The Tiny Tips column from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres says that 800 million people around the world are living in extreme poverty… [He] had previously stated that nearly three billion people are living in inadequate housing conditions.
In Shanxi, the province that sits at the heart of China’s coal-mining industry, there’s long been a saying: ‘Only go down a coal pit when you have no other way out’. For decades, life in these pits was intertwined with tragedy. It became so common that it gave rise to other sayings: about how miners were ‘exchanging their lives for money’ or ‘staking their lives for tomorrow’ when they ventured into underground tunnels where they died from gas explosions, flooding and shaft collapses. Over the past decade, safety reforms steadily erased the industry’s deadly reputation, and those days were thought to be behind China – until 22 May, when a blast at the Liushenyu coal mine in Shanxi killed 82 people and injured more than 120 others.
A leading Nicaraguan indigenous leader has died after being detained by the ruling authoritarian regime for nearly three years. Brooklyn Rivera, who founded the central American nation’s indigenous movement Yatama, died due to ‘physical and neurological deterioration’ linked to a Covid-19 infection, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health stated on Sunday. The government, headed by President Daniel Ortega, took 15 hours to confirm the death and are refusing to release the 73-year-old’s body to his family, opposition media report. The Nicaraguan government is routinely accused of political oppression, and Rivera is one of a growing number of dissidents to die in custody.
Greta Thunberg… has said little publicly about the recent protests in Iran. Similar criticisms have been directed at a number of prominent left-wing intellectuals and activists in Europe and North America, including Tariq Ali, Naomi Klein, Alain Badiou, Richard Falk, and others. The pattern extends beyond silence. Judith Butler, the American philosopher and feminist theorist, has previously expressed support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, describing them as progressive social movements that form part of a broader anti-imperialist struggle.
An elderly man spent days on the floor of his HMO while maggots infested wounds in his legs before he was discovered and later died, a report has found. The 69-year-old from Oldham, named ‘John’ in a safeguarding review, was discharged from hospital just two weeks before the fall that led to his death … The recently published report found the local authority and medical professionals at Royal Oldham Hospital ‘missed opportunities’ to support John. Prior to his death, John was treated for severe malnourishment and an acute kidney injury. At the time, he shared with staff that he ‘did not feel safe in his home’, as he lived in a HMO with five other people, all of whom had serious alcohol and substance abuse issues.
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