was also convicted of “collaboration with a hostile government” in 2016, was released from Tehran’s Evin prison Saturday on a one-week, renewable furlough after nearly seven years in detention.

The U.S. government has described the charges against both as baseless.

In the statement released by the family’s lawyer, Babak Namazi, Baquer Namazi’s son, voiced gratitude for his father’s departure from Iran but sorrow at his brother Siamak’s inability to leave the country.

“While getting my father out of Iran is incredibly important, today is also bittersweet. My brother Siamak as well as Americans Emad (Shargi) and Morad Tahbaz remain detained in Iran and our nightmare will not be over until our entire family (and) the other Americans are reunited with their families,” he said.

The other U.S. citizens detained in Iran include environmentalist Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, and businessman Shargi, 58.

“Today is a good day for the Namazi family, but the work is far from over. We now need the United States and Iran to act expeditiously to reach an agreement that will finally bring all of the American hostages home,” Genser, the family’s lawyer, said, adding that Baquer Namazi will immediately go to the hospital upon his arrival in Abu Dhabi.

It was not immediately clear why Iran had allowed Baquer Namazi to leave the country and Siamak Namazi to be furloughed from prison.

Iranian Americans, whose U.S. citizenship is not recognized by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations, now at odds over whether to revive a fraying 2015 pact under which Iran limited its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

Iran is also grappling with the biggest show of opposition to its clerical authorities since 2019 with dozens of people killed in unrest across the country ignited by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman.

Hong Kong 'Rick and Morty' fans spot protest codes in new episode

Issued on: 05/10/2022 - 

The animated characters Rick and Morty present onstage at the 70th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in 2018 

Hong Kong (AFP) – Eagle-eyed Hong Kong fans of the adult cartoon sitcom "Rick and Morty" have spotted oblique references to the city's democracy movement in the latest episode of the cult sci-fi show.

"Final DeSmithation", the fifth episode of the sixth season, aired on Sunday and featured a characteristically chaotic storyline involving an imprisoned alien making fortune cookies.

Towards the climax a series of numbers and letters flash up on the screen that, to the uninitiated, might look random.

But the codes -- GFHG19SDGM, 721DLLM and 19HK831 -- were quickly seized on by Hong Kongers who spotted and explained their significance this week on Reddit and the local forum LIHKG.

The first is widely used as shorthand for the Cantonese protest chant "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" -- a slogan that has since been declared illegal in the Chinese financial hub.

The other two reference significant dates in the 2019 pro-democracy protest movement -- namely a July 21 attack on protesters by government supporters, and police beating democracy supporters inside a subway station on August 31.

DLLM is also internet shorthand for the most popular curse in Hong Kong -- an insult to the recipient's mother -- which was frequently shouted by police and protesters at each other.

"Thank you to the producers of Rick and Morty," wrote one user under a post on LIHKG that had received nearly 5,000 upvotes.

Others fretted the episode might get removed in Hong Kong, which has embraced greater censorship since the 2019 protests.

"If this receives exposure and the company kowtows, someone might lose their job," one user wrote.

Created by Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim, "Rick and Morty" has become a cult hit.

The show centres around a selfish, alcoholic grandfather who takes his grandson on bizarre interdimensional adventures.

It is distributed internationally by Warner Brothers and is currently viewable in Hong Kong on HBO Go.

AFP contacted both Adult Swim and Warner Brothers for comment but did not receive a reply.

Hong Kong's 2019 democracy protests raged for months but were eventually quelled, and China has responded with a widespread crackdown that has transformed the once-outspoken city.

Censorship laws have been strengthened, with multiple films and documentaries failing to get clearance although the city does not currently have the same level of restrictions as the Chinese mainland.

© 2022 AFP

Big Brazilian gold refiner delisted amid Amazon mining probe

By JOSHUA GOODMAN and DAVID BILLER

1 of 2

 A miner processes gold he illegally extracted from the Madeira River in Nova Olinda, Amazonas state, Brazil, Nov. 26, 2021. One of Brazil’s biggest gold refiners, which has been accused of processing gold mined illegally deep in the Amazon rainforest, has been stripped of an important industry certification that global manufacturers from Apple to Tesla rely on to root out abuses in their supply chains. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

MIAMI (AP) — One of Brazil’s biggest gold refiners, which processes gold suspected of being mined illegally in the Amazon rainforest, has been stripped of an important industry seal of approval that global manufacturers from Apple to Tesla rely on to root out abuses in their supply chains.

An investigation by The Associated Press in January revealed how Sao Paulo-based Marsam shared ownership links and processes gold on behalf of an intermediary accused by Brazilian prosecutors of buying tarnished gold from Indigenous territories and other protected areas.

A former partner at Marsam, Dirceu Frederico Sobrinho, has been at the center of recent gold rush in the Amazon, purchasing through a separate company he controls more than 2 billion reais ($388 million) worth of gold last year from wildcat miners at 252 sites. Last year, federal prosecutors filed a civil suit against the company, F.D’Gold, and two other companies that purchase gold, seeking 10 billion reais in social and environmental damages.

With that lawsuit still going on, Marsam this month was quietly removed by the Responsible Minerals Initiative from a public list of smelters and refiners deemed to follow best sourcing practices. The assessment program run by a Virginia-based coalition of manufacturers emerged with the passage a decade ago of legislation in the U.S. requiring companies to disclose their use of conflict minerals fueling civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

André Nunes, an external consultant for Marsam, said it would appeal the initiative’s decision. He said Marsam conducted its own evaluation of F.D’Gold and found nothing amiss.

He also cautioned that the accusations of illegal mining against Marsam’s client have yet to be proven, citing a procedural decision last month by a judge who blasted prosecutors for not providing sufficient evidence to back their request that company’s activities be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

“In Marsam’s understanding, we were diligent and did what was within our reach,” Nunes said. “We didn’t see a reason to end our relationship with F.D’Gold and the judiciary corroborated that decision.”

The Responsible Minerals Initiative wouldn’t disclose its findings, citing confidentiality agreements to encourage companies to participate in its evaluation process. But according to its standards, refiners can be removed from its “conformant” list for a variety of reasons, ranging from not performing enhanced due diligence when red flags are raised — something Marsam’s internal policies also require — to overlooking evidence that actors in its supply chain falsified mandatory declaration of origin forms, a rampant problem in the Amazon’s prospecting frontier.

More than 300 publicly traded companies list Marsam as a supplier in responsible mining disclosures that they are required to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Such sourcing decisions are guided by independent auditors who evaluate refiners to make sure they aren’t contributing to illegal armed groups, human rights violations and financial wrongdoing. Currently, 98 refiners are considered to be aligned with the initiative’s standards — the same status Marsam enjoyed from 2017 until its recent delisting.

Additionally, Marsam provided the gold that was used to make the medals hanging on the necks of athletes in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro — medals touted as a victory for the environment because they were partly made from recycled materials and free of mercury.

But critics said much of Marsam’s bona fides were undeserved. They accuse the company of “greenwashing” — promoting itself as more sustainable than it really is — by not delving deep into the origin of the ore it processes on behalf of F.D’Gold. Marsam is now co-run by the daughter of Dirceu, as he is widely known in Brazil.

“In Brazil, as in so many gold-producing countries, illegality enters into the supply chain very early on, so it’s essential to get better visibility on what happens upstream,” said David Soud, head of research at I.R. Consilium, who has researched illegal gold flows in South America. “Refiners are often culpable for failures in due diligence and need to be held to strict standards so that questionably sourced gold doesn’t get laundered into the legitimate supply chain.”

Illegal airstrips, toxic mercury ponds and forest-wrecking heavy machinery have proliferated throughout the Amazon as prospecting for gold on Indigenous lands and other protected areas has exploded in recent years. Weak government oversight enabled by President Jair Bolsonaro, the proud son of a prospector whose administration has facilitated mining in the Amazon, has exacerbated the frenzy.

But critics said companies in the U.S. and Europe bear part of the responsibility for the devastation. So do guidelines set by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that are used by the Responsible Minerals Initiative and other groups to evaluate companies’ compliance, the critics said.

Such standards pay scant attention to environmental crimes or the rights of Indigenous communities. Instead, they are geared toward risks stemming from civil wars and criminal networks. In Latin America, only Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela — where drug cartels or guerrilla insurgencies are active — are classified as conflict or high-risk areas deserving greater scrutiny for sourcing practices.

A recent study by Kumi, a London-based consulting firm that advises the OECD, found that only 7% of 284 end-user companies registered with the Responsible Minerals Initiative had policies on sourcing conflict materials that were in line with OECD guidelines. Most of them are U.S. based. The number was basically unchanged from a previous assessment by Kumi in 2017.

AP asked Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Tesla if they intended to stop sourcing from Marsam in light of the company’s delisting. Of the four, only Apple commented, saying that Marsam is no longer part of its supply chain.

“Our responsible sourcing standards are the strongest in the industry and strictly prohibit the use of illegally mined minerals,” Apple said in a statement. “If a smelter or refiner is unable or unwilling to meet our strict standards, we remove them from our supply chain, and since 2009, we have directed the removal of over 150 smelters and refiners.”

Dirceu, the former Marsam partner, said Marsam’s delisting reflects an effort to convict gold players in the court of public opinion.

Last month, Sao Paulo police temporarily arrested him for an outstanding warrant in the Amazonian state of Rondonia in connection with a separate investigation into illegal mining. He said his company purchases gold legally from a cooperative in the state that was being probed. He called his arrest “arbitrary.”

The son of a vegetable grocer who was raised selling produce at an open-pit mine, Dirceu acknowledges Brazil’s legal framework for gold trading has many holes. But he said toughening oversight and encouraging compliance is a better course than driving reform-minded companies like F.D’Gold out of business when so many illegal players already export raw gold with almost no concern for the environment.

“We have laws in Brazil, and we’re complying with them. They aren’t perfect, but they can be improved,” he said, noting that the nation’s gold association, which he presided over until recently, has proposed multiple reforms. “If the market doesn’t purchase gold legally, it doesn’t go back into the earth. It will be negotiated in another way, any other way.”

___

Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

___

Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

David Biller on Twitter: @DLBiller

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

Further pay strike set to bring Liverpool docks to a standstill as Felixstowe threatens more walkouts

Margot Miller

WSWS.ORG

Dockers in Liverpool, northwest England, are to extend their strikes at the UK’s second largest port with a further stoppage planned from October 11 to 17.

Dockers at the UK’s largest port, Felixstowe on the southeast coast, are threatening to resume their stoppage. Felixstowe dockers previously walked out for eight days from September 27. This coincided for seven days with the 15-day strike by Liverpool dockers which ended on Monday.

Strikers on the picket line at the Port of Liverpool, September 27, 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

Senior control room operators and control room operators at Liverpool voted to join the 560 port operators and engineers, who first walked out on September 19 after rejecting a pay offer of between 7 to 8.3 percent. Inflation is currently at 12.3 percent, but is set to increase after the government’s mini budget sparked a run on the pound, coupled with rising interest rates.

According to a September 29 Unite union statement, “the port’s dock masters, shift managers and vessel traffic services officers are also preparing to be balloted for strike action. The combined impact of so many roles striking means the entire port will ‘literally become inoperable’”.

As well as pay, the dispute concerns Mersey Docks and Harbour Company’s (MDHC) failure to honour a 2021 pay deal agreed with Unite, supposedly to improve shift rotas and a promised pay review. The last pay review was in 1995. 

Dockers who worked in horrendous conditions as essential workers during the pandemic, risking their lives, face a pay cut against an employer which made more than £30 million in profits in 2021.

A plant operator of 21 years told WSWS reporters, “We're striking for better pay and conditions. Some of the lads work one week of five days on and three days off, and then a week on nights, on 12-hour shifts. That messes up with your body clock. And it's 60 hours a week. Before that they were working six days on and two days off, which was 72 hours a week.

“My doctor didn't believe it. He said, ‘That sounds illegal and you're still doing it at 60 years of age!’

“We had an occupational health adviser coming, she signed off 40 odd men on the sick with high blood pressure. These were young men, 30 odd year olds, with high blood pressure, IBS, intestinal problems. It's not right! It's scandalous!”

Another veteran docker said, “The ground on the docks shouldn't even be driven on for health and safety reasons. There's pot holes everywhere, you have to drive over them for 12 hours. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

“You've got no life, a 12-hour shift, climbing up a 90-foot ladder into a glass box, and they're constantly throwing work at you. You're worn out after two hours. My back's gone with it. I can't stand anymore.

“The last straw was in February, up in a freezing, icy machine, I couldn't even see out of the windows. I got pains in my chest and ended up in hospital.”

An experienced docker: "The cost of living is impacting your quality of life."

MDHC is part of Peel Ports, owned by the Peel Group based on the Isle of Man tax haven. Peel Ports is also the port authority for the Manchester Ship Canal, the River Medway, parts of the river Clyde, 12 Quays at Birkenhead and Heysham Port.

Peel Ports paid out around £300 million in dividends the past five years. In 2021, the company’s highest paid director was awarded £4.5 million, up from £1.6 million in 2020. Peel group’s majority owner John Whittaker is worth £1.4 billion.

On September 27, Liverpool dockers cheered on by bystanders marched to the venue of the Labour Party annual conference, being held in the city. They chanted, “The dockers united will never be defeated” and on arrival, one striker shouted, “Where are you Starmer? All for the workers, are you? Well, we’re here.”

Needless to say, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer refused to come out. Throughout the summer strike wave, Starmer forbade shadow cabinet members from joining picket lines.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn greeted the pickets with words he has no intention of fighting for, “We need a fundamental approach, a fundamental redistribution of wealth.” As Labour party leader, he refused to mobilise his thousands of supporters to drive out the Blairites and paved the way for their return in the person of Starmer. Nearly two year ago, Corbyn was booted out of the Parliamentary Labour Party by Starmer, as part of the anti-Semitism witch-hunt, and still Corbyn remains a member of this right-wing party.

Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT) leader Mick Lynch said, “We need synchronised action, we need ordinary men and women in this country coming back together, back to trade union values, with Unite, the RMT, the teachers, the health service workers.”

Workers struggles are growing, fuelled by the cost of living crisis to pay for the war in Ukraine, and bank, energy and pandemic bailouts—after decades of suppression by the trade union bureaucracy. This was apparent on Saturday, which saw joint strike action by 170,000 striking rail, postal workers and dockers.

Workers, however, will only suffer defeat led by the trade union bureaucracy and the dwindling Labour “left”. All are opposed to an indefinite general strike across all sectors, to mobilise the full strength of the working class, as they seek to end the ongoing disputes with rotten deals.

Striking dock workers on the picket line at the Port of Felixstowe,

 October 2, 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

Dockers in Liverpool and Felixstowe together handle 60 percent of UK container freight and are thus in a powerful position, alongside their international counterparts, in the global supply chain. The union refuses to unite the strikes at Liverpool and Felixstowe. A Unite union rep in Felixstowe told WSWS reporters, “We would love to coordinate action, but they are two separate disputes. We fully support our comrades in Liverpool as they do us, but these strikes landed together by coincidence not by planning.” [emphasis added]

While management at Liverpool or Felixstowe have made no compromises, Unite sows the illusions that the corporations running the ports can be made to act in the interests of workers and not their profits. Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said, “MDHC needs to keep its previous pay promises and put forward a proper pay rise now.”

At Felixstowe, Graham is urging dockers to accept a below inflation 10 percent, as opposed to the company offer of 7 percent. Felixstowe Dock and Railway company is owned by Hong Kong based CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd, with interests in 52 ports in 26 countries. Shareholders received £99 million from the profits of operations at Felixstowe last year.

Unite will not mobilise its thousands of other members at the UK’s portsa small part its 1.4 million strong membership in transport, logistics and warehousing, manufacturing and the oil industry—because that would involve challenging soon to be strengthened anti-strike laws, threatening the union’s coffers which ensure a prosperous lifestyle for the union tops.

To unleash the enormous power of the working class requires new organisations, rank-and-file committees that unite workers, reaching beyond national borders in solidarity with workers also fighting the same global corporations. These must be taken into ownership, based on a socialist programme and not profit interests, and run democratically by the working class.

The International Committee of the Fourth International has initiated the call for the formation of the InternationalWorkers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. We encourage dockworkers in Liverpool and Felixstowe to contact the WSWS to discuss how to take this fight forward.

The utility of doomsdayism and the credulousness of optimism
(Image: iStock)

By Tim Cohen
04 Oct 2022 0

Today was a big day for Daily Maverick — we published our first song. It’s an angry diatribe and a bitter warning about the approaching doomsday, claiming that we are on the Eve of Destruction.
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When our song was first released, it was very much in the style of Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, written two years earlier in 1962, and follows the same pattern of calling out hypocrisy and injustice, with an underlying message of imminent dystopia. While the original had an anti-war theme, which probably helped popularise the version published as the Vietnam war was escalating, our updated version focuses on climate change.

This all makes me wonder about the utility of doomsdayism. Doomsdayism has a profound history, starting of course with religions of many descriptions. It has such an urgent and powerful pull on your emotions: it’s a common meme in fiction and film.

Malthus

Its first serious scientific proponent was Thomas Malthus, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Malthus’s main contribution was a book on population growth, An Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he calculated that humans tended to fall into a trap because whenever there was an increase in food output, it was used to increase population growth rather than improve living standards.

The outcome would be dire, he predicted, because population increased exponentially, but food production increased arithmetically.

So, pretty obviously, his theory turned out to be wrong. Malthus didn’t factor in the productivity increases that stemmed from the industrial revolution, improving crop yields and agricultural methods, and human adaptability. Not only that, but Malthus ended up being on the wrong side of history for other reasons too, since he opposed free trade and supported the protectionist Corn Laws, claiming the tariffs would guarantee British self-sufficiency in food. Very Trumpian, it turns out.

Well, it’s easy to laugh at Malthus now because he was so awfully wrong. But should we? What role did his alarmism play in the adaptability that changed the equation? It’s hard to say.
Horse manure

Try a different example: In 1894, the Times of London predicted that within 50 years, every street in London would be buried under nine feet of horse manure. Population was getting out of control and, since horses were the main mode of transport, there was what we might call a shitstorm. Of course, in less than a decade, the car was invented, and in 50 years, the few horses remaining were historical vestiges. Did the emerging car industry get an inadvertent push from rising levels of horse manure? I’ll bet it did.

The problem with doomsday scenarios is that they tend to engender hopelessness and resignation, when what you want is adaptation. But it turns out the opposite is true, too.

In 2011, linguist and academic Stephen Pinker wrote a book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, demonstrating the decline of violence in modern society, including homicide, cruel punishments, child abuse, animal cruelty, domestic violence, lynching, pogroms, and international and civil wars. The book was very factual, but it nevertheless came as a surprise to many, including me. I had assumed the past 100 years was the most violent period in history, since it included two world wars. Turns out, they were the least violent in history — as far as we can tell.

The book did spark a more generalised reassessment of the state of the world. The World Economic Forum, showing impeccable timing, published in 2019 seven charts that show the world is actually becoming a better place.

The timing might have been off, given the approaching Covid calamity, but the numbers really are astounding. Life expectancy has doubled in the past 50 years; child mortality was about one in three in the year 1800 (it’s now lower than one in a hundred) and GDP per capita in dollars has exploded by more than 10 times everywhere, including in Africa, over those past 50 years, adjusted for inflation.
An extraordinary time

We live, it turns out, in an extraordinary time. This is not to minimise the many problems and issues, including rising inequality in developed countries, and the dangers of a multipolar world. But you have to be wilfully blind not to see how much better off we are than our grandparents.

Yet, optimism has its own dangers, of course. Optimists tend to be complacent, docile and deferential. “Things will get better,” people say far more often than they do get better. Ironically, both doomsdayism and optimism give rise to the same problem: passivity.

In respect of the global warming subject of the revamped Eve of Destruction song, the problems involved in optimism and doomsdayism are both relevant. When I read publications on global warming, I get this very clear sense that I’m being pitched. The message is that the situation is critical but also hopeful, because without being critical your attention might wander, and without hope you might give up.

In truth, and I hate to tell you this, much of the damage done causing the climate emergency is probably irreversible, and although the climate-change targets are achievable, the requirements to do so are gargantuan and therefore chances are pretty slim.

What we can do is stabilise climate change at more or less existing levels, and because Mars is actually quite an unpleasant place to live, we’d better get on with it.

Neither doomsdayism nor optimism serve us here. BM/DM

 ECOCIDE

Two oil wells operated by Nigeria’s Eroton on fire -oil spills agency

Tue, Oct 4, 20220

By Tife Owolabi

Yenagoa, Nigeria (Reuters) – Two oil wells operated by Nigerian firm Eroton Exploration and Production Limited caught fire on Monday and were still burning on Tuesday after the company hired a contractor to try extinguish the fire, the agency responsible for detecting oil spills said.

It was not immediately clear if this was the same area where a well operated by Eroton spilled oil and gas into the Niger Delta for more than a week in June.

Eroton produces and exports crude from its Oil Mining Lease 18 block through the Nembe Creek Trunkline.

The National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) said the fire broke out at two wells in Rivers state, in the Niger Delta. A boat suspected to have been engaging in theft of crude oil was burnt to ashes at the site.

“The company has mobilised a vendor, which is expected to arrive at the incident location today, October 4, 2022 to extinguish the raging fire from the wells, the agency will supervise the activity accordingly,” Idris Musa, head of NOSDRA said in a statement.

Oil spills are common in the oil producing Niger Delta where crude production has been hobbled by theft and vandalism of pipelines, hitting Nigeria’s export earnings.

(Reporting by Tife Owolabi, editing by MacDonald Dzirutwe and Marguerita Choy)

UN urges action as mental health takes heavy toll on workers

October 5, 2022


GENEVA (AFP) – Far more must be done to safeguard mental health on the job, the United Nations (UN) said recently, presenting new guidelines on how to lessen psychological strains linked to the workplace.

The UN agencies for health and labour published two documents filled with advice on how best to prevent and protect against mental health risks at work, warning that psychological distress is costly for individuals and society alike.

An estimated 12 billion work days are lost every year due to depression and anxiety, costing the global economy nearly USD1 trillion, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) said.

“It’s time to focus on the detrimental effect work can have on our mental health,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a joint statement.

“The well-being of the individual is reason enough to act, but poor mental health can also have a debilitating impact on a person’s performance and productivity.”

The UN health agency cautioned in June that nearly one billion people globally were living with a mental disorder before COVID-19 hit – and the pandemic has made this much worse.

“Working-age adults are especially affected, with one in six suffering from a mental disorder at any given time,” the WHO said.

“The numbers are alarming,” occupational safety and health ILO team lead Manal Azzi, told reporters. “We have a huge responsibility ahead of us.”

The workplace itself is often a trigger for mental health woes, the two agencies warned.

In its fresh report listing 13 guidelines on how to counter the problem, the WHO highlighted that meaningful work can protect mental well-being, providing a sense of accomplishment, confidence and earnings. But it stressed that harmful or poor working conditions, poor working relationships and unemployment “can significantly contribute to worsening mental health or exacerbate existing mental health conditions”.

The workplace can also amplify wider issues that negatively affect mental health, like discrimination over gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability, the WHO pointed out.

The new guidelines cover measures to build workers’ stress management, including mindfulness and physical activity.

But perhaps the most important ones revolve around the “organisational interventions” needed to prevent risks to mental health at work, including for the first time recommending training managers to prevent stressful work environments and respond to workers in distress.

Aiysha Malik, from the WHO’s mental health and substance use department, told reporters it was essential to “stop people from experiencing risks such as very heavy workloads… being bullied, difficult relationships with colleagues or supervisors”.

That needs to change, she said, or we will continue “experiencing difficulties with our mental health at work, no matter how many stress-management tools” we apply. In addition to its new guidelines, the WHO and ILO published a joint policy brief, laying out practical strategies for governments, employers and workers, and their organisations to protect and promote mental health at work.

It also sets out how to support people with mental health conditions and help them participate and thrive in the workplace.

'The most magical place': 4 women selected to run Antarctica's 'Penguin Post Office'

Natalie Neysa Alund
USA TODAY


Four women have been selected to run the world's most remote post office – a "magical" site called Port Lockroy in Antarctica.

An added perk? They get paid to count penguins.

Clare Ballantyne, Mairi Hilton, Natalie Corbett and Lucy Bruzzone beat out 6,000 applicants to become the team responsible for managing Port Lockroy on Goudier Island, west of the Antarctic Peninsula, UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) spokeswoman Emma Dennis told USA TODAY Tuesday.

At the port, affectionately known as the Penguin Post Office, the group will work from November to March 2023 – Antarctica's summer months – when temperatures can reach a brisk 50 degrees, but often are freezing when the wind chill is factored in.

The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, a charity that manages bases that educate visitors and help conservation efforts on the seventh continent, advertised the job postings and, in the end, selected the four as its hires.

A British Antarctic territory, Post Lockroy's "Base A" was created in 1944 and operated as a British research station.

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No running water, internet or flushing toilets

The newly selected team will travel 9,000 miles from the United Kingdom to reopen the bay for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, UKAHT released in a statement.

They will spend five months living in close quarters without a flushing toilet and limited communication to the world.

The initial job posting described living conditions as "basic but comfortable," with limited power, no running water or internet access.

If they want to take a shower or use a flushing toilet, according to the post, the workers have to hope a visiting ship will let them use one.

The women will have company, too: They will be joined for several months by Vicky Inglis, the general assistant and wildlife monitor, UKAHT said.

According to a statement from UKAHT, Hilton will work as a wildlife monitor and will be in charge of counting the penguin population and watching new hatchlings and nests.

Corbett, who will run a gift shop at the site, will leave behind her husband for the trip.

"Who wouldn't want to spend five months working on an island filled with penguins in one of the most remote places on the planet?" Corbett, 31, said in the statement. "I’ll be leaving behind my husband, George, who I only married in June so I’m treating this like my solo honeymoon."

Ballantyne will handle about 80,000 cards sent annually from the post office to nearly 100 countries across the globe, according to AKAHT.

Bruzzone, a scientist, will manage the team and have supervision over ships coming and going. She called the opportunity is a "lifelong dream".

While there, the group has to count penguins and other wildlife for the British Antarctic Survey, and a report is due by the end of employment.

As daunting as the job may seem, Lauren Elliott, a postmaster who worked there from 2019 to 2020, called it "the most magical place in the world," even if it meant cleaning up "lots of penguin poo."

"Pack up your bags and go," Elliot said. "Our team still talks today, and you'll make friends for life."

Contributing: Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY.

Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.

4 Women Will Staff U.K. Base in Antarctica

They emerged from an applicant pool of thousands to run the world’s most southerly post office, monitor penguins and manage the wild landscape on Goudier Island.

Port Lockroy base on Goudier Island is managed by the U.K. Antarctic Heritage Trust. Assignment there is not for the faint hearted

.Credit...Dietmar Denger/Laif, via Redux


By Saskia Solomon
Oct. 4, 2022

There is no running water, or even a flushing toilet, on Goudier Island in Antarctica. But there is a post office.

When the U.K. Antarctic Heritage Trust advertised in April the opportunity to spend five months working at this remote post office and filling three other paid positions at its Port Lockroy base, over 4,000 people applied — more than double the response of previous years.

Out of that pool, open to anyone with the right to work in the U.K., four women were selected to manage the historic site from November until March. All will soon leave the comfort of their homes to act as caretakers of a wild, unpredictable landscape, fulfilling the roles of base leader, postmaster, wildlife monitor and shop manager. And all of them are expected to lend a hand in greeting visitors, and monitoring the 1,500 Gentoo penguins native to the island.

“It’s definitely been a long-term dream,” said Lucy Bruzzone of living in Antarctica. Ms. Bruzzone, 40, of London, will serve as base leader thanks to her background as program director at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and her experience in field work.

“I’ve always been interested in the natural world, and have dedicated my career to preserving the environment and the places in which we live and work,” Ms. Bruzzone added. It was a field trip to the Arctic, in 2008, that whetted her appetite for extreme experiences, she said.

Ms. Bruzzone said she applied for the role almost on a whim. “I was really keen to follow in the footsteps of explorers, but also think about how I can support the science, the great work that happens on the continent, as well as experience the ice and the snow and the wonders that this environment has,” she said.

Clockwise from top left: Natalie Corbett, Lucy Bruzzone, Clare Ballantyne and Mairi Hilton will staff the Port Lockroy from November until March.

While it has no permanent residents, the island — which has a surface area the size of a soccer field — hosted some 18,000 visitors annually before the pandemic, according to the trust.

Set to staff the island’s only gift shop is Natalie Corbett, a small-business owner who married in June. She jokingly referred to her upcoming stint in Antarctica as a kind of “solo honeymoon.”

Ms. Corbett, 31, of Hampshire, said she read about the position in a newspaper, and felt the opportunity was too good to pass up. “Everyone who knows me isn’t surprised I’m doing this,” she said.

The assignment is not for the faint hearted. Showers are taken on visiting ships; the toilet is a bucket. The days are long, with few distractions. Accommodation is in the form of bunk beds. Team members will spend Christmas at the base, far from their families.

With no wifi, and with limited internet access, letter writing, as well as the occasional blog post, will be the primary methods of communicating with friends and loved ones at home.

Managing the world’s most southerly post office will be Clare Ballantyne, 23, of Lincolnshire. Over the five months, she will oversee the organization of as many as 70,000 letters, and send them to over 100 countries.

But it’s the promise of the expansive nature that most appeals to Ms. Ballantyne, an Oxford University graduate who completed a master’s degree in earth sciences this year.

“I’m most looking forward to stepping onto Goudier Island and taking in the cacophony and pungent smell of the penguins, the backdrop of the glaciers and Fief Mountains — and being able to call it home for the next few months!” Ms. Ballantyne said in a statement.

Recruitment for the remote post has been a yearly tradition since 2006, when the trust took control of the island from the British Antarctic Survey, but it was paused during the pandemic.

Roughly 1,500 Gentoo penguins live on the island.

Credit...Jonas Beyer/Solent News, via Shutterstock


It will be Ms. Bruzzone’s job to manage the team, coordinate ship visits to the island and work with expedition leaders. Having been to the region before, she said she is confident. “I got to know more about Antarctica through one of my early jobs when I was very much involved in the expeditions world.”

Mairi Hilton, 30, who has a Ph.D in conservation biology, will be wildlife monitor, which largely means taking charge of the penguin head count, and staying alert for new hatchlings and nests.

“I have no idea what to expect when we get there,” Ms. Hilton, of Bo’ness, Scotland, said in a statement issued by the trust. “How cold it will be, will we have to dig our way through the snow to the post office? I’m a conservation biologist, so personally I can’t wait to see the penguins and other wildlife like seabirds and whales!”

The chosen four went through a three-stage selection process, said Camilla Nichol, chief executive of the trust.

“It’s an application form, then a Zoom interview,” Ms. Nichol said. “When we get down to the final 12 we bring them together in person, as a group, for a day of activities, tests, presentations, an in-person interview, to really get to understand who these people are and how they respond in different situations.”

That only women made the team was not a goal, Ms. Nichol said. The trust was looking for the right match for each role. Given the harshness of the environment, working in subzero temperatures and faced with an all-encompassing sense of isolation, group dynamic and mental preparedness are everything.

The four women will undertake intensive training in Cambridge in a couple of weeks’ time, “to prepare for any kind of eventuality when we’re there,” said Ms. Corbett.

As is natural for any big move, there are nerves. “When they offered it to me I was like, ‘Oh God, I’ve actually got to go now — was this a really stupid idea?’” Ms. Corbett said. “But the more we learn about Antarctica, and the work that we’ll be doing for the trust, the more exciting it becomes. So I’m not too nervous anymore. I’m excited.”