Dow Chemical announces plan to cut six percent of its global workforce

Luke Galvin

On Friday Dow Chemical Company announced that it plans to cut six percent of its global workforce. The Midland, Michigan-based company cited lower sales caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as the main reason for what is expected to be at least 2,100 layoffs. The announcement comes on the heels of the historic flooding in late May, which devastated much of the Midland area that now faces the prospect of further financial and social downturn.

Two other mid-Michigan corporations, Hemlock Semiconductor and auto parts supplier Nexteer Automotive, also announced job cuts during the last two weeks of June. Both multi-billion-dollar corporations also cited economic pressures stemming from the pandemic as their reason for making the “hard decision” of cutting jobs.

Hemlock Semiconductor, one of the largest employers in neighboring Saginaw County, laid off 50 out of its total 660 employees. Nexteer, also one of Saginaw County’s largest employers with 5,000 auto workers at its Buena Vista Township factory alone, did not disclose how many of its 13,000 workers it laid off, or will lay off.

The latest round of layoffs at Dow further exposes the long-going exploitative and controlling nature of the company’s relationship with the Midland region. Based in mid-Michigan for over a century, the company has a portfolio of insidious partnerships with the US military and is a notorious polluter, causing countless ecological disasters in the region. Yet the city and region around Midland have grown up around the structure of Dow, making it not only the primary employer of Midland but its social and economic lifeline. The city governance in turn accepts every environmental crime or announcement of layoffs without protest.

The current layoffs also come four years after Dow Chemical laid off 2,500 workers, 700 in Midland alone, a blow that sent shock waves through the community of approximately 41,000. The 2016 layoffs took place during the Dow Chemical acquisition of Dow Corning and its merger with DuPont, which for its part laid off ten percent of its workforce at the time.

In addition to the layoffs, Dow often uses its position to side-step pollution regulations, largely avoiding significant repercussions caused by its persistent poisoning of the regional environment. The company faces lawsuits on a yearly basis for destroying the regional environment with contaminants, and particularly for its dumping of the dangerous and highly toxic chemical dioxin into the local waterways. Just nine months ago, the company had to pay out $77 million to compensate for injuries to natural resources caused by the release of hazardous substances from Dow’s Midland facility. However, such instances of limited payouts are often the exception, while most get bottled up by Dow’s legal resources.

The job cuts will also undoubtedly compound the difficulties stemming from the historic flooding that took place in May in Midland County—a result of a chain of dam failures starting with the privately-owned Edenville dam, which had not passed proper safety standards for decades by the time of its collapse.

Floodwaters destroyed virtually all of nearby Sanford Village, leaving residents and small business owners devastated and homeless. Many residents reported that they did not have flood insurance and were left in financial ruin, with no assistance from state or federal governments.

The city of Midland itself was also flooded, destroying dozens of homes, businesses, and public property. With well over $200 million in damages to infrastructure and homes in the region, the layoffs may be a death knell to the hardest-hit areas. To date, the only palpable assistance given to residents has taken the form of paltry relief from the federal government distributed through FEMA, notoriously known for its cover-up role in disasters like Katrina.

For its part, the flooding also likely compounded the existing environmental dangers in the region. Dow’s sprawling industrial complex is located along the Tittabawassee River, which swelled dramatically during the floods and breached the company’s containment ponds. As the WSWS reported in June, these containment ponds are Dow’s chemical runoff collections that might hold any number of chemicals that flowed from the grounds of the complex when it rains. While Dow has claimed that nothing dangerous was in the ponds at the time of the flooding, state and local officials have mostly left Dow to its own devices, increasing the likelihood that the real extent of the danger will not be reported.

The other layoffs in the region will also undoubtedly compound the social and economic difficulties for mid-Michigan.

Hemlock Semiconductor, located in Hemlock just south of Midland, announced that its 50 layoffs were a product of the US-China “tariff wars,” with Chinese tariffs on US polysilicon exports effectively blocking the company from the Chinese market. These tariffs are a product of the Trump administration’s trade war against China which could provoke a full-scale military conflict between nuclear powers. Workers in both countries will face the brunt of these destructive provocations.

The situation for the highly exploited Nexteer Automotive workers at the nearby Saginaw area plant could also be disastrous, particularly as they have suffered under the homicidal “back-to-work” policy promoted by the American ruling class and its international counterparts. At least two Nexteer workers tested positive for COVID-19 at the Saginaw plant in late March, before the plant was shut down.

Since May, autoworkers in general have been forced back into their workplaces under dangerous and even deadly conditions, at risk of contracting COVID-19 for the sake of corporate profit.

At Nexteer, workers were among the first to be caught up in this drive, along with other auto parts workers, being forced back to work amid increased risk of contracting the coronavirus.

In addition the Nexteer workers were already subjected to a rotten contract sellout in 2015, rammed through by the UAW against broad opposition, which lowered wages and made it easier to victimize workers. The implications of large-scale layoffs in the Saginaw and Midland area will undoubtedly compound an increasingly intolerable situation.

UK coronavirus infections and death rates increase as Johnson blames Europe

Robert Stevens

The Johnson government’s removal of Spain from its “safe-travel” list for Britons travelling abroad is a cynical PR stunt.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s aim is to divert attention from the resurgence of coronavirus infections in the UK, by claiming that the main threat facing everyone is from the regrowth of cases in Europe.

Johnson’s Brexit-reading of the continuing pandemic is aimed at disarming and demobilising any opposition to the criminal “herd immunity” policies that mean the UK has the third-highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world.

Medical staff receive training on how to put on and remove personal protective equipment to avoid being infected or transmitting coronavirus, at the Nightingale Hospital North West, in Manchester, northern England. Hospital. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)

Amid his drive to reopen the economy, Johnson visited Nottingham on Monday, declaring that “clearly we now face, I’m afraid, the threat of a second wave in other parts of Europe and we just have to be vigilant.”

There is a significant rise in infections in Spain and other European countries, as government after government ditched their own national lockdowns—posing a threat to tourists from the UK, whom the government spent weeks urging to go on holiday. But the main danger threatening the UK population is the surge in infections in Britain due to Johnson’s ending of the lockdown, reopening all the main sectors of economy—and in his future plan for all schools to reopen in September.

The move against Spain will impact 600,000 British people, who were in the country when Johnson changed the travel advice. His homicidal agenda, however, affects the entire UK population of 66 million.

The pulling of Spain from the safe-travel list had nothing to do with securing public safety. On Wednesday, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden even stressed that Britons should continue to book holidays, while being “aware of the risk that quarantine could be imposed.”

In line with the Conservative government’s continued encouragement of people to go on holiday abroad to “save the summer,” Dowden added, “We are at a very risky moment with this pandemic. So long as you’re aware of that risk and comfortable with that risk, go ahead and take your break.”

Following the measures against Spain, the Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that the government is now considering removing Belgium, Luxembourg and Croatia from the safe-travel list. It should be noted that nothing is said of the risk to the populations of other countries posed by an influx of British tourists.

The UK’s official death tally is 45,961, more than a third higher than Spain’s 28,436. The UK figure has been manipulated for months by the government, meaning it is substantially lower than the true figure—with “excess deaths” related to coronavirus already at more than 66,000.

Buried beneath the screaming headlines about the danger emanating from Spain and other countries are muted reports that, after dipping due to the impact of the lockdown, UK cases are rising again.

An increase in coronavirus cases in England was recorded each day last week for the first time since the April peak. The seven-day average stands at almost 700—a rise of 28 percent from three weeks ago. On Tuesday, the UK recorded 581 new cases and 119 COVID-19 deaths, while Spain announced 1,828 new cases but only 2 deaths. On Wednesday, the case number rose again in the UK to 763, with a further 83 deaths. Total cases in the UK passed 300,000 this week—one of only 10 countries to reach that level. This is despite the absence of any systematic testing.

According to a report in the Daily Mirror Tuesday, it was the fact that 10 Britons tested positive for coronavirus, after returning from Spain since July 1, that led to the decision to remove Spain from the safe-travel list. The newspaper cited a “senior” government source, who said, “It was a small number but it was statistically significant enough to cause concern.”

Yet, more than double this infection rate was recorded at just one caravan site in Britain last Sunday! There were 20 cases reported last week at Balfour Beatty’s concrete manufacturing site in Avonmouth, near Bristol, with the facility having to be closed over the weekend for a deep clean. Despite this, on Tuesday, the infection level had reached 28 and had nearly doubled to 36 by Thursday. This means that more than a third of the 90 workers at the site have been infected.

The criminal policies of allowing pubs and restaurants to open their doors on July 4, on what the government and media hailed as “Super Saturday,” has also resulted in a flood of new cases. It was confirmed this week that at least 10 people were infected after 200 drinkers were crammed together in a pub in Stone, Staffordshire, between July 16 and 18. In the week to Sunday, 43 new cases were recorded in Staffordshire—with residents voicing concerns that the reopening of pubs and bars is a central factor.

The town of Oldham, with a population of 235,000, was forced to introduce new restrictions on movements Tuesday, with visits to other households now banned locally. This was after National Health Service statistics revealed that Oldham recorded 128 new cases (54.3 for every 100,000 people) in the week to July 26—an increase of 191 percent. The week before saw 26 cases recorded.

Oldham overtook Leicester to register the second highest COVID-19 infection rate in England. The potential for further exponential spread is enormous. Oldham is part of the Greater Manchester conurbation, with a population of nearly 3 million. Its largest city, Manchester, has also seen a surge in cases, with 22.9 new cases per 100,000 (up 55 percent) placing it in the top 10 areas with the highest infection rates in England.

Trafford, another town in Greater Manchester, recorded 36.8 cases per 100,000 people—a rise of 235 percent. Blackburn with Darwen, also in the north west, has the highest recent number of recorded cases in England, with 85.9 people per 100,000 people infected.

Regarding tourists visiting the UK, a major track-and-trace operation is now under way in Berlin after a Turkish couple tested positive for coronavirus after returning from visiting friends in Manchester. So far, 50 people who have had contact with the couple since they arrived home on a Ryanair flight on July 16 are in quarantine, with 13 testing positive for COVID-19. The whole family of the couple is infected, including four children and their grandmother.

In the face of this resurgence, the one thing that the ruling elite refuse to contemplate is a return to national lockdown.

On Monday, Johnson addressed more than a dozen corporate bodies brought together by the Business Action Council. The Financial Times reported that Johnson said the “pandemic could worsen again after the summer. But he sought to reassure executives it would not be as bad as the first outbreak and stressed the government would seek to avoid a second national lockdown, according to several participants.”

The newspaper reported that “some of the participants” noted, “The government wants to address any new outbreaks at a local level given the damage to the economy caused by the national lockdown. …”

Johnson “also used his call to stress the importance of getting employees back at work.”

This week, the pro-Tory Daily Mail trumpeted research published Wednesday by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which baldly concluded that the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives via the lockdown was not worth the candle.

Crunching the numbers, the report by the accountants of death, “Living with covid-19: balancing costs against benefits in the face of the virus,” states:

“For every permutation of lives saved and GDP lost the costs of lockdown exceed the benefits. Even if lives saved are as high as 440,000, each of which means an extra ten years of quality adjusted life—and when the lost output (assumed to be a sufficient and comprehensive measure of all costs of the lockdown) is simply the likely shortfall in incomes in 2020—costs are still over 50 per cent higher than the benefits of a three month lockdown (benefits = £132 billion; costs = £200 billion).”

Indonesia passes 100,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases

Owen Howell

Even as Indonesia passed the milestone of 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday, the Widodo administration is pushing ahead with a large-scale reopening of businesses across the country, endangering the lives of millions of workers and their families. Faced with an ever-growing threat of recession, the Indonesian ruling elite is desperate to keep the economy afloat regardless of the consequences for working people.

Last week, the government announced the formation of the Committee for COVID-19 Mitigation and National Economic Recovery, a team designed to replace the current coronavirus taskforce. It is being headed by Minister for State-Owned Enterprises Erick Thohir.

The team was established with the stated aim of “balancing” the government’s health and economic responses to the pandemic, “in the sense that both be managed under the auspices of a single institution for maximum coordination,” Economic Minister Airlangga Hartanto told the press.

The decision has come under criticism from epidemiologists and commentators for the domination of the team’s membership by corporate representatives that will further prioritise economic recovery over containment of the virus.

The principal economic problem confronting Indonesia has been financing the budget deficit needed to respond to the massive global downturn. The fiscal response has amounted to $US47.6 billion, largely in the form of stimulus packages to prop up big business, with scarce reserves for health and social welfare.

Such spending, however, has proven inadequate, with Bank Indonesia predicting an economic contraction of between 4 and 4.8 percent in the second quarter. The Finance Ministry, meanwhile, expects the budget deficit to reach 6.3 percent and the economy to shrink by 0.4 percent this year.

The World Bank offered a much less optimistic projection, suggesting output could contract by as much as 3.5 per cent in 2020 and only see a partial recovery in 2021—in other words, remaining around 8 per cent below what it otherwise would have been but for the pandemic.

For Indonesia, an emerging economy that has steadily expanded by about 5 percent a year over the recent period, this would be a disaster. In preparation, the government is increasingly hoping to revive tourism. Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan is frantically arranging to reopen major tourist destinations like Bali, Yogyakarta, and Banyuwangi.

Bali, which contributes to more than half of the nation’s tourism revenues, has seen the number of coronavirus cases more than double to 3,219 since businesses opened again for residents on July 9. Borders will open for domestic tourists this Friday, and for international tourists on September 11.

As infection rates surge, even in remote sections of the archipelago, the government decided to cancel its daily COVID-19 media briefings, arousing suspicions that it is seeking to under-report or conceal case numbers from the public.

Through January and February, the government publicly denied it had discovered any cases, concealing data in an attempt to “avoid panic.” When the first cases were announced in early March, top government officials began to downplay the risk posed by the virus, floating a myriad of unscientific cures such as daily prayers, a local rice dish, and a eucalyptus necklace, among others.

The virus was allowed to spread rapidly from province to province, before partial lockdown measures were implemented in late March in Jakarta, the virus epicentre. Infection rates continued to surge during the “lockdown,” partially due to the lack of travel restrictions around the Idul Fitri religious holiday. Eager to resume unhindered production, the government commenced its economic reopening late last month, leading to a dramatic rise in infections and deaths.

As of yesterday, the country had 102,051 recorded cases and 4,901 deaths, figures which vastly underestimate the real scale of the spread. Indonesia has witnessed over 1,000 new infections daily for 36 consecutive days.

Many deaths are likely going undetected, as both East Java and Jakarta have reported sharp rises in burial rates over the past four months. Suspected COVID-19 deaths—i.e. of patients who were not able to be tested—are not counted in the official death toll.

The health sector, which is both underfunded and underequipped, has been particularly devastated. According to local paper Warta Kota, the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) has estimated that six out of every 100 deaths were medical workers—the worst mortality rate among health workers in Southeast Asia. At least 70 health workers are believed to have died from COVID-19.

In the absence of significant government funding, a token medical equipment package, worth $US1.4 million, was delivered last week by the Australian government. This will be swiftly exhausted by a healthcare system on the brink of collapse.

Jakarta’s medical infrastructure is now overflowing due to the recent influx of patients. “In some instances, we pick up patients from their homes, we bring them to the hospital, and the hospital is already full,” Iwan Kurniawan, head of the capital city’s ambulance division, explained to VICE Asia.

Indonesia is still ranked among the lowest countries in the world for coronavirus testing. Despite a renewed effort to expand capacity, the country has only performed 5,178 tests per million people. The extreme shortage of testing equipment, together with the lack of any contact tracing regime, has resulted in widespread undetected viral transmission, spiralling out of control across all 34 provinces.

Testing is largely confined to Java, Indonesia’s most populous island. The country operates 269 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing laboratories, half of which are located in Java. Jakarta, with its dozens of ministry-run laboratories, state universities, and private hospitals, accounts for 30 percent of the total samples tested nationwide.

The regional disparity in testing is nowhere more apparent than in Papua province. Balitbangkes, the largest PCR laboratory in Papua, had no choice but to stop accepting new samples from Saturday, as it lacks the required reagent and single-use equipment. Papua, a growing hotspot for the virus, has recorded 2,720 cases, yet none of its 10 labs are currently accepting new samples.

PCR machines are spread across the country, but populous provinces like Riau, North Maluku, North Kalimantan, and Southeast Sulawesi only operate one lab each, while Jambi, Bengkulu, Central Kalimantan, Gorontalo, and Maluku each have just two.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a minimum case detection benchmark of one test per 1,000 population per week to be able to define a region’s positivity rate. But the WHO’s latest situation report on Indonesia showed that, throughout the country, only Jakarta had met this benchmark.

Nasser, an expert staffer on the old COVID-19 taskforce, offered the following excuse to the Jakarta Post: “Everything is so sudden and new, so there wasn’t really any time to prepare the labs well.” In reality, the healthcare system has been subject to decades of cuts and austerity measures, leaving it totally unprepared to deal with the requirements of a pandemic.

Moreover, the pandemic has had an equally devastating impact on the social position of the working class. The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce has estimated that more than six million workers have been laid off, as companies struggled to survive through the partial “lockdown.” The worsening social crisis will undoubtedly lead to mounting unrest among workers and peasants.

India set to surpass two million COVID-19 cases within days

Wasantha Rupasinghe

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers in his far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government continue to cynically claim that India, under their leadership, is mounting a “successful battle” against COVID-19, the virus is in fact rampaging across the country; and is now deeply entrenched in both India’s teeming cities and in rural areas, where health care facilities are all but non-existent.

Currently, India is the country with the third highest number of infections in the world after the US and Brazil. Total infections have surged passed the grim milestone of 1.5 million. India is also currently sixth in terms of recorded COVID-19 deaths, with 34,191 fatalities. However, it is widely recognised that the figures provided by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare fall well short of the true number of infections and deaths.

Even going by the official figures, India has one of the most rapidly rising case counts in the world. Official cases have doubled within just 19 days, compared to 40 days in the US and 36 days in Brazil. During the last six days, India has reported nearly 50,000 new cases daily, including 49,292 cases on Tuesday. Over the past 12 days, half a million new infections have been registered.

Health workers screen residents for COVID-19 symptoms at Deonar slum in Mumbai, India, Saturday, July 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

Leading epidemiologists and medical experts believe the impact of the pandemic is far greater than these figures suggest. In an interview with journalist Karan Thapar of The Wire on July 25, Bhramar Mukherjee, Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the University of Michigan, said that COVID-19 is surging like a “storm” across India. She expressed shock about the virus’ spread into villages with "fragile” health care systems. According to Mukherjee's assessment, India has between 20 and 30 million undetected COVID-19 cases. Within six weeks, she believes the true number of infections will reach 100 million.

The Times of India noted on Tuesday that half of the country’s 739 districts have reported at least 500 cases each. “Of them, about 200 have more than 1,000 cases each and there has been at least one Covid-19 death in almost 80 percent of the districts,” reported the Times. Painting a bleak picture of the situation, it added, “Many of these emerging hotspots have scanty health infrastructure and managing an explosion of cases could prove beyond their capabilities. Already, cases in 11 districts are growing at double-digit rates.”

However, the Modi government has shown little concern over the pandemic’s rapid acceleration. Instead, it repeatedly parrots the claim that “India is doing better than other countries.” In his monthly national radio address on July 26, Modi advanced this line of argumentation, claiming that the “recovery rate in our country is better compared to other countries,” “the mortality rate is much less as well,” and “India has also succeeded in saving the lives of millions of the people.”

These lies are meant to provide muster for the government’s homicidal drive to “reopen” the economy, forcing workers back on the job amid the pandemic and with little to no safety measures. They are also a desperate attempt to cover up the scale of the disaster in the hope an explosion of popular anger against the Modi government and the entire ruling elite can be avoided.

Even the government’s own undercounted figures do not support Modi’s contention that India has been “successful” in coping with the coronavirus.

In the Wire interview, Professor Mukherjee pointed to a survey showing that 23 percent or 5 million people in Delhi, India's National Capital Territory, have been infected with COVID-19. Mukherjee added, “but only 100,000 (were) detected” due to the low level of testing. India has only tested the equivalent of 1.2 percent of its 1.3 billion population (or 17.33 million samples). This equates to just over 11,400 tests per million people. The US meanwhile has tested the equivalent of 14 percent of its population and Russia 17 percent. “We need to do 40 million more tests as of today,” Mukherjee added

She then went on to expose the bogus character of India’s COVID-19 recovery rate, a statistic that Modi and government officials are forever touting as proof of the efficacy of their efforts to contain the pandemic. According to the government's data, 63 percent of those infected by COVID-19 during the past six months have recovered. But Professor Mukherjee explained that the criteria used to determine who has recovered varies by country. For example, in the US a patient is declared “recovered” after two negative RT-PCR tests. “I do not know how ‘recovered’ is being determined (in India),” said Mukherjee. “I doubt two tests for everybody. (If that was the case) then the number of tests would have been much larger in India.”

The interviewer, Thapar, then recalled that in the “Days of April … two negative tests were required before you (were) allowed to leave hospital.” However in June, the “Delhi government decided if you don’t have fever, are not symptomatic, you can be discharged without any tests.”

While there is no publicly available data about fatalities among “cured” COVID-19 patients, there are several well-documented cases of people dying shortly after being released from hospital, including at least one case while the patient was travelling home by bus.

Mukherjee drew attention to the glaring levels of social inequality, although she did not elaborate on this pivotal issue. “We don’t have accurate hospitalization data in India. What I noticed from anecdotal sharing is that people who are rich and have connections are getting to the hospitals (while) poor people are not getting hospital care.” Hospital admissions are not “based on symptoms or severity but just economic status.”

Modi and the Indian ruling elite are desperately seeking to hide this reality. However, it is plain for all to see that the surge in India's caseload and deaths is the direct outcome of the decision taken by the Modi government and supported, and where they form the state government implemented, by the opposition to “reopen the economy,” so that big business can resume extracting profit from India’s impoverished workers and toilers. Modi allowed export industries and other key sectors like construction to resume operations even in so-called COVID-19 hotspots at the end of April, when India's official total COVID-19 caseload stood at 35,365, with 1,152 deaths.

Following in the footsteps of the United States and the European powers, Modi and the Indian elite have embraced the disastrous and unscientific “herd immunity” policy, under which the virus is allowed to spread through the population essentially unhindered. Jayaprakash Muliyil, the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the government's National Institute of Epidemiology and an outspoken proponent of reopening the economy and pursuing “herd immunity,” bluntly declared that “With a substantial opening up of the lockdown, India may see at least two million deaths.”

Modi’s two-month-long, ill-prepared lockdown was not accompanied by any scientifically planned health care programme, let alone the mobilisation of vital resources to fight the pandemic. The Modi government’s refusal to provide adequate financial and social support to millions of workers during the lockdown resulted in mass lay-offs and horrific scenes of social distress, especially for tens of millions of impoverished migrant workers.

If the ruling elite learned anything from this experience, it is that they will not impose a second lockdown, even at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Modi has vowed that there will not be another total lockdown no matter the death count. In an editorial Tuesday, the Times of India denounced even the limited restrictions that some state governments have re-imposed in the face of the massive spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths. " [T]here can be no more excuses,” declared the Times, “for continuing with lockdowns after experiencing the massive economic damage they have wrought.” The central government,” it insisted, “must get all states on board” for “unlocking plans for August.”

Australian government signs up to US offensive against China

Mike Head

Despite evident nervousness about the possibility of economic retaliation from Beijing, Australia’s government this week scrambled to satisfy the demands of the Trump administration to fully commit to the escalating US military, diplomatic and economic confrontation with China.

The joint July 28 statement issued by the US and Australian foreign policy and military leaders from the Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) in Washington DC read like a justification for war.

It broadcast all the Trump administration’s incendiary and unproven allegations against China—from “coercive and destabilizing actions across the Indo-Pacific” to “malicious interference” in other countries—and announced a classified military “Statement of Principles” to “advance force-posture cooperation” against China.

After the post-AUSMIN media conference, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again lashed out at China, vowing to back and defend Australia from “intense continued coercive pressure from the Chinese Communist Party to bow to Beijing’s wishes.”

Without offering the slightest justification for his accusations, Pompeo declared: “It is unacceptable for Beijing to use exports or student fees as a cudgel against Australia. We stand with our Australian friends.”

Like previous AUSMIN communiqués, the joint statement itself commenced by framing the relationship in terms of fighting wars together. It declared that the US-Australian alliance “remains unbreakable” more than a century “since we first fought side-by-side” in World War I.

Reynolds and Payne with Pompeo (Credit: US Embassy in Canberra)

The significance of these declarations was underscored by the fact that the Australian foreign affairs and defence ministers, Marise Payne and Linda Reynolds, travelled to Washington with an entourage that included their department heads and the Australian military chief, General Angus Campbell, despite the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the US population.

They met face-to-face with Pompeo and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who thanked them ostentatiously for making the trip. “And your entire delegation will be quarantining when you get back,” Pompeo said. “Not many partners will do that for us, and so thank you to each of you and your teams for being with us here in person.”

No explanation was provided as to the top-secret classification of the “force-posture cooperation” agreement, entitled “Statement of Principles on Alliance Defense Cooperation and Force Posture Priorities in the Indo-Pacific.” The AUSMIN joint statement referred only to the establishment of a “bilateral Force Posture Working Group” seeking to “deter coercive acts and the use of force.”

Nevertheless, this pact is another indication of war preparations. The four leaders also announced the construction of a US-funded, commercially-operated strategic military fuel reserve in the strategic northern Australian city of Darwin. US marines already have been stationed, on rotation, in Darwin since the previous Greens-backed Labor government of Julia Gillard agreed to that in 2011.

The AUSMIN meeting unveiled several other joint operations, including a high-level working group to “vigorously” monitor and respond to “harmful disinformation”—clearly directed against China. No information was offered about the alleged kinds of “disinformation,” or how such activities would be attacked.

The AUSMIN statement also “reaffirmed” the two countries’ commitment to furthering military alliances designed to encircle China: “Trilateral dialogues with Japan and Quad consultations with Japan and India.”

At the joint media conference, the four refused to specifically answer questions from reporters about further details of what had been agreed, such as whether Australia had acceded to the mounting US requests for its warships to join provocative “freedom of navigation operations” within the 12-mile territorial waters surrounding Chinese-occupied islets in the South China Sea.

Esper, however, praised Australia for already joining US naval operations in the region. “Last week, five Australian warships joined the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group and a Japanese destroyer in conducting a trilateral naval exercise in the Philippine Sea ahead of the upcoming RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii,” he said. “These exercises not only bolster interoperability, but also send a clear signal to Beijing that we will fly, we will sail, and we will operate wherever international law allows and defend the rights of our allies and partners to do the same.”

Likewise, Esper did not directly answer a question about whether the US was continuing to explore the idea of deploying mid-range missiles in Australia, directed against China, but indicated that this was certainly being discussed. “We had a very ranging discussion about the capabilities the US possesses and the capabilities Australia possesses and our desire to advance them—whether they are hypersonic or any other kind of capability,” he said.

These activities are just part of the gearing up for hi-tech warfare against a nuclear-armed country. Reynolds spoke about joint development of “hypersonics, electronic warfare and space-based capabilities,” to “ensure the alliance maintains its capability edge in a rapidly modernising environment,” without giving any details.

The assertion by the US and Australia that China is the source of the tensions and “malign behaviour” in the Indo-Pacific stands reality on its head. The Trump administration is increasingly resorting to anti-Chinese propaganda to blame a foreign “enemy” for the COVID-19 catastrophe in the US, while vying with the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, to be the most strident in doing so.

At the same time, the White House is ramping up the US “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia, which President Barack Obama formally initiated in the Australian parliament in 2011. It consists of continuous diplomatic, economic and military efforts to undermine Chinese influence and reassert American dominance over the region.

In the South China Sea, which is strategically vital to China, Washington has seized upon Beijing’s longstanding bilateral territorial disputes with other countries, the Philippines and Vietnam in particular, potentially creating the pretext for US-led military interventions to supposedly defend them against “Chinese bullying.”

US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) journalist Nick Schifrin asked Payne to comment on Pompeo’s regime-change call in his speech last week in which he urged all “free nations” to rise as one against Chinese “tyranny,” regardless of the economic consequences. Schifrin asked Payne whether “the admonition to help the Chinese people change the Chinese government” was “possible and/or wise?”

Payne obfuscated, saying US policy was for itself to determine, while insisting that the Australian government had an “important” relationship with China, which Canberra had “no intention of injuring.”

The billion-dollar interests behind that nervousness, especially based on mining exports to China, received expression yesterday when a business-backed group, China Matters, warned that Australia could be “collateral damage” if US-China ties deteriorated further.

Regardless of these fears, however, the dominant sections of the Australian ruling class have concluded that they have no option but to back the US, on which they depend heavily for investment, as well as military and intelligence support.

While Payne claimed that the US-Australia relationship was “respectful,” she and Reynolds were at pains to recite the actions that the Australian government had taken in sync with the US. The list included banning the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from Australia’s proposed 5G network, opposing China’s Belt and Road infrastructure program, introducing “foreign interference” laws, blocking Chinese investment in certain industries, and denouncing Chinese actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

It also included declaring “illegal” China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, collaborating on the mining and refining of “critical minerals” and allocating an extra $270 billion over the next decade to boosting Australia’s military capacity, especially for longer-range operations in China’s vicinity.

On every front, each Australian government over the past decade has increasingly integrated the country, militarily and strategically, into the drive by the US to block China from challenging the US domination of the region and the world, effectively placing the Australian population on the frontline of a potentially catastrophic war.

COVID-19 deaths mount at GM plant and maquiladoras across Mexico

Andrea Lobo

The re-opening of manufacturing plants and other workplaces across Mexico led by the administration of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has resulted in a devastating upsurge of the COVID-19 pandemic across auto plants and maquiladora sweatshops that supply the highly interconnected North American economy.

In the month of June, exports increased 76 percent, while confirmed COVID-19 cases in Mexico soared from 90,000 to 230,000. This week, coronavirus cases shot past 400,000 and deaths surpassed 45,000. Only the US, Brazil and the UK have recorded more deaths.

These figures are widely recognized to be a vast underestimation of the infection and death toll due to lack of testing. For instance, data from The Economist based on excess deaths as of July 6 found that 78 percent of deaths linked to the COVID-19 pandemic were not reported in Mexico City.

Río Bravo Lear Corporation workers on the bus and inside the plant in late July, Ciudad Juárez, México (Facebook)

At the General Motors Complex in Silao, where workers assemble GM’s most profitable pickup trucks, the Generando Movimiento (Generating Movement) rank-and-file group reported to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter that the seventh worker at the plant had died from COVID-19. The company and the trade unions have denied any deaths.

Workers who live in the neighborhood of the latest victim found out about her death when she was buried last Saturday. “Her family members say that she got infected of COVID at GM. All her family is now infected,” one worker wrote. “Her name was Rocío and she was barely at the West Hall”—the training and testing area for new hires.

Expressing sorrow for her death, several co-workers denounced the company for placing “production above everything else.” Generating Movement explained that the plant is running at 100 percent capacity, even though the state of Guanajuato, where the plant is located, is on “red” alert over COVID-19. This ostensibly means automakers can only run at 30 percent of capacity. “To compensate for vulnerable workers [those off work because of health conditions], others are being forced to work overtime,” the group explained.

Across the United States, GM has struggled with high absenteeism as workers oppose being exposed to the virus. At the plants in Flint, Michigan and Fort Wayne, Indiana, which produce Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks like those built in Silao, GM increased production to three shifts last month and added Saturday shifts “to increase supply of its profit-rich trucks,” indicated by Detroit News.

Recognizing the importance of a joint struggle against the reckless drive to expand production across North America, the Generating Movement group at Silao told the Autoworker Newsletter, “We oppose the claim made by the UAW [United Auto Workers] that the plants in the United States must stay open, placing production above workers’ safety.” This refers to a recent statement by UAW Local 598 President at GM Flint Assembly, Eric Welter, who said workers must “push on,” adding, “People want our product and if we don’t deliver that product, that’s our job security.”

Once the pandemic began to sweep across manufacturing plants and other workplaces, the North American auto industry was only shut down by a wave of wildcat strikes across the United States and Canada that began in mid-March and spread in early April across Mexican sweatshop maquiladoras. These independent actions by workers, against the resistance of management, the governments and the trade unions, saved countless lives.

Shortly after the auto industry in the US and Canada re-opened, the López Obrador government bowed to the demands from the Trump administration and declared that production of cars, auto parts and other key supplies for US corporations was “essential.” This has led to widespread outbreaks across Mexican plants that the corporations and their union stooges are covering up.

In Matamoros, which borders Brownsville, Texas, workers at a maquiladora that makes car battery chargers for US-based Schumex-Shumacher reported to the Autoworker Newsletter a second COVID-19 death. “Infections are on the rise here. On top of the union delegate, a co-worker recently passed away from COVID. Massive infections and deaths are being reported at other Matamoros companies.”

The Schumex plant closed only in April after workers staged a wildcat strike. However, production re-started almost immediately for “volunteers” by offering a bonus. “Most co-workers who got infected worked during the most critical stage of the quarantine,” the worker explained. “We have hand sanitizer all over the plant, get sanitized when entering and leaving, but facemasks are of terrible quality. The medical and administrative staff get N95 facemasks and shields. We, the workers, are replaceable.”

At the auto parts plant Tridonex Cardone in Matamoros, workers carried out several wildcat strikes this month to oppose the coverup of a COVID-19 outbreak by management, which has fired dozens of militants. Last week, workers reported three new COVID-19 deaths on their social media groups, bringing the total to five.

“The maquiladora continues to operate at full capacity; only the workshop area was closed,” a worker wrote on Facebook. Another added: “What a shame! I was able to meet two of those excellent people and co-workers. It truly makes me angry how the company acts like nothing is going on and only cares about production.”

In Ciudad Juárez, which borders El Paso, Texas, workers at Lear Corporation’s Río Bravo maquiladora, which makes car seat covers, reported that social distancing measures are not being enforced either inside the plant or in buses that transport workers to their jobs. Before the plant closed temporarily in late March, a COVID-19 outbreak resulted in at least 20 deaths.

The health authorities are helping cover up the deaths among workers. Last week, the secretary of health of the state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juárez is located, claimed that COVID-19 deaths among maquiladora workers in the state had increased from 17 to 25 since the June 1 federal reopening. However, investigative journalists at La Verdad had documented at least 27 deaths by mid-May in only two maquiladoras, including Río Bravo.

Companies have also had a free hand at firing workers who protest the lack of health protections. At least ten workers at the Swedish-based refrigerator manufacturer Electrolux in Ciudad Juárez denounced the corporation for firing and blacklisting them after protesting on April 7. The plant closed temporarily in response to unrest, but only after two workers had already succumbed to COVID-19.

A fired Electrolux worker told Mexico Webcast: “We demanded safety measures since there were no good conditions [to work]; no one was wearing masks or had hand sanitizer. There was no safe distancing. All workers left in group and traveled on buses without safety measures.”

Laurie Ann Ziménez-Fyvie, a top Microbiology researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), warned Forbes México on Tuesday of a “catastrophic” scenario if the economic reopening and lack of testing continues into October, the beginning of the flu season that lasts until March 2021. This would “highly compromise hospital occupancy and radically increase deaths,” she said.

“The government should not have forced its citizens to choose between going out to work in order to eat or get infected with COVID. People need to have assistance and the appropriate safety measures: information to better take care of themselves, supplies and economic support,” Ziménez-Fyvie concluded.

Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine racket

Bryan Dyne

Every day, at least a quarter million people around the world are infected by the coronavirus and more than 5,500 die from the disease. Six months after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared its sixth and “most severe” Public Health Emergency of International Concern, with at least 17.1 million infected and over 669,000 dead, the public cry for a vaccine has grown ever more urgent.

There are now more than 4.5 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States alone and just under 154,000 dead. The pandemic is spiraling out of control. Yet the government months ago abandoned any serious effort to contain the virus.

When questioned about his administration’s disastrous response to the virus, President Donald Trump inevitably ignores the breakdown in testing and the grim statistics of disease and death, touting instead purported progress in developing a vaccine. The unstated premise behind this posture is the homicidal policy of “herd immunity” and the position that the population must learn in the interim to “live with the virus.”

Enter Moderna Inc., a ten-year-old biotechnology firm that is researching one of the 164 different candidates for a coronavirus vaccine. On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that the company is currently planning to charge the US and other governments $25 to $30 for a dose of its drug. The pharmaceutical giant’s attitude was spelled out most crudely by Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president, who made nearly $5 million last year and who said at a congressional hearing last week, “We will not sell it at cost.”

Moderna’s price point is high even compared to other companies in the vaccine sweepstakes, such as Pfizer, which has reached a deal with the US government for $19.50 per dose of its vaccine, and AstraZeneca, which has signed a deal with the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy for $3 to $4 a dose if its vaccine is approved.

Moderna has already received $955 million from the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program, headed by former Moderna board member Moncef Slaoui, as well as technical support through its partnership with the National Institutes of Health. If its drug is approved, Moderna stands to rake in potential revenues of $16.5 to $19.8 billion from US sales alone.

This is a pernicious example of how capitalist private ownership of vital industries such as health care and production for profit turn the search for a life-saving vaccine into a money-making racket.

Moderna is not the exception. It exemplifies the rule. AstraZeneca will be given $1.2 billion if it succeeds in making a vaccine and Trump has already agreed to purchase 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine at $2 billion if the drug is licensed. Another drug company, Novavax, will land a $1.6 billion windfall if its coronavirus vaccine clinical trials are successful.

The government handouts—no strings attached—are going to non-vaccine companies as well. This week it was announced that Eastman Kodak will receive a $765 million loan through the US International Development Finance Corporation generic pharmaceuticals. The Trump administration claims this handout will help produce drugs to fight COVID-19, but Kodak is slated to ramp up production only over the next 5 to 8 years.

The Democrats have raised only token objections. Representative Jan Schakowsky, in a statement to Barron’s, called for “reasonable pricing of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that have been developed by taxpayers.” At most, concerns have been raised that the budget set for Operation Warp Speed, $10 billion, be matched by substantially increased funding for testing and contact tracing.

Meanwhile, some 25 million laid off workers are losing their $600-a-week supplemental unemployment benefit, hundreds of thousands of small businesses are going bankrupt, and there is supposedly “no money” to plug gaping holes in state and local budgets that will mean massive cuts in education, health care, public transit, housing and other public services.

In an earlier period, there was a certain commitment to providing life-saving vaccines for free. After Jonas Salk developed his cure for polio, resources were mobilized to produce enough of the vaccine to inoculate millions of children and virtually eliminate the disease from the US and the world. As a result, from 1988 to 2018, the number of cases reported each year plummeted from 350,000 to just 33.

There are no plans to develop a similar program to distribute a coronavirus vaccine today. Instead, the pandemic is seen as an opportunity to make a financial killing.

The market capitalization of Moderna has increased more than seven-fold in the past 52 weeks, to more than $30 billion. Gilead, the maker of the highly-touted but mostly ineffective therapeutic remdesivir, is now worth $90 billion.

At the same time, the race for a vaccine is being used by the American oligarchy as a bludgeon in the geopolitical arena. The US government is subsidizing the drug companies not to save lives, but to produce a “made in America” vaccine that will be used as a weapon against countries seen to be impediments to the drive of US imperialism for global hegemony, including, but not limited to, China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba. A US-made vaccine will also be used to gain leverage against Washington’s erstwhile European allies.

Fearing that China or even Russia might develop a vaccine ahead of the US, the American corporate media has already launched a campaign of lies charging the two countries with hacking US vaccine researchers. This is aimed at criminalizing and undermining their vaccine programs and potentially justifying a ban on their import into the US.

As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in June, “There should not be a divide between the haves and the have-nots” in regard to a coronavirus vaccine.

But such appeals fall on deaf ears. The nationalism exuded by Trump and his global counterparts is not the result of personality clashes, but the economic interests of the capitalist oligarchs who rule and determine policy in every country.

Those economic, class interests are in irreconcilable conflict with the urgent human need for a rational, internationally coordinated effort, using the knowledge and resources of all nations, to develop a vaccine that will be available to all at no cost. Any question of national interest or private gain must be subordinated to this socially necessary task.

This cannot happen under capitalism, an outmoded and destructive social system that subordinates all social considerations to the ever greater enrichment of a small and parasitic layer of multi-millionaires and billonaires.

The social force whose interests coincide with science and the preservation of human life is the international working class. This is the force that must be brought forward to fight the pandemic.

This means mobilizing the entire working class to expropriate the pharmaceutical giants and every other major industry and transform these monopolies into publicly-controlled utilities. The dictatorship of corporate interests over humanity must be abolished and economic life be placed in the hands of the workers themselves, establishing a genuinely democratic, socialist society.

TWAS-SISSA-Lincei Research Cooperation Visits Programme 2020

Application Deadline: 9th September 2020

About the Award: Young scientists from Least Developed Countries who hold an MSc (or higher degree) can visit laboratories located in Trieste, Italy, such as SISSA, for three months to carry out collaborative research projects in Physics, Neuroscience, Mathematics, Science Outreach as well as COVID-related projects and that fall under the umbrella of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Eligible Field(s): Applications will only be considered if in the eligible fields indicated below. Research proposals must fall under the umbrella of sustainability science and thus be relevant to areas that support the SDGs (please see https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org).

• PHYSICS
  – Astroparticle Physics (APP)
  – Astrophysics and Cosmology (APC)
  – Theory and Numerical Simulation of Condensed Matter (CM)
  – Physics and Chemistry of Biological Systems (SBP) –
  – Statistical Physics (SP)
  – Theoretical Particle Physics (TPP)
  – Data Science Excellence Department Initiative (DS)
   
• NEUROSCIENCE
  – Cognitive Neuroscience
  – Neurobiology
  – Functional and Structural Genomics
   
• MATHEMATICS
  – Geometry
  – Mathematical analysis
  – Mathematical modelling
  – Mathematical physics
  – Numerical analysis and scientific computing
  – Data Science
   
• SCIENCE OUTREACH
  – please see:https://www.sissa.it/interdisciplinary-laboratory
• COVID-related projects: please see: https://www.sissa.it/news/sissa-projects-and-covid-19

Type: Short course

Eligibility:

• Applicants must be a maximum age of 40 years on 31 December of the application year.
• Applicants must hold an MSc (or higher degree).
• Applicants must be nationals of a Least Developed Country (please see the United Nations definition at https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category.html, as well as a list of eligible countries).
• Applicants must hold a research position in a Least Developed Country.
• Particular attention will be given to research projects that fall under the umbrella of sustainability science.
• Women scientists are especially encouraged to apply.
• Applicants already on site in the host country are not eligible.
• Only applications in the scientific fields specified below and listed in the application form will be considered.

Eligible Countries: Least Developed Countries

To be Taken at (Country): Trieste, Italy

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, through TWAS, will cover travel expenses and provide subsistence costs for the stay in Italy. The administration and financial operation of TWAS is undertaken by UNESCO in accordance with an agreement signed by the two organizations.

Duration of Award: 3 months

How to Apply:

• Fellowships are awarded by the Selection Committee on the basis of scientific merit.
• Applications should be completed in English.
• Applicants need to submit the complete application form duly signed and send it to the TWAS Secretariat. Applications may be sent by email as long as pages with signatures are sent as scanned documents. Incomplete/unsigned applications will NOT be accepted.
• Material requested:
  1. the completed application form;
  2. copy of passport, even if expired (only the page with personal details is required);
  3. the applicant’s curriculum vitae;
  4. a statement on scientific interests and future plans for research in sustainability sciences in the home country explicitly referring to which SDGs contributions are likely to be made;
  5. full list of publications (do not enclose reprints of articles);
  6. copy of the MSc (or higher) certificate;
  7. a recent invitation letter obtained through SISSA which should contain the proposed time of the visit (3 months) and should refer to the proposed cooperation. It should be made evident that the applicant and the proposed host have been in contact regarding the scientific work to be done during the visit and that the conditions for conducting the work have been agreed in terms of the timing of the visit and the facilities available;
  8. recent letters of recommendation, which must be submitted separately to TWAS by two referees who are familiar with the applicant’s work. N.B. Only signed reference letters can be accepted.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

DLR-DAAD Research Fellowships 2020 for International Researchers

Application Deadline: Varying according to Fellowship option

About the Award: DLR is Germany´s national research center for aeronautics and space. Its extensive research and development work in Aeronautics, Space, Transportation and Energy is integrated into national and international cooperative ventures. As Germany´s space agency, DLR has been given responsibility for the forward planning and the implementation of the German space program by the German federal government as well as for the international representation of German interests. Approximately 8,300 people plus approx. 400 visiting scientists are employed in DLR´s 40 institutes and facilities at 20 locations in Germany.

Eligible Field(s): This special programme is intended for highly-qualified foreign doctoral and postdoctoral students as well as senior scientists from the fields of Aeronautics, Space, Transportation, and Energy. DLR-DAAD Fellowships offer outstanding scientists and researchers the opportunity to conduct special research at the institutes of the DLR in Germany.
Please note that within the DLR-DAAD programme, you cannot apply for a university or another institution, only for a DLR institute.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: At the time of their application, applicants for a DLR-DAAD Fellowship must

1. not be of German nationality,
2. be able to prove their outstanding study or research achievements in the field of research corresponding to the fellowship offer,
3. Type A: have completed their studies or research with a university degree not more than six years ago,
   Type B: have completed their studies with a doctorate/PhD/Candidate (Russia) not more than two years ago,
   Type C: applicants must be working in higher education or at a research institute; positions are open to outstandingly-qualified academics and scientists who should generally hold a doctorate/Ph.D., additional prerequisites may differ and are stated in the fellowship offers,
4. have an excellent knowledge of English; knowledge of German is advantageous.

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): Germany

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value & Duration of Award:

Type A

Target Group
Doctoral Students
Fellowship Goal
Doctorate in Germany
Funding Duration
36 months

Type B

Target Group
Postdoctoral Students
Fellowship Goal
Research in Germany
Funding Duration
6 to 24 months

Type C

Target Group
Senior Scientists
Fellowship Goal
Research in Germany
Funding Duration
1 to 3 months

Fellowships are always awarded for the length of the research stay in Germany. The host DLR institute and the fellowship candidate will agree upon the length of this term.

Fellowship Value (as of 1.1.2019)

Type A
Monthly Instalment
1,760 Euros
Possible Additional Payments
e.g. flat-rate travel allowance, health insurance, family allowances

Type B
Monthly Instalment
2,400 Euros
Possible Additional Payments
none

Type C
Monthly Instalment
2,760 Euros
Possible Additional Payments
none

How to Apply: The application procedure occurs online through the DAAD portal.

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details