Homelessness rises in the UK as rents skyrocket

Dennis Moore & Thomas Scripps

104,510 households were living in temporary accommodation in January-March this year, a 10 percent increase on the same period the year before—exceeding 100,000 for the first time in 20 years. They are home to 131,370 children.

A further 79,840 households are owed local authority support for current or threatened homelessness, also a 10 percent increase. 13,670 of these have a priority need, up 20 percent on last year, mostly due to a larger proportion of households with children.

A homeless man sleeping in a shop doorway in Romford, London, December 2022

Factoring in unrecorded experiences of homelessness, the charity Crisis puts the real total figure at 242,000 households.

On a given night in March, an estimated 2,447 people were sleeping on the streets on any given night—a 35 percent increase on a year before. This is only a snapshot of the much larger group of people intermittently rough sleeping. In London alone, the Combined Homelessness and Information Network counted 13,325 different people rough sleeping between April 2022 and June 2023, about half of them for the first time.

In total, 296,180 households were owed homelessness support in the year 2022-23, a 6 percent increase on the year before.

Areas of the UK where historically there was very little homelessness are now seeing people with nowhere to live. Oldham, in the north west of England, once had relatively affordable housing. Now its level of homelessness stands at twice the national average, with an 80 percent year-on-year increase between January and April, and a similar rise in the numbers of children living in emergency accommodation.

Jasmine Basran, policy and public affairs manager at the homelessness charity Crisis, said, “Unfortunately, the trends aren’t that surprising and reflect that the overall housing crisis has affected all parts of the country, particularly places that aren’t traditionally thought of in this way.”

Behind this crisis is a dire lack of affordable housing, as an ever-larger proportion of the population is forced to rely on the private rented sector.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that private rents in the UK rose at their fastest rate since records began in the year to this August, by 5.5 percent—in London, the increase was 5.9 percent.

Rents for new lettings are increasing fastest, at 12 percent in the year to August according to estate agents Hamptons. Again, this is the largest increase on record. The average asking price is now £1,304. In London, a 17 percent year-on-year rise has taken the average rent on newly let properties to £2,332 a month.

Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, commented, “Each passing month has ushered in a new rental market record” adding that new let rents across Britain have increased more in the last year than they did between 2015 and 2019.

These rent rises come on top of increases in the general cost of living, with families not able to keep their homes warm and feed themselves. In a survey of 11,000 people, flat mate finding service SpareRoom found that a third of the UK’s private renting households are spending half or more of their take-home pay on rent.

According to the Conservative government’s figures, loss of private tenancy—including through the landlord selling or re-letting the property or increasing the rent—was the largest single cause of homelessness in the first three months of the year, affecting 39 percent more households than the year before. The number of privately renting households put at risk of homelessness increased by 24 percent.

Over 24,000 households were kicked out of their homes by Section 21 no-fault evictions, a 21 percent increase over the previous year. A lockdown-era ban on these evictions was lifted in 2021.

This year government has begun discussing a “Renters Reform Bill” which would axe no-fault evictions, but it has been subject to repeated delays, with the can now kicked at least into the next parliamentary session starting November 7. Five of the 16 government whips responsible for the passage of bills through the House of Commons own rental property—along with nearly one in five Conservative MPs.

The major factor driving up rents has been the Bank of England’s interest rate rises, increasing the cost of mortgage repayments and prompting landlords to pass on the costs to their tenants or to sell up—reducing the supply of rental properties and jacking up rates event further. Most of the private rental market is run by small landlords, aptly described as “mum and pop” investors, who are particularly exposed to increases in bank interest rates.

Ben Beadle, CEO of the National Residential Landlords Association said, “While there were no signs yet of a mass exodus of landlords from the market, yet anecdotally “more people are selling than buying and more people are saying that they are going to sell than invest”. He added “I’ve just spoken to a chap whose mortgage is going from £800 to £1,500—he’s not going to be able to pass on a £700 rent increase … he might have to sell”.

According to research commissioned by the BBC, there are now 20 viewing requests per available property, up from six in 2019. Estate agency Zoopla reports that the number of rental properties listed on its site is 33 percent lower than before the pandemic and has flatlined. Guy Gittins, chief executive of another agents, Foxtons, said, “This is the worst supply and demand balance we have ever seen, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Renters have practically no protection against these surging costs. Local Housing Allowance (LHA), social support payments available to the poorest households, was frozen in 2016. Analysis from the estate agency Zoopla, found that just 5 percent of rents advertised across Britain in the first quarter of 2023 could be fully met by LHA payments.

Households not able to afford a deposit or mortgage have very little choice besides the private rented sector. Over 1.2 million people are on the social housing waiting list in England, up 5 percent in the last two years. There are just over 1.4 million homes for social rent across the country, down 160,000 in the last decade.

Even in this far below market rate sector, the cost-of-living crisis is pulling people into homelessness. In January-March, rent arrears made over 2,000 households homeless from social or supported housing—a 30 percent increase on the year before.

The insanity of the market system for delivering a basic human need like housing is underscored by Britain’s record number of empty homes. According to analysis by Crisis reported in the Observer newspaper, up to a quarter of a million properties have been standing empty in England for months—a more than 24 percent increase over the last six years. London has 34,000, a 73 percent increase over the same period.

Chris Bailey, campaign manager for the charity Action on Empty Homes, said the new research was the “tip of the emptiness iceberg” because the figures covered the empty properties that were known about. “It’s a disgrace that we’ve seen the numbers keep climbing in lock step with rising homelessness, and housing shortages…

“Many end up sold at auction, often after long periods of emptiness and decay, to landlords operating a low-investment model.”

With their operations at the heart of the crisis, Labour Mayors of London, Manchester and Liverpool Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram felt compelled to make some noises about rent controls. But this has only served to highlight how totally hostile the Labour Party is to any such measure which limits the money-making of property owners.

The Financial Times reported in August that “senior party insiders” had told the paper Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s “office was not exploring introducing national rent controls or devolving related powers to mayors if elected.”

Shadow Housing Secretary Lisa Nandy said of rent controls at a housing conference this June that it was “perhaps inevitable that the debate has turned again to short term fixes,” adding, “It might be politically easier to put a sticking plaster on our deep-seated problems, but if it is cowardice that got us here, it is never going to get us out.”

Given Labour’s outspoken commitment to “fiscal restraint” and the contribution of “private enterprise”, no significant building of social housing should be expected either.

UK government and education unions leave life threatening RAAC crisis unaddressed

Margot Miller

The ongoing RAAC crisis in UK public buildings reveals the same malign neglect by the government that led to the avoidable deaths to date of around 230,000 during the pandemic.

 Reinforced Autoclave Aerated Concrete (RAAC) is a lightweight, cheap concrete that was used widely in the 1950s-1980s, with a design life of 30 years after which it can collapse without warning. In 1982, RAAC production in the UK ceased amid safety concerns, however, there was no attempt to monitor or replace it.

Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete (RAAC), close-up view [Photo by Marco Bernardini, own work / CC BY-SA 3.0]

The presence of RAAC is just one of many problems plaguing public buildings. The widespread use of, and failure to remove, cancer-inducing asbestos has caused 10,000 deaths from mesothelioma over the past four decades. Another form of cheap concrete, High Alumina Cement (HAC), is also causing problems.

The BBC reported that Cleveland School in Somerset has closed 22 classrooms and erected marquees as it has beams made of HAC, which degrades if it gets damp. The school was built in 1962, when HAC was used widely for its quick-setting properties. Work is underway to build a two-story portacabin to house pupils.

Buildings containing RAAC include schools, nurseries, housing estates, colleges, universities, hospitals, airports and even the House of Commons. The Harlequin Theatre and library in Surrey has closed pending an inspection. RAAC was found in a former Marks and Spencer store in Wokingham that the council planned to occupy. Oxford University students at St Catherine’s College are studying in marquees after RAAC was found, affecting the library, dining hall and 152 bedrooms.

The problem is widespread and deadly serious, but the government is dragging its feet over inspecting, let alone remedying, the problem.

The confirmed number of schools with RAAC on September 14 was 174. The government will update the list only every two weeks, next on October 3. In all likelihood, the numbers revealed so far are the tip of the iceberg. The National Audit Office (NAO) estimates 38 percent of school buildings contain RAAC.

In Scotland, no more than half the 254 National Health Service buildings, including hospitals suspected of containing RAAC, have been surveyed.

Remedial work is proceeding at a glacial pace, and chaos reigns. Stepney All Saints School in London was told to close two weeks into term, even though it had previously identified RAAC and informed the Department for Education (DfE), which approved its mitigations.

The unserious nature of government approved “mitigations” can be garnered from DfE Under Secretary of State Baroness Barran’s comments to parliament. In addition to using portacabins as temporary classrooms, she suggested “semi-permanent” timber be secured beneath areas with RAAC that could last for up to 10 years.

The government remains vague about the timetable for refurbishing or rebuilding RAAC schools, which Education Secretary Gillian Keegan claims will be financed through capital grants or the school rebuilding programme. Head teachers report that schools have not received firm financial commitments from the government to underwrite costs. They fear a downward spiral and closure, as parents transfer children elsewhere.

According to Permanent Secretary at the DfE Susan Acland-Hood, many schools will not be rebuilt until 2030, and the school building programme has only 100 spare slots. She made an empty promise that “the next spending review will allow us to increase the total number if we need to.”

At St Leonard’s Catholic School in County Durham, locals have set up a campaign group to demand the school is rebuilt, holding a demonstration on September 27 when Baroness Barran visited.

The secondary school with 1,400 pupils is not even top of the rebuild list. Since term began, pupils have been taught online for four days week. Those attending school on certain days are taught in corridors or the sports hall. The school governors have been trying to get extra funding for building work since 2006.

Angry parents expressed their outrage on social media. Roger Barrett wrote on X/Twitter: “Your [ruling Conservative] party has known about RAAC and the potential for catastrophe yet you’ve done nothing until the last moment. Now you expect parents, pupils, staff to be grateful.”

Helen Tracey wrote: “The government has refused our school funding for portacabins meaning only one day per week in school for our kids standing in corridors writing on clipboards.”

Despite having hundreds of thousands of members risking life and limb, the education unions are doing nothing. They have not even broached the subject of Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which allows workers to walk off the job if they fear for their safety.

In January 2021, amid a huge surge of COVID cases, school workers threatened to do so en masse, forcing the unions and the government to abandon school reopening plans and implement a renewed lockdown, saving many lives.

Fearful of a repeat, the unions are directing anger and opposition into appeals to a government which has proved time and again its indifference to human life. The NAHT, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the National Education Union (NEU), NASUWT and the GMB issued a pleading letter to Keegan to provide the resources to make schools safe.

This after Keegan arrogantly responded to initial reporting of the life-threatening RAAC crisis as “sensationalist.” She told parliament on September 19, in words beyond satire, “In terms of the portacabins, I’ve seen and met children in the portacabins and at the first school the children were petitioning me to stay in the portacabin which they preferred to the classroom. Portacabins are very, very high quality.”

On September 25, the NEU, ASCL, NAHT, GMB, UNISON, Unite and Community trade unions representing more than three million workers wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asking for a commitment in the Autumn budget statement for a £4.4 billion annual increase in spending on school building, to £7 billion a year. Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak said, “We need the government to commit to a programme of capital investment that repairs and rebuilds our public estate.”

This is totally inadequate. In May 2021, years before the RAAC scandal broke, the DfE estimated a repair and maintenance backlog of £11.4 billion—up from £6.7 billion (as estimate by the NAO) just four years previously.

Even the pittance demanded by the unions will be ignored by the government. As Chancellor under Boris Johnson, Sunak cut school rebuilding funding despite warnings over a “critical risk to life”. Former permanent secretary to the DfE Jonathan Slater accused Sunak of cutting new school rebuilds to 50 a year, when what was needed was 300 to 400. Dozens of schools with RAAC had plans for rebuilds binned or bids for work turned down in the past decade.

Investment in education is the last thing any government, whether Conservative or Labour, intends, committed as they are to ensuring British business increases its profitability and military spending increases for the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine.

Educators and children face years herded into substandard buildings only fit for demolition. Schools are neither structurally sound nor safe from the spread of new COVID variants, lacking even the basic mitigation measures to ensure clean air, such as HEPA filters and UV light disinfection systems.

Hidden COVID wave starts to wane in US, with new variants around the corner

Benjamin Mateus

The latest hidden wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in the United States in late June appears to have finally begun to ebb. According to Biobot Analytics wastewater data, levels of SARS-CoV-2 are starting to decline throughout the US, with the Northeast lagging other regions of the country.

At present, however, infections remain near the peak reached during the week of August 30 to September 6, and viral transmission remains very high in each region. Infectious disease modeler JP Weiland estimating that current wastewater levels translate to more than 570,000 COVID infections each day. Based on his modeling, by the end of October the current wave will have likely infected more than 60 million Americans.

The virus is continuing to spread unhindered throughout the world, with wastewater data on the rise in Canada, Germany and other countries that still have such surveillance systems in place. At the same time, SARS-CoV-2 continue to evolve at a rapid clip, producing new variants and mutations all over the world.

The Omicron BA.2.86 subvariant (nicknamed “Pirola”) appears to have picked up an important escape mutation that has been seen in the FLip variants, including in the Omicron EG.5 subvariant (nicknames “Eris”), which is the most prevalent variant in the US and many other countries. In a recent report, Bloom Lab noted that Pirola’s affinity for ACE2 receptors is higher than BA.2 and XBB.1.5, writing, “Possibly this could impact transmissibility, and certainly could impact tolerance for future antibody escape mutations.”

The temporary decline in the COVID wave in the US is also evident in the hospitalization data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID Data Tracker, which reports that hospitalizations for COVID-19 have declined slightly from their peak in the week ending on September 9, 2023, when 20,562 Americans were admitted for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the official CDC figures for COVID deaths, the most lagging indicator, show that as of September 2, 2023, weekly deaths had reached 1,088 fatalities, up 2.3-fold from their lows on July 8, 2023. Given the lag associated with deaths, this figure may continue to climb throughout the month of September.

Unsurprisingly, amid the latest wave, even as COVID-19 deaths and excess deaths associated with COVID-19 were on the rise, the CDC announced last week that their website on provisional excess death counts for COVID-19 would be archived on September 27, 2023. The agency has taken great pains to quietly and in succession disappear virtually all meaningful data that the population requires to protect themselves from the many dangers posed by COVID-19 infection and reinfection.

Among these dangers are Long COVID, estimated to be impacting over 20 million Americans and hundreds of millions of people globally, as well as damage to myriad organ systems.

On Thursday, a study was published by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), finding that SARS-CoV-2 infects and replicates in the coronary arteries regardless of the level of plaque they contain. This appears to explain why certain COVID-19 patients have a greater chance of developing cardiovascular disease or have more heart-related complications after their infection.

Regarding the mechanism behind these observations, the authors wrote:

SARS-CoV-2 induced a robust inflammatory response in cultured macrophages [human white blood cells] and human atherosclerotic vascular explants with secretin of cytokines known to trigger cardiovascular events. Our data establish that SARS-CoV-2 infects coronary vessels, inducing plaque inflammation that could trigger acute cardiovascular complications and increase the long-term cardiovascular risk.

Despite the best efforts of the entire political establishment and corporate media to ignore or downplay the recent wave of the pandemic, the reality of mass infection has had an impact on mass consciousness and behavior.

According to Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), four in 10 adults have modified their behavior during the current wave, with a quarter of all Americans saying they are now more likely to mask in public, 22 percent planning to avoid large gatherings, 17 percent less likely to travel and 15 percent less likely to dine indoors at restaurants. Also, nearly half the population is considering getting the latest booster shot tailored to the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant.

Indeed, there is a healthy response within the population to such information which is at the heart of the issue for the ruling elites. The forever COVID policy is not just to allow a deadly pathogen to continue to infect en masse large swaths of the population every few months.

These healthy developments within the population are anathema to the dominant views of the ruling class, for whom a globally-integrated public health infrastructure is seen as a threat to the functioning of commerce.

This anti-public health and anti-science approach is bound up with the accelerating phase of capitalism’s death agony, in which delirium and delusions grip the consciousness of the ruling elites, increasingly aware that their days are numbered. This makes the situation for the working class all the more dangerous and requires they openly enter the class struggle ever more determined to seize control over mankind’s productive forces.

When it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic and the prevention of future spillover events, capitalist leaders are gripped by a paralysis of will. Even with more than 26 million excess deaths in the first four years of the pandemic, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response which met after the UN General Assembly concluded their meeting without any clear resolution. Their only agreement was to hold another session in 2026.

Speaking with the Associated Press after the meeting, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark commented, “I think it’s fair to say that the declaration is a missed opportunity. It has many pages and paragraphs and only one firm commitment and that is to hold another high-level meeting in three years’ time.”

She explained that the ministers and political leaders speaking at the summit attempted to avoid drawing any comprehensive lessons from the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Noting the impact on rising extreme poverty, hunger, massive economic impacts borne by populations of the world, and the rising crisis of social inequality, Clark stated:

Many of them missed the point. Pandemics don’t impact just health; they impact many different facets of people’s lives, and government operations. It was clear that they should have been taking the overarching view. But they went down quite a narrow track to talk about health.

At the UN Meeting, Clark warned:

Viruses that can cause pandemics will not wait for diplomacy to produce results … Ingenuity and human solidarity can make COVID-19 the last pandemic to cause such devastation. But all of it depends above all on the political choice of member states.

Beyond SARS-CoV-2, there remain many very deadly pathogens with pandemic potential that could spillover into human populations at any point, including the highly virulent H5N1 bird flu pandemic among multiple animal populations, the recent Nipah virus outbreak currently underway in Southern India, and more.

This week, former Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, Kate Bingham, promoting her book co-authored with vaccine expert Tim Hames, warned that the world has grown too comfortable with COVID.

In an interview with Daily Mail, Bingham remarked:

Let me put it this way: the 1918-19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I. Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that exist. Today, there are more viruses busily replicating and mutating than all the other life forms on our planet combined. Not all of them pose a threat to humans, of course – but plenty do.

Bingham then stated that in a sense, “we got lucky with COVID-19, despite the fact that it caused 20 million or more deaths across the world.”

Recent modeling and historical analysis note that the threat of pandemics similar to or more deadly than COVID are no longer once-in-a-century dangers. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2021 found the probability of a COVID-level event is now around 2 percent in any year. The study notes:

together with recent estimates of increasing rates of disease emergence from animal reservoirs associated with environmental change, this finding suggests a high probability of observing pandemics similar to COVID-19 (probability of experiencing it in one’s lifetime currently about 38 percent), which may double in coming decades.

Mass migration from Nagorno-Karabakh continues as breakaway republic dissolves

Ulaş Ateşçi

Following the one-day offensive launched by Azeri forces against Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, it was announced that the number of Armenian civilians who had fled the region had reached 89,000. Around 120,000 people were thought to be living in the region when the offensive began.

The Russian RIA Novosti news agency yesterday morning quoted Nazeli Baghdasaryan, press secretary of the Armenian Cabinet of Ministers, as saying that since September 24, “88,780 people have arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh.”

According to the Interfax news agency, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Thursday: “Analysis of the situation shows that in the coming days, there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh … This is an act of ethnic cleansing.”

The Azeri Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation, claiming the departures are a “personal and individual decision and [have] nothing to do with forced relocation.” Baku said the people of Nagorno-Karabakh would have the same rights as “citizens of Azerbaijan.”

Azerbaijan’s latest offensive, which reportedly killed a total of 400 soldiers on both sides, was a final act in a decades-long fratricidal conflict between the two former Soviet republics.

This conflict is a disastrous consequence of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has re-emerged in the context of the ongoing war between two other former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Russia.

It points to the threat of the geographical expansion of NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine, a danger that can only be stopped by the mass mobilization of the international working class in an anti-war and socialist movement.

The Armenian-backed Republic of Artsakh in Nagorno-Karabakh, declared in 1991 but not recognized by any country, announced on Thursday that it would cease to exist at the end of this year.

A decree, signed by the unrecognized republic’s president Samvel Shahramanyan, who took office in an indirect election in early September, called on the population to integrate into Azerbaijan, stating: “The population of Nagorno-Karabakh, including those outside the Republic, after the entry into force of this Decree, should familiarize themselves with the conditions of reintegration presented by the Republic of Azerbaijan in order to make an independent and individual decision on the possibility of staying (returning) in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Azerbaijan’s latest military offensive, which resulted in the declaration of its full control over Nagorno-Karabakh, far from resolving the decades-long crisis, has only set the stage for a wider conflict in which the NATO imperialist powers and regional states will be involved.

Washington has seized on the conflict and the resulting humanitarian tragedy as an opportunity to increase its influence in the strategic South Caucasus region. The area is located south of Russia and north of Iran, as well as near international trade routes.

US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power, who is visiting the region, said Washington is “deeply concerned about the safety of vulnerable populations in Nagorno-Karabakh and the more than 50,000 people who have fled to Armenia.” She also said that Washington would stand in solidarity with Armenia.

“It is essential that a UN mission can access the territory within the next days,” Brussels said yesterday, while the US called to send an “international monitoring mission” to the region. The European Union has however increasingly oriented to Azeri gas because of sanctions against Russia. Baku announced yesterday that it might allow a group of experts from the United Nations to visit Nagorno-Karabakh “in the coming days.”

Although a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenia has recently improved its relations with the United States under the leadership of pro-NATO President Nikol Pashinyan. Azerbaijan’s latest offensive follows a series of events that have heightened tensions between Yerevan and Moscow.

Armenia and the United States held a joint military exercise outside Yerevan from September 11 to 20. The exercise was also intended to prepare Armenian forces “for a NATO Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC) evaluation under the NATO Partnership for Peace programme later this year,” according to a US official statement.

Earlier this month, Moscow responded to Pashinyan’s remarks that military dependence on Russia was a “strategic mistake” by summoning the Armenian ambassador to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In addition, Russia issued a note to Armenia after Pashinyan made statements in favour of the Armenian parliament’s possible ratification of the “Rome Statute.” If Yerevan ratifies it, Russian President Vladimir Putin could be arrested upon entering Armenia due to a rule of the International Criminal Court.

Azerbaijan’s latest offensive has been prepared in coordination with Turkey, as in the 2020 war. Turkish Defence Minister Yaşar Güler hosted the Azerbaijani defence minister at the end of August and the Azerbaijani chief of staff on September 11.

On the basis of the Russian-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement, Baku and Ankara advocate the opening of a corridor (“Zangezur Corridor”) between Turkey and Azerbaijan through Armenian territory.

The agreement states: “Subject to agreement between the Parties, the construction of new transport communications to link the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with the western regions of Azerbaijan will be ensured.” Armenia, however, declared its opposition to any attempt to violate its sovereignty.

The corridor, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has described as “strategic” is a crucial link in the Turkish ruling elite’s plans for a “Middle Corridor” from Turkey to China, in line with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

An article by the Atlantic Council in July 2021 stated:

According to Turkish officials, as well as potentially helping to establish Turkey as one of the world’s top ten economies, the Middle Corridor initiative could also significantly reduce transit time between China and European markets. The corridor offers the possibility of a 12-day freight time frame. This compares favorably to the 20-day travel time via Russia or more than 30 days via existing maritime options.

Erdoğan told the press on Tuesday, a day after his meeting with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev in Nakhchivan that “We are doing our best to open the Zangezur corridor. There are also positive signals from Iran. If Armenia prevents the opening of the Zangezur corridor, it is possible for the corridor to pass through Iran.”

The Iranian state-owned IRNA responded: “This is the first time the Turkish president has welcomed Iran’s proposal that Azerbaijan can use Iranian territory instead of Armenian soil for its trucks to reach Nakhchivan.”

However, Tehran is not keen on a “Zangezur Corridor” through Armenia, fearing that it could alter its border with its northern neighbour and increase the influence of NATO member Turkey and Azerbaijan’s other critical ally, Israel, in the region.

Following a visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Iran on September 3, an article published by Iran’s Mehr News Agency stated:

…Tehran is against any change in the borders of its neighbors, as well as any change in the geopolitical map of the region and creation of the corridor. The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the creation of such a corridor will drain the geopolitical capacities of the region in favor of NATO and the Zionist regime. Because the Zangezur Corridor can provide NATO with access to the Caspian Sea.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel provided 69 percent of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports in 2016-2020. The Times of Israel reported that “Israel stepped up its weapons shipments to Azerbaijan during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”

Burkinabè junta arrests top officers over Burkina Faso coup attempt

Athiyan Silva

Last week, Burkina Faso’s military junta said that it had thwarted an attempted coup on Tuesday. “The country’s intelligence and security services have foiled the coup attempt against Burkina Faso’s ruling junta by military officers and others plotting to seize power and plunge the country into chaos,” the military said in a statement on Wednesday.

The failed coup attempt comes a year after Captain Ibrahim Traoré came to power in Burkina Faso through a military coup in September 2022. “I reassure of my determination to lead the Transition safely despite adversity and the various maneuvers to stop our inexorable march towards assumed sovereignty. THANK YOU to all Burkinabè people who continuously ensure citizen monitoring,” said Traoré after the junta announced the failed coup attempt.

FILE - Burkina Faso coup leader Capt. Ibrahim Traore participates in a ceremony in Ouagadougou, Oct. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Kilaye Bationo, File)

The Burkinabè military prosecutor’s office indicated that it had opened “a detailed investigation on the basis of credible reports of a plot against state security.” As a result, four officers were arrested and two more are wanted in connection with the failed coup.

“On the basis of a credible denunciation reporting a plot against state security in progress, implicating officers including two on the run and four arrested (… we) immediately opened a detailed investigation to elucidate the facts denounced,” Prosecutor Ahmed Ferdinand Sountoura of the military prosecutor’s office told the press on Thursday. In December 2022, the prosecution had already condemned the attempt to destabilize the regime and announced the arrest of soldiers.

The officers the junta has named as allegedly leading the coup attempt include:

*Lieutenant-Colonel Cheick Hamza Ouattara, who heads the Special Legion in the national gendarmerie; 

*Captain Christophe Maïga, the second-in-command of the same gendarmerie’s Special Intervention Unit;

*Abdoul Aziz Aouoba, commander of the Burkinabè special forces;

*Boubacar Keita, director general of the Higher Institute of Civil Protection Studies.

The two other fugitive officers are former members of the National Intelligence Service. One is Commander Sekou Ouedraogo, the former Deputy Director General of the agency. Ouedraogo was relieved of his duties on September 13 by Traoré, the leader of the Burkinabè military junta.

The junta also announced the suspension of “all methods of diffusion,” including print and Internet, for the French publication Jeune Afrique. Since 2022, the junta has already temporarily or indefinitely suspended several French television or radio channels, charging them with working to create chaos in the country. The military junta has already targeted LCI, Libération, Le Monde and France 24 specifically, as well as expelling foreign correspondents more broadly from French media.

News of the attempted coup spread across Burkina Faso on pro-government news media and social media. Thousands of pro-military government demonstrators took to the streets in Ouagadougou and elsewhere in the country on Tuesday to show their support for the current junta, after Captain Traoré issued public calls to his supporters to “protect” him. 

While the nature of the coup threat and the activities of the officers named as coup leaders by the Burkinabè junta remains unclear, the essential political issues driving the conflicts in the Burkinabè military establishment are ever clearer.

The military junta in Burkina Faso, as in nearby Mali and Niger, came to power amid deep popular opposition to French imperialism’s 2013-2022 war in Mali and across the Sahel. Strikes and mass protests by workers and youth against the French and NATO troop presence led the military to oust discredited, pro-French presidents. The military juntas ruling Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali then asked France, the former colonial power, to withdraw its troops from their countries.

A politically explosive situation has emerged across West Africa. French imperialism is pressing the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to prepare to invade Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Earlier this month, these three countries established a mutual defense agreement, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). This agreement specifies that they will respond to an invasion attempt against any one of the AES states as an attack on all three.

This conflict is also now deeply entwined with the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, as the Burkinabè junta led by Traoré develops military ties with the Kremlin. The Ukraine war thus threatens to spill across large parts of Africa.

This explosive global situation creates intractable divisions in the capitalist ruling elites of the AES countries, who maneuver between anti-imperialist sentiment of workers and youth, on the one hand, and their dealings with NATO imperialist countries on the other. It rules out the establishment of any stable, bourgeois-democratic regime that ends imperialist domination of the region and expels the imperialist powers from Africa. Instead, at every major political crisis and upsurge of class struggle, rival military factions vie for power.

French imperialism in particular has long experience of manipulating these factional rivalries of the African capitalist classes in its own interests. 

Paris has backed countless military coups in its former African colonial empire since nominal independence in 1960. It has repeatedly used its extensive connections in African countries’ officer corps to oust African regimes that criticized the neocolonial policies of Paris. In Burkina Faso itself, in 1987, the French government supported Blaise Compaoré’s overthrow and murder of pro-Soviet President Thomas Sankara.

These factional rivalries among the local bourgeoisie also reflect the intractable social and economic crisis facing workers and the oppressed rural masses in the region.

More than two million people have been displaced and tens of thousands pushed to the brink of starvation by the fighting in Burkina Faso, one of Africa’s worst refugee crises. Last week, officials said some 192,000 internally displaced people had returned to their homes after government forces recaptured various areas. Seventeen soldiers and 36 civilian volunteers were killed in Yatenga province in early September clashes with jihadi insurgents. Since 2015, more than 17,000 people have died in this violence in Burkina Faso alone.

Burkina Faso, home to about 23 million people, has seen two military coups in the past year. The number of people killed by rebels since Captain Traoré seized power in a second coup in late September has nearly tripled compared to the previous 18 months, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 

“This violence, coupled with the geographic spread of extremist activities effectively surrounding Ouagadougou, puts Burkina Faso more than ever at the brink of collapse,” the report said.

Brazil's military chiefs discussed coup plot after Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat

Guilherme Ferreira

The former commanders of the three branches of the Brazilian Armed Forces and the fascistic ex-president Jair Bolsonaro discussed a draft decree at the beginning of last November that would have resulted in a military intervention and the calling of new elections. The meeting occurred shortly after Bolsonaro’s loss of the October 31 election victory to Workers Party (PT) candidate and current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro and commanders of the Armed Forces, Admiral Almir Garnier Santos, Army General Paulo Sergio Nogueira and Air Brigadier Lieutenant Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior. [Photo: Marcos Corrêa/PR]

The meeting was first reported last Thursday following a plea bargain by Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, Jair Bolsonaro’s former personal assistant, with the Federal Police. Cid was arrested in May for falsifying Bolsonaro’s COVID-19 vaccination card.

According to Cid, the draft decree was handed to Bolsonaro by his then-international advisor, Filipe Martins, a fascistic figure linked to white supremacist movements in the United States. A copy of the document, that became known in the press as the “coup draft,” was found in possession of Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, Anderson Torres, arrested in connection with the January 8 coup attempt in Brasilia. At the time, Torres was secretary of public security for the Federal District.

The “coup draft” found with Torres included the order to implement a “State of Defense at the headquarters of the Superior Electoral Court (STF),” with the possible arrest of STF Minister Moraes, who at the time was president of the TSE, Brazil’s electoral high court, and the investigation of alleged irregularities in the electoral process through an “Electoral Regularity Commission.”

Of the 17 representatives of that commission, eight would be appointed by the Ministry of Defense, which, at the end of last year, actively participated in the challenge to the electronic voting system initiated by Bolsonaro.

Of the three military commanders present at the meeting, Cid said that only the then-commander of the Navy, Adm. Almir Garnier, favored the coup plan and promised that “his troops would be ready to adhere to a call from the then president.” According to Valor Econômico, Cid has declared that, in contrast, the then-Army commander, Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, threatened Bolsonaro by saying: “If you go ahead with this, I’ll have to arrest you.”

The scene of General Freire Gomes standing up and crying to the President, “Stop in the name of the law!”, seems borrowed from a Hollywood movie. It plays directly into the hands of the narrative promoted by the top brass of the military and by Lula’s government itself, with both claiming that, while “bad apples” should be punished, the Armed Forces were the responsible for preventing a coup in Brazil.

The occurrence of such a meeting between Bolsonaro and the generals to discuss a coup d’état, as well as the Navy commander’s willingness to go ahead at any cost, has been confirmed by different sources, including US officials, as the Financial Times reported. The murky narrative about the Army saving Brazilian democracy, on the other hand, is contradicted by every piece of evidence, most damningly by the public actions of the former military commanders themselves in the aftermath of last year’s election.

While Bolsonaro refused to concede his defeat to Lula, and his fascistic supporters blocked roads and gathered in front of Army barracks across the country to incite a military coup, the Armed Forces command gave them repeated signs of support. 

Eleven days after the meeting with Bolsonaro, on November 11, the three military commanders issued a joint statement entitled “To the institutions and the Brazilian people.” The statement defended the fascistic movement to overthrow the elections as “popular demonstrations,” and asserted that the Armed Forces, “always present and acting as moderators in the most critical moments of our history,” had an “unrestrained and unwavering commitment” to the “people.”

Two days before this note was published, on November 9, the Ministry of Defense, headed by Army Gen. Paulo Sérgio de Oliveira, published its report on the “fairness” of the elections. Its main conclusion was that the “military technicians” identified electoral procedures that posed a “relevant risk to the security of the process,” adding that “it is not possible to affirm that the electronic voting system is free from the influence of a possible malicious code that could alter its operation.”

On the very eve of Lula’s inauguration, General Freire Gomes resisted an order to remove the encampment of Bolsonaro’s supporters from the gates of the Army Headquarters in Brasilia, where the mob that invaded the government’s headquarters on January 8 was mobilized.

Faced with the latest revelations by Cid, Lula’s Defense Minister José Múcio was forced to acknowledge that, “The way things are going when you talk about the Armed Forces, it seems that everyone is a suspect.” But, in the same statement, he redoubled the government’s efforts to promote the military as saviors of democracy. Múcio claimed: “There is only one thing I’m crystal clear about: the coup was never in the interest of the Armed Forces; these are isolated attitudes of components of the forces.” He concluded: “We owe it to the Army, Navy and Air Force to maintain our democracy.” 

The involvement of active and reserve military personnel in the coup plot that led to January 8 can also be revealed in the numerous investigations by the Attorney General’s Office.

On September 15, the Superior Federal Court convicted the first three defendants for the January 8 fascist attack on Brasilia’s Three Branches of Government. They were sentenced to between 12 and 17 years for having committed the crimes of criminal association, coup d’état, abolition of the democratic rule of law, qualified damage to federal property and deterioration of listed property. These crimes were considered “multitudinous,” in which it is not necessary to individualize the defendant’s conduct.

In his vote, the minister reporting on the case, Alexandre de Moraes, stated, “The idea was that, from this destruction [of the headquarters of the Three Branches], there would be a need for a GLO (Guarantee of Law and Order) and, with that ... obtain a military intervention, achieve the coup d’état and overthrow the democratically elected government.”

In addition to these convicted defendants, there are almost 1,400 other people already indicted by the Federal Attorney’s Office as the executors of the coup who will be tried in the coming months by the STF. The investigation by the Federal Attorney’s Office also includes, in addition to the “executors,” the financiers of the coup plot, the participants by instigation, the intellectual authors and executors, and the state authorities responsible for failing to prevent it. Bolsonaro is being investigated as one of the intellectual authors.

That Bolsonaro spent his presidential term plotting and building his fascist movement that led to the January 8 coup is undeniable. It is hard to predict if and when Bolsonaro will be arrested. That would risk exposing the entire rotten Brazilian capitalist system that gave rise to Bolsonaro and his coup threat, as well as the Lula government that is now covering up the role of the Armed Forces on January 8.

What can be said with certainty is that the eventual arrest of the ex-president will not end the threat of a new military-backed coup attempt in Brazil. The origin of this threat lies in the enormous crisis that is engulfing the world capitalist system, with explosive consequences in Brazil, one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Furthermore, all the power that a section of the Brazilian ruling elite invests in a reactionary figure like Minister Alexandre de Moraes in pursuit of Bolsonaro will only turn Brazilian bourgeois rule even further to the right. The legal precedents being set, such as the anti-democratic sentencing in July of Bolsonaro to eight years of ineligibility as a candidate, will be used with full force against the social protests and struggles of workers and youth that are to come.

Court rejects call for South Korean opposition leader’s arrest

Ben McGrath

A court in South Korea rejected an arrest warrant on Wednesday for Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the country’s main opposition Democratic Party (DP). The allegations against Lee go beyond the immediate charges and point to growing tensions over the danger of war and declining social conditions.

South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, center, outside Suwon District Prosecutors Office in Seongnam, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. [AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon]

Prosecutors have accused Lee of bribery and related charges dating back to his tenure as mayor of Seongnam (2010‒2018), a city just south of Seoul, and as governor of Gyeonggi Province (2018‒2021). On August 22, prosecutors formally charged Lee with involvement in an alleged scheme to transfer millions of dollars to North Korea. They have also accused Lee of providing preferential treatment to private property developers and other companies in Seongnam.

In rejecting prosecutors’ demand for an arrest warrant, Judge Yu Chang-hun of the Seoul Central District Court stated, “In comprehensive consideration of the degree to which the defendant’s right to defense is needed and the extent of concerns about the possible destruction of evidence, it is difficult to see the rationale and need for his arrest to the extent that the principle of investigation without detention should be ruled out.”

On September 21, the National Assembly gave its consent for Lee’s potential arrest. As a sitting lawmaker, Lee was protected from detention while parliament is in session. However, the unicameral legislature passed a motion 149 to 136 in favor of the warrant. The National Assembly is comprised of 300 seats, but two are currently vacant.

Though it is the opposition party, the DP holds a strong parliamentary majority with 168 seats. The next-largest party is the ruling right-wing People Power Party (PPP) of President Yoon Suk-yeol, which holds 111 seats. A considerable number of Lee’s own party therefore voted against him. Another motion to approve Lee’s arrest was narrowly rejected in February.

Lee has denied the allegations against him and had embarked on a 24-day protest hunger strike that ended on Saturday. Lee stated in a press release last Friday in response to the National Assembly vote, “The livelihoods of the people and democracy should be guarded by stopping the recklessness and the regression of dictatorial administration by the prosecution.”

Lee has accused President Yoon, South Korea’s former top prosecutor, of a legal attack on him to eliminate a political opponent prior to next April’s general election. Yoon narrowly defeated Lee in the March 2022 presidential election.

According to prosecutors, Lee oversaw the transfer of $US8 million between 2019 and 2020 to North Korea through a third-party intermediary, Kim Seong-tae, the former chairman of the Ssangbangwool Group, a textile manufacturer. Allegedly, $5 million was a joint smart farm project in the North and the additional $3 million was to pave the way for Lee’s potential visit to the North.

Lee has rejected knowledge of Kim’s activities while the latter told investigators that Lee was aware of the money transfers. Lee’s former deputy governor Lee Hwa-yeong, who was also charged in relation to the case in March, reportedly told prosecutors in June that he had kept Lee Jae-myung informed of the cash transfers to the North after previously denying his former boss’ involvement for months. However, Lee Hwa-yeong altered his testimony this month to again deny the DP leader’s involvement.

Notably, the period during which Lee allegedly orchestrated the money’s remittance to North Korea was during a relative thaw in tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul. Securing various sanction exemptions, Seoul and provincial governments like Gyeonggi attempted to launch economic projects with Pyongyang, which were ultimately canceled as they cut across the US war drive against China and due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to these allegations, Lee has also been accused of corruption in several construction projects while mayor of Seongnam. These include current charges that he provided favors to private developers while blocking the public Seongnam Development Corporation from bidding on an apartment development project in the city’s Baekhyeon-dong district. Prosecutors allege that this resulted in 20 billion won ($US14.8 million) worth of damages to the public company.

Whether or not true, there is more to the case than just Lee Jae-myung’s alleged corruption. Backroom deals, preferential treatment, and illegal payoffs have long been part of doing business in South Korea. But as in the West, corruption cases in South Korea are used to settle political scores within the ruling class.

The Yoon administration is worried about its growing unpopularity. In August, Yoon attended a trilateral summit at Camp David near Washington D.C., meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The summit was hailed by the US ruling elite for bringing Seoul and Tokyo together and enhancing military cooperation between the two.

Historical issues stemming from Japan’s brutal colonization of Korea had for years prevented Washington’s two key allies in the region from deeper collaboration, seen as a necessity for its war plans against China. When Yoon came to power in May 2022, he pledged to deepen Seoul’s alliance with Washington and to improve relations with Tokyo. This has led to a growth in anti-war sentiment.

Furthermore, working class anger is growing towards declining economic and social conditions, as a result of inflation and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, a strike by truck drivers in June and then again in November and December had a serious impact on the economy. Recently autoworkers and railway workers have threatened to or have gone on strike.

For the past 30 years, the South Korean ruling class has relied on the Democratic Party and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) to contain social discontent and prevent workers from breaking from the confines of the capitalist system. While the DP poses as a worker-friendly alternative to the conservative PPP, the KCTU falsely postures as a militant labor organization to lead workers’ struggles into dead-ends. Both regularly use anti-Japanese chauvinism to drive wedges between Korean and Japanese workers and to distract from domestic conditions.

However, the corruption case against Lee Jae-myung is another warning sign that the government is preparing to crack down on any opposition to its policies.

In the past year, President Yoon has denounced protests against his government and threatened to seriously curtail democratic rights. He has labeled any political opponents as North Korean allies and sympathizers, declaring that “anti-state forces” are “still rampant” in South Korea.

The government is therefore reviving the police state measures of past dictatorships under the guise of tackling corruption and suppressing supposed North Korean supporters. In reality, these autocratic measures are ultimately being prepared to strike at the working class.