South Africa sees surge in COVID-19 as restrictions lifted

Stephan McCoy

The lifting of the lockdown and social distancing measures has caused a surge of coronavirus infections in South Africa.

The total number of cases is now approaching 210,000 and the number of deaths is over 3,300. This makes South Africa the country with the second highest number of deaths, behind Egypt, and the largest number of cases on the continent.

The numbers are expected to peak in July and August, particularly in Gauteng, the country’s industrial hub—where the sharp increases in cases could overwhelm the province’s health system—as well as the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces. Health experts have warned that deaths from COVID-19 could reach from 40,000 to more than 70,000 deaths before the end of the year.

A pupil's temperature is checked on returning to school in Johannesburg, Tuesday, July 7, 2020, as more learners were permitted to return to class (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

The surge follows the government’s reopening of the economy in May, as South Africa’s economy teeters on the brink. The pandemic has worsened the already high rate of unemployment and drastically increased hunger.

Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand, speaking of the devastating impact of these numbers, said, “We’re seeing a spike in infections in Johannesburg [the country’s largest city]. The number of people that we are diagnosing on a daily basis now is absolutely frightening.”

He added, “Who we are finding positive now is an indication of who will be in hospital three weeks from now.”

Despite the surge in cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that the African National Congress (ANC) government does not intend to reinstate a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. Ramaphosa told Business Insider, “Another hard lockdown is not being considered for now, the issue of jobs lost concerns us. Other countries are experiencing even bigger losses. We are developing various other ways of responding to this.” By this, he means social distancing and mask wearing.

Bandile Masuku, the health minister in Gauteng province, which has the highest number of active cases and 44 percent of all the cases in the country, called for restrictions on the number of people at gatherings and on public transport, including taxis. But, he stressed, “We wouldn’t want to return to hard lockdown because of the implications it has for the economy. What we are putting across is that we also have to get into it with proper insight because we’ve got experience with the previous lockdown.”

Following the lifting of the lockdown, the Western Cape also saw a spike in infections, resulting in it becoming the epicentre of South Africa’s epidemic. In the most poverty-stricken neighbourhoods in Cape Town, such as Khayelitsha and Klipfontein, the infection rates and possible mortality rates are starting to rival some of the worst-hit parts of the world.

Epidemiologist Professor Andrew Boulle, from the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research, said the Klipfontein health subdistrict, with a population of 3.6 million people and 6,316 confirmed cases, already had a mortality rate of about 700 per million people. In Khayelitsha it was 500 per million. He told Independent Online (IOL), “If the Western Cape was a country and was compared to other countries, at this point in time globally we might be one of the countries with the highest currently daily mortality rate per million population in the world.” He warned that the pandemic had not yet peaked.

The government is spearheading its back-to-work campaign with the reopening of schools. Forced to delay its original plans to reopen fully in June due to teachers’ opposition, the government has said that schools will be fully open by August. In Gauteng province, at least 589 schools recorded positive cases of the coronavirus before the “second-phase” of the reopening began and 71 have had to close. In KwaBhaca in the Eastern Cape, 200 students tested positive at Makaula Senior Secondary School.

The reopening is happening even as hospitals near collapse due to the growing number of cases. Siviwe Gwarube, a Democratic Alliance MP and Shadow Minister of Health, has called for the Eastern Cape be placed under administration as the local government could not “fulfil its constitutional obligations” in “providing adequate health care to all in the province.”

ICU beds are filling up nationally. Times Select reports, “South Africa needs more than 7,000 additional critical beds, with a combination of oxygen, non-invasive ventilators and invasive ventilators.”

In Netcare Linksfield Hospital in Eastern Johannesburg, 15 staff members tested positive for COVID-19 according to a nurse, who said many nurses were worried because deep cleaning had not taken place at the facility and, while they were in isolation, the hospital used agency nurses to run the ICU. Another nurse told News24, “They even suggested that, since we tested positive, if we don’t see symptoms in the next seven days, then we are good to come back to work.” This flies in the face of government recommendations. The nurse said the hospital’s primary concern was money, not the pandemic and that nurses were calling for the hospital to allow affected colleagues to retest before returning to work after 14 days.

South Africa’s economy—which was already in recession before the pandemic with an official unemployment rate of more than 30 percent—contracted by 2 percent in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the previous quarter due to a downturn in mining and manufacturing, two pillars of the economy, and a 20 percent reduction in capital investment.

GDP per capita has been declining since 2013. South Africa’s debts were downgraded to junk bond status in March. Economy Minister Tito Mboweni is expecting a contraction of more than 7 percent for the year as a whole, the biggest downturn since the 1930s, and a budget deficit of nearly 16 percent of GDP, double earlier estimates. He warned that the country was, like Argentina, on the path of bankruptcy. He pledged to close the budget deficit by 2024 and to find $13.5 billion of spending cuts in the next two years that will slash public sector jobs and wages and increase taxes.

The government’s attempts to impose the full burden of the mounting economic crisis on the working class is being met with rising opposition. There have been numerous strikes and walkouts by transport and health care workers over safety issues and the lack of personal protective equipment. In the Eastern Cape, municipal workers at Port Elizabeth protested outside a council meeting demanding permanent employment because, as outsourced workers, they are being paid less than those on the city’s payroll. The workers, who include meter guards, meter readers and seasonal workers, were met with stun grenades from the police.

The ANC government’s response is to abrogate democratic rights and turn to dictatorship, using the army to help police enforce restrictions, along with forces under the South African Military Health Service deployed as medical personnel. Ramaphosa has told parliament he is extending the deployment of 20,000 soldiers, a reduction from the 76,000 deployed in April, until September 30 to enforce coronavirus restrictions. “The army will work in cooperation with the police to maintain law and order, support other state departments, and control the country’s border line to combat the disease,” he said.

Peru lifts quarantine restrictions as coronavirus infections pass 300,000 mark

Cesar Uco

On July 1, Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra initiated the third phase of a “targeted quarantine” to fight the COVID-19 epidemic. While the blanket quarantine has been lifted, including on Sundays, a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew remains in effect. The new measures are called “targeted” because the quarantine remains in force in regions considered to be at high risk, while certain restrictions are continuing in Lima’s working-class neighborhoods.

As of July 6, the Ministry of Health (Minsa) had confirmed 302,718 infections and 10,589 deaths. The per capita death toll is huge. It represents half the number of fatalities reported by India, which has 42 times the population of Peru. It is also reported that of Peru’s 11,302 hospitalized COVID-19 patients 1,227 are in intensive care on mechanical ventilators.

In South America, Peru trails only Brazil in number of deaths, but ranks first in terms of fatalities per capita. This week Peru jumped to fifth place among the countries with the highest number of coronavirus infections.

Families wait in a line for a free meal in Lima, Peru, June 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Vizcarra is acting against the advice of many health experts, who have condemned lifting the quarantine as premature under conditions in which roughly 3,000 new infections are being reported daily and deaths continue to rise.

As a result of implementing the third phase of “targeted quarantine,” most businesses are now allowed to open their doors and most Peruvians can move freely, with certain exceptions in regions where the pandemic is growing, such as Arequipa, Ica, Junín, Huánuco, San Martín, Madre de Dios and Ancash.

In addition, people over 65 years of age are not allowed to leave their homes at any time. Another restriction is that young people, 14 and under, can go out for only half an hour and only 500 meters away from their homes.

The newspaper El Comercio reports that the capital’s 19 high-risk districts, where it is recommended that young people under 14 years of age not be allowed to go out, coincide with the most populated and poorest of Lima’s 43 districts, with an estimated population of over 6 million. In short, the government is making a distinction, giving full freedom to capitalist interests and limited freedom to working-class neighborhoods.

More than 50 percent of those infected reside in Lima. With 10 million inhabitants, the capital comprises roughly a third of Peru’s population and consists predominantly of workers, the poor and immigrants who have poured in from every region of the country in search of better living standards.

Sunday, the first day of “targeted quarantine,” saw a record number taking to the streets, most of them ignoring social distancing rules. El Correo reports that “markets [in particular], emporiums, malls and the beach registered a great agglomeration of people, despite the contagion and the recommendations of the Minsa.”

Measures banning large number of people gathering in the streets have been enforced mainly against workers, who are suffering the most from the pandemic, unable to feed their families and pay rent and utilities. The Vizcarra government executed more than 1,000 arrests in the first two days of phase three, all of them in working-class neighborhoods. To date, there have been 52,000 arrests for violations of government rules imposed to counter the spread of the coronavirus.

In terms of economic stagnation, the Ministry of Labor estimates that 1.2 million jobs were lost between February and May. But the daily Correo speaks of 3.2 million people losing their jobs. The Peruvian central bank has estimated that the economy will contract by 12.5 percent this year.

The implementation of the “targeted quarantine” turned chaotic in Lima, with long lines of people waiting for buses, as a condition for resuming public transportation is that no one should travel standing. At rush hour the buses are usually crowded with more people standing than sitting, packed like sardines.

A transport strike scheduled for Thursday was suspended at the last minute by Ricardo Pareja, representative of the Urban Transport Chamber. The drivers had expressed their disagreement with the government’s measures. The public transport union of Lima and Callao staged a stoppage last week demanding economic compensation.

With the initiation of the “targeted quarantine,” skirmishes with police forces took place in the popular markets of Mesa Redonda and La Parada. To enter these markets, vendors must show a permit that they have complied with the hygiene rules imposed by the Minsa. But in a country where three-quarters of the workers and markets like Mesa Redonda and La Parada are part of the informal sector there were a high number of small vendors without permits who were forcibly ejected by the police. Later, the same vendors would look for another way to enter the marketplace, arguing that “we also have to feed our families,” before being evicted again.

These confrontations quickly gave way to police abuse. El Comercio reports that “a member of the Peruvian National Police slapped an alleged criminal twice during his interrogation at a police station in the district of El Agustino.” A video of the interrogation began to circulate on social media, sparking outrage over police violence.

While anger is growing in the working class over unemployment, social inequality and state repression, Peru’s ruling capitalist oligarchy is dissatisfied with the pace of the economic reopening. Speaking on behalf of big business, economist Elena Conterno, president of the Peruvian Institute of Entrepreneurial Action (IPAE), accused the government of hindering the normalization of economic activity. Writing in El Comercio she denounced the “cumbersome process through which companies have to go to get authorization for activating operations. This is because the firms have to present a protocol to the Health Ministry and a second one to the ministry in charge of their activities.”

With many health experts expressing their opposition to lifting the quarantine, the IPAE declares the capitalist ruling elite’s contempt for human life, which boils down to the insistence that profit is more important than the lives of workers.

This position was made clearer by Ricardo Márquez, president of the National Society of Industries (SNI), when he declared: “If the factory is in San Juan de Lurigancho [one of the largest poor working-class districts with over 1 million inhabitants] they tell you that you cannot operate because it is located in one of the districts with the most cases of coronavirus.”

His argument is that it is in an industrial zone and the fact that there is a high concentration of exposure to COVID-19 is inconsequential.

Meanwhile the crisis in the health care sector has reached alarming levels, with reports from all corners of the country calling for more equipment as well as showing high rates of infections and deaths among doctors, nurses and other health sector personnel.

What has been exposed is the lack of preparation of the state in regard to the health of the majority of the population. This is a result of the policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund and applauded by Latin American governments for cutting health care budgets in favor of encouraging the extractive sectors—mining for export—which benefit world capital and its junior partners in the Latin American bourgeoisie.

Given the alarming statistics of new infections and deaths, it is clear that President Vizcarra is a puppet of the Peruvian ruling class, which is looking with envy at how the capitalists in other countries are returning to “normality” at the expense of workers’ lives and health.

A genuine struggle to defeat the pandemic, as well as the attacks of the bourgeoisie and its president, Vizcarra, can be begin only by the Peruvian working class forming rank-and-file committees in factories, mines and neighborhoods, independent of the unions and the so-called bourgeois left. Using social media and the internet these committees must fight to coordinate joint action with workers of the region and globally in a common struggle for socialism.

Brazil’s fascistic President Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus

Tomas Castanheira

Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro announced yesterday morning to a group of reporters that he tested positive for the new coronavirus, after first presenting symptoms on Sunday.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already reached catastrophic dimensions in Brazil, with more than 1,600,000 infected and 66,000 dead, according to the official count. This toll is surpassed internationally only by the United States. The impact of the virus continues to expand, with a weekly average of about 37,000 new cases per day.

Amidst this scenario, Bolsonaro used his interview, watched by millions of Brazilians and an international audience, to reaffirm his criminal message on behalf of the entire Brazilian ruling class: “Life goes on, Brazil has to produce, we have to activate the economy.”

Bolsonaro speaking at meeting with members Industrial Federation of São Paulo (FIESP), Friday, July 3. (Credit: Marcos Corrêa/ Planalto)

Bolsonaro reminded everyone that, at first, he was attacked by his political rivals for his sociopathic perspective. “Some people talked in the past, criticizing me, that the economy recovers, life doesn’t,” he said in direct reference to a phrase by Wilson Witzel, governor of Rio de Janeiro. “The guns were all pointed at me, criticizing me very harshly. We suffered a lot, but now you can all see that we were right”.

The positions that Bolsonaro claims have been substantiated are actually a set of unscientific assertions about the nature of the coronavirus and policies in response to the pandemic that have proven completely false and of terrible consequence.

The fascistic president’s main argument is that the virus is like a “rain” that will inevitably fall on everyone. But, he claimed, the dangers of the disease, which has already killed more than half a million people worldwide, would pose no serious risk to the population.

According to him, COVID-19 was “overestimated” and “the vast majority of the population, once infected, doesn’t even take notice, feels absolutely nothing.” He also said that the virus would behave completely differently in the Brazil’s hot climate, making its effects much milder.

The explosion of cases before the winter and with devastating consequences in the warmer states, in the north and northeast, absolutely refuted these assumptions, which had no objective foundation from the beginning.

Bolsonaro contends, against all scientific evidence, that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19 and that “doctors have been saying all over Brazil...that the chance of success of [hydroxychloroquine] reaches 100 percent.”

Bolsonaro with US Ambassador Todd Chapman on July 4.

“I took the first pill yesterday,” he said. “I confess that if I had taken hydroxychloroquine from the first day...[in a] preventive way, I would have been doing very well, without any trace of reaction.”

In reality, not only did the World Health Organization (WHO) abandon studies of the drug for treatment of COVID-19 due to its inefficiency, but two Brazilian health ministers left office because of their differences over the indiscriminate prescription of the drug advocated by the president.

Bolsonaro reaffirmed his denunciation of social-distancing measures as a means of spreading panic among the population, attacking governors who proposed measures such as restricting access to beaches. He defended the reopening of schools and so-called “vertical isolation”—i.e., isolating only the elderly and people with comorbidities.

He defended his practice of “contact with the people, which has been quite intense in recent months,” that is, his participation in the fascist demonstrations in front of the Government Palace, advocating the closure of Congress and the Supreme Court and military intervention.

How much the devastating results of the coronavirus in Brazil can be attributed to Bolsonaro’s actions is hard to estimate. His combination of official decrees preventing measures of social distancing and forcing the opening of many businesses; dissemination of false information; covering up data; and the extra-governmental mobilization of openly fascist forces to break the quarantines, and even invade hospitals, played a substantial role.

However, his stability in power and open defense of criminal policies would not have been possible without the collaboration of the entire Brazilian political establishment. If, from the scientific point of view, the policies promoted by Bolsonaro were exposed as a farce, from the point of view of the profit interests of the ruling class, they were completely substantiated.

All parties, including the self-declared opposition of the Workers’ Party (PT), embraced the criminal measures of Bolsonaro and are unanimous in promoting the reopening of all economic activities in the country despite all medical and scientific recommendations.

But, as Bolsonaro recalled in his interview, his greatest support comes from the fact that all bourgeois governments around the world are defending his fundamental policy for general contamination of the population, justified in the name of a “herd immunity” that lacks any basis in science. And they all have embraced what he said long ago, “One cannot fight the virus when the collateral effect of this fight is worse than the damage caused by the virus itself.”

Just days before Bolsonaro’s announcement that he had contracted COVID-19, he attended a July 4th celebration at the US Embassy, where neither masks nor social distancing were in evidence. US Ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman and his wife have “tested negative and will remain at home in quarantine,” according to the embassy’s official Twitter account, which added that the embassy’s entire staff is being “evaluated.”

The episode recalls the visit by Bolsonaro to US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida resort in early March, when 23 members of his entourage returned testing positive for the coronavirus. Bolsonaro previously concealed his own test results, which he performed under pseudonyms.

The virus has increasingly infected Trump’s own inner circle, with eight members of his staff testing positive after his Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally, as well as a senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence and the girlfriend of his son Donald Jr.

Canadian establishment downplays failed attempt to assassinate Trudeau

Roger Jordan

46-year-old Corey Hurren was arrested by the RCMP last Thursday morning after crashing his pick-up truck through the gates of Rideau Hall, the official residence of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Julie Payette. Hurren, an army veteran and current member of the Canadian Rangers, a reserve unit operating in remote areas, was heavily armed when he was detained, including with an M14 assault rifle, a loaded high-standard revolver, an illegal high-capacity magazine of ammunition, and two loaded shotguns.

According to the charge sheet released Monday, Hurren, who was on full-time army duty at the time of his arrest, is accused of 21 firearms offences and one count of uttering threats against Trudeau. Hurren “did knowingly utter” or “convey a threat to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau … to cause death or bodily harm,” reads the charge sheet. Contradictory reports have appeared on how this threat was delivered. Initially the RCMP stated that Hurren had wanted to deliver “a note” to Trudeau, but declined to divulge anything about the note’s contents. Subsequent media reports have claimed that Hurren uttered the threat during his exchanges with RCMP officers on the grounds of Rideau Hall.

Although much about Hurren’s political biography and views is still unknown, it is clear, at the very least, that he has been influenced by far-right views.

He served in the military from 1997 to 2000, reaching the rank of corporal, and rejoined as a reservist in 2019.

Hurren appears to have been radicalized by the social and economic upheavals triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, including the difficulties facing the sausage-making business he set up in 2014 in Bowsman, Manitoba, the small community where he lives.

In late March, he shared a post on the Instagram account of his small business advocating the views of “QAnon,” a far-right group that claims US President Donald Trump is being targeted by forces in the “deep state.” “I am not sure what will be left of our economy, industries, and businesses when this all ends,” a Facebook post from Hurren noted in May, indicating that he feared for the survival of his business. Just one hour prior to the attack, he shared a post supporting the claim promoted by the far right in the US and Germany that Bill Gates and various international organizations created the COVID-19 pandemic.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the available evidence is that Hurren plotted a political assassination. He drove his truck laden with firearms, military food rations, and ammunition from his home in northern Manitoba to Ottawa (a distance of more than 2,500 kilometers/1,550 miles); purposefully crashed it through the gates of the Prime Minister’s temporary official residence; and then sought to proceed on foot, heavily-armed, towards Trudeau’s home. He was intercepted by an RCMP security detail, who took him into custody after a long verbal exchange lasting 90 minutes.

However, judging by the response of the corporate-media and political establishment, Trudeau included, little out of the ordinary happened last Thursday morning. After a few perfunctory news reports on Hurren’s detention, including a handful pointing to his sharing of far-right conspiracy theories online, the story largely disappeared from the media. Trudeau, who was not at Rideau Hall when the failed attack took place, blandly remarked at a press conference Friday that he was happy that the RCMP had responded swiftly to this “concerning” incident. Only after the charge sheet against Hurren was released Monday could the National Post bring itself to admit the obvious: that the attack looks “like an assassination attempt.”

Prosecutors have to date refused to bring any national security or terrorism-related charges against Hurren. Displaying an astonishing degree of complacency, Leah West, a former national security lawyer with the Department of Justice, told the Toronto Star: “In order to bring charges of terrorism, they would need to have reason to believe that he was motivated by political, ideological or religious motives, and that he intended to intimidate likely in this case the prime minister or elements of the government. That may not have been apparent on its face from the initial investigation.”

One can only wonder how different the response would have been had the heavily armed assailant and would-be assassin expressed any affinity for Islamist terrorist groups.

The circumstances surrounding Hurren’s attempted assassination raise extremely troubling questions about his political motivations and ties, including the degree to which he was active in far-right circles, whether he acted alone, and if he promoted far-right views among his fellow members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Just one day before Hurren’s attack, hundreds of right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa for what they dubbed a “Dominion Day rally.” Banners at the demonstration included denunciations of “global elites” for fabricating the coronavirus crisis, calls for the abrogation of all COVID-19 related restrictions, and support for the American-based far-right “QAnon” movement. Present at the rally were several so-called “Yellow Vests”, a far-right group based in Alberta and Saskatchewan that has repeatedly organized anti-Trudeau and anti-immigrant protests over the past year-and-a-half. While there is no evidence as yet that Hurren attended the rally, it appears more than just coincidental that his attempted attack on the Prime Minister’s residence took place in the same city only hours later.

Under these conditions, what accounts for the general indifference to an assassination attempt by a supporter of the far-right against a sitting Prime Minister?

Behind much official tripe about Canadian capitalism’s “progressive” and “democratic” ethos, all sections of the ruling elite have joined hands in shifting politics rapidly to the right in recent decades, mounting an offensive against the working class that has produced an explosive growth in social inequality. A recent study revealed that the richest 1 percent of the population owns over a quarter of all household wealth and more than the poorest 40 percent of all Canadians.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were used to justify a vast expansion of the powers and reach of the national-security apparatus. Following an Islamist-inspired terrorist attack on the House of Commons in 2014, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government granted sweeping additional powers to the intelligence agencies under Bill C-51, including giving the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the right to break virtually any law in disrupting vaguely defined “threats” to national security. The Trudeau Liberal government enshrined these measures with its Bill C-59.

Over the past two decades, Canada’s armed forces have been engaged in virtually uninterrupted wars and military interventions and provocations, from Afghanistan to Haiti (where Canadian and US soldiers completed a coup against the country’s elected president mounted by a fascistic militia), to Libya, Syria, and Iraq.

These developments have led to the strengthening of far-right and even fascistic views among sections of the military. Last November, a military intelligence report revealed that at least three dozen serving military personnel had been identified as supporting far-right groups or expressing racist or right-wing extremist views. None of them were expelled from the military. Instead they were instructed to get counselling or were issued with warnings. The release of the report came weeks after a Manitoba-based reservist, Master Corporal Patrik Mathews, fled to the United States after a reporter exposed his role as a recruiter for a neo-Nazi organization. In January, Mathews was arrested by the FBI for his involvement in a far-right terrorist plot.

In another incident in 2018, a group of CAF sailors affiliated to the far-right Proud Boys group received a slap on the wrist after disrupting a Mi’kmaq ceremony in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The strengthening of far-right groups and networks is not merely a by-product of ruling class policy, but is actively encouraged. After Ottawa played a major role in the 2014 fascist-led coup in Ukraine, Trudeau traveled to the country after becoming Prime Minister in 2015 with members of far-right Canadian-based Ukrainian nationalists in his delegation, many of whom helped supply weaponry to fascistic militias in the country’s civil war with pro-Russian separatists.

Foreign policy is not the only field in which Canadian imperialism cultivates the far-right and fascistic forces. As the class struggle intensifies at home, driven by ever widening levels of social inequality and never-ending attacks by the ruling elite on the living standards of working people, far-right forces are being systematically nourished.

Last month, a Quebec court acquitted the leader of a fascist group who stormed a media office and threatened a journalist who had investigated the activities of the far-right.

During the recently concluded lockout of over 750 refinery workers at the Federated Cooperative Ltd. refinery in Regina, Saskatchewan, FCL chief executive Scott Banda appeared alongside members of United We Roll, a far-right truckers’ group associated with the “Yellow Vests,” to denounce picketing workers. United We Roll broke through a solidarity picket for the locked-out workers set up at an FCL site in Alberta, and also dismantled a blockade near Edmonton during the nationwide anti-pipeline protests earlier this year. In early 2019, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe explicitly declared his backing for a “Yellow Vest” organized convoy to Ottawa to protest the Trudeau government’s support for a UN refugee accord.

Workers in Canada must take the attempted assassination of Trudeau as a serious warning of the danger posed by the far-right. It takes place under conditions of a resurgence of right-wing extremist and fascistic politics internationally, including the promotion and protection of far-right networks within the German state apparatus by the political establishment. Just one year ago, Walter Lübcke, a local Christian Democrat politician in Germany, was assassinated at his home by a known right-wing extremist. The German government was recently forced to announce the reorganization of its elite special forces unit (the KSK) due to widespread sympathy for and ties to far-right and neo-Nazi networks among its personnel.

As in the 1930s, when world capitalism was similarly mired in systemic crisis, bourgeoisie elites, terrified of a challenge from below to their vast wealth and privileges, are cultivating fascist forces as shock troops against the working class. In Canada as around the world, fascistic thugs and state violence will be deployed at home and abroad to enforce the rapacious interests of the financial oligarchy. Only the mass mobilization of the working class on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program can answer the threat posed by the far-right.

US coronavirus case count soars past 3 million

Bryan Dyne

There have been more than 1 million new confirmed coronavirus cases in the US in the past month, bringing the total to just under 3.1 million. A further 20,000 human lives were lost during that time, bringing the official death toll to more than 133,000, more than the total number of US soldiers killed in World War I and nearly three times the number of lives lost to the flu each year.

Including the fatalities in the United States, there have been 544,000 deaths worldwide and more than 11.8 million cases. Next to the US, Brazil, India and Russia have the most cases, while Brazil, the United Kingdom, Italy and Mexico have the most deaths from the disease. Every day that the pandemic is not brought under control leaves at least another 4,000 people dead.

“The outbreak is accelerating,” said World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at yesterday’s press briefing, “and we have clearly not reached the peak of the pandemic.” He continued, “I will say it again. National unity and global solidarity are more important than ever to defeat a common enemy, a virus that has taken the world hostage. This is our only road out of this pandemic.”

A father helps his child with a mask in front of Bradford School in Jersey City, New Jersey on June 10, 2020 (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

The WHO leader’s remarks contrasted sharply to the nationalist action by President Donald Trump, who yesterday formally issued notice to Congress that the United States is withdrawing from the World Health Organization. According to a State Department official who spoke to CNN, the letter is addressed to António Guterres, UN secretary-general, and notes that the withdrawal will be effective on July 6, 2021. When Trump first announced this move, it was decried by Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, as a “crime against humanity.”

Trump is also pushing for a full reopening of in-person classes this fall. He tweeted Monday that “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” His hysterical comment was followed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who stated, “American education must be fully open and fully operational this fall!” The Trump administration views sending students back to school as a necessary precondition for the next stage of the back-to-work campaign. Forcing workers back on the job despite the acute risk of infection and even death is essential for the extraction of surplus value and profit from the labor of workers to back up the trillions in debt piled up to bail out Wall Street.

Trump’s policy would entail all 60 million K-12 students returning to enclosed spaces for several hours each school day as the pandemic gains strength across the country—a recipe for giving the virus to every young person in the country. In that scenario, according to the existing data, some 0.06 percent of students would die—a total of 36,000 children. The rest would bring the disease back home, further spreading the contagion to untold millions of their older and more vulnerable parents and grandparents.

The record number of cases and deaths being reported by various states underscores these mortal dangers. Arizona counted 117 deaths yesterday, 33 percent higher than the previous record set a week earlier. The state has had an average of more than 3,000 cases per day since June 28, and the overwhelmed health system has forced the state’s Department of Health Services to draw up a “crisis of standards care” plan. Patients in Tucson are already being moved to Phoenix because of a lack of available beds. It is expected that Arizona’s medical facilities are only days away from being forced to determine who lives and who dies because of a lack of medical personnel and equipment.

One of the reasons for the pandemic spiraling out of control in the state is the lack of testing. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego has repeatedly asked for federal aid, including a FEMA mass-testing site, and has been told that the county’s case numbers, which are over 67,000, are not high enough for that level of support. As a result, there are many testing sites in the city and around the country, such as the one at South Mountain Community College, where people are forced to wait in their cars for hours to get tested. Currently, a quarter of those who do eventually get tested are being told they have COVID-19, indicating essentially uncontrolled spread in the region.

Arizona’s situation reaffirms the recent warning by the country’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, who stated, “We are still knee deep in the first wave” of the pandemic. Fauci, who stressed that he was extremely concerned and that the situation was getting worse, was referring both to the record number of coronavirus cases and to the low rates of testing and high rates of hospitalization.

The United States is currently testing about 500,000 people a day, about half of the 900,000 tests per day at minimum recommended by Ashish Jha, the director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute. This is the lowest number, Jha’s team estimated, required to find everyone who contracts the virus each day and confirm whether or not their contacts also caught the infection. Other public health experts have said that the US needs to do up to 30 million tests per day in order to truly know the full extent of the pandemic.

The situation as known is already dire. Nine states—New York, California, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona and Georgia—report more than 100,000 total cases. Nine are currently reporting more than 1,000 new cases each day—Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, California, North Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri. Only 10 states are reporting fewer than 100 daily cases. Twenty-two states have seen an increase in hospitalizations over the past 14 days, including Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida and Texas.

Despite such perils, states are continuing with their reopening plans or at most putting them on hold. One of the most significant reopenings will be the Walt Disney World theme parks in Orlando, Florida, and Anaheim, California, starting this weekend. While company and park officials insist that safety measures will be put in place, multiple petitions with tens of thousands of signatures, including those of theme park workers, have been circulated demanding that the park remain closed to keep workers and guests safe.

No section of the US political or media establishment is calling for the shutdown of non-essential production and business to halt the explosive spread of the disease. The policy of “reopening” without adequate testing, contact tracing and quarantining—that is, the policy of “herd immunity”—is supported by both big business parties, the Democrats no less than the Republicans.

New Zealand Global Research Alliance Doctoral Scholarships (NZ-GRADS) 2020 for Students from Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st August 2020

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be Taken at (Country): New Zealand

Type: PhD

Eligibility:
To apply you must:

1. Be from a developing country (as defined by the World Trade Organisation and
2. Your PhD research topic must be related to greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural systems.

Number of Awards: 6

Value and Duration of Award: The scholarship covers the following for a total of three years (36 months):

• New Zealand University annual tuition fees and associated student levies up to a total of $10,000 NZD per year
• An annual living stipend of $28,000 NZD per year (tax free)
• Medical insurance cover up to $700 NZD per year
• Visa application costs to a maximum of $1,000
• Return flights to New Zealand up to a maximum of $6,000
• Book and thesis preparation allowance of up to $1,500 (one-off)

What are the benefits?

• You can bring your family to live in New Zealand with you:
  • • Your partner or spouse will be able to apply for an open work visa for the duration of your studies.
    • You will be able to enrol your children as domestic students in New Zealand’s free state schools.
• You will be studying at a top New Zealand University or Research Organisation.
• You will be actively supported through various extension and networking events hosted in New Zealand.
• You may be able to work alongside your studies, as PhD students studying in New Zealand usually have unlimited work rights.
• You will be supported when you arrive, as New Zealand is a very welcoming country and there are systems in place to help you and your family settle in. Read more about how communities in NZ will support you.
• You get to live in New Zealand! NZ is famous for its relaxed pace of life, unbeatable outdoor lifestyle and excellent work/life balance. We work hard but make time for family, friends and enjoying our beautiful environment.

How to Apply: Apply here 

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The Plight of Migrant Workers

Bilal Kaloo

Corona pandemic finds no end. And the unending miseries of migrant labourers marching towards their native villages still continues Fainting and frowning with anger and anxiety – migrant workers caged in lockdown imbroglio bore the brunt of challenging hardships.

The survival of migrant workers in makeshift settlements in cities and towns remains at stake due to shortage of resources, the avalanche of adversities forced the poor souls to migrate to their homes. Caught between the devil and the deep sea, returning to the native villages became the only viable hope for workers to fight the dual dangers of hunger and disease. The pandemic has penalized the poor workers to dare the barefooted walk of hundreds of kilometers. While the lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of the virus, prolonged deprivation from work has imposed a dreadful and deteriorating spell of starvation for thousands of workers forcing them to defy all restrictions in their march towards their native places.

Haunted by hunger, the fallacy of workplace being a home away from home stands brutally exposed. The firsthand experience of lockdown stings by workers uncovered the bitter truth of urban settlements being hostile and highly indifferent, insulting and intimidating. Left high and dry, alienated in aversive and unfriendly circumstances – lockdown has been a deadly nightmare that pushed these migrant workers into the dungeons of utter misery and impoverishment. Factories, that they served and sustained with sweat and blood failed to offer them the much needed support as they battled for survival with tremendous hardships and dangers. Let down by everyone, with hopes dashing to the ground, migrant workers march to home seems not only a necessity but also an inevitable compulsion.

Braving all odds and negotiating all impossibilities, the road to home although hundreds of kilometers away still allured labourers to find refuge from the dual backlashes of pandemic and poverty. Young mothers walking tirelessly barefoot with headload of baggage carrying their hungry infants presented nerve wrenching scenes reflecting the deep rot of a failed socio-economic system. The hardships dismantled their delusions and dumped their hopes and expectations like trash in the dustbin.

The sea of bare-footed desperate, helpless workers marching on deserted roads and railway tracks included frail bodied men and women, children, pregnant women and even physically challenged walking days and nights to inch closer to their home. Bye-passing the security checkpoints and road barricades, labourers forcibly opted all the alternative ways and means to reach to their homes at the cost of risking their lives. This enforced marathon yielded painful and heart wrenching accounts of traumatic journeys wherein some of the workers anonymously succumbed to death on the unknown roads. Exhausted and hungry while sleeping on railway tracks, some were mowed to death by fast moving trains. The coercive and callous migration draped with death unmasked cruel realities that surfaced openly and deservingly demanded serious considerations.

Who failed the helpless migrant workers? Delving deep inside the crisis of labourers reveals stark realities embedded in the systemic failure. Has the welfare of migrant workers ever been a political priority outlined in party manifestos? Has the economic system ever thought of providing security cushion to support and sustain labourers to meet exigencies like the contemporary corona pandemic? Has the so called civil society been compassionate to assert and considerate enough in highlighting and advocating the problems faced by labourers and last but not the least how much space and coverage mass media outlets have given to the unheard voices of labourers and did they ever question the authorities enjoying the echelons of power and decision making to rescue migrant workers trapped in chronic crisis..

The Stay Home, Stay Safe preventive slogan displayed everywhere proved a hollow banner for poor labourers who were away from home and were being hounded like cattle on deserted roads and in open spaces. Migrant workers along with their families without bread and butter have undergone a horrible experience with the option of staying indoors being more lethal than contracting corona virus outside.

The labourers are not solely to be targeted and demonized for being outrageously adamant to migrate. Lack of intent and initiative for their well-being and welfare, no social security backup, no health insurance, faulty exigency mitigation, dearth of proper and timely dispensation of resources to tackle the vital needs etc all have conspired together in pushing labourers into a deadly trap.

The kicking and whipping blame game of labourers tragedy by central and state governments adds insult to the injury and gives a cover up to their failure to rescue workers out of the colossal crisis. The politicization of pandemic and labourer predicament leads to distractions and vague fault finding exercise instead of fact finding and addressing this massive human tragedy.

The threat of corona pandemic is still looming large and mass exodus of labourers flocking in thousands can further worsen the spread of the disease far and wide posing risk to both the workers in particular and that of public in general. Both centre and the state governments have to rise above the blame game confrontation and mutually take a bold stand to mitigate the agonies of labourers who are under the hammer for such a long spell of time.

The lost faith in factory-based work culture in urban spaces infused ugly and unpleasant memories among migrant workers and is definitely a great setback. It will not be easy to restore back the lost trust instantly.

Addressing the intrinsic ailment rooted in defunct and discriminatory socio-economic system needs an urgent overhauling to incorporate and safeguard interests and wellbeing of majority of workers. From a post-pandemic perspective, problem of migrant workers’ demands an integrated and inclusive set of initiatives. Provision of relief and rehabilitation measures aimed at securing their wellbeing is a challenge. A fair blend of socio-economic and politico-legal worker friendly provisions will rekindle the lost hopes of migrant workers.

Labourers are human beings and their voices need to be heard with compassion. Their lives also matter equally when saving the precious lives of people is a priority in the corona pandemic.

Thousands more jobs destroyed in Australia

Terry Cook

With major corporate players like Qantas in the lead, employers across Australia are using the COVID-19 pandemic to restructure their operations, including by shedding thousands of jobs and cutting wages and conditions.

An estimated 69,000 people returned to work in May as the result of the reckless drive by the federal and state governments to lift public health restrictions vital to preventing the spread of the virus.

Even so, unemployment remains at levels not seen since the 1930s Great Depression. According to a May jobs survey by market research agency Roy Morgan, 1.37 million people were unemployed, 10.3 percent of the workforce, and an additional 1.22 million, or 9.2 percent, were under-employed.

In one of the most ruthless examples of corporate restructuring, Australia’s largest airline, Qantas, announced at the end of last month that it will shed 6,000 jobs. It maintained the stand-down of 15,000 other workers that it imposed in March, even after pocketing its share of a $715 million government handout to the aviation industry.

Making clear the company’s intent to offload the crisis onto workers, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told the media his plan was to “right-size our workforce, our fleet, our capital spending for a world that has less flying for an extended period.” This was aimed at “delivering ongoing savings,” of $15 billion over three years and then $1 billion annually after 2023.

Qantas’s low-cost carrier Jetstar has cut 370 jobs, including 200 at the regional Newcastle airport and closed its maintenance base there. An unspecified number of jobs will be axed from Virgin Australia, Qantas’ main competitor. If it succeeds in taking over the airline, the private equity firm Bain Capital plans to ditch Virgin’s full-service operation and abandon numbers of routes. Virgin’s low-cost carrier Tigerair will be terminated, ending the jobs of 220 pilots and 180 cabin crew.

The queue outside a Sydney Centrelink office in April (Credit: WSWS)

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data has revealed the biggest-ever recorded collapse of job vacancies. They fell by 43 percent in the three months to May, surpassing the previous 27 percent record drop in the three months to November 1990. According to job search agency Indeed.com, there were around 12 people looking for work for every job vacancy. Given the ongoing mass sackings, this ratio is set to worsen.

Over the three months to May, 68,300 jobs were shed across the manufacturing sector, taking the number down to 852,800, the lowest level since 1984. Deloitte Access Economics estimates that up to 60 percent of jobs have been lost in the accommodation, food, arts and recreation industries, and forecasts the sectors will not recover before the end of 2025. It also predicts that one in five specialty retail stores could be closed by 2024.

Job cuts are deepening across most sectors.

In March, the Star Entertainment Group stood down 8,100 workers after closing its food, beverage, conferencing and gaming facilities.

Travel agent Flight Centre confirmed it will cut 1,500 jobs and close 428 of its 944 stores by the end of July as part of a move to cut its base monthly costs to $65 million. Up to 70 percent of the company’s 10,000 Australian staff members already have been stood down or made redundant since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Rival agency Helloworld announced in March it will make 275 staff redundant and temporarily stand down 1,300 more workers, even after confirming it has “significant” cash reserves. Insurer Allianz Partners Australia will withdraw from the offline travel insurance market, shedding 45 jobs.

Deloitte Australia, one of the country’s big four professional services firms, is sacking 700 professional staff from its 10,000-strong Australian workforce. While reporting a 10 percent growth in revenue for the financial year, the company announced in April an 8 percent reduction in annualised pay for the majority of its staff.

Other cuts across this sector include KPMG Australia, which shed 200 staff in April and then implemented a 20 percent pay cut over four months, beginning in May. PwC Australia revealed in late June that it will cut 400 staff from its 8,000-strong workforce, mainly from the consultancy and financial advisory division.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster, is axing 250 jobs due to a $41 million budget shortfall resulting from federal government budget cuts. News Corp is cutting 100 jobs across its metropolitan newspapers including at the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun and its national flagship, the Australian .

The Seven Network cancelled its current affairs program Sunday Night, ending an 11-year run and culling around 38 reporters, producers and editors. Foxtel will eliminate 70 positions across its marketing and creative divisions, in a second round of job cuts this year.

In the energy and mining sector, Woodside Energy announced 500 job cuts at its gas plant operations at Karratha in Western Australia (WA) amid falling gas prices, while Chevron is preparing to shed 600 jobs at its WA gas projects.

Around 400 jobs will be axed by mining giant BHP Billiton as part of the 3,400 to be cut, mainly in its coal and nickel operations. The company announced in January that it was eliminating 6,000 jobs as part of a global downsizing. CBG Resources’ will cut 70 jobs at the Rasp Mine in Broken Hill and Origin Energy will sack around 140 workers at its Adelaide call centre.

Thousands of workers have been stood down and jobs permanently cut across the retail sector, which had already seen scores of store closures and redundancies prior to the pandemic.

Last month, Woolworths announced it will automate operations at warehouses in Sydney and Melbourne, eliminating 1,500 jobs by 2025. Also in June, Wesfarmers flagged the closure of some 167 of its Target stores, cutting up to 1,300 positions over the next 12 months. Department chain Myer will shed 90 head office jobs.

Uber will slash 100 jobs from its Australian operations as part of the shedding of 3,700 positions globally. In May Luv-a-Duck cut 61 jobs at its Nhill processing plant in northwest Victoria.

Hundreds of jobs are being destroyed at universities, including 145 at Charles Sturt. The University of Wollongong has stated it will axe between 150 and 300 staff, while Central Queensland University announced it would cut 99 jobs, on top of 197 voluntary redundancies.

The National Gallery of Australia will sack 30 to 40 workers, accounting for 12 percent of its staff, as part of an “operational restructure” due to a reported $3.6 million funding shortfall. Up to 40 jobs will be axed from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) energy team, including key scientists, engineers and researchers.

Supreme Court rules Electoral College members must follow state vote in presidential elections

Alan Gilman

The Supreme Court on Monday in a unanimous 9-0 decision in Chiafalo v. Washington ruled that electors in presidential elections must cast their votes in the Electoral College for the candidate who won the popular vote in their state.

This case arose in the aftermath of the 2016 election when a handful of Democratic members of the Electoral College attempted to deprive Donald Trump of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Although Trump lost the popular vote by three million votes, he carried 30 states with a combined total of 306 electoral votes.

A handful of Democratic electors, however, announced that they would vote for a “moderate” Republican rather than Hillary Clinton in the hopes that they could convince enough Republican electors to cast similar votes, thereby reducing Trump’s total below the 270 needed for election.

If that occurred, the Constitution would then require that the presidential winner would have to be decided by the House of Representatives, controlled at the time by Republicans, which could have elected a Republican other than Trump.

More than 30 states have laws penalizing or forbidding “faithless electors,” those who run on a slate chosen by the Democratic or Republican parties but then choose to vote for someone other than that party’s candidate. The case decided by the 9-0 vote involved the state of Washington, which fined its “faithless electors,” while a separate order without an opinion upheld the Colorado law, under which one of that state’s electors was removed and replaced by another Democrat who voted for Clinton.

In unanimously ruling that all electors must vote for the presidential candidate who won their state’s popular vote, the Supreme Court is attempting to avert a potential constitutional crisis in the upcoming election, when the contest between President Trump and his presumptive Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, could well come down to a handful of electoral votes.

The legitimacy of elections, and in particular, presidential elections, was clearly on the mind of the court when it heard oral arguments on this case in May. Justice Samuel Alito observed that if the popular vote is close, the possibility of “changing just a few votes” [in the Electoral College] would rationally “prompt the losing party ... to launch a massive campaign to try to influence electors, and there would be a long period of uncertainty about who the next president was going to be.”

Similarly, Justice Brett Kavanaugh alluded to what he called “the chaos principle of judging, which suggests that if it’s a close call ... we shouldn’t facilitate or create chaos.”

The unease in which the Supreme Court, comprised of some of the most class-conscious representatives of the ruling class, views the upcoming election is a backhanded acknowledgement that masses of people are deeply alienated from the two-party political system and view the entire electoral process as corrupt and illegitimate.

Not only has the voters’ will been nullified in two out of the last five presidential elections, with the popular vote winner turning into the Electoral College loser in both 2000 and 2016, but in the 2016 election, 47 percent of those who were eligible to vote for president chose not to do so.

Both capitalist parties have sought to discredit the electoral process, with the Democrats claiming Trump’s 2016 victory was the product of Russian interference, while Trump now claims that any effort to accommodate the election process to the health concerns of the coronavirus pandemic—with more extensive early voting and greatly expanded voting by mail—amounts to “rigging” the election.

A 9-0 vote in the Supreme Court must reflect serious fears in the US ruling elite over allowing another element of uncertainty and arbitrariness in the already arcane and thoroughly antidemocratic process through which American presidents are selected.

Although many Americans think that they elect the president and vice president, in fact, it is the Electoral College, an obscure intermediary mechanism, that formally determines who wins the election.

There is an elector for every member of the House of Representatives and the Senate plus an additional three for people who live in the District of Columbia for a total of 538 with 270 votes needed for majority. If there is a tie or no candidate receives a majority, then the election goes to the House of Representatives.

This system had been considered a formality because usually the winner of the popular vote also wins the Electoral College vote. But twice in the past two decades the winner of the popular vote did not become president, and instead the winner in the Electoral College prevailed.

In 2000, George W. Bush became president, winning five more Electoral College votes than Al Gore, though Gore won roughly half a million more popular votes. In that election the winner was dependent on the result from Florida in which Bush held a lead of a few hundred votes out of six million cast. Legal issues arose regarding recounts, disputes over ballots and voters’ intent, and the Florida state supreme court ordered all votes to be counted after the state government, headed by Bush’s brother Jeb, had halted any further counting or examination of ballots.

The election was eventually decided by the Supreme Court in the infamous case of Bush v. Gore that upheld the termination of the vote counting by Florida and thereby installed Bush in the White House, following Gore’s abject capitulation to the 5-4 court decision.

To further underscore the undemocratic character of presidential elections, the Supreme Court reiterated in Bush v. Gore that there is no constitutional right to vote for president or for presidential electors. The state legislatures have chosen to use statewide elections to select electors, but they could simply appoint the electors if they choose, the justices declared.

It is noteworthy that both the Democratic and Republican parties sided with the state laws on “faithless electors,” upheld by the court. Both parties are concerned that the entire antidemocratic apparatus of the Electoral College has come increasingly under scrutiny, after the debacles of 2000 and 2016, and they oppose any significant change in the electoral structure, which includes the longstanding political monopoly of the two corporate-controlled parties.