A new report by Oxfam has found the richest 10 percent of the world’s population produce half of the Earth’s climate-harming fossil fuel emissions. The poorest half – about 3.5 billion people – are responsible for only around 10 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Oxfam’s report is titled “Extreme Carbon Inequality: Why the Paris climate deal must put the poorest, lowest emitting and most vulnerable people first." We speak with the report’s author Tim Gore, head of policy for Oxfam International on food, land rights and climate change.
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
15 Jul 2015
Why Is The Child In Hands of The Beggar Always Sleeping?
“Near the metro station sits a woman of uncertain age. Women’s hair is confused and dirty, her head bowed in grief. The woman sits on the dirty floor and next to her lies a bag. In that bag people throw money. On the hands of a woman, asleep, is a two year old baby. He’s in a dirty hat and dirty clothes. “Madonna with baby” – numerous passers-by will donate money. The people of our kind- we always feel sorry for less fortunate. We are ready to give unfortunate people the last shirt, the last penny out of your pocket and never think another issue. Helping, seems like. “Good job done”…
Next day I called a friend. It was a funny man with eyes like olives Romanian nationality. He only managed to complete three and a half years of education. The complete lack of education does not prevent him from moving around the City streets on very expensive foreign cars and live in a “small” house with countless number of windows and balconies. From my friend I managed to find out that this business, despite the apparent spontaneity, clearly organized. Its supervised by begging organized crime rings. The children used are in “rent” from families of alcoholics, or simply stolen.
I needed to get the answer to the question – why is the baby sleeping? And I received it. My friend Gypsy said the phrase, completely ordinary with calm voice that twisted me in shock, just like he was talking about weather report: -They are on heroin, or vodka … I was dumbfounded. “Who is on heroin? Whom – under vodka?! ” He answered -The Child, so he doesn’t scream. The women will be sitting whole day with him, imagine how he might get bored?
In order to make the baby slept the whole day, it pumped up with vodka or drugs. Of course, children’s bodies are not able to cope with such a shock. And children often die. The most terrible thing – sometimes children die during the “working day”. And imaginary mother must hold another dead child on her hands until the evening. These are the rules. And the by passers-by will throw some money in the bag, and believe that they are moral. Helping “mother alone” …
18 May 2015
The American Poor
Last week President Obama committed the cardinal sin of calling out Fox News (according to Fox News) on their downright pejorative coverage for years on anything concerning the poor. Fox fired back by essentially playing dumb and pondering why Obama was attacking them? Then Jon Stewart got involved offering a well-timed and spot on rebuttal of their lying ways. Of course, as skilled and pointed as it was, many still rebuffed it as “just comedy.” Coincidentally many of the same people who think things like gravity and climate change are “just theories.”
1 Apr 2014
There’s a Class War Going On and the Poor Are Getting Their Butts Kicked
Although they say they're concerned about inequality, economic policymakers continue to pummel low-income families and the jobless, and that’s bad for all of us.
A year ago I asked if Karl Marx was, in certain respects, right about capitalism, and argued that class struggle was making a comeback. The German philosopher believed the capitalist system was inherently unjust. Capitalism, Marx predicted, would inevitably concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while impoverishing everyone else. There is ample evidence that Marx’s theorizing is becoming reality.
Meanwhile in the US…
WAR ON THE POOR - Ryan Budget Slashes Food Stamps, Health Care For Poor, Assistance To Low-Income College Students, Federal Worker Pensions... Huffington Post
2 Dec 2013
Noam Chomsky: America Hates Its Poor
An article that recently came out in Rolling Stone, titled “Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail,” by Matt Taibbi, asserts that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, such as those running HSBC. Taibbi says that there’s “an arrestable class and an unarrestable class.” What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?
Well, there’s always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscious—they’re constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.
We don’t use the term “working class” here because it’s a taboo term. You’re supposed to say “middle class,” because it helps diminish the understanding that there’s a class war going on.
It’s true that there was a one-sided class war, and that’s because the other side hadn’t chosen to participate, so the union leadership had for years pursued a policy of making a compact with the corporations, in which their workers, say the autoworkers—would get certain benefits like fairly decent wages, health benefits and so on. But it wouldn’t engage the general class structure. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why Canada has a national health program and the United States doesn’t. The same unions on the other side of the border were calling for health care for everybody. Here they were calling for health care for themselves and they got it. Of course, it’s a compact with corporations that the corporations can break anytime they want, and by the 1970s they were planning to break it and we’ve seen what has happened since.
This is an excerpt from the just released second edition of Noam Chomsky’s “Occupy: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity,” edited by Greg Ruggiero and published by Zuccotti Park Press.
27 May 2013
The New Crime of Eating While Homeless
Whenever one of the US cities gets a star turn as host of some super-sparkly event, such as a national political gathering or the Super Bowl, its first move is to tidy up — by having the police sweep homeless people into jail, out of town, or under some rug. But Houston’s tidy-uppers aren’t waiting for a world-class event to rationalize going after homeless down-and-outers. They’ve preemptively outlawed the “crime” of dumpster diving in the Texan city.
In March, James Kelly, a 44-year-old Navy veteran, was passing through Houston on his way to connect with family in California. Homeless, destitute, and hungry, he chose to check out the dining delicacies in a trash bin near City Hall. Spotted by police, Kelly was promptly charged with “disturbing the contents of a garbage can in the [central] business district.” Seriously. “I was just basically looking for something to eat,” he told the Houston Chronicle. But, unbeknownst to both this indigent tourist and the great majority of Houston’s generally generous citizens, an ordinance dating way back to 1942 says that “molesting garbage containers” is illegal.
Also, in 2012, city officials made it a crime for any group to hand out food to the needy in the downtown area without first getting a permit. It’s a cold use of legal authority to chase the homeless away to…well, anywhere else.
Such laws are part of an effort throughout the country to criminalize what some call “homeless behavior.” And, sure enough, when hungry, the behavioral tendency of a homeless human is to seek a bite of nourishment, often in such dining spots as dumpsters. The homeless behavior that Houston has outlawed, then, is eating. The good news is that when Houstonians learned of Kelly’s situation, many reached out to help him get through his hard times. Now they need to reach out to local politicos and get the city to stop cracking down on this abuse of homeless people.
27 Mar 2013
The 7th Richest Man in America Has Screwed the Poor
Earlier this month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg perfectly described a day in the life of your average homeless New Yorker. “You can arrive in your private jet at Kennedy Airport, take a private limousine and go straight to the shelter system and walk in the door and we've got to give you shelter," he said on his radio show, addressing the record rate of homelessness in the city.
50,000 people, including 21,000 children, are currently crowded into the city's emergency shelters, a 61 percent rise from when the Mayor took office, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.
Last month, the Mayor had assured reporters that "Nobody's sleeping on the streets," a claim easily refuted by a look at the city's homelessness statistics and/or going outside in New York. As it turns out, the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) had recently suspended a program making it easier for homeless families to get into shelters when the temperature dips below freezing. The DHS did not share this information widely; it came to light after a New York Daily News report highlighted the case of 23 year-old Junior Clarke, who told the News that he, his wife, and 4 year-old daughter were turned away from the city's intake center on a freezing day. When they refused to leave, staff threatened to call the police.
“They tried to make us leave and we refused,” Clarke told the Daily News. “You know some people leave, walk away and go sleep on the train with their families.”
As the 7th richest man in America finishes his final term in office, he leaves behind one of the biggest wealth gaps in the country: income inequality in Manhattan is the second worst in the US, according to the New York Times. New York's poverty rate has risen to the highest level in a decade, the Times also noted. 1 in 3 New York kids live below the poverty line. In parts of the Bronx, two thirds of residents live in areas of extreme poverty.
17 Mar 2013
Mother Teresa: Hell's Angel
In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa 's reputation was deserved.
21 Jan 2013
Oxford College Being Sued For 'Discriminating Against The Poor'
An Oxford college is being sued for allegedly discriminating against poor students after it rejected applications from postgraduates who couldn't prove they had £21,082 for tuition and living costs. Damien Shannon, 26, is taking St Hugh's college to court claiming the policy amounts to "selecting by wealth" and bars all but the wealthiest of students.
Shannon had successfully applied to take an MSc in economic and social history but was told his place was conditional on meeting Oxford's financial requirements. According to the Guardian, Shannon's submitted legal papers state: "It is my contention that the effect of the financial conditions of entry is to select students on the basis of wealth, and to exclude those not in possession of it.
22 Mar 2012
Feeding The Homeless BANNED All Over America
Feeding the homeless has been banned in major cities all over America. Other cities that have not banned it outright have put so many requirements on those that want to feed the homeless (acquiring expensive permits, taking food preparation courses, etc.) that feeding the homeless has become "out of reach" for most average people. Some cities are doing these things because they are concerned about the "health risks" of the food being distributed by ordinary "do-gooders". Other cities are passing these laws because they do not want homeless people congregating in city centers where they know that they will be fed. But at a time when poverty and government dependence are soaring to unprecedented levels, is it really a good idea to ban people from helping those that are hurting?
This is just another example that shows that the USA is being taken over by control freaks. There seems to be this idea out there that it is the job of the government to take care of everyone and that nobody else should even try.
But do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow man?
9 Mar 2012
British Homelessness rise of 14% 'just tip of iceberg'
UK Charities have warned that official figures showing a 14% rise in people classed as homeless are just the "tip of the iceberg", because they fail to capture huge numbers who have been displaced from their home and are living with friends, in hostels or on the streets.
The latest homelessness figures also indicated local authorities are housing homeless families in bed-and-breakfast hotels because of a chronic shortage of suitable private temporary accommodation, a discredited practice that was almost eradicated by the Labour government.
The latest government figures, published on Thursday, showed 48,510 applications for homelessness assistance were approved by councils in England in 2011, up from 42,390 in the previous year, the biggest increase for nine years.
2 Dec 2011
Benefits can do more harm than good for child poverty
Higher benefits for British poor families could do more harm than good, Iain Duncan Smith claimed last night, as feckless parents will only spend the extra money on themselves. In an attack on Labour’s child poverty targets, the Work and Pensions Secretary said youngsters’ lives were not necessarily improved by bigger handouts.
He claimed that any extra cash doled out to dysfunctional families may simply be frittered away on drugs and gambling rather than being used to improve the lives of children. Mr Duncan Smith's comments come after it was estimated that measures introduced by the Chancellor's Autumn Statement would push 100,000 more children into poverty.
12 Nov 2011
US Republican Presidential Candidate Says If You Are Unemployed, You Should Starve!
Yesterday morning during a speech at the Family Research Council in Washington, Michele Bachmann, US Republican Presidential Candidate, bashed the unemployed in perhaps the most heartless way possible. After vowing to weaken social safety net programs such as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and unemployment benefits, Bachmann said that if you are currently not working, you should not be eating.
“Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can and should do for themselves. Self reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.”
7 Nov 2011
Extreme Poverty In The U.S.A. Is Now At Record Levels
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty than they have ever measured before.
In 2010, we were told that the economy was recovering, but the truth is that the number of the "very poor" soared to heights never seen previously. Back in 1993 and back in 2009, the rate of extreme poverty was just over 6 percent, and that represented the worst numbers on record. But in 2010, the rate of extreme poverty hit a whopping 6.7 percent. That means that one out of every 15 Americans is now considered to be "very poor".
19 Statistics About The Poor That Will Absolutely Astound You on The Economic Collapse Blog
9 Oct 2011
Ordinary Greeks turning to NGOs as health system hit by austerity
It is unheard of for aid groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres or Medicins du Monde to have to take over the role of providing basic medical services from normal state or private providers in a Western country.
But in the era of ever-tightening EU-IMF austerity, that is what is happening in Greece now, as the unemployed and HIV patients begin to turn up at temporary clinics that had been intended to come to the aid of migrants and refugees.
According to Apostolos Veizis, the head of programmes for MSF Greece, this is the new reality that the country is waking up to.
16 Sept 2011
US Poverty Level Reaches Record High
Nearly one in six Americans are living in poverty. That is the result of the US Census Bureau's annual report.
The number of Americans living below the poverty line has now risen for four years in a row. The figures showed that children under the age of 18 suffered the highest poverty rate at 22 per cent.... euronews
1 Sept 2011
London neighbourhoods terrorized by police raids
One month after major disturbances were provoked by the August 4 police killing of Mark Duggan in north London, the Metropolitan Police in the capital are intensifying raids on working class communities.
Entire neighbourhoods have been sealed off, with riot police smashing down doors and dragging people away. So far this has resulted in over 2,000 arrests in London alone, averaging approximately 100 a day since the riots began. The media, tipped off in advance, has filmed the build-up, the actual raids and the spectacle of youth being thrown into police vans.
A police source told the Sunday Times that the police are hunting 30,000 people they say were involved in the disturbances. Nationally, 40,000 hours of CCTV footage will be examined and senior police officers are expecting the investigation to last for years.
On August 22, the Metropolitan Police issued a report claiming 3,296 crimes recorded in London. A police source said the “Met is keen to find out who all these people are.”
The Metropolitan Police, backed by the entire political establishment, have been on the rampage since the riots began. On August 11, fifty officers raided the Churchill Gardens Estate in Pimlico, Westminster. The Daily Telegraph published film footage of the raid, baying that “England's smash-and-grabbers got a dose of their own medicine today.”
More on WSWS – Also see CTV
15 Aug 2011
New laws crack down on America's poor and homeless
The number of laws criminalizing poverty increased during the recession as the housing and homelessness crisis in America worsened. Since 2006, there's been a 7 percent increase in laws prohibiting camping out in public places, an 11 percent increase in laws prohibiting loitering, a 6 percent increase in laws prohibiting begging and a 5 percent increase in laws prohibiting aggressive panhandling, according to a recent report by The National Coalition for the Homeless.
At the same time, after a double-digit jump in 2008, homelessness increased by an average of 2 percent from 2009 to 2010, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness. Among families with children, homelessness increased by 9 percent. An average of 27 percent of homeless persons did not receive assistance last year because there weren't enough beds or shelters would not accept children.
"In this economy, cities are facing really tight budgets, so they may not be able to build up or fund housing to meet the need," Tulin Ozdeger, civil rights director for the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, told USA Today. "Many people are being forced to live out on the streets."
18 Jul 2011
Rape and murder in Uttar Pradesh
A spate of exceptionally brutal rapes in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has shocked India. Many of the victims were young girls.
Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state with 200 million people. It is also home to a staggering number of poor - official statistics show more than 60 million people here live on less than $1.25 (75p) a day . Poverty also makes a community more vulnerable. Many victims were raped or assaulted when they went to the fields because, like millions of Indians, they have no access to toilets at home.
Uttar Pradesh has always had a high rate of crime, but it is the viciousness of the recent attacks that has stunned people most. "These cases are so brutal that we wouldn't have believed that they could happen - we thought such things could happen only in novels and films," Mrs Vera says.
SR Drapery, vice-president of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Uttar Pradesh, says most of the rape victims are poor women and girls in remote villages. Many, he says, are low-caste Dalits (formerly known as "untouchables").
"I analysed the rape figures for 2007 and I found that 90% of victims were Dalits and 85% of Dalit rape victims were underage girls," he says. "It is well known that until not very long ago, in certain areas of the state's southern Bundelkhand region, new brides of Dalit farmhands had to sleep with their rich, high-caste landowners on their wedding night." Mr Drapery says the practice no longer exists - but Dalit women and girls remain vulnerable to predators.
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