Blog Archives
Arms trading countries drive migration and disavow the consequences
A local lifeboat at Dungeness in Kent brings in a group of refugees picked-up in the Channel
On the 70th anniversary of the UN’s Refugee Convention, the Transnational Institute (TNI) has published Smoking Guns – a forensic analysis of open-source intelligence on the link between arms sales and displacement, turning a general argument into one about specific weapons.
It summarises its report:
It is possible to methodically trace arms, military equipment and technology, from the point of origin and export to where these were eventually used, and document their devastating impact on the local population. The report confirms beyond any reasonable doubt that European arms are directly used not to defend populations or to enhance local or regional security as is often claimed, but to destabilise entire countries and regions.
And ends:
If the EU and its member states genuinely want to address what they perceive as a “migration crisis”, they must
- curb arms exports,
- improve accountability mechanisms,
- and end the unbridled lobbying efforts of arms companies in the corridors of power in Brussels and other European capitals.
Europe must stop placing economic interests above human need, reassess its understanding of migration and recognise that European arms provoke forced displacement and migration.
The Transnational Institute (TNI) – an international programme of the Washington DC-based Institute for Policy Studies – should publish a parallel report showing the displacement caused by America’s extensive arms trading.
Full post here: https://civilisation3000.wordpress.com/2021/08/11/arms-trading-countries-drive-migration-and-disavow-the-consequences/
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Covid 19 – bulletin 45: will Britain strengthen defences against war, climate change and future pandemics?
NATO’s proposed focus on ‘strategic rivalry’ will divert financial and material resources and weaken the cooperation vitally needed to address the existential threat of climate change and future pandemics.
NATO Watch director Dr. Ian Davis writes: “The pandemic has revealed fundamental flaws in the strategies many states employ to provide security for their people. New efforts are needed to reduce the chances of nuclear war and achieve nuclear disarmament, address climate change and strengthen defences against future pandemics”.
NATO Watch conducts independent monitoring and analysis of NATO and aims to increase transparency and accountability within the Alliance. Its recent press release records peace researchers’ challenge to the NATO 2030 project which proposes:
Dr Wess Mitchell (below), co-chair of the NATO report, believes that “NATO has to adapt itself for an era of strategic rivalry with Russia and China, for the return of a geopolitical competition that has a military dimension but also a political one”.
The researchers stress that this approach could help to entrench a systemic three bloc rivalry between China, Russia and NATO-EU-US, with all the attendant risks – from nuclear war to weakening cooperation when addressing the existential threat of climate change and future pandemics.
Dr. Davis ended, “Based on the expert group report, NATO is not up to this task. Instead, NATO is doubling down on the militarist approaches to security and conflict that have not worked. A more comprehensive and honest reflection of NATO is needed by all of its members”.
Will Britain – as a member of NATO – take a stand against NATO’s proposed focus on ‘strategic rivalry’ with Russia and China, conserve financial and material resources and instead stress the need for the cooperation so vitally needed to address the existential threat of climate change and future pandemics?
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Read more about the report here.
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Bad decisions by government – 44: closing the hospitality sector – illogical and futile?
This graphic headed an article by a Conservative MP who wrote today, “I have seen the muddled logic behind this latest move. In most areas the recent wave of infections has been driven predominantly by secondary school children”.
He recommends significant amounts of testing to resolve the problem of the virus spreading rapidly within schools, adding: “There is no logic to punishing pubs and restaurants when the virus is spreading from children to parents”
He commented that the situation has not been helped by children from different schools congregating and ’messing around’ once the school day is over: “Consequently, the other group in which the virus is surging is their parents – although thankfully not their grandparents”.
An online search for the facts and figures:
Public Health England data, which shows only 3-5% of Acute Respiratory Incidents or Covid-19 Clusters can be linked to hospitality. The latest government report (Table 2 below, page 26) confirmed this with food outlet/restaurant settings having overall a far lower rate of infections than other locations – apart from prisons.
The MP said that NHS Test and Trace back data shows only about 6% of close contacts were in “leisure” (of which hospitality is a subset). Some time spent reading various NHS Test and Trace reports failed to verify this, but the figure is consistent with the Public Health England data. These results mirror those in a Dutch news website:
So how can shutting down the hospitality sector be justified?
These businesses can operate safely and raise morale while employing millions of workers. The industry has spent large amounts of money to Covid-proof premises, with enhanced hygiene, social distancing, new rules and guidance for staff, and closer regulation from local government.
The consequences are being completely overlooked.
The closure of pubs and restaurants will mean that some will buy their alcohol at an off-licence and drink with friends in their homes – the very environment that has not been secured against the virus.
Pressure on the NHS is not a valid reason
While NHS England regularly warns that the health service is about to be overwhelmed, hospital occupancy in London is at about the same level, or possibly lower, than this time last year, according to the MP. The NHS information on ‘bed availability’ appears to confirm this:
“(B)eds and staff are being deployed differently from in previous years in both emergency and elective settings within the hospital . . . In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case”.
More precise information comes from the EU – but not for much longer: ICU occupancy rate per 100 000 population due to COVID-19 for the UK is 22.4; to put that in context, the highest was Hungary, 79.3 and lowest, Norway, 2.4.
The estimated hit to the economy in London alone is £3 billion and according to the trade body, England’s hospitality industry could lose around £7.8bn in sales this year compared with 2019, if restrictions last the entire month of December.
And many businesses will not open again.
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Brexit 10: No Deal Brexit will devastate our food, farming and landscape’: farmer & MEP Phil Bennion
Arable farmer and West Midlands Lib Dem MEP Phil Bennion spoke out at a ‘Brexitime’ question and answer session with local farmers in Stratford-upon-Avon on August 6th.
He said that a particular threat to farming came from the Agriculture Bill which plans to abandon the Single Farm Payment system as used under the CAP, with nothing to replace it. “There are no ifs and buts, the basic payments scheme will be phased out. Michael Gove’s idea was to replace it with extra environmental schemes but he clearly had not read WTO rules. It is very clear that under WTO rules environmental schemes need to compensate for direct costs only, they cannot provide any income.
“If we have no income support. which this draft bill says. while the Americans are getting it, the Europeans are getting it, pretty well all our competitors are getting it, there is absolutely no way we can make farming pay.
“Emergency funding is within WTO rules – but under the rules you can’t carry on giving emergency funding forever. The Americans are doing this at the moment. Our (Lib Dem) policy keeps a basic payment scheme whether we leave the EU or not. A basic payment scheme is one of the only ways of supporting farm incomes within WTO rules.”
“There is likely to be a lot of land abandonment. Most of the farmland round here, the field sizes are not suitable for agribusiness arable farming and unless the regulations on clearing hedges and cutting trees down are scrapped, I can’t see that changing.”
Former NFU chief economist Sean Rickards, also a panellist at the event, gave a bleak assessment of the effect of the post Brexit trading environment on UK farming: “The government has already made it clear that (after Brexit) they are going to let the rest of the world in without tariffs and large sections of British agriculture couldn’t compete. Beef and sheep sectors will shrink quite severely, horticulture will struggle with labour issues and therefore the only sectors that will continue will be arable farms on an increasing scale to compete.
“The character will change, the size will change and the structure will change. It will be a smaller industry operating on an industrial scale and the remoter parts of the country will see farming almost wiped out.”
The panellists predicted that No Deal due to happen on October 31st would lead to the collapse of the sheep and beef sectors in particular, with prairie style arable agribusiness likely to be the only sector to survive, providing fields were huge without hedgerows. Phil Bennion said: “We export nearly 40% of the lamb we produce, and up to 96% of that goes to the EU. The tariffs under no deal would render this trade non-viable.
“Our lamb, Welsh lamb and English lamb is a premium product eaten fresh over a season, so there has not been a need to cold store it. It is eaten not just here but in France and all over Europe. New Zealand lamb fills our close season. With our lambs coming to market in the autumn it is inevitable that prices will crash if the EU market is closed off. There is nowhere to cold store it to stop this from happening. I believe the trade will collapse, yes, to a fraction of its current size. There will be a lot of mutton around and domestic prices will slump. Farmers won’t be able to get rid of enough of it to stop a price crash.”
After the meeting Phil said it was important to debunk the claims made by the Brexit Party and many Tory MPs that under GATT Article 24 we could just carry on trading with the EU as before.
“This myth keeps being repeated without being challenged. The fact is that the EU cannot choose under WTO rules whether or not to impose tariffs on our exports to ‘punish’ the UK, it has to impose them. It would also be illegal under WTO rules for the UK government to pay the tariffs to bail the farmers out.
“It is a disaster. If Boris does what he is threatening and refuses to go if he loses a vote of no confidence then I think we should walk into Parliament and tell him to go.”
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A streamed recording of the whole meeting can be found (temporarily 90 degrees on its side!) here: https://www.facebook.com/stratford4europe/videos/1054525424743135?s=644926487&v=e&sfns=xmo
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What is the truth about the state of England’s rivers?
Despite evidence from at least eight sources, the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency says “It’s wrong to suggest that the state of England’s rivers is poor”
The Financial Times recently reported that only 14% of rivers in England met the minimum “good status” standards as defined by the EU Water Framework directive according to an Environment Agency report in 2018. In 2009 almost 25% did so. Water quality has deteriorated since 2010 when the Environment Agency handed responsibility for pollution monitoring to the nine large water and sewage companies in England.
Evidence supporting their report comes from the World Wildlife Fund, Windrush rivers campaign, Fish Legal, Marine Conservancy, European Environment Agency, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Sewage Free Seas. It was quoted in England’s rivers: toxic cocktail of chemicals, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and untreated waste.
Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, replied in a letter to the FT, “It’s wrong to suggest that the state of England’s rivers is poor (“Blighted by pollution”, The Big Read, June 13)”. He continued:
Water quality is now better than at any time since the Industrial Revolution thanks to tougher regulation and years of hard work by the Environment Agency and others.
Rivers that were so polluted that they were severely biologically damaged two decades ago are now thriving with wildlife such as otters, dippers and mayflies returning.
Over the past 20 years EA teams have taken more than 50m samples to monitor water quality around the country. The EU’s water framework directive means that the failure of one test can prevent a river from achieving good ecological status overall but this often does not tell the whole story.
During the last round of testing, 76 per cent of the tests used to measure the health of rivers were rated as good, and last year 98 per cent of bathing waters at 420 locations passed tough quality standards, compared with less than a third in the 1990s.
The EA has also required water companies to install new monitoring systems on combined sewer overflows (CSOs). By March next year more than 11,500 CSOs will be monitored as the first phase of this work is completed
It is not true that the EA simply relies on the water companies to tell us what they are discharging into watercourses. We carry out our own monitoring of rivers to ensure we have independent evidence and we regularly inspect water treatment plants and sewage works. If companies are failing to abide by the law or the terms of their permits we will take action to ensure that they do, up to and including prosecution.
Since 1990, the water industry has invested almost £28bn in environmental improvement work, much of it to improve water quality. I agree that there are still too many serious pollution incidents and we have called for tougher penalties for water companies where they are shown to be at fault.
In the past three years we have brought 31 prosecutions against water companies, resulting in more than £30m in fines, and we will continue, alongside the other water regulators, to act to ensure that people, wildlife and the environment are protected.
The agencies quoted are unconvinced and the FT asked earlier this month: Can England’s water companies clean up its dirty rivers?
It noted that the concerns over river pollution come at a time when the water industry is under fire for paying executives and shareholders lucrative rewards while raising customer bills and failing to stem leakage and ended: “The failures mean that three decades after the regional state-run monopolies were handed to private companies free of debt, and with a £1.5bn grant to invest in environmental improvements, the Labour party is calling for renationalisation of the water companies that are now saddled with debt of £51bn”.
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Since this article was written, Southern Water — supplier to Kent, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Sussex — has been required to pay what amounts to a £126m penalty over five years for letting untreated waste leak into rivers between 2010 and 2017, and trying to hide what happened.
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Just A Little Respect – 2018
“I have treated the EU with nothing but respect” claimed Theresa May last week. Steve Beauchampé thinks otherwise.
Added to Political Barbs: https://politicalcleanup.wordpress.com/political-barbs/just-a-little-respect-2018/
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Credit card charges: the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
The whole unspun truth is given briefly in the FT: “a ban on charges for paying via credit or debit card comes into force across the EU from Saturday, making it unlawful for retailers to charge customers additional fees for paying on plastic”.
Though the whole truth is too tall an order in matters of diplomacy, the government wold have been well advised to emulate the FT’s delivery.
No longer confined to the mainstream media, adventures with the truth are mercilessly mocked on social media and more radical media:
See Steve Walker’s shot of the official Conservative Twitter site:
The Independent’s gentler account quotes British MEPs who criticised the Government for claiming responsibility for the move, “which comes as part of a broad range of new payment regulations based on an EU–wide directive that was spearheaded by left-wing politicians in the European Parliament”.
We expect a jaded public response to this ‘business as usual’ spin. No longer has financial or political dishonesty the power to surprise.
May the British public one day routinely hear the truth – or would that be electoral suicide?
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Murdoch press lists corporate spending on political and lobbying activities
Times journalists Alex Ralph, and Harry Wilson present and comment on material collected by the Times Data Team: Tom Wills, Ryan Watts, Kira Schacht. Links have been added by PCU’s editor to enable readers to learn more if they wish to do so.
“FTSE 100 groups, including banks, defence contractors, tobacco manufacturers and telecoms companies, have spent more than £24 million on lobbying in Brussels and about £335,000 funding all-party parliamentary groups in Westminster”.
They add: “There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing or rule-breaking by companies”.
FTSE 100 political spending (over the last two years)
The Times first focusses on All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs)
APPGs are run by and for Members of the Commons and Lords who join together to pursue a particular topic or interest. Many involve individuals and organisations from outside Parliament in their administration and activities – or as the journalists put it, “help to push industry agendas in parliament”. Read more here.
Unsurprisingly, BAE Systems, which spent £37,000 on a group “to promote better understanding of the Her Majesty’s armed forces in parliament”, is among the biggest backers of the parliamentary groups.
The writers comment that parliamentary groups have proved contentious because of the large amounts spent on reports that often support the views of industry and which grant access to parliament for companies and lobbyists.
BT’s £53,000 included backing the parliamentary internet, communications and technology forum, known as Pictfor, whose members include Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader and Lord Birt, former Blair adviser and director-general of the BBC. A list of funders may be seen here.
Note: ’Donations to APPGs’ shows spending between Jan 2015 and Mar 2017 as declared on the Register of APPGs. ’Spend on EU lobbying’ shows companies’ minimum estimates for the most recent financial year declared on the EU Transparency Register at the time of research. Here is a snapshot taken from one of 10 pages listing donations/other spending and the companies’ rationales for these sums being given.
The Times’ second focus is on the denial of information to shareholders
Less than £10,000 of identified political and lobbying spending in the EU was disclosed to shareholders in the companies’ recent annual reports. ompanies are not required to disclose details to shareholders and little information on corporate political and lobbying activities is revealed in annual reports, which are published before shareholder meetings. The tens of millions of euros spent each year in the EU go largely undeclared to shareholders.
Corporate Europe, which campaigns for greater transparency in EU decision making, has spent years tracking how the business world moulds policy.
Vicky Cann, the group’s UK representative, said that the banking and energy industries were the most active lobbyists. “The financial services industry is a huge spender and even then we think the real scope of their spending is probably bigger than we can currently see,” she said. Her colleague gave the example of recent emissions legislation that was the subject of intense lobbying by BP and Shell.
As Peter van Veen, director of business integrity at Transparency International, said, “Corporate transparency over political activities is important to ensure the public can have the confidence that their politicians and industry leaders are conducting business ethically . . . If companies are not voluntarily willing to disclose their political activities and funding of these, then stronger legislation should be considered and a possible starting point may be to broaden the definition of political activities and expenditure in the Companies Act 2006.”
Taxpayers unwittingly fund GM trials as the prospect of leaving wiser European counsellors looms
Will agri-business be allowed to charge ahead, imposing genetically modified food on an unwilling public?
This is Rothamsted research centre, one of the country’s largest agricultural research stations.
The work is publicly funded through a £696,000 grant from the government’s UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and $294,000 from the US Department of Agriculture. Other partners include the universities of Lancaster and Illinois.
Seeking food supplies from Turkey and Morocco? Time for change!
On BBC Radio 4 today it was reported that some supermarkets are limiting sales of fruit and vegetables.
A newspaper elaborates: “Morrisons and Tesco have limited the amount of lettuce and broccoli after flooding and snow hit farms in Spain. Shortages of other household favourites – including cauliflower, cucumbers, courgettes, oranges, peppers and tomatoes – are also expected. Prices of some veg has rocketed 40% due to the freak weather. Sainsburys admitted weather has also affected its stocks”.
HortiDaily reports on frost in Europe in detail (one of many pictures below) and the search for supplies from Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia.
A former Greenpeace Economist foresees these and more persistent problems in his latest book, Progressive Protectionism.
Political Concern 