Australian government ending COVID-19 childcare scheme

Oscar Grenfell


The federal Liberal-National Coalition government announced yesterday the axing of childcare subsidies that were introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The move will deepen a social crisis confronting working class families amid widespread job cuts, pay reductions and high costs of living.

Education Minister Dan Tehan told the media that the scheme, introduced by the government in early April, would end on July 12. Childcare workers also would be cut off JobKeeper, a multi-billion dollar program under which the government has paid a substantial portion of the wages’ bill of private businesses.

The removal of JobKeeper pay subsidies, originally promised for six months, paves the way for sackings and wage cuts.

As the WSWS noted when the government’s childcare subsidies were unveiled, they amounted to a $1.6 billion bailout for the private corporations that dominate the sector. They were aimed at ensuring the revenue of the lucrative industry, after enrollments plummeted when COVID-19 restrictions were introduced and hundreds of thousands of workers were stood-down or laid-off.

Under the program, the government provided cash handouts of up to 50 percent of pre-pandemic revenue to private childcare operators. This was given on the basis that the centres remain open throughout the pandemic and provide fee-free childcare.

In addition to boosting the fortunes of childcare businesses, the subsidy was aimed at ensuring that broad sections of the working class, especially in manufacturing, mining and construction, remained on the job despite the health risks associated with COVID-19.

Tehan’s abrupt announcement is part of a broader roll-back of limited relief measures that were introduced when the pandemic began, and that were always geared to the interests of big business.

The decision goes hand in hand with the rapid and premature overturning of pandemic safety measures by federal, state and territory governments, Labor and Liberal alike, including the resumption of face-to-face classroom teaching. It is a component of a pro-business offensive aimed at forcing workers back into their places of employment, despite the ongoing dangers of the coronavirus, to resume corporate profit-making.

At the same time, governments, corporations and the unions are coming together to implement further pro-business restructuring of the economy, aimed at slashing wages, increasing casual and precarious employment, and clearing the way for a continuous offensive against working conditions.

The end of the childcare subsidy will intensify the hardships facing working class families. A survey of 2,280 parents by advocacy group, The Parenthood, found that in more than 60 percent of households, one parent would be required to reduce their working hours because they could not afford full childcare fees.

Georgie Dent, a spokesperson for the group, said the “return to pre-COVID fees will put an enormous amount of pressure on the sector because services will not be able to function viably if up to a third of families have to take their children out.”

Dent pointed to the social impact, stating: “We also know that is going to be really devastating for the children themselves, because they will miss out on all the proven, long-term, quantifiable benefits that kids who access early education and care derive.”

This month, Goodstart Early Learning, the country’s largest provider, conducted a survey of 33,000 families enrolled in its 665 private childcare centres. It found that 54 percent had experienced a decline in household income since March. The average reduction was a staggering 41 percent.

Some 37 percent of families said they would be compelled to withdraw their children from childcare or reduce hours if the subsidies were removed. Around 45 percent said their income would not return to pre-pandemic levels prior to the then scheduled ending of the subsidy.

The wind-back of the measure will result in a further consolidation of the largely privatised sector. The largest businesses will be able to offset the impact of any reduction in demand. They will be aided by an additional $708 million in government funding, amounting to about 25 percent of pre-pandemic revenue. A number of smaller operators will likely go bust.

The withdrawal of JobKeeper is aimed at ensuring that the brunt of the sector’s crisis will be borne by its lowly-paid workforce.

Under the scheme the government paid up to 80 percent of an employee’s pre-pandemic wage, capped to $1,500 a fortnight. The identity of businesses that successfully signed up to the program is shrouded in secrecy, but it appears that they were primarily larger corporations.

Childcare workers have reported having their hours slashed, as companies sought to prevent paying anything on top of the $1,500. Now they confront the prospect of further pay cuts, lay-offs and cuts to conditions.


Childcare workers protest in Sydney over wages and conditions in 2018
Business commentators welcomed the government announcement. The Conversation’s Michelle Grattan wrote: “The removal of free childcare will be a big first test of the political reaction to the government winding back COVID emergency help.”

The federal Labor Party opposition cynically bemoaned the end of the subsidy, with senior ministers feigning concern over its impact on working families. Significantly, however, Labor’s childcare spokeswoman, Amanda Rishworth, condemned the move primarily because it could obstruct the corporate elite’s back-to-work campaign.

“This could well act as a handbrake on the economy,” Rishworth said. “If women and families are not able to access affordable childcare, how are they going to get back to work?”

Childcare is a massive social issue because successive governments, Labor and Liberal alike, have privatised the sector. The federal Labor government of Paul Keating began a pro-market overhaul in the 1990s. Before then, 85 percent of childcare services were provided on a not-for-profit basis. Now, almost 50 percent of the sector is in the hands of businesses.

This has resulted in some of the highest childcare costs in the world. A study by Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) last year found that household childcare costs had increased by 145 percent since 2002. It reported that childcare costs account for a massive 27 percent of average household income.

UK: Virus infection rate increases as Johnson government continues ending lockdown

Robert Stevens

Boris Johnson’s government is pressing ahead with its homicidal plan to send millions of workers back to work, and school children back to school, ignoring mounting evidence that the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic is still infecting masses of people.

Last Monday, the government began the phased reopening of nurseries and primary schools and has instructed secondary schools to open on June 15.

By Friday, Public Health England reported that the critical “R” (reproduction) rate of the virus was at 1 or above in two of England’s nine regions. The regional breakdown was calculated in conjunction with Cambridge University’s MRC Biostatistics Unit.

In the north-west of England, R stands at 1.01. In the south-west it is at 1. If the R rate is at 1 or above, a virus will continue to spread through a population, while a value less than 1 indicates the virus is in decline.

The north-west region has a population of over 7 million people and contains the cities of Manchester and Liverpool. The south-west has a population of 5.6 million, and includes its eight cities: Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth, Truro and large towns including Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch.

Just as significant as the R value reaching the tipping point in two regions is the fact that the R value has risen to between 0.7 and 1 throughout England. In London, the capital and most populated area of the UK, the R value is almost at 1 (0.95). In the south-east of England as a whole—in which London is located—the R value was also recorded at almost 1 (0.97). All other regions are almost at 1, including East of England (0.94), Midlands (0.9) and North-east and Yorkshire (0.89).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data on the “R” value is out of date as soon as it is published due to the surveying required. The latest data only covers the last two weeks in May—ending on May 29. This will not take into account the movement of the R value since then , with many nursery and primary schools opened last week and increasing number of retail outlets allowed to open. From June 15, all non-essential shops will be allowed to open.

Since imposing a lockdown on March 23, Johnson and government ministers—along with Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance—have proclaimed keeping the R rate below 1 as the precondition for ending the lockdown. Instead, ending the lockdown continues.

Monday saw the government proclaim that the R rate was below 1 in every region and in decline—based on test figures that massively underestimate the infection rate and figures for the weekend that are always low due to a lack of reporting.

Nothing the government is doing in abandoning the lockdown has any scientific basis. Generally, the Tories are citing a fall in the number of deaths and infections since their high point in April. But the dip is the product of the lockdown, which is estimated to have cut infections by over 80 percent, and that is now being abandoned.

The PHE/Cambridge team said there was “some evidence” that the R value “has risen in all regions” of England. The rise was “probably due to increasing mobility and mixing between households and in public and workplace settings,” after lockdown measures were eased.

Even after the high point of fatalities in April, hundreds of people have continued to die every day from COVID-19. In the first seven days of this month, another 1,608 people died. On June 2, there were 324 deaths; on June 3, 359; and on June 5, 357.

The UK has passed 40,000 COVID-19 deaths according to the government’s own manipulated figures. These deaths equate to almost 10 percent of all 407,000+ deaths officially recorded worldwide, despite the UK’s 67 million population making up just 0.87 percent of the global population.

Even this terrible toll is not the true picture. According to a new study based on ONS data by health care business consultancy LaingBuisson, by the end of June excess deaths from coronavirus are “likely to approach 59,000 across the entire English population, of which about 34,000 (57%) will have been care home residents.” These figures exclude deaths in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Fatalities are likely much higher already. Modelling last week by the Times estimated that, up to June 2, there were 66,400 deaths.

According to the BBC, at least 12 members of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have spoken out against relaxing the lockdown under conditions in which the R value is rising. Other scientists have opposed the government’s moves to prematurely end the lockdown, with some raising that the government was also too late in putting the lockdown.

But statements that raise widespread concern among workers are met with supreme indifference by the Tories.

Scientists have challenged the government’s daily figures regarding the number of new infections, generally reported in the low thousands. On Monday, the figure was recorded as 1,205, but the ONS Infection Survey suggested there were around 6,000 new infections just in England each day. Other estimates put the figure at around 8,000 a day.

Professor John Edmunds of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a SAGE member told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show Sunday, “I wish we had gone into lockdown earlier. That has cost a lot of lives.”

Edmunds warned that the pandemic was now concentrated in “harder to control” areas such as hospitals and care homes, and these areas had to addressed in any strategy. The pandemic was “definitely not over,” he said. “There’s an awful long way to go. And if we relax, then this epidemic will come back very fast.”

The government is to reopen most of the economy this month in the firm knowledge that the infection rate will rise and many more people will die. The Times reported yesterday, “According to Sage papers, the government was advised last month that it is ‘likely’ that R will rise above 1 should non-essential businesses reopen.”

There could be no clearer demonstration that the government is imposing its herd immunity policy, which envisages a mass infection of tens of millions of people and mass deaths.

Despite knowing the terrible consequences of sending people back to work and children to school in the middle of a pandemic, the Labour Party and trade unions are collaborating fully in these crimes.

Commenting on the new R values, Labour’s mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, stated only that it was “very worrying.” He told the Manchester Evening News, “It appears, I would say, that lockdown has been relaxed too early, given the fact that ‘track, test and trace’ is some way from being up and running,”

“I think it begs the question as to whether the advice is right to people in the North West,” he added. Yet like the rest of the Labour Party, Burnham proposed nothing by way of opposing the government’s plans.

No amount of pressure from scientists, certainly not the polite complaints of the Labourites, will even slow down the back-to-work drive. Opposition must be built in the working class, acting independently of the trade unions working openly with Johnson, and making their own appeal to scientists and public health experts for advice.

Johnson government falls in behind Washington’s economic war with China

Jean Shaoul

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come out openly in support of the US against China over Hong Kong. He announced that Britain will open its doors to any of the 2.9 million Hong Kong citizens eligible for a British National Overseas passport if China imposes its national security law.

Writing for the Murdoch press Times newspaper June 3, Johnson said that his offer, which would require a change in Britain’s immigration rules, would allow anyone holding or eligible to hold these passports to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months, be allowed to work or study and thus potentially be eligible for citizenship. He described his offer—riddled with all sorts of loopholes—as extending “the hand of friendship” to the people in Britain’s former colony.

He forgot to say that this former colony, seized from China, has never benefited from Britain’s “friendship.” It was wrested from China in 1841 during Britain’s first two-year-long opium war, served as Britain’s commercial gateway to the country and became a byword for colonial domination, oppression and social misery.

In 1997, after the expiry of its 99 year “lease”—a term that denotes its feudal and exploitative relationship with the territory—the UK handed Hong Kong back to China under a 50-year form of semi-autonomy known as ‘one country, two systems” that perpetuated its citizens’ lack of democratic rights under British rule.

Johnson’s “offer”—coming from a man whose career has been built on fostering xenophobia and who made limiting immigration into Britain the centrepiece of his Brexit strategy, even increasing the visa fee for vital staff for a National Health Service which has more than 100,000 vacancies—is disgusting. It is a cynical and hypocritical public relations stunt aimed at demonstrating his craven support for US President Donald Trump, even though it means threatening the City of London’s profit base, the last prop of the British economy.

Johnson made this offer amid the Trump administration’s escalating anti-China campaign. This has included blaming Beijing for the global COVID-19 pandemic and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration that the “facts on the ground” showed that Hong Kong no longer had “a high degree of autonomy” from China.

The US is preparing to impose a raft of economic and trade sanctions that would damage Hong Kong’s position as a global financial hub, the third most important in the world, and its role as a springboard into mainland China due to its looser export controls and agreements on technology transfers, academic exchanges, taxation, currency exchange and sanctions. This economic assault on Hong Kong forms part of Washington’s broader efforts over the last 10 years to undermine China’s economic and strategic position and prepare for a possible war.

Pompeo’s announcement came in response to China’s declaration last month that its annual National People’s Congress (NPC) would pass a new national security law covering subversion, terrorism and foreign influence in Hong Kong. The legislation, if enacted, would override Hong Kong’s legislature, which had to abandon a similar law in 2003 in the face of mass demonstrations against its reactionary measures, led by pro-imperialist forces.

Trump upped the ante, saying in a bellicose speech that the US would respond “very powerfully” if the NPC passed the proposed legislation, while Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell confirmed that the State Department was discussing what punitive action to take.

Washington’s assault on Hong Kong’s special economic status threatens to undermine Britain’s banking, financial services, fintech and commercial corporations, on whose speculative and parasitic activities the British economy has become ever more dependent and which are in turn heavily reliant on the Far East for the majority of their profits, not to say their viability.

More than 300 UK-based companies have regional headquarters or offices serving Hong Kong’s domestic market and the region, while the UK is the prime destination for Chinese foreign investment, which in the last five years has equaled the total in the previous 30 years.

Last week, Britain’s largest bank HSBC, which had once threatened to move its headquarters to Hong Kong and generates the bulk of its profits in Asia, announced that first-quarter profits had nearly halved as it set aside $3 billion in bad loan provisions due to the coronavirus pandemic. This comes just two months after it announced that it would shed 35,000 jobs worldwide to cut costs.

Johnson’s very public support for Washington has prompted a furious response from China’s foreign ministry, which warned Britain to “step back from the brink” and “abandon” its “cold war mentality.” It said, “Interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs” will “definitely backfire.” Both HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank have now distanced themselves from Johnson and declared their support for China’s national security legislation for Hong Kong, thereby driving a wedge between the City and the government and intensifying its political crisis.

Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” game plan involved straddling two horses: seeking an ever-closer alignment with Washington’s economic and military agenda while at the same time pursuing bilateral trade deals with countries around the world, including China. He thought that a “Global Britain” approach would either compensate for the loss of trade with the European Union (EU), that accounts for nearly 50 percent of British exports, or enable him to force a trade deal with the EU on the strength of his alliance with Washington.

He had therefore been reluctant initially to alienate China and join the Trump administration’s economic war. However, Washington made it clear abstentionism was unacceptable.

Johnson then came under heavy pressure from right-wing forces in both the Conservative and Labour parties opposed to China’s growing economic power.

The Henry Jackson Society, a British foreign policy think tank closely aligned with neo-conservatives in the US, argued in a recent report, endorsed by former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove, that the Five Eyes countries (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK) should reduce their dependence on China for “strategic” goods that service critical national infrastructure. It called for Huawei, the Chinese telecoms manufacturer, to be designated as a high-risk vendor and barred from playing any part in the development of Britain’s 5G network.

Johnson has been forced to review the decision—made in January—to allow Huawei equipment a limited role in the project. A similar controversy has erupted over the plan to build the Sizewell C nuclear plant with China Nuclear Energy (CGN). Sizewell is the second of three nuclear plants that the Chinese government agreed to build in the UK under a 2015 deal signed with the Cameron government.

Pro-imperialist NGO Hong Kong Watch’s chief executive Johnny Patterson described Britain’s response as “limp, inane and could have been copied and pasted directly from their previous statements” and called for the government to coordinate a joint response of “like-minded” countries to China’s move.

Adding to the pressure on Johnson, seven former foreign secretaries, both Labour and Conservative, appealed to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab for Britain to be more assertive over Hong Kong. Concerned that the response to China should not be left to Trump, and unwilling for Britain to sever its ties with the European powers from whom it is becoming increasingly isolated, they appealed to him to coordinate a European response to China.

While Trump has proposed a meeting in September of the G7 nations plus Australia, Korea, India and Russia, the European Union is at odds with the Trump administration over its handling of the conflict with China, which it views as contrary to its commercial and geostrategic interests. At an EU meeting last week, only Sweden supported Washington’s proposed sanctions.

In throwing in his lot with Washington, however reluctantly, over sanctions against Hong Kong and China, Johnson has intensified his government’s political crisis and isolation. His delusional fantasy of “Global Britain” has been exposed as a chimera. It has proved impossible for Britain to pursue its own international commercial interests without jeopardising its strategic relationship with the US, the world’s dominant military power that has, since the end of World War II, enabled London to “punch above its weight” on the world arena.

A reality check on the ongoing spread of the coronavirus pandemic

Bryan Dyne

The ruling elites in the United States and throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America have abandoned any pretense of stopping the coronavirus pandemic through social distancing and the shutdown of non-essential production. However, the virus continues to spread rapidly throughout the world.

More than 400,000 men, women and children have lost their lives and at least 7.1 million have been infected, many with debilitating effects that may last for years to come. The lives of countless millions more remain in danger as the number of cases continues to grow.

The situation in the United States is particularly dire. There are now more than two million cases and 112,000 dead across every state and territory, more than any country in the world. Tens of thousands are newly infected each day and several hundred die, though the official figures in the US and other countries vastly understates reality.

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported yesterday that new cases saw their biggest daily increase ever on Sunday. “More than six months into the pandemic, this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal,” he said. Such counsel, however, is falling on deaf ears.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo chose yesterday to focus not on the grim reality of the city’s 205,000 cases and 22,000 deaths, but on the fact that “our mojo is back” because the city’s restaurants, businesses and subways are now reopened. In New York City alone, a world epicenter of the disease in April, hundreds of transit workers have died.

Twenty-two states in the US are seeing an increase in coronavirus cases. The number of new cases in Florida has increased an average of 46 percent over the past week. There are sharp increases in Utah, Arkansas and Arizona.

Texas just recorded a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations. “As Texas moves forward with a new phase of Governor Greg Abbot’s plan for reopening businesses,” the Texas Tribune reported, “the daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases is on a steady, upward trend… The 14-day trend line shows new infections in Texas have risen about 71 percent in the past two weeks.”

A de facto policy of “herd immunity” has been adopted by the Trump administration and Democratic and Republican state governors. If brought to fruition, an estimated 1.6 million people in the country would ultimately die. The policy of the ruling class is, Whatever happens, happens.

The deadliness of the pandemic has manifested itself sharply in meatpacking plants across the US. USA Today reported that as a result of Trump’s executive order in late April forcing slaughterhouses and processing plants to remain open, “the number of coronavirus cases tied to meatpacking plants has more than doubled… topping 20,400 infections across 216 plants in 33 states, the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found. At least 74 people have died.”

Corporations, assured that they will be protected by the government, are flouting basic health and safety measures. The USA Today article cited the comments of a federal meat inspector who said that she visited plants where workers “were not wearing masks and practiced only limited social distancing. Some, she said, had also recently tested positive for COVID-19.”

The coronavirus does not respect national boundaries and the global spread will have devastating consequences for every country.

Europe has suffered nearly 2.1 million infections and more than 179,000 deaths. While the virus has been somewhat suppressed in early epicenters such as Spain, Italy, Germany and France, infections and fatalities have continued to rise in the United Kingdom and Eastern Europe. Russia now has 476,000 cases and 5,900 known deaths and the country has one of the highest rates of new cases and new deaths in the world.

Other epicenters of the pandemic are South Asia and South America. There are now at least 10,000 new cases a day in India and 250 deaths, numbers which are trending upwards. The country has currently recorded 265,000 cases and 7,400 deaths.

The situation is worse in Brazil, which has had between 15,000 and 30,000 new cases each day for the past fourteen days, along with 500 to almost 1,500 new deaths daily. Its official case count and death toll, figures which fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro has tried to censor, stand at 694,000 and 37,000, respectively.

Thousands of autoworkers in Mexico’s maquiladora plants have been infected and hundreds have died since they were reopened in May. Dozens of transit workers in London have died even as the United Kingdom was ostensibly locked down to halt the spread of the virus. This grim reality is only going to become more apparent as governments continue their homicidal drives to reopen the economies.

The policy of the ruling class must be countered through the organized resistance of the working class. In its May 21 statement, the Socialist Equality Party stated, “If infection, sickness and death are to be prevented, it is necessary to create a new form of workplace organization that oversees and enforces safe working conditions.

“Therefore, the SEP advises workers to form rank-and-file safety committees in every factory, office and workplace. These committees, democratically controlled by workers themselves, should formulate, implement and oversee measures that are necessary to safeguard the health and lives of workers, their families and the broader community.”

The development of such organizations, in the US and throughout the world, is an urgent necessity to safeguard workers’ lives.

The expansion of the pandemic takes place as an unprecedented social and economic crisis confronts millions of workers. Despite Trump’s claims that the economy is roaring back, tens of millions remain out of work, with no job to return to. The stock market is rocketing back to its pre-pandemic highs due to the trillions of dollars that have been pumped into Wall Street and financial markets, with the support of Democrats and Republicans.

The seething social anger over the response of the ruling class to the pandemic is a central factor underlying the eruption of mass protests throughout the world sparked by the police murder of George Floyd. At the same time, the brutal police response and the attempt by the Trump administration to impose a military dictatorship and violently suppress popular opposition are motivated by an understanding within the ruling class that it confronts far greater social convulsions to come.

The fight to defend democratic rights and oppose dictatorship must be fused with the struggles of workers against inequality and exploitation. The pandemic has exposed the reality and bankruptcy of capitalism, which is a barrier to human progress and the very survival of the human species.

Against the homicidal policy of the capitalist ruling elites, workers must and will insist that “workers’ lives matter,” but the fight to defend the lives of workers against the coronavirus pandemic is inseparably linked to a struggle of the entire working class against the ruling class and the capitalist profit system.

Understanding the New Unemployment Numbers

Dean Baker

Seventy-three percent of the unemployed report being on temporary layoffs.

The May jobs numbers were considerably better than most analysts had expected with the economy reportedly adding 2,509,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate fell by 1.4 percentage points to 13.3 percent. This improved labor market picture should not have been surprising since many businesses across the country had reopened by the survey week in mid-April. The high number of unemployment insurance claims, continuing through May, likely gave a wrong picture, as delays in processing caused claims to appear much later than they had been filed.

The job growth was widespread across sectors but was nowhere close to being proportionate to earlier losses. Restaurants accounted for more than half of the job growth, adding 1,370,600 jobs, but employment in the sector is still down by 36.6 percent from year-ago levels. Health care added 312,400 jobs in May, but employment is still down by 6.0 percent from year-ago levels. This is the result of people deferring nonessential procedures. Employment in dentists’ offices is down by 29.8 percent from year-ago levels.

Both construction and manufacturing showed huge job growth in May, adding 464,000 and 225,000 jobs, respectively. Employment in these sectors is down 5.8 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively over the last year. The relatively strong construction employment data is consistent with data on April construction levels, which showed a limited falloff in most categories of construction. An encouraging note on manufacturing is the one-month diffusion index, which shows the percentage of industries planning to increase employment, was 70.4 in May. (It was 60.4 for the overall economy.)

Retail added 367,800 jobs in May, but employment was still 12.5 percent below year-ago levels. Department stores have been especially hard hit with employment down by 21.2 percent over the last year. By contrast, employment at online retailers is down by just 6.9 percent since May 2019.

Some industries continued to be big job losers. Airlines laid off 50,300 workers in May, employment is now 23.4 percent below year-ago levels. The motion picture industry shed another 10,700 jobs, leaving employment 51.1 percent lower than May 2019. Hotels lost 148,200 jobs, with employment down 50.4 percent from last May. City transit employment rose by 10,100 but is still 34.1 percent below year-ago levels.

State and local government employment fell by another 571,000. It is now 1,571,000 below February levels. With these governments facing massive budget shortfalls due to the shutdowns, another large round of layoffs is a virtual certainty if Congress does not appropriate a large rescue package. This will be a huge drag on the recovery, especially since these governments will need to be hiring large numbers of testers and trackers if businesses are to be able to operate safely.

One encouraging sign was a drop in average weekly hours in manufacturing of 4.2 percent from year-ago levels. This indicates employers are cutting hours rather than laying off workers. This drop translates into hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in the sector.

The wage data show a sharp year-over-year rise, but this is due to composition effects (lower-paid workers have lost their jobs), so it is best ignored.

As noted, the data in the household survey was somewhat better than had generally been expected. It is important to note that the Bureau of Labor Statistics warns that many people who were laid off without pay were wrongly counted as employed. If these people had been counted correctly, the unemployment rate would have been roughly 16.3 percent. In April, this error had lowered the reported unemployment rate by roughly 5.0 percentage points.

The rise in unemployment has differed sharply among demographic groups. The unemployment rate for women over 20 is up by 10.8 percentage points from February, compared to an increase of 8.3 percentage points among men. This reflects the large contraction in employment in sectors that disproportionately employ women, such as restaurants and hotels. The unemployment rate for Blacks and Hispanics of all ages rose by 11.0 and 13.2 percentage points, respectively. This compares to an increase of 9.3 percentage points in the unemployment rate for Whites. The gaps almost certainly would have been larger if so many Black and Hispanic workers had not been classified as essential. While the 12.4 percent May unemployment rate for Whites is far above any prior peak (except April), the 16.8 percent rate for Blacks is far below the peak of 21.2 percent hit in January of 1983.

One very positive sign is that the vast majority of unemployed workers, 73.0 percent, report being on temporary layoffs. This group typically accounts for around 10.0-14.0 percent of the unemployed. Obviously, many of these layoffs will turn out to be permanent, but it seems likely that a large share of the unemployed will be able to go back to their jobs.

It is hard to see a 13.3 percent unemployment rate as positive, but it does support the view of the economy facing a severe recession, as opposed to a complete collapse. This is consistent with data showing that construction and home buying remain healthy and new orders for capital equipment have not fallen through the floor.

The improvement from April really should not have been surprising, since we should have expected more people to be working when it was legal to work than when it was not, due to the shutdown. However, we are still looking at unemployment that is far worse than the Great Recession and the recovery will be seriously impaired by more layoffs in the state and local government sectors unless there is a large rescue package.

A Strategy for Global Democracy and Wealth Sharing

Peter Phillips

It is time for power to the people!

Global capitalist inequality contributes directly to health pandemics, environmental degradation, and mass poverty. Elite-corporate oligarchs control the governments and political parties. They use established militarized police states to protect their vast empires of property and money worldwide. The global one percent own half of the world’s wealth, and the richest 10 percent control 81 percent of all wealth. Only 200 elite people in a handful of companies make the investment decisions for over $50 trillion of capital.

Concentrated wealth is violence towards the 80 percent of the people in the world living on less than ten dollars a day, with a majority of those surviving on just a few dollars. Over 30,000 people die daily from the violence of empire. Mass malnutrition, homelessness, imprisonment, insecurity are the manifestations of concentrated global capital.

A racist police murder has triggered a national revolt. Massive, mostly peaceful protests have resulted, expressing outrage against continued killings of people of color. The circumstances of this outrage are amplified by the forty million newly unemployed in the US, and the friends and families of the 100,000 plus virus victims.

The people protesting in the streets lack any real form of democratic power other than the ability to destroy property and disrupt daily commerce. When property damage, fires, and lootings occur there has been widespread condemnation of these behaviors by politicians, and corporate media opinion writers. Accordingly, we know that agents of the national security state will foment property damage to use as a justification for expanded repression and increased militarism.

For many middle-class folks the looting of property is considered morally wrong. They worry about losing their own modest assets in widespread civil unrest and are quick to say they oppose racism but deplore violence. However, many would likely applaud democratic governmental appropriations of 90 percent of Jeffrey Bezos’ $151.6 billion, Bill Gates’ $102 billion and other elite billionaires if the money were to be used for the permanent elimination of hunger and basic human needs in the world. The real moral obligation for us all is the reallocation of world resources for all humankind to have their essential needs covered. Electoral politics, spontaneous marches, and general strikes will likely not result in the transfer of wealth from the 1 percent to the rest. We need an easily adoptable strategy of resistance.

Capital violence happens every day worldwide, and US racism is a major aspect of that violence. We must ask ourselves– Is the widespread revolt against police racism in the US today the possible beginning of a broader social democracy movement to openly address the inequality of concentrated wealth? Could a widespread revolt become a human rights revolution? Can we build a grassroots democratic movement that seeks to bring about a greater sharing of the world resources controlled by the 1 percent?

A democratic movement, with activists following the moral guidelines from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and holding a united strategy, could well pressure elites into a greater sharing of their wealth without the turning to violent fascist repression. Here is how that could work.

A grassroots democracy movement could engage in targeted property restrictions and disruptions of commerce within the global elites themselves and their businesses. This type of property disruption is morally justified as a strategy for broader change. We all know the names of and have access to the transnational corporate properties benefiting from the continued violence of inequality, racism, and militarism worldwide. Were democracy movement protests to make these properties commercially unusable there would be rapid adjustments sought by the elite oligarchs.  Some elites would call for greater repression and others would be open to economic sharing. The key for movement activists would be to maintain disruptive pressures on targeted transnational concerns through boycotts, sit-ins and blockades, and to carefully avoid violence towards the police and the elites themselves.

A strategy of commerce disruption that focuses on transnational business and elite oligarchs could be adopted by peaceful human rights movements with very positive effects for human inequality. These actions should strategically avoid the disruption of locally-owned businesses, family commerce, and working peoples’ livelihoods whenever possible.

We should try to transform current and future protests from random street disruptions to the specific targeting of businesses controlled by the global power elites. Elite responses will likely be strained, some will demand martial law, but many in the Davos crowd already recognize that the current economy is unsustainable. We should pressure them to mediate wealth sharing among the global elites and suspend the tendency towards repressive fascism. There is hope for a better world and we can pressure elites through moral collective actions to help achieve that goal.

Coronavirus: Understanding Facts, Overcoming Fears, Looking ahead

S.G.Vombatkere

At global centre-stage, “Corona” is one of the most commonly used words worldwide, and the volumes of information and misinformation on it have caused doubts and fears among the public. This article discusses the fear that Coronavirus and Covid-19 have induced in society, and therefore begins with facts.

Viruses and bacteria

(1) Viruses outnumber cellular life at least 10:1, and drive global biogeochemical cycles. They are part of cellular life on Planet Earth.

(2) There are about 220 species of viruses which are known to infect humans, and around 320,000 viruses which infect mammals. Every human is host to millions of viruses – some are beneficial, others can cause disease.

(3) Millions of virus varieties are bacteriophages – they “eat” bacteria. Some bacteria are harmful, but others (e.g., Lactobacillus) are essential for humans to digest food and live.

(4) Every virus mutates, changing its ability to reproduce in its host.

(5) Humans and animals have been exchanging viruses on a day-to-day basis for millennia. We routinely exchange viruses with each other even as we breathe or speak.

(6) Viruses spread – DNA viruses (pox viruses) replicate directly in the host, and RNA viruses like Coronaviruses, attach to the host cells to replicate.

(7) There are several Coronaviruses – we are concerned with SARS-CoV-2 detected in 2019, which causes Covid-19.

Facts and fears

Coronavirus is highly contagious. It can enter the human body only through the mucosa, the membrane lining the inside of nose, mouth and eyes. It cannot enter through the skin of the hands, etc. Coronavirus is contained in tiny droplets when an infected person sneezes, coughs or speaks loudly. If these droplets are inhaled by another person before they fall to the ground or onto door handles, etc., they enter the body through the mucosa of the nose and infect him. Hence the need for all to wear masks – an infected wearer’s mask prevents spread of infected droplets and an uninfected person’s mask prevents their inhalation. Droplets can remain on, say, a door handle for a short time. If such a surface is touched by hand, Coronavirus can get transferred to the skin of the hand/fingers, where it will be harmless, unless the hand/fingers touches the edges or inside of nose, mouth or eyes which have mucosa. All this is equally true of the common cold virus.

Most Corona-infected persons develop mild-to-moderate symptoms and recover without hospitalization. Many remain asymptomatic. Thus, Coronavirus is not a big killer of humans. There are far bigger killers of humans, as shown by WHO and IHME (Washington). Neglecting those larger causes of deaths and focusing on Corona/Covid-19, fails the test of proportionality.

In the absence of a cure for Covid patients, or a vaccine for populations, the threat of Covid spread necessitated imposing physical distancing between people through a lockdown. It was accompanied by government-initiated, wide-reach advice, instructions and orders to create awareness about Coronavirus and Covid-19, and control its spread. Constant repetition concerning maintaining 1-metre inter-person distance, wearing masks, washing hands (soap-n-water, 20-seconds, etc), hand-sanitizers, sanitizing door handles using chemicals, etc., has resulted in many people getting paranoid about touching anything. Many carry hand-sanitizer bottles around with them, and use them or wash hands dozens of times every day. All this has created fear about contracting Covid-19, and has assumed dimensions of paranoia, when only doctors and health workers on duty need to take such precautions.

Unfortunately, governments were initially quite oblivious or uncaring (apart from starting a catchy-sounding Fund, which is intransparent to RTI questions) of the fact that these measures are unaffordable, impractical and impossible for the vast majority rural and urban poor who live and work in congested places and/or have no easy access even to drinking water.

The 4-hours short-notice “social-distancing” lockdown severely impacted the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of rural and urban Indians. It caused panic-purchase of supplies for subsistence. It resulted in unexpected, spontaneous exodus of millions of workers out of urban areas who, together with many more millions of urban and rural poor, were more fearful of hunger and starvation, than about Corona-related disease and death. Fear ruled.

Migrant workers, urban slum dwellers, rural landless, etc. are undergoing the psychological trauma of uncertainty regarding the immediate future for themselves and families. This is accentuated by the physical trauma of hunger and exhaustion, and fear of experiencing demeaning and insulting police violence. Fear, again.

The Covid fear has had social repercussions. People of some Bihar villages refused entry to their own returning migrants, fearing that they bring Covid. Nurses living in paying guest accommodation and working in a hospital in Bengaluru, were forced to vacate by the owner, because he feared infection.

The catchy phrase “war against Corona” prompted Union Health Minister Dr.Harshvardhan to declare that India is doing better compared to other countries on all parameters in its fight against Covid, and we should be able to “win this decisive war” in a few weeks. But the situation has only worsened. Declaring war on Coronavirus has had the unfortunate fallout of increasing Corona-fear among the public.

Without criticizing the “war” phrase, we need to understand that Coronavirus is here to stay, and we will learn to live with it like earlier generations have been living with so many other “killer” viruses and bacteria.

Experts say that in coming months and years, the majority of population will get infected by Coronavirus, and develop immunity to it, helped by an immunization (vaccination) program, and its spread among the population will be limited by “herd immunity”. In the meantime, Covid cure and vaccine will be developed. Thus, people have little to fear if normal precautions are observed just as we do for common cold, and can resume work in accordance with governments’ regulations and directions.

Disease, cure and fear

Humans have begun to “cure” diseases ever since societies neglected the wisdom that the body itself does the “curing”, and that the medicine-doctor combination only assists the natural curative/healing process. (Ayurveda recognizes this). People have always searched for means to reduce or eliminate pain using herbs and other substances or methods. Over millennia, this has extended to avoiding pain and prolonging life. Implicitly, the fear of death as an “unknown” exists in most societies.

Among humans, only societies which we label “primitive” understand death as an event in life. Even people who understand the inevitability of death, either fear death as an unknown, or without fearing death, fear the pain and suffering that can precede death. Either way, it’s about fear.

The healthcare sector

Regarding Corona in particular but life in general, noting that the words “us” or “we” refer to humanity as a whole, and that we discussants are a minuscule minority of India’s 1.3-billion and 7.6-billion humanity,

(1) Most of us are fearful of illness and death, pop pills with or without medical prescription, have routine health checkups, and consult specialist doctors within a health system which manages illness/disease or life-threatening trauma, with little or no focus on health and healthy living,

(2) We attempt to add years to life (statistical longevity) using medication, with little regard to the quality of life, and

(3) Societies and their leaders fail to view social health holistically, in the sense that creating a healthy society will result in individuals enjoying physical, mental, social and emotional health, and that emotional good health will remove fear of death and of dying.

Notwithstanding the present understanding of health or healthcare, the state of the healthcare sector can only be rued. Witness: Public health (protein deficiency, anaemia, malnutrition-underweight-stunting, public hygiene, non-Corona disease, etc.) and public health systems (PHCs, hospital beds, doctor-nurse-medicine-equipment availability, etc.). All this, with parallel but unaffordable multi-specialty corporate hospitals linked with pharmaceutical, diagnostic & therapeutic bio-engineering, medical education, insurance and banking industries. Today, we fear contracting disease by going to a public hospital, and fear expensive treatment in a corporate hospital leading to economic ruin. Yet again, fear.

Looking ahead

Overcoming Corona-fear begins with acceptance that Coronavirus is here to stay. Humanity will develop herd immunity and co-exist with it, as it has been doing with other viruses and bacteria over millennia. Of course, we will continue to use available technology to minimize suffering, enhance cures and prevent Coronavirus spread, but that should not divert attention and effort from other issues affecting social health.

A healthy society in which “the mind is without fear” would link people-centric economics with social justice, and peace and harmony within and between societies, and all life on Earth. It would consist of largely self-sufficient, sharing-and-caring, vibrant communities, never lacking food. Inevitable disease and death would not be feared, but also not accepted when it is a result of injustice, inequality or malafides.

Building a healthy society may appear far-fetched, but it is doable, even if time is running out and there is worldwide absence of requisite leadership.

Impact of pandemic crisis on the children from socially-disadvantaged background

Bhumika Rajdev

The first case of Covid- 19 was reported in India on 30th January 2020. On 24th March 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared nationwide lockdown as a measure to contain the spread of the novel corona virus. It had a wide reaching impact on the educational system of the country as all the schools and educational institutions were shut down by state governments for indefinite time period. It’s more than two months now and it is still uncertain when usual school activities would resume.

Teaching and assessment methodologies are the first to get impacted by these closures. Many private schools and a handful of government schools have moved towards E- learning process. Online classes are being conducted through various apps such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Teachers are experimenting continuously with new ways of making presentations, animated videos and quizzes.

The pre-requisite for E-learning process is electronic devices such as android phone or laptop and good quality internet. Many government schools are completely shut because of unavailability of E- learning resources. The Delhi government decided to give allowance to purchase data and also asked teachers to stay in touch with students through call or messages. At the national level, the NCERT, has decided to draft alternative academic calendar for schools and has suggested teaching-learning resources through different portals for holistic development of a child. This prompts many questions about the appropriateness of the measures taken by the Central and State governments for school children.

Before moving towards the questions on the working of online learning process, it is important that we have a look at the national data on school education system and the students enrolled. According to the educational statistics provided by the MHRD in 2018, India’s 28% of the population is in the 0-14 age group. 260 million students are enrolled in approximately 15 lakh recognized schools in India. Hence, ideally for the government it should have been the biggest concern to reach out to this population.

So in the light of general data given above, the first concern that arises is that, how has the governments planned to take children of migrant workers into consideration? Many of them are travelling to their villages with their parents. They do not have access to mobile phones or laptops to attend online classes or to watch videos. They do not even have their textbooks of new session. Another evolving matter related to this issue is of ‘digital divide’ inevitably orchestrated by inconsistent reach of technology in the distant parts of the country. According to IBEF ( India Brand Equity Foundation)  Rural India, with an estimated population of 906 million as per 2011 census, has only 163 million (17%) internet users. The Pandemic has also increased this existing learning gap between socially privileged and socially disadvantaged children because of inaccessible digital sources of learning.

Second, how is the government planning to secure health and nutrition of the learners? Because of lockdown primary school children have lost the access to mid-day-meal also which was their one of the major source of nutrition. Many parents have lost their job and are barely managing their survival in these hard times. In such a scenario where livelihood is the biggest concern of the family, how do we expect child to continue with the school curriculum?

Another matter of serious reflection is that our schools have an influx of students who are first generation learners. They have no cultural capital to depend on while struggling through various subjects and content matter. Their inability to attend online classes is making them anxious and concerned about their future. As a result of it we have cases like Devika, the 14 year old girl from Kerala who committed suicide on 1.6.2020 out of depression as she was unable to attend digital classes.

The Pandemic crisis has made us revisit the significance and function of ‘School’. It is not only a place for content delivery, but it also helps students to be better decision makers and critical thinkers. It gives them safe space to discuss their concerns, personal as well as political. Today, they have no access to such space.

School closure does not only have the short term impact on continuity in the learning but will also have far reaching consequences such as increase in dropout rate, decrease in quality of learning and malnutrition in children. Not only physical, but psychological and social well-being of the learners will also suffer. Every child who is going through negative experiences because of pandemic will have strong imprints of it on her/his mind.

The Need of the hour is that the government and educational institutions should understand this threat. Better policies and well planned schemes are needed. Our expectations from children and their parents should be reasonable. Before we ask them to be proficient with technology and make it an important part of the education system, we must ensure that it is accessible to each and every learner. Constant sessions of counseling are required for parents as well as for learners to curb the issue of mental trauma and depression because of the crisis.

Education should work as a strong pillar for motivation and realization of importance of research and experiments. It must not be a means to pressurize children to rote memorize those same concepts that we are printing in our books from decades. Critical thinking abilities should be encouraged. It becomes even more significant at this time of pandemic where students not only need to know what to learn but also to know how to learn. It is only possible when government will put more efforts in planning and will make it more inclusive in such a manner that it bridges the learning gap among children from different socio economic backgrounds.

The purveyors of death cough up loose change for Yemen

Jean Shaoul

A so-called humanitarian aid conference for Yemen last week raised a paltry $1.35 billion, some $1 billion short of the target and less than half the $3.2 billion raised last year.

The Saudi monarchy, which has spent $5 to $6 billion per month for the last five years on a criminal war against Yemen, primarily fought from the air, pledged just $500 million. Riyadh insisted $200 million of its donation would be spent through Saudi aid programmes, not those sanctioned by the United Nations (UN). It later emerged that this was not new money but money that had been pledged earlier and not delivered.

The US, UK, Norway and Germany contributed most of the remainder, small change compared to the sales value of their weaponry—supplied to the Saudi Arabian military—that has devastated the Arab world’s poorest country. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the other major participant in the war, made no commitment to the UN’s aid appeal.

Dr. Abdullah al-Rabiah, the head of the King Salman Centre for Relief and Humanitarian Aid in Saudi Arabia that co-hosted the virtual conference, ascribed the shortfall to the impact of coronavirus on national budgets, omitting to say that every one of the participants had made billions available to their own corporations and financial institutions, including their arms manufacturers.

Mark Lowcock, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and formerly the most senior civil servant at Britain’s Department for International Development, delivered homilies to the virtual summit about the UN’s determination not to abandon Yemen’s long-suffering people.

Unless more money was raised, said Lowcock, Yemen “will face a horrific outcome at the end of the year”. He added, “Yemen is now on the precipice, right on the cliff edge, below which lies a tragedy of historic proportions.”

The irony of appealing to the very forces that had produced this “tragedy of historic proportions” seems to have escaped him and the world’s press reporting on a conference that served to absolve the major participants of their crimes.

It came as no surprise that the response to the aid appeal was a noxious combination of hypocrisy, indifference and bullying.

In March 2015, the venal House of Saud launched a military campaign to suppress the Houthi rebels, who had taken control of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, and to reimpose the unelected puppet government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi—who is now holed up in Riyadh. It formed a coalition with the UAE and several other Arab countries, all with divergent interests, to prosecute the offensive that was expected to yield speedy results.

While the Saudis have prosecuted the war by air, the UAE, operating out of its naval bases in the Red Sea and along Yemen’s southern coast, carried out a naval blockade of Hodeidah—Yemen’s principal Red Sea port. The UAE provided many of the ground troops, along with local or tribal militias operating in unstable and fluid alliances with different and opposing agendas, some backed by Riyadh and some by Abu Dhabi, until it pulled out of the war last year.

The five-year-long war, which has turned into several separate conflicts and a military quagmire, has led to the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe for the civilians caught in the midst of this hellscape.

The Saudis’ 257,000 aerial strikes and the UAE’s naval blockade have caused the deaths of at least 230,000 civilians, both directly and indirectly as a result of hunger and disease and displaced some 3.6 million Yemenis. At least 14 million people are on the brink of famine, while 80 percent of the country’s 28 million people are reliant on food aid. Save the Children estimated last year that at least 75,000 Yemeni children under the age of five have starved to death since the onset of the war. The worst cholera epidemic on record has infected an estimated 1.2 million people and led to at least 2,500 deaths, while the recent floods have sparked a dengue fever outbreak in Hadramawt.

Hospitals and schools do not have the most basic necessities. Water supplies, telecommunications, electricity generation and the road system are barely functioning, due to the impact of the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes. Now the country, particularly in the south around the port city of Aden, is suffering from the double disaster of floods and the COVID-19 pandemic. Aden’s cemeteries are overflowing with bodies waiting to be buried.

The imperialist powers are up to their necks in this catastrophe. The US has sold hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia and provided surveillance intelligence used in selecting targets, training for pilots, a continuous resupply of bombs, missiles and other military hardware and, until November 2018, aerial refueling of Saudi bombers so that they could carry out round-the-clock airstrikes.

US warships and other Western military vessels, including an Australian warship in February 2016, supported the UAE’s naval blockade of Hodeidah, claiming they were enforcing the arms embargo against the Houthis.

The Canadian government brokered a $14 billion arms deal for General Dynamics’ subsidiary in Ontario to supply Saudi Arabia with light armoured vehicles. Having suspended it after the Saudi regime’s grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, the Trudeau government is trying to reinstate it.

The UK, the former colonial power in Aden, has licensed more than $6 billion worth of arms sales to Riyadh, while providing intelligence and training for its military in Yemen.

The US and European powers supplied Saudi Arabia and the UAE with the fighter aircraft, the naval vessels, armoured vehicles and munitions whose supply chain extends throughout Europe and North America as well as with airborne-radar systems and drones, bolstering the coalition’s surveillance capabilities, and provided the air support for its land operations. The Saudis and Emiratis in turn supplied their local proxies with these armoured vehicles and military material.

While arms sales to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi long preceded the war in Yemen, they have continued and even increased since 2015, despite their use in attacks on civilians in clear breach of the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The ATT prohibits arms exports that could contribute to war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). It requires states to assess the potential of any arms sales to commit or facilitate a breach of IHL before licencing any such sales.

Although the UN’s Human Rights Council has identified numerous violations of IHL in Yemen, including the Saudi bombing of civilian targets and the UAE’s blockade of Hodeidah, none of the imperialist powers supplying military equipment, large or small, to the coalition have halted their arms exports.

Last year, Britain’s Court of Appeal ordered the Conservative government to stop issuing new licences for arms sales to Saudi Arabia. This was after it found that the government had not even tried to assess whether British-supplied weapons would be used in Yemen, in breach of both international humanitarian law and Britain’s own laws. This has not stopped Johnson’s government proceeding with sales licensed prior to the case as it prepares to appeal the ruling.

In an earlier hearing, the government’s counsel James Eadie QC even had the gall to say that the evidence showed that Saudi Arabia—one of the world’s most barbaric and despotic states that carries out scores of beheadings every year, many in public—is “not a state flagrantly and wantonly violating IHL. It knows the eyes of the world are on it.”

Both the Obama and Trump administrations backed the war in Yemen as part of Washington’s efforts to forge an anti-Iranian alliance made up of the Saudi monarchy, the Persian Gulf Sunni oil sheikdoms and Israel, branding the Houthi rebels as an Iranian “proxy force” without ever producing a shred of evidence.

While the US and UK’s diplomatic support at the UN ensured no arms embargo was imposed on the Saudi-led coalition, nor resolutions passed condemning Riyadh’s wholesale killings of civilians—it did secure an arms embargo on the armed groups under the control of the Houthis and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh—until he switched sides.

American imperialism’s purpose was to bolster its own geo-strategic domination of the energy-rich Middle East by maintaining the power of its local policemen in region. Yemen’s people, along with those in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Palestine, are paying a terrible price.