What's to be done?

People are kneeling here in a square in Kyiv in a ceremony for the Ukrainian dancer Volodymyr Rakov, killed on the frontline.

As the White House announces that it’s stopping all military aid to Ukraine.

The intention is very clear: to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia.

That will enable Russia and US to carve up and steal Ukraine’s mineral resources between them.

Enable them to act like nineteenth century imperial powers without reference to Ukraine or its people.

People in Gaza are holding their ceremonial iftar here: their fast-breaking meal on the second day of Ramadan.

While Israel has broken the terms of the ceasefire and has cut off food supplies to Gaza.

Here too, the intention is very clear: to force Palestinians out of Gaza.

This will enable the US and Israel to exploit the land and resources of Gaza between them.

What we are witnessing are monstrous crimes.

They defy all comprehension.

Perhaps we should try to put them in context:

In the context of the cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

These are cuts to lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

This is what’ll happen as a result:

• more than 16 million pregnant women and more than 11 million newborns will not get medical care;

• more than 14 million children will not get care for pneumonia and diarrhea (among the top causes of preventable deaths for children under the age of 5)

• 200,000 children will be paralyzed with polio

• 1 million children will not be treated for severe acute malnutrition.

• There will be an additional 12.5 million or more cases of malaria this year, meaning 71,000 to 166,000 deaths

• there will be a 28–32% increase in tuberculosis

• as many as 775 million cases of avian flu

• there will 2.3 million additional deaths a year in children who could not be vaccinated against diseases

• there will be additional cases of Ebola and mpox.

These estimates were prepared and published by Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID.

He has since been removed from his post.

And I ask myself: what do I do?

How can I live?

I don’t know.

So I stop writing.

I get up and stretch.

And an email comes in that needs a reply.

And a neighbour drops by and I make her a ginger tea.

And there’s the rubbish to take out. And food to be bought….

And somehow the questions answers itself.

Life goes on. And despair must be resisted.

And there’s work to be done.

The truth upheld.

The need to live kindly and decently and justly.

Even in indecent times…

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Writing these posts helps keep me sane.