New Zealand survey finds 65 percent agree the economy is “rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”

Tom Peters

A survey of 1,001 people in New Zealand has found widespread anger over social inequality, distrust of the political establishment, and opposition to the running down of public services and increased military spending.

Composite image of National Party leader Christopher Luxon and Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins. [Photo: Christopher Luxon Facebook September 21/Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins Facebook September 7]

The “Populism Survey” by global market research company Ipsos has been conducted since 2016, with 28 countries surveyed during November-December 2023 (including Britain, the US, Japan, Germany, Australia, South Africa, and other countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America). New Zealand was surveyed for the first time in February 2024.

The Ipsos findings point to growing anti-capitalist sentiments in the working class across the world. This is the result of years of soaring living costs, the never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, crumbling social infrastructure, the vast concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of billionaires, and the diversion of more and more resources towards imperialist war, including the Gaza genocide and the war in Ukraine.

In the case of New Zealand, the results confirm that there is no popular support for the vicious austerity program being imposed by the National Party-led government, which is backed in all fundamental respects by the opposition Labour Party.

Nearly two thirds of respondents, 65 percent, agreed that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful” (similar to the 67 percent average result for the other 28 countries). Only 17 percent disagreed with the statement.

Last year, the Inland Revenue Department reported that the country’s 311 richest individuals pay less than half the rate of tax paid by workers. This layer has profited from soaring property prices, stock market speculation, and tax breaks and bailouts under successive Labour and National governments. Meanwhile one in five children lives in poverty and more than one in ten people depend on food banks.

More than half of respondents, 55 percent, agreed that “traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me” (only 18 percent disagreed) and 63 percent agreed that “the political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people.”

In another indication of distrust for politicians, 57 percent endorsed the statement: “The most important political issues in New Zealand should be decided directly by the people through referendums, not by the elected officials.” The figure was higher for people aged under 35 (62 percent), the unemployed (63 percent) and Māori (70 percent).

The October 2023 election showed that all the major parties are deeply unpopular. Amid widespread abstention the Labour Party-led government suffered a landslide defeat, following six years in which it oversaw rising homelessness, soaring living costs and increased poverty. The National Party only received 38 percent and had to form an unstable coalition government with the far-right ACT and NZ First parties.

Significantly, 60 percent of those surveyed agreed that “the main divide in [New Zealand] society is between ordinary citizens and the political and economic elite.” Among “low income” respondents, 69 percent agreed, and among indigenous Māori, who are predominantly in the poorest layer of the working class, 78 percent agreed.

These results come despite strenuous efforts by the government, as well as the opposition Labour Party and its allies the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, to stoke divisions based on race in order to divert attention from the gulf between rich and poor. Working people correctly identify the “main divide” not as race, gender, nationality, religion or any other identity category, but the class divide between workers and the super-rich.

The survey indicates that efforts by NZ First, Labour and other parties, along with sections of the media, to scapegoat immigrants for the social crisis, have had a limited effect. Some 29 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Immigrants take jobs away from real New Zealanders,” and 23 percent agreed that the country “would be stronger if we stopped immigration.”

While these figures are not insignificant, anti-immigrant sentiment is lower in New Zealand than in most of the other countries surveyed. Approximately one in four people living in New Zealand were born overseas and roughly one in six citizens lives outside the country; the global mobility of the working class has undermined the ruling elite’s promotion of nationalist prejudices.

Ipsos also asked where people thought the government should spend more money.

Most significantly, 68 percent of New Zealand respondents opposed greater spending on the armed forces, while only 28 percent said it should increase—the lowest figure out of all countries surveyed.

This finding will undoubtedly cause concern in ruling circles. The major parties, backed by the corporate media, are pushing to double New Zealand’s military budget, as the country is integrated into US-led wars against Russia, in the Middle East, and preparations for conflict with China.

Deep-seated opposition to war has erupted to the surface, with thousands of workers and young people regularly joining protests against the genocide in Gaza, in which New Zealand is complicit as an ally of US imperialism.

While opposing military spending, 65 percent said the government should spend more on “reducing inequality and poverty,” 55 percent wanted more spent on “creating jobs,” 71 percent backed increased funding for schools and universities, and 83 percent supported more public money for healthcare.

The government, however, is committed to brutal austerity in all these areas. Public services are being gutted, in order to fund the military build-up and cut taxes for the rich. Thousands of jobs are being eliminated from government ministries, including education, child welfare and conservation. Social welfare payments and the minimum wage are being reduced, along with the food in schools program.

Human-to-human transmission with a novel Mpox virus identified in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Benjamin Mateus

This week an international group of researchers from Africa, Europe and North America,  the Mpox Research Consortium, published in preprint form a study describing an epidemiologic investigation into a recent epidemic of new Mpox (previously known as Monkeypox) infections with the clade I lineage, a more dangerous form of the disease.

The Mpox virus is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus from the poxviridae family that includes smallpox and cowpox. There are two known clades of the Mpox virus known to be endemic in Africa. The more common infections used to occur with clade I, previously known as the Congo Basin clade. It is characterized by severe clinical symptoms and a mortality rate of up to 10 percent. Only 5 percent of all Mpox infections in humans used to be with clade II, previously known as the West African clade. These infections, which came to worldwide notice in last year’s global monkeypox outbreak, portend a milder course and a much lower fatality rate. 

The new clade I virus was detected in the mining town of Kamituga, estimated population 242,000, located in South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The outbreak that erupted in October 2023 was the first time that Mpox cases were detected in the Kamituga Health Zone. 

A map showing the location of Kamituga, the epicenter of the latest Mpox outbreak. [Photo: www.openstreetmap.org]

This report comes amid a rising tide of Mpox infections across the DRC. From the beginning of 2023 until March 29, 2024, there have been a total of 18,922 suspected Mpox cases and 1,007 fatalities. In the first three months of 2024, there were a total of 4,488 cases with 279 deaths, for a somewhat higher case fatality ratio of 6.7 percent, indicating rising lethality. Twenty-three of DRC’s 26 provinces have reported cases. However, the cases described in the investigation are qualitatively new, in that the evidence supports, for the first time, human-to-human transmission with the clade I lineage of the Mpox virus. 

The study notes there had been 241 suspected cases recorded by South Kivu’s provincial surveillance between September 29, 2023, and February 29, 2024. Ninety-one percent were hospitalized. Samples from 119 individuals were obtained for genomic analysis. Among these 108 (91 percent) were confirmed positive for Mpox infection. Professional sex workers accounted for 30 percent of all confirmed and suspected cases.

All confirmed cases had the characteristic rash. Most had fevers and approximately 40 percent had swollen lymph nodes. One hundred and fourteen presented with genital lesions. Two patients died accounting for 1.4 percent of confirmed cases.

Genomic sequencing from 22 patients were obtained confirming the clade I infections, suggesting the event started as a zoonotic spillover. However, five sequences showed a mutation mechanism known as Apolipoprotein B Editing Complex (APOBEC3) mediated cytosine deanimation, which is indicative of human-to-human transmission. According to a recent report published in the journal Virus Evolution, reviewing the APOBEC3-induced mutations in the evolution of Mpox viruses, these human enzymes of the innate immune system have the ability to inhibit certain types of viruses. However, they also confer a signature for their evolution within humans. 

The impact of APOBEC3 modifications to the sequenced clade IIB Mpox viruses were also seen during the 2022-2023 global Mpox outbreak. As the report in Virus Evolution notes in their conclusions, “When we applied our analysis to monkeypox virus (MPXV), we find that there are two distinct groups of MPXV genomes, those collected before 2016 and those after … We conclude that the most likely scenario is that pre-2016, MPXV genomes evolved in the animal host. The post-2016 group of MPXV genomes has undergone persistent and continuous human APOBEC3 editing after zoonotic transmission circa late 2016/early 2017.”

Applying similar genomic techniques learned from the human clade IIB outbreak, the authors of the Kamituga investigation estimated that the recent Mpox clade emerged in mid-September, consistent with the earliest reported case. The authors of the epidemiological investigation wrote, “This report describes a novel clade I Mpox lineage associated with sustained human-to-human transmission in an ongoing outbreak in eastern DRC. Identification of APOBEC3-related mutations—the hallmark of efficient Mpox spread via human-to-human transmission—bolsters this assertion.” 

Historically, Mpox infections had been characterized as an endemic zoonotic disease, meaning the virus living in rodent reservoirs [rope and sun squirrels, giant-pouched rats, and African dormice] spills over into humans that inhabit the same locale. Although the infected individual can infect others through close contact, these remained limited, and the outbreak would soon extinguish itself. The few cases identified outside of Africa usually were imported by travelers from endemic regions. Between 1970 and 2022, there have been approximately 38,000 Mpox cases recorded in West and Central Africa.

Then, in May 2022, with the lifting of the COVID restrictions, the global Mpox outbreak saw a sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus that rapidly spread across 113 countries infecting over 94,000 people between January 2022 and March 5, 2024. Thus far, 174 deaths have been tallied for a case fatality rate of almost 0.2 percent. The World Health Organization (WHO) designated this lineage as clade IIb, distinguishing it from clade IIA and I which, until now were still considered zoonotic. 

Prior to 2018, very few cases of Mpox were reported outside of Africa. However, the large epidemic in Nigeria in 2017 that was driven by a sustained human-to-human transmission meant the epidemiological landscape for Mpox had undergone a radical shift and should have alerted public health agencies across the globe to take notice. These were, for the most part, dismissed by health authorities until a related lineage of the same clade from Nigeria spawned the global outbreak in 2022 amid the ongoing COVID pandemic garnered the world’s attention.

Now, in light of the recent failure by the World Health Organization to reach an agreement on how to move forward on a global approach to preparing and preventing future pandemics, the developments in the eastern DRC with the clade IB of the Mpox virus in the context of the Mpox global outbreak just two years ago should raise alarms and call to action. Public health agencies worldwide seem to have learned nothing from the deaths of nearly 30 million people from COVID-19.

Complacency and reaction have been the hallmark to such epidemics, and with the COVID pandemics, public health has been enchained to the demands of the state and corporate entities. In this regard, the European CDC’s threat assessment from April 5, 2024, is quite revealing. Despite having access to the latest information on monkeypox, they crassly concluded, “[The] increase in cases, the overall risk from this outbreak in the DRC for the general population in the EU/EEA and for MSM with multiple sexual partners in the EU/EEA remains low.” 

As the authors of the eastern DRC outbreak study warned, “The sustained spread of clade I MPXV in Kamituga, a densely populated, poor mining region, raises significant concerns. Local healthcare infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle a large-scale epidemic, compounded by limited access to external aid. The 241 reported cases are likely an underestimate of the true prevalence of Mpox cases occurring in the area.”

Weekly suspected and PCR tested Mpox cases in Kamituga. [Photo: Pre-print report by mpox Research Consortium.]

They added, “Frequent travel occurs between Kamituga and the nearby city of Bukavu, with subsequent movement to neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Burundi. Moreover, a considerable number of sex workers operating in Kamituga are foreigners and frequently return to their countries of origin, although at present, there is no evidence of wider dissemination of the outbreak. The highly mobile nature of this mining population poses a substantial risk of outbreak escalation beyond the current area and across borders.”

This only further raises the specter of yet another public health threat among the various other pathogens that are simultaneously and rapidly evolving to adapt themselves among human populations.

Biden signs expanded warrantless surveillance law hours after Senate reauthorization of Section 702

Kevin Reed

On Saturday, President Biden signed into law a two-year extension of warrantless electronic spying on everyone by intelligence agencies, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The reauthorization bill, called Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, both extends and expands the surveillance powers used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) that violate the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland [Photo by Fort George G. Meade Public Affairs Office / CC BY 4.0]

Biden signed the legislation following its passage by the US Senate early Saturday morning in a bipartisan 64 to 34 vote. The Senate approval took place shortly after the recent temporary extension of Section 702 authorization had expired at midnight on Friday. The US House passed the bill a week earlier in a similar bipartisan majority vote of 273 to 147.

The White House released a statement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan after the Senate vote saying Biden would sign the bill “swiftly.” Sullivan repeated the claims made throughout the reauthorization process—and supported enthusiastically by substantial majorities in both houses of Congress—that basic democratic rights need to be violated to “protect against a wide range of dangerous threats to Americans,” and “to detect grave national security threats.”

Sullivan also fraudulently claimed the warrantless surveillance legislation contained, “safeguards for privacy and civil liberties through the most robust set of reforms ever included in legislation to reauthorize Section 702.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland also issued a statement on behalf of the US Justice Department that said the spying authority is “indispensable to the Justice Department’s work to protect the American people from terrorist, nation-state, cyber, and other threats.” Garland referenced the “global threat environment” as justification for the illegal surveillance by US intelligence.

Garland also claimed falsely that the new law ensures “the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” and the intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will “continue to uphold our commitment to protect the rights of all Americans.”

Section 702 of the FISA law is based on the false premise that the warrantless surveillance authorized by it can be only directed at the electronic communications of “foreigners” and cannot be used to collect the internet activity, text messages, email and phone calls of US citizens. The provisions of the law require internet service providers and telecommunications companies such as Google and Verizon to cooperate with intelligence agencies and provide, on a moments notice, unimpeded access to the transmission of data and electronic communications across their networks and the platforms of the targeted individuals.

However, fully aware that the communications of Americans are being gathered and searched along with everyone else in the world, the US political establishment is continuing to hide behind a lie to support blatant violations of fundamental rights.

This fact was proven in the proceedings of both the House and Senate leading up to the final votes approving the new legislation. When amendments were put forward that would have mandated court-issued warrants before intelligence and police agencies could view the contents of US citizens’ communications that had been gathered up in the surveillance dragnet, both chambers voted them down.

In the Senate, the warrant requirement amendment was defeated 50 to 42. In the House, the amendment was defeated after the intervention of President Biden, who made phone calls demanding a no vote, and the support of Republican Speaker Mike Johnson who cast the deciding vote. In a memo circulated to House members, the White House denounced the warrants amendment and said it would “eviscerate the value of Section 702.”

Meanwhile, one of the means used to win backing for the reactionary bill is the inclusion of a provision that senators and congressional representatives will be notified if they themselves are the target of the illegal searches of their communications. This exception, providing a heads-up not afforded to the rest of the public, is buried in the language of the legislation.

What neither NSA’s Sullivan nor AG Garland addressed in their comments are provisions in the new law that substantially expand the electronic surveillance authority.

An aspect of the rush to push through the reauthorization is expansion of the definition of the types of service providers that can be compelled to cooperate with the surveillance operation. The new bill adds the phrase “and any other service provider” to the types of companies that must cooperate under the terms of Section 702.

As pointed out by advocates of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, this description means that anyone with access to a Wi-Fi router, server or phone equipment can be required to assist US government spying. While the amendment excludes from the requirement dwellings and restaurants, it is likely that a wide range of entities that provide wireless services or have access to the data being transmitted from mobile devices across networks will be compelled to cooperate with the dragnet.

The inclusion of the broader definition of service providers into the Section 702 legislation is no doubt a response to a 2014 challenge by an anonymous American tech company that challenged demands by the US government that it hand over records under the terms of the previous law. In court documents released to the ACLU and the Electronic Freedom Foundation in 2017, a judge ruled in favor of the company when it argued in court that it did not qualify as an “internet service provider” and need not comply with the Section 702 order.

In a statement at the time, the ACLU said the anonymous tech company that made the challenge “should be commended for defending its users’ privacy, and other companies must do the same by fighting for critical reforms to Section 702 in the courts and in Congress.” In his decision, the judge did not rule on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance but said that the matter of what kind of firms must comply with it is a matter for Congress to resolve. This has now been done.

Section 702 was originally passed in 2008 and was, from the beginning, a fig leaf created for the purpose of covering up an important aspect of the apparatus of undemocratic state repression utilized by the Bush administration after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. That it took seven years for the US government to acknowledge that the regime of spying, torture and permanent detention of so-called “enemy combatants,” indicated that adherence to democratic rights was under direct attack in the context of aggressive and illegal imperialist wars.

It is a measure of the further collapse of democratic forms of rule in the US, under conditions of expanding militarism raising the threat of a third world war, that representatives of both parties in Congress and President Biden now openly argue that the guarantees enshrined in the Bill of Rights cannot get in the way of the requirements of the military-intelligence state.

Latin America drawn into Middle East conflict amid warnings of “Third World War”

Andrea Lobo

The Israeli-provoked military conflict with Iran is dragging Latin America further into the spiral of an emerging world war. 

On Saturday, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles against Israel in response to the bombing of its embassy in Damascus that killed seven top Iranian military officers. US, British, French, Lebanese and Saudi forces repelled most of the Iranian attack, but Israeli officials have decided on further escalating the conflict. Israel, on Friday, attacked Iran itself, striking a military base with drones.

Argentine President Javier Milei leads the Crisis Committee with participation of Israeli ambassador, Eyal Sela, Casa Rosada, Buenos Aires, April 14 [Photo: Oficina del Presidente]

The most striking response in Latin America came from fascistic President Javier Milei of Argentina, who created a Crisis Committee composed of cabinet members and the Israeli ambassador in Buenos Aires, Eyal Sela.

Milei cut short a trip to Denmark, where his government bought F-16 fighter jets, and returned to Buenos Aires, “to take charge of the situation and coordinate actions with the presidents of the Western world,” according to his spokesperson.

The Milei administration recently committed to a “strategic alliance” with the Pentagon and formally requested Thursday to become a NATO “global partner,” a status held only by Colombia in the region. After Milei visited Israel to back its genocide in Gaza, CIA director William Burns and then US Southern Command chief Laura Richardson made visits to Argentina.

Now, Milei is using the Israeli aggression against Iran to cement his regime’s role as cockpit for US imperialist conspiracies in the region, clearly aspiring to the role played by Israel in the Middle East.  

Giving an indication of what was being concocted by the “Crisis Committee,” Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich went on national television to claim, without a shred of evidence, that there are 700 members of Iran’s Quds Force in Bolivia, suggesting they are being given Bolivian passports. 

Argentina and Ecuador were the only two Latin American countries to sign a US-led statement issued on Wednesday denouncing “unequivocally” Iran’s attack on Israel. Such condemnations are a sign of total subservience to US imperialism and its hypocrisy, with Washington having long asserted its right to slaughter whomever it considers an obstacle to its interests.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa separately declared, “Ecuador’s full support to the people of Israel in these difficult times.” His vice president, Verónica Abad, is currently in Israel as part of a so-called “Peace Mission.”

Chile’s pseudo-left President Gabriel Boric, who also supports the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, issued a separate but equally subservient statement “condemning Iran’s missile and drone attacks on Israel.”

In Venezuela, several right-wing media outlets have made unfounded claims that the Nicolas Maduro administration was directly complicit in the Iranian attack. Meanwhile, the US-backed opposition has used the Iranian attack to promote regime change. 

Fascistic opposition leader María Corina Machado declared: “This unprecedented and unacceptable action once again raises our denunciation of the risk represented by Iran’s alliance with the Venezuelan regime... Venezuela’s return to democracy and its reinsertion into the free world will contribute to mitigating this risk.” 

Maduro blamed the Iran-Israel conflict on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “US support,” and warned: “An escalation of the conflict, a product of Netanyahu’s Nazi madness, could lead us to a third world war, and Venezuela advocates peace, rationality, diplomacy and truth.”

This followed the decision by White House officials to reimpose full sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports, after failing to strong arm the Maduro regime into allowing Washington’s preferred candidate, Corina Machado, to run in the presidential elections planned for July. At the same time, the US has continued to give separate licenses to US-based oil companies “on a case-by-case basis,” establishing an effective stranglehold on Venezuela’s most important source of income. 

But having denounced Washington for supporting fascism and provoking a Third World War, Maduro also said on Monday that he will “never close the door on dialogue.”

“I told negotiators to give President Biden the following message ‘If you want, I want. If you don’t want, I don’t want,’” he said in broken English.

In a press briefing, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Iran’s attack was a response to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian embassy and asked Israel not to retaliate. “It’s going to be escalating the conflict to a very risky situation,” he said.

His administration has refused to condemn any side—including Israel for the Gaza genocide and its provocative aggression against Iran— and proposed “more UN activity” for “peace” and “universal fraternity.” 

In Brazil, President Lula da Silva, who was declared a “persona non grata” by Israel after he likened the slaughter in Gaza to the Holocaust, merely called for all sides to avoid escalation. According to O Globo, his government is using diplomatic channels to advocate against an Israeli reprisal. 

Lula has also called for a ceasefire in Gaza but, like López Obrador, has upheld Israel’s supposed “right of self-defense” and promoted the moribund “two-state solution,” which has historically served as a fraudulent cover for the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. 

The Bolivian government of President Luis Arce, who had broken diplomatic relations with Israel over its genocide in Gaza, responded to the Iranian attack by calling on the UN to intervene, and warning that “escalating global violence puts humanity at risk of extinction.”

Colombia’s pseudo-left President Gustavo Petro similarly warned: “It was foreseeable; we are now on the verge of World War III... The US support, in practice, for genocide has set the world ablaze.” Petro has, notwithstanding, vowed to “consolidate” his government’s status as a “NATO global partner” and had no better proposal than to ask the UN to “to bet immediately on Peace.”

The Middle East crisis has once again exposed the United Nations as a “thieves’ kitchen” at the service of imperialism and a “lie from beginning to end,” as Lenin described its predecessor, the League of Nations. It has not only failed to stop any of the US-led wars of aggression globally since its creation but has actively provided a pseudo-legal cover for many of them. 

While Latin America’s far-right regimes act as provocateurs in direct coordination with the CIA, the supposed “anti-imperialist” and “pacifist” policies of the “pink tide” governments are entirely bankrupt, reduced to a futile bid to pressure the imperialist powers to be less predatory.

Lula, AMLO, Maduro and company represent the interests of sections of the bourgeoisie which are trying to leverage trade and diplomatic ties with China, Russia, and, to a lesser extent, Iran. Their alarm over a potential nuclear world war is all the more significant given their unconditional defense of capitalism and ultimate subordination to imperialism. 

Economic globalization and the weakened hegemony of US imperialism have made Latin America a key battleground in the new re-division of the planet. For Washington, the region’s strategic natural resources and supply chains for key US industries, including arms manufacturers, must be secured from Chinese and even European rivals. Moreover, it finds it necessary to draw the larger militaries (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile), whose forces and influence it has long cultivated, actively into its warring camp. 

Recently announcing the deployment of the US 4th Fleet with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in joint exercises and operations across South America, the Pentagon boasted that its sailors “are ready to control the sea, conduct strikes, and maneuver across the electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace.”

Right-wing social democrat Pellegrini wins presidential election in Slovakia

Markus Salzmann

Following its success in parliamentary elections in October last year, the camp around Prime Minister Robert Fico has now also recaptured the Slovakian presidency. In the runoff election on April 6, the pro-government candidate Peter Pellegrini clearly prevailed against his opponent from the liberal camp with 53 percent of the vote.

Fico’s SMER, which belongs to the social-democratic Socialist International but presents right-wing populist positions, had lost power in 2018 following mass protests against the brutal murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée.

Peter Pellegrini [Photo by Xavier Lejeune / EU / CC BY 4.0]

Pellegrini’s election success is a distorted expression of the widespread rejection of the war against Russia, which the leading EU powers continue to escalate. With an unusually high voter turnout of 61 percent, 1.4 million Slovaks voted for Pellegrini. Only the first directly elected Slovakian president, Rudolf Schuster, had received more votes in 1999.

In Slovakia, the president has mainly representative duties. However, he can appoint the cabinet as he sees fit, as the current President Zuzana Čaputová did after the fall of Eduard Heger’s government last year.

Independent Ivan Korčok won the first round of the presidential election in March with around 42 percent of the vote. Pellegrini had 37 percent. During the election campaign, Korčok, who ran for the right-wing liberal opposition parties, had promised to form a counterweight to the government of Prime Minister Fico. Politically, the former foreign minister is strictly in favour of the European Union. Korčok is in favour of a massive escalation of the war against Russia in Ukraine.

This war is deeply unpopular among the Slovakian population. Inflation rose astronomically during the war. At the end of last year, food prices were still rising by over 30 percent. The effects are particularly noticeable in the east of the country, which is plagued by poverty and unemployment. Pellegrini was far ahead of the other candidates in all border regions with Ukraine.

The result of the far-right former Justice Minister Stefan Harabin, who rejects NATO and is considered to be extremely pro-Russian, is also a distorted expression of the opposition to the war. Harabin achieved over 11 percent of the vote in the first round, although he is discredited as a former associate of Fico.

During the election campaign, Pellegrini deliberately presented himself as an opponent of the war in Ukraine and mixed this with nationalist slogans. “I will never allow Slovakia to be dragged into a war,” he declared on Facebook. He promised that no soldiers would be sent to Ukraine under his presidency. “Slovakia will always come first for me,” said Pellegrini.

Pellegrini’s election victory was met with outrage in Germany and the European Union. The warmongers in Berlin and Brussels are only in favour of “democracy” as long as the electorate votes for candidates they like.

Christian Democrat (CDU) foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen accused Pellegrini and Fico of openly sympathising with Vladimir Putin. This was just as incompatible with EU membership as the attitude of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who was “Putin’s Trojan horse in the EU,” he said. “The EU must not and cannot continue to tolerate this,” Röttgen told the Funke Mediengruppe. Anyone who sided with the aggressor did not belong in the EU.

Green member of the European parliament (MEP) Anton Hofreiter, a notorious warmonger, demanded “that the Slovakian government receive a clear warning signal from Berlin and Brussels.” If Fico and Pellegrini “take an axe to the Slovakian rule of law and open the floodgates to corruption, no more money should flow from EU funds.”

Of course, figures like Röttgen and Hofreiter know that Pellegrini and Fico are not going to go too far in their opposition to the EU. Like Hungary, the country is economically dependent on the EU. Röttgen and Hofreiter are reacting so aggressively because their pro-war course is meeting with widespread resistance among the population. They are demanding that the Slovakian government suppress this resistance with all its might instead of adapting to it.

Pellegrini is anything but an opponent of the war. His Hlas party has been in government since October last year together with Fico’s Smer and the radical right-wing SNS. Fico won the parliamentary elections with the promise to deliver “no bullets” to Ukraine and to stand up for peace negotiations with Russia.

But these were just empty words. His anti-war rhetoric merely served to disguise his extreme right-wing policies, which have so far been largely accepted with favour in the EU.

At a meeting last week in Bratislava with the Ukrainian head of government Denys Shmyhal, Fico declared his complete support for his neighbour. At a joint press conference, he said, “Russia’s use of military force in Ukraine was a blatant violation of international law,” adding that Ukraine needed help and solidarity: “We are here to help.”

Shmyhal confirmed the political agreement. He praised the “constructive meeting.” Slovakia stood “very firmly on the side of Ukraine” and condemned Russian aggression.

Although he had promised during the election campaign that “not a single bullet” would cross the border, Fico also promised further arms deliveries from Slovakian companies. He even tacitly agreed to cooperate in the production of weapons. Slovakian companies are also to be involved in the reconstruction of destroyed Ukrainian infrastructure and a direct train link between the eastern Slovakian city of Košice and the Ukrainian capital Kiev is planned.

After his election victory, Pellegrini also immediately endeavoured to dispel any concerns that he would go against the political will of Brussels and Berlin and said he was firmly committed to NATO and the EU.

The 48 year old is a political pupil of Fico and was prime minister for two years from 2018 to 2020. The split of his party Hlas from Smer was not due to political differences. After Fico came under suspicion of corruption and had to resign following the murder of Kuciak, Pellegrini split with his party in 2020 because he thought he had a better chance.

Fico and Pellegrini both advocate an extreme right-wing policy against refugees and immigrants and are in favour of massively increasing the powers of the state at home and rearming the military, which is to be financed by drastic austerity measures. To this end, 30 percent of costs are to be cut in the country’s public sector. In addition, there are to be severe tax increases. The country’s budget deficit is expected to rise to 6.3 percent this year.

In order to suppress the opposition at home, the Slovakian government has introduced far-reaching attacks on press freedom and the judicial system, following the Hungarian example. Fico has already replaced the leaders of the police and other authorities. He is also trying to gain complete control over the state media and suppress critical media.

Protests erupt in New Caledonia as France amends colony’s electoral system

John Braddock

In New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa on Saturday, April 13, two rival demonstrations took place, triggered by changes to the Pacific colony’s electoral rolls that are being pushed through the French parliament. The protests followed weeks of unrest and rising tensions with demonstrations involving tens of thousands.

Organisers claimed that as many as 58,000 pro-independence and 35,000 pro-France marchers took part in the latest protests, under heavy security surveillance with police reinforcements from France. If accurate, the figures account for 34 percent of New Caledonia’s population of 270,000 and are the largest such gatherings since the civil war conditions that erupted in the 1980s.

Protest in Nouméa, New Caledonia [Photo: CCAT]

One of the marches was organised by a pro-independence coordination committee (CCAT) close to Union Calédonienne (UC), part of the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella that claims to represent indigenous Kanaks. The other was called by two right-wing pro-France parties, the Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes.

The constitutional amendment proposes to change eligibility rules to allow citizens who have lived in the territory for at least 10 uninterrupted years to vote in local elections for the provincial assemblies and local Congress, or parliament.

The change will open the door to up to an estimated 40,000 more voters, shifting the overall balance away from indigenous Kanaks as more French nationals become eligible to vote. Under the 1998 Nouméa Accord, New Caledonia’s local elections restricted voting rights to citizens born or who had resided there before 1998.

The Accord was brokered by the then Socialist Party government in Paris as a “compromise” between the independence and anti-independence factions. While setting out a long-term process for a series of independence referenda, the agreements also gave limited influence to a privileged Kanak layer. Money was poured into building a Kanak infrastructure, training public servants and establishing a base for this social layer in the lucrative mining industry.

Now, under conditions of intensifying social and class conflicts, both factions of the ruling elite are seeking to exploit the latest constitutional moves to channel class anger into different forms of nationalism.

Opponents say the measure could make indigenous Kanaks a minority on their “own” land and denounce the process as forced upon them by Paris. Congress Chairman Roch Wamytan told the pro-independence rally that the French State “is no longer impartial. It has touched a taboo and we must resist. Unfreezing this electoral roll is leading us to death.”

The pro-France parties marching in support of the amendment meanwhile brandished French tricolour flags, sang “La Marseillaise” and claimed “one man, one vote” on their banners. Other signs read “This is our home!”, “Unfreeze democracy” and “proud to be Caledonians, proud to be French.”

The Accord is entrenched within the French constitution, so a constitutional change is required. This process began with a vote in the French Senate on April 2 and has gone to the National Assembly for debate before a vote in Congress, a gathering of both Houses, with a required majority of three fifths to pass. New Caledonia’s provincial elections have been postponed from May to mid-December.

The French government is determined to impose the measure as part of its efforts to tighten Paris’ grip on the colony following French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit last July. France’s Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin, who initiated the constitutional process, has visited Nouméa half a dozen times over the past 12 months to garner support for it.

Macron’s 2023 trip was designed to assert France’s imperialist interests as a Pacific power. It coincided with a surge of diplomatic manoeuvres across the region ramping up Washington’s warmongering against China.

France’s strategically placed territory is vital to this agenda. The island hosts a major French military base—which is to receive a boost to troop deployments and a new training academy—and holds nearly a quarter of the world’s reserves of nickel, essential in the manufacture of stainless steel and in the defence industry.

In Nouméa, Macron bluntly told those in favour of “separatism” they should accept the pro-France victory in the final referendum on independence held in December 2021. “After these three referendums, I do not underestimate the disappointed hopes of those who backed a completely different project,” Macron said. “But I say to them all, together we all have to have the grace to accept these results and to build the future together.”

The current tensions, however, reveal that none of the issues around independence have been resolved. Three referenda were held over five years. In the first two, 57 and 53 percent rejected independence. The final referendum was widely viewed as illegitimate. With a 40 percent voter turnout, it resulted in a 97 percent vote against secession after Kanaks boycotted the process amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Full independence has always been strenuously resisted by the French ruling class. New Caledonia has been on the United Nations’ so-called “decolonisation” list since 1986, when French elite troops brutally put down a Kanak insurrection. France’s voting record at the UN shows that Paris repeatedly abstains on resolutions on decolonisation and self-determination.

The constitutional crisis comes at a time of escalating economic and social tensions. As global nickel prices tumble, New Caledonia’s crucial nickel mining and smelting industry is in turmoil, faced with increasing competition from emerging world producers such as Indonesia and China which are producing much cheaper nickel.

Last month, one of the three major processing plants, Koniambo (KNS), was idled due to a decision by its major financier, the Anglo-Swiss giant Glencore, which is seeking a potential buyer for its 49 percent shareholding. The two other plants, Prony Resources and Société le Nickel (SLN), are facing similar crises.

The French government and its Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who visited New Caledonia in November 2023, are demanding that a “nickel pact” be signed by all local “players.” The plan which involves French financial assistance amounting to 200 million euros would be tied to far-reaching “reforms” to make New Caledonia’s nickel “competitive” under world market conditions.

The industry until recently employed about a quarter of the total workforce. Hundreds of jobs have already been axed with thousands more at risk. Clashes have erupted between security forces and protesters opposed to the pact. On April 9, clashes involving firearms, teargas and stone-throwing went on for most of the day, blocking access roads to Nouméa and the towns of Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore.

Miners, processing workers, truck drivers, airport workers and others have repeatedly engaged in militant struggles to defend jobs and conditions. This has brought them into conflict with the entire ruling elite, including the privileged layer represented by the FLNKS, which seeks a larger slice of the economic pie and a greater political say.

Workers’ struggles have been sold out by the trade unions. Nouméa is a polarised capital, where many low-paid workers live in slum conditions. Kanaks, who make up 44 percent of the population are socially disenfranchised, with many living in primitive, subsistence circumstances in rural villages.

As ordinary people reel from escalating living costs, both the local government led by President Louis Mapou—a pro-independence Kanak politician from the National Union for Independence, part of FLNKS—and the rival anti-independence forces all stand on the side of the business elite, opposing any meaningful measures to end poverty and inequality.

The FLNKS is asking that the constitutional amendment be withdrawn and that a French “dialogue mission”—similar to the delegations sent by Paris before the signing of the Nouméa Accord headed by a “high, recognised and independent official”—should come and negotiate a compromise. According to the FLNKS, “dialogue, a consensual solution and a comprehensive agreement” are still feasible. Paris, however, is unlikely to accommodate.

Israeli strike on Iran expands Middle East war

Andre Damon

On Friday morning, Israel carried out an airstrike on a military base in central Iran near one of its nuclear facilities, further widening the war in the Middle East instigated by the imperialist powers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, with commanders and soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip, on December 25, 2023. Netanyahu has said Israel will continue with the offensive until a "final victory" achieves all of its goals. [AP Photo/Avi Ohayon/GPO]

After decades of proxy conflicts throughout the Middle East, Israel and Iran have now each exchanged fire against one another from their own territory, setting a precedent for further escalation.

Neither Iranian nor Israeli officials have admitted to the existence of the strikes, which were announced to the American press Thursday by White House sources on background.

Commenting on the significance of the Thursday night’s attack, the aggressively pro-war Wall Street Journal wrote, “The strike is a message to Iran that Israel has the military capability to hit deep in its homeland, and not merely its proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Israel also showed it could hit a target near a nuclear facility despite the presence of the Russian S-300 missile defense system.”

The New York Times, for its part, wrote, “The taboo against direct strikes on each other’s territory was now gone. If there is another round - a conflict over Iran’s nuclear advances, or another strike by Israel on Iranian military officers - both sides might feel more free to launch directly at the other.”

The article concluded, “The signal sent by the decision to hit a conventional military target in Isfahan was clear: Israel demonstrated that it could pierce Isfahan’s layers of air defenses, many of them arrayed around key sites like the Isfahan uranium conversion facility.”

Friday’s strike was the latest measure in a wave of escalation following Israel’s April 1 attack on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed seven high-ranking Iranian military figures.

US officials effectively endorsed the April 1 Israeli strike, with US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood declaring that the consulate was in fact a terrorist base.

After Iran retaliated against the strike on its consulate with an attack on an Israeli military base, the United States and its imperialist allies condemned Iran, imposed sanctions on it, and vowed effectively limitless support for Israel.

In the subsequent week, US officials repeatedly made clear that a potential Israeli strike on Iran is “an Israeli decision to make,” effectively granting Israel a blank check to attack Iran.

Notably, the strike took place just hours after the conclusion of a high-level US-Israeli discussion dealing with both Israel’s planned strike on Iran and its plans to assault Rafah, where over one million Palestinians are sheltering.

In its readout of the meeting, the White House declared, “The two sides agreed on the shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah. US participants expressed concerns with various courses of action in Rafah, and Israeli participants agreed to take these concerns into account.”

Behind the scenes, however, there are indications that the “limited” Israeli strike on Iran is in fact the prelude to a full-scale assault on Rafah.

Both the Times of Israel and Haaretz, citing The New Arab have reported that the US has authorized Israel to assault Rafah as part of an agreement on Israel’s strike on Iran.

The report in The New Arab claimed that Israel plans on “dividing Rafah into four quarters, which will be conquered sequentially.”

Such an invasion would have disastrous consequences. In a statement Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “In Gaza, six and a half months of Israeli military operations have created a humanitarian hellscape. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Two million Palestinians have endured death, destruction, and the denial of lifesaving humanitarian aid; they are now staring down on starvation. An Israeli operation in Rafah would compound this humanitarian catastrophe.”

Haaretz, citing the Arabic newspaper Rai Alyoum, asserted “this week that Egypt has deployed forces along the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi route and defined a ‘neutral zone’ where displaced Gazans can go. According to the report, the zone is being readied to absorb 200,000 people and will have services, clinics, and food distribution points.”

If these reports are indeed correct, the United States not only gave Israel private authorization to carry out a strike on Iran, significantly escalating war throughout the region, but also authorizing it to carry out an assault on Rafah that would displace hundreds of thousands of people—potentially even onto the territory of Egypt.

Whatever was said in private, the US said essentially the same thing in public, declaring that whether to strike Iran was entirely up to Israel and publicly declaring that the military defeat of Hamas in Rafah is a goal of the United States.

This reality makes clear the close connection between the Gaza genocide and the US military buildup against Iran.