Mounting opposition by teachers against drive to reopen schools

Benjamin Mateus

There have been close to 19 million COVID-19 cases and over 710,000 deaths worldwide, with 6,589 more deaths on Wednesday.

The United States will, by all accounts, exceed 5 million cases of COVID-19 today. The drive to reopen school systems in many states will undoubtedly accelerate the pandemic even more.

One of the first schools to open was Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana. On the first day, the superintendent of the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation was notified that a student who had attended classes had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Crowded hall at a Georgia High School reopening

In Georgia, a second grader tested positive for the coronavirus on the first day of school. The Sixes Elementary in the Cherokee County School district had to close the classroom the next day for deep cleaning, and the instructor and 20 students were quarantined at home for two weeks.

At Gwinnett County Public Schools, which serves over 180,000 students, 260 district employees were prohibited from entering their schools due to positive tests for COVID-19 or from direct exposure to someone who was infected.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, (AJC) “In-person training and meetings are taking place without areas being wiped down or disinfected in between, and masks aren’t being worn at all times, said several teachers who didn’t disclose their names when contacting the AJC. Others added that their school still hadn’t received hand sanitizers.”

Teachers around the US who spoke with the WSWS were outraged over the back-to school drive.

Chris, a long-time teacher in West Virginia, is currently working as a substitute and a home health care worker. He told the WSWS he would be in support of going out on strike in his role as a teacher and supports the demands laid out in the statement published on the WSWS yesterday.

“It does appear that the reopening compromised the effort to contain the virus. Here in West Virginia, the statewide date for bringing the kids back to school is September 8. Kanawha County Schools sent me a letter a couple of weeks ago giving me three choices. (1) I would not return. (2) I would return for long-term substitute positions. (3) I would be available for long-term or day to day positions. I chose (3), knowing that a lot can happen between now and then. I have multiple risk factors and am in no hurry to get back to work. My son is scheduled to start back as a TA [teacher’s assistant] at Notre Dame on Monday.”

The federal CARES relief package provided a meager $13.5 billion for K-12 education, less than one percent of the total stimulus package, despite educators indicating schools across the nation will need multiples of that sum to prepare for and retrofit dilapidated structures with proven systems to minimize the spread of the virus from class to class and person to person.

Adam Goldstein, a fifth-grade teacher in San Diego, noted that, “It’s incredible to me that the federal government would see the necessity of bailing out airlines and banks, and not see the need to do something similar for the public schools in this country.”

Louisiana currently ranks as the US state with the highest per capita rate of COVID-19 infections: 2,712 per 100,000 people. The state also ranks fifth for highest rate of per capita deaths. To date, Louisiana has recorded a total of 126,061 cases and 4,096 deaths.

Under these conditions, the Jefferson Parish School Board, representing the largest school district in the state, in the major suburbs of New Orleans, is planning to carry out a physical reopening on August 12. The district’s superintendent, Dr. James Gray, says that of the 50,000 students in the district, half have already registered for virtual learning, indicating widespread doubt by parents about the safety of sending kids back to school. Local WDSU-TV broke the news that a “handful” of teachers in the district have just tested positive for the virus.

Despite weeks of teachers rallying against the unsafe reopening of schools, teachers were forced back to the buildings on Monday, August 3 for meetings and to prepare the classrooms.

One elementary school teacher, who preferred to remain anonymous, spoke to the WSWS about the reopening. “We were told to assemble in the cafeteria, all faculty and staff. In Phase 2, the group size limit is supposed to be 25, but we had 60 people in the room,” she said.

While it was somewhat possible to remain distanced with just the staff in school, this would be impossible to do so once the students arrive. The teacher explained, “The principal even admitted that we would not be able to maintain the minimum 6-foot distance guideline.” When she set up her classroom, in which she is going to have 25 students, she tried to space out the desks, but “the spacing measured to 15 or maybe 18 inches apart.” (6 feet = 1.8 metres and 15–18 inches = 38–46 cm).

In addition to concern about her own health, having suffered from pneumonia in recent years, she worries for the students and their families. According to the “Strong Start” guideline released by the school board, students who present with fever during the morning temperature check will be sent into an isolation room with other potentially sick students. Considering that children are exposed to multiple viruses, from flu to stomach bugs, those without COVID-19 could end up in close, contained quarters with students who are infected.

When asked about the personal protective equipment that is promised in the same district-wide guideline, she said that the school has informed her that each teacher will receive “one mask, which hasn’t arrived yet. We will have hand sanitizer in the classroom and cafeteria, but no stations around the building.”

She expressed growing disgust with Governor John Bel Edwards (Democrat), who she says has “caved in to business interests and pressure from the White House, and now he’s ignoring common sense and has allowed the state to open up far too quickly.”

The current push to reopen schools on schedule, a position supported by both capitalist parties, forcing children in K-12 back to their desks amidst a raging pandemic, is based on the class logic that the extraction of surplus value from workers is paramount regardless of the consequences that come with it.

In the crudest and most malign terms, President Trump’s comments on Fox News capture the essential narrative being put forth to delude the public when he said, “This thing’s going away. It will go away like things go away, and my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost … and I would almost say definitely immune from this disease… they just don’t have a problem… we have to open our schools.”

The comments of Dr. Robert Redfield of the CDC to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis are simply a public health cover for the criminal policy being pursued. He said, “I don’t think I can emphasize it enough as the director for the Centers for Disease Control, the leading public health agency in the world—it is in the public health interest that these K-12 students to get the schools back open for face-to-face learning … I want these kids back in school. I want it done smartly, but I think we have to be honest that the public health and interest of the students in the nation right now is to get a quality education and face-to-face learning. We need to get on with it.”

The dishonesty behind these sentiments is appalling. “To get on with it,” there must be certain conditions met, which include a contained pandemic where transmission is halted and surveillance in place to track it. These are just the most basic measures that are woefully lacking.

The number of tests conducted daily in the United States peaked on July 24, with 929,838 new tests. On August 5, this figure had rapidly declined to 664,219 new tests, back to levels from more than a month ago. It appears that the decline in the seven-day average of new cases has correlated with less testing, which could mean that state and federal governments are following Trump’s repeated directives to test less so that the infection numbers will go down.

All these figures must be taken with caution, even skepticism, because in the middle of July the Trump administration shifted reporting of hospitalizations away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into the hands of the Department of Health and Human Services, where Trump political appointees hold sway.

Not only is the number of tests conducted rapidly declining, but the time to report these time-sensitive results has also been, on average, taking four or more days, making them useless for contact tracing. According to Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, “A test result that comes back in seven or eight days is worthless for everybody—it shouldn’t be counted. It’s not a test in any kind of effective manner because it’s not actionable.”

The state of contact tracing across the nation has remained abysmal. Tracers in Arizona are unable to reach a significant number of infected individuals. Cities in Florida have given up on these programs. In New York City, tracers are complaining of paralyzed communications and difficulty training new tracers.

Beirut port fire: A crime against Lebanese workers

Jean Shaoul

The catastrophic fire that engulfed the port area of Beirut Tuesday afternoon has fueled the long-standing anger towards Lebanon’s ultra-rich ruling class.

The blast is a damning indictment of Lebanon’s political elite, which allowed vast quantities of highly explosive ammonium nitrate to be stored in a wharfside warehouse for years without proper safety controls.

It is one of a number of recent disasters across the world that were entirely foreseeable and preventable, which collectively constitute a searing indictment of capitalism and of the world’s ruling elites—including the Grenfell Tower inferno in London in 2017, the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhakar, Bangladesh, BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and, most deadly of all, the coronavirus pandemic.

This photo shows a general view of the scene of an explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

The fire that followed two massive explosions has killed at least 135 people and injured 5,000 others. Those killed and missing include Lebanese soldiers, firefighters and first responders. These numbers are expected to rise as rescue workers sift through the rubble of the tens of thousands of buildings that have been destroyed or damaged.

As the brown haze and fumes from the massive explosions lifted, Beirut appeared as a warzone, with destruction more extensive than after weeks of intensive shelling during Lebanon’s civil war of 1975-1989. The damage has extended across half the city, at a cost estimated at $3 billion, with 300,000 people now homeless, according to the city’s governor, Marwan Abboud, in a city where housing was already in short supply.

The poorly equipped health care system, already overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, has suffered damage to several of its hospitals. Inundated with patients, medical workers are being forced to triage patients outside, while the Red Cross is working with the government to set up morgues.

Although the cause of the blast is still to be officially identified, senior officials told news agencies that the probable cause was the ammonium nitrate, stored at the port’s Warehouse 12, that ignited after welding work set fire to the warehouse.

The chemical was being stored after it was confiscated from Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship, in 2014. According to the Guardian, the ship was owned by Teto Shipping, whose owner-manager Igor Grechushkin, a Russian national, is believed to be living in Cyprus. He abandoned the ship that had been sailing from Georgia to Mozambique via Beirut, after a dispute with the port authorities, leaving his sailors stranded with wages unpaid for nearly a year.

The ship’s former captain in 2014 had sent a letter to Russian journalists complaining about being “held hostage” on board the ship. He wrote that the Beirut authorities “don’t want an abandoned ship at port, especially with a cargo of explosives, which is what ammonium nitrate is. That is, this is a floating bomb, and the crew is a hostage aboard this bomb.”

Yet it took a year before the crew were released from the ship and the ammonium nitrate was confiscated and warehoused.

Ammonium nitrate is a powerful chemical, normally used in fertiliser production and mine explosives. Its dangers are well known. The deadly risks of storing it in a port were tragically confirmed in 2015, when a series of explosions, one of which involved the detonation of about 336 tons of ammonium nitrate, killed 173 people and injured hundreds of others at a container storage depot at the Chinese port of Tianjin. Fires caused by the initial explosions continued to burn, resulting in further explosions.

The amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the port of Beirut was far higher. Prime Minister Hassan Diab tweeted, “It is unacceptable that a shipment of ammonium nitrate estimated at 2,750 tons has been present for six years in a warehouse without taking preventive measures that endanger the safety of citizens.”

The explosion produced was a fifth as powerful as that produced by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Diab declared three days of national mourning for the victims of the explosion, made the usual promises about bringing those responsible to justice and promised they would “pay the price.” He called on “friendly countries” to help.

Leading officials at the port and customs authorities are reportedly under house arrest. The government has now declared a state of emergency, placing Beirut under military law for the next two weeks.

Diab’s announcement did nothing to stop US President Donald Trump declaring at a press conference on Tuesday that the explosion “looks like a terrible attack.”

He said that the US military thought it was the result of a bomb, a suggestion that the Pentagon sought to distance itself from. Trump’s baseless remarks indicates the degree to which he is prepared to attribute any event to terrorism, to be used as a potential casus belli. One can only imagine his response had the explosion occurred in China or Russia, let alone had it happened in the US.

According to Reuters, despite several investigations and official orders to remove the chemical from the warehouse, nothing was done. An unnamed official familiar with the first investigation said, “It is negligence,” adding that the issue of safely storing the powerful chemical had come before several committees and judges and “nothing was done” to order the material removed or disposed of.

Reuters cited another source as saying that a team that had inspected the material six months ago warned it could “blow up all of Beirut” if not removed.

The blast will have devastating economic, social, and political consequences. Diab’s government, brought to power after last October’s mass protests against poverty, government mismanagement, corruption and political sectarianism, was already subject to repeated demands to stand down.

The country of 6 million people, including 2 million refugees, is already reeling under the impact of its worst economic and financial crisis—including a currency that has lost 80 percent of its value in recent weeks, soaring inflation, the doubling of food prices, and widespread and ever-expanding poverty, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Last November, well before the pandemic, the World Bank estimated that 45 percent of Lebanon’s people lived below the poverty line, up from 33 percent before September, with 22 percent living in extreme poverty. It predicted the country’s impending bankruptcy would lead to a further rise to 50 percent in 2020.

The damage to the port is likely to cause shortages of essential items such as food, fuel, and medical supplies as the country imports most basic commodities. The port handles 60 percent of Lebanon’s imports, which the northern port of Tripoli is ill-equipped to replace, under conditions where the country is bounded by war-torn Syria, and Israel, with whom it is officially still in a state of war.

The fire has damaged or destroyed the grain terminal and the silos that normally hold 85 percent of the country’s cereals, largely from Russia and Ukraine, although its stocks were considerably lower than usual due to a widespread shortage of bread during the pandemic.

Last April, amid an expected shortage of wheat and other essential items, the government warned of an impending food shortage and announced it would import extra wheat on its own account—most wheat is imported by private mills—the first time since 2014. It was unclear how it would pay for this, given Lebanon’s shortage of foreign currency reserves.

The destruction of the port’s granary has left the country, which imports more than 80 percent of its grains, with less than a month’s reserves. This did not stop Raoul Nehmen, the economy minister, claiming Wednesday, “There is no bread or flour crisis,” and “We have enough inventory and boats on their way to cover the needs of Lebanon on the long term.”

CIPESA Africa Digital Rights Fund 2020

Application Deadline: 7th August 2020

About the Award: Launched  in April 2019, the ADRF supports organizations and networks to implement activities that advance digital rights, including advocacy, litigation, research, policy analysis, movement building, digital literacy and digital security skills building. The  inaugural round of ADRF awarded USD 65,000 to 10 initiatives advancing digital rights in Algeria, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: The current call is particularly interested in proposals for work related to Covid-19 response measures, how they affect the internet rights landscape, and how to rectify any resulting harms to rights and freedoms. This effort is essential because, even in pandemic times, governments must respect rights and not abuse emergency powers. Moreover, many actors need access to credible information and research to inform their own work on awareness-raising and holding authorities to account during and in the aftermath of Covid-19.

Eligible Countries: African countries

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Grant amounts for this round will range between USD 1,000 and USD 20,000, depending on the need and scope of the proposed intervention. The ADRF strongly encourages cost-sharing. 

Duration of Award: The grant period will not exceed six months.

How to Apply: Read more about the ADRF  round three guidelines here . The application form can be accessed  here .

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Scholarships in Theology, Diaconal and Development 2021

Application Deadline: 1st October 2020.

Eligible Countries: Developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

About the Award: Through the LWF scholarships program LWF works alongside its member churches in developing their capacity to serve effectively in their contexts. The scholarship program helps churches to acquire qualified personnel for spiritual care and diaconal work. The main criteria for a candidate approval is the church’s corresponding need to increase its human and institutional capacity, either in areas of theology or diakonia/development.

Type: Undergraduate, Masters, PhD/Postdoctoral, Research

Eligibility: 

• Church affiliation of the candidate: Only applications from active members of LWF member churches are considered. All applications must be endorsed and submitted by the church. No applications submitted by individuals will be considered.
• Nationality of the candidate: Only candidates from developing countries are eligible for scholarships in fields of diakonia/development. The theological scholarships are, in principle, open to candidates from all regions and countries.
• Age limits: Only candidates up to a certain age are eligible for LWF scholarships, depending on the pursued degree:

Degree	Maximum age at the time of application*
Bachelor degrees	35
Master degrees	40
Doctorate	45
Post-doctoral/research	50
*Special considerations: For candidates who are church employees at the time of application, age limits may be exceeded by up to 7 years for female candidates and up to 5 years for male candidates. For candidates who are actively engaged in the church’s theological or diaconal work at the time of application, age limits may be exceeded by up to 5 years for female candidates and up to 3 years for male candidates. Relatively higher consideration is made for female candidates due to social and cultural factors which cause them to pursue studies later. Selection Criteria:  HICD needs of the church: The proposed training field and degree has to respond well to the human and institutional capacity development needs of the church. The requesting church must demonstrate convincingly how a given application would meet a specific and crucial personnel need in its overall ministry in church and society. Current and future position of the candidate: All candidates are expected to have been in the service of the church and/or community as employees or volunteers. There has to be a clear commitment by the church to engage the candidate as employee or volunteer in an area related to the proposed training after completion of the candidate’s studies/training. Quality of the application: The candidate must demonstrate convincingly his/her commitment, ability and motivation to pursue the training and to support the church afterwards (good educational and professional qualifications, recommendations and certificates, convincing character). Study place. The LWF encourages candidates to study in their home country or home region. In case a study or training program abroad is proposed, convincing reasons must be given in the application. Gender and youth quota: At least 40% of the approved candidates will be female; at least 20% will be youth below the age of 30 years. These quotas will not only apply to the overall approvals, but also to each church and region. Regional balance: The LWF seeks to ensure that candidates from different regions, countries and churches are being supported. Number and Value of Awards: In total, 50-70 scholarships will be awarded for studies in diaconia and development and 20-25 for theological studies. Duration of Programme:   Regular scholarships for study programs of at least 1 year: The candidates are approved for at least 1 year of support to take up or complete their proposed study program. For candidates who have already started with their study program, this means that the study program has to last for at least 1.5 years at the time of application, hence 1 year at the time of approval. Short-term scholarships for training of up to 6 months: The candidates are approved for a short-term training which may last up to 6 months. This may include training courses, workshops, exchange programs or research projects which respond to the needs of the applying church. Application forms and selection criteria are the same as for regular scholarships. How to Apply: You should apply via the new online application system. Applications can only be submitted through LWF member churches. Individuals interested in a scholarship should contact their church office. Visit Programme Webpage for Details

HTW Berlin International and Development Economics Masters Scholarship 2021

Application Deadline: 30th September 2020

About the Award: MIDE comprises several international and development economics modules as well as interdisciplinary courses selected on the basis of their relevance to current events and discourse in the development field.

Eligible Field(s): The scholarship programme is open to graduates with mandatory focus in the following assigned fields: 

• Development of business parks and industrial zones
• Agribusiness and Value Creation
• Automotive and Mobility
• Information and Communication Technology/ Digital Economy/New Technologies (including Renewable Energy/ Energy Efficiency)
• Textile Industry.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: First academic degree, proficiency in English.

Eligible Countries: The scholarship programme is open to graduates from Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia.

To be Taken at (Country): Germany

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Fully funded

Duration of Award: 3 semesters

How to Apply: Please indicate in your application that you are applying for the Programme Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation. Your letter of motivation should reflect on your relevant working experience in the above mentioned fields. The scholarship targets young graduates with professional experience and mid-career professionals who want to actively contribute to the social and economic development of their home countries.
The documents required for an application are identical to the ones required for the regular MIDE and scholarship application.
More details (pdf file)

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

A Warning: What Is Modi’s Future Plan?

Prabhakar Sinha

Modi is a shrewd, calculating and ambitious man. He was not in politics till he was 51 when he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Prior to that he was a nobody in the BJP. But he outmaneuvered his mentor Advani and became Prime Minister and sent the old guards to oblivion. He has the ability to outsmart his opponents in or out of the party and achieve his goal. His handicap is a lack of education, of sophistication that comes from the experience of running a political party and a vision beyond his own power and glory. Regardless of his limitations as a national leader, he is determined to pursue his personal goal with doggedness and ruthlessness. Everything he has been doing has been in pursuit of his goal of remaining in power without sharing it with anyone and without parting with it till he is dead. Putin and Jinping have inspired and strengthened his resolve.

His monthly Mann kee Baat was not without a specific purpose. Whether the people could get at what he said or not, Modi wanted to ensure that, unlike any other leader, he should become a household name. It had a great advantage at the present and greater advantage for his future.

He was aware that Parliamentary system of government could not guarantee a lifelong tenure as Prime Minister. If he aims at remaining in power for life and to be independent of his colleagues, he has to replace this system with the Presidential form of government. As a directly elected President, he would not need humouring his Ministers and MPs.He would not be dependent on anyone for remaining in office. It would also be easy for him to win in a one to one contest. First, the opposition would not be able agree to a common candidate to contest him and even if they manage to, his opponent would not be known to the people throughout the country, as he is . In such an unequal fight , his victory would be child’s play.

Modi’s obsession with a Congress Mukt Bharat is not born of personal hatred. He has no reason to harbour hatred for the Congress or Gandhi family. He has not suffered at their hands. He was an insignificant young man of 25 when the emergency was clamped and did not feel outraged like thousands of young men who chose to challenge the emergency and suffer the consequences. He remained indifferent and lived like the crores to whom the emergency made no difference. Yet, he made a Congress mukt Bharat his declared goal. He was clever enough to realise that once he emaciated the Congress, he could perpetuate his rule without too much effort. He might not have specifically thought of a Presidential form of government then ; and the idea might have come later.

His determined move to topple the governments in the Congress ruled states by hook or by crook is part of his future plan. He shamelessly toppled the governments in Karnatak and M. P. and is making a determined effort to do the same in Rajasthan. He had tried to prevent the formation of the Shiv Sena led government in Maharashtra also. His shamelessly embracing the corrupt but powerful leaders from the opposition parties is part of his larger plan. He is not bothered about the public opinion because it would not affect his plan.

Controlling the states is part of his goal to have sufficient majority in the Rajya Sabha to amend the constitution to replace the present system by Presidential system. . The amendment would require the support of more than 50% of the total number of the members of each House and more than 2/3rd of the members present. It would also require the ratification by at least half of the Legislatures of the states. The introduction of the Presidential system would require amendment of several other Articles of the constitution. All these require him to create the required majority in the state legislatures by hook or by crook.

His intimidation of the judiciary by withholding the recommendation of the judiciary and leaving out some of the recommendees not liked by his government are his way to give a message to the judges that they will have to pay a price for displeasing himor his government. The other side of the coin is rewarding the obliging judges. Of the class of these, two judges may be mentioned : former CJI, Sadashivam, who was appointed the Governor of Kerala and CJI Ranjan Gogoi, who has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Modi, as Prime Minister, already controls the Executive and the Legislature and is desperate to control the judiciary. An independent judiciary with the doctrine of the basic feature of the constitution is like Democles’s sword hanging on any PM or President ‘s head who wants to mould the constitution to suit his need . Modi wants it out of his way by getting the judgment reviewed and discarded. It would pave the way for declaring India a Hindu Rashtra and make him the Monarch of all that he surveys. Ranjan Gogoi has been roped in to play a Trojan horse and organise the bad eggs of the judiciary and lure the morally weak among them.

He is aware as a member of the political class that there is none of any significance who does not collect and spend black money. Each of them has Achilles’heel and is vulnerable. They can be easily blackmailed into submission and supporting him. His tactics of blackmailing his opponents is public knowledge and already a hallmark of his politics. He has been threatening his opponents by claiming that he is in the possession of their Jamn Patri (record of corruption) since independence and would not hesitate to use it if they do not behave. His unabashed (mis) use of the CBI, ED, police and other agencies like the goons of a Mafia is public and chilling. He knows that many like Mayawati would support him to remain out of trouble.

His floating PM CARES though the PM National Relier Fund is already at his disposal is not without a reason and purpose. The PM National Reliief Fund is too transparent and limited in its objective to be of use to him. Its money can be used only for the victims of natural calamities and the victims of disasters. Its fund has been used for assistance to the poor patients in need of expensive treatments like kidney transplant, heart surgery etc. Modi wants a huge fund at his disposal which he may collect in secrecy, spend in secrecy for any purpose under the sun. It is just as the way a Mafia operates. Nobody can know the sources of its donation, the amount of the donation collected and on what and through what agencies the money is spent. Out of the six trustees of the PM CARES, three would be nominated by him as the Chairperson of the Trust. Thus, he would always command the majority even if three Ministers who are Trustees choose to revolt. Modi, as the Chairperson of the Trust, is going to be the richest politician in the world. He would not need to raise a fund for elections like the US Presidential candidates. PM CARES would be his permanent financer for convassing for him through various bodies.

Modi is aware that his policies other than on the Hindutva are bound to lead to a conflict if not a clash with the RSS. His FDI is totally against the Sangh’s Swadeshi and his anti-Labour policies against the Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh’s cause. The small traders, who had been the base of the Sangh with monetary contribution and votes, have already become financially irrelevant for Modi. They have also been hit hard by Modi’s policies. Modi is preparing to minimise his dependence on the Sangh and make them support him at his terms.

Modi’s goal is clear and he has been making due preparation to achieve it. If he succeeds, he may become President of India before 2024, and if all goes well according to his plan, a President for life like Jinping or Putin.

Amazon violates its own health and safety rules in COVID-19 coverup

Nick Barrickman & Patrick Smith

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rip through Amazon warehouses around the United States. The company, which has seen an unprecedented rise in its revenues over the course of the first six months of 2020 due to increased demand, still continues to hide the real human cost of its fortunes in the untold number of illnesses and deaths.

According to Jana Jumpp, an Amazon whistleblower, the company has at least 1,779 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States as of mid-July. To date, the former Amazon employee has mounted the only systematic effort to track cases at the company in the United States. For its part, Amazon has told media outlets that reporting numbers of cases “isn’t particularly useful.”

Last month, Amazon reported its year-over-year sales profits stood at $88.9 billion, more than double its earnings from a year ago and far dwarfing its often-touted $4 billion in reported safety precautions it has spent during the pandemic. The corporation has expanded its market capitalization to over $1.5 trillion, and its CEO, Jeff Bezos has added nearly $74 billion to his wealth over the course of the pandemic due to the rising value of Amazon’s stock. Bezos’s wealth currently stands at $189 billion. It is speculated that if his wealth continues to grow at the current rate, Bezos may become the world’s first trillionaire.

Last week, a worker at Amazon’s MEM1 facility in Memphis, Tennessee wrote on social media that 35 workers “walked out of my job … because they tested positive” for COVID-19. This is just one of many locations where workers have reported serious outbreaks. On Saturday, several dozen workers in San Leandro, California protested Amazon’s lack of effective social distancing and meager sanitation measures.

With nearly 5 million confirmed coronavirus infections in the US—the highest in the world--the actual number of cases at Amazon is doubtlessly many multiples higher than even Jumpp’s estimates. The corporation regularly sends texts to its employees reporting that an undisclosed number of “individuals” in the facility have been diagnosed with the highly contagious COVID-19 virus. No further information is given, such as where the worker was stationed, who has been in contact with them, or other such useful health-related facts. Such communications invariably conclude with the company’s claim that its “top concern” is health and safety.

“There is a disconnect between what is being said in the media and what is really going on in [Amazon],” said Jonathan, who spoke to the International Amazon Workers Voice (IAWV) using a fake name out of fear the company would retaliate. “I think it’s disgusting that they make it seem like everything is rainbows and happiness when that’s not the case,” he added, referring to the series of propaganda news reports paid for by Amazon on local news channels throughout the pandemic, which lie to the public about the real situation in warehouses.

A recent investigation conducted in Las Vegas, Nevada further testifies to the company’s lies. According to ABC News, which obtained internal emails from sources inside Amazon warehouses in southern Nevada, “the company’s public relations team deemed local news reports about the situation as ‘inaccurate,’” telling employees “to disregard news stories” about cases accumulating at its locations. The email stated that “hopefully” management would report such cases directly to the workforce.

“It’s hard to say you are sanitizing the place, which is not sanitized, by using it every day, the whole time we’re there,” an anonymous Amazon worker told ABC News. They called on Amazon to “close [a warehouse] down for two days since you hired so many people or allow those who are [sic] sick not to feel threatened with their jobs if they need to take off.”

This, of course, is not acceptable to Amazon’s bottom line. “Management isn’t telling us anything,” Jonathan noted, who experienced symptoms similar to COVID-19 in June. Jonathan was nearly fired last month after complying with the company’s own rules requiring a written doctor’s permission to return to work after he went to get tested for COVID-19.

“I felt like I was having an upper respiratory issue. It’s nothing I’ve ever experienced before in my life so I decided to quarantine and get tested.” After facing the uncertainty of being tested, and thankfully coming up negative for the virus, Jonathan was required to receive a written notification approving his return to work.

The following day he received a UPT (unpaid time off) email notifying him that he was missing work without permission. “I responded to this email telling them I was waiting for my results and gave them my case number that was given to me by HR,” he said. The UPT emails continued to come for a total of three days until, on the fourth day, he got sent a “job abandonment” email.

“All along, I was responding, answering these emails with no response. After I got that email, they locked me out of the email system. It seemed like I was being punished.” Finally, after calling and emailing numerous times to HR and the “Leave Team,” he was cleared to return to work. Jonathan has since taken another leave due to fears that management is continuing to hide the total number of cases of COVID-19 from workers.

Jonathan also noted the hypocrisy of companies like Amazon which have sought to posture as defenders of “black lives” in the wake of massive social protests against police brutality following the May killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. “During the funeral for George Floyd, a message came out over the intercom for everybody to stop working for eight minutes, the amount of time the cop had his knee on Floyd’s neck. I couldn’t take it. I had to walk off the job. They don’t care about him or any of their workers. All they care about is their profits,” he said.

Rather than appealing to corporations such as Amazon to defend lives of workers, it is necessary for workers in logistics to form independent rank and file safety committees to take every measure necessary to protect themselves from the coronavirus. These committees must strive to build ties with workers at United Parcel Service and the United States Postal Service, which faces threats of privatization.

“I really appreciate what you guys do. You’re pointing out the fact that it doesn’t matter where you work or what country that you work in, we’re all in the same boat. The pandemic has pulled back the curtain and revealed that the ‘essential’ workers are expendable,” Jonathan concluded in his comments to the IAWV.

Leaked bodycam footage shows George Floyd’s arrest and murder

Kevin Martinez

Bodycam footage from the two Minneapolis cops who arrested George Floyd was leaked to the Daily Mail this week providing new details in the May 25 murder which sparked weeks of mass multiracial and multiethnic protests against police violence in the US and around the world. The tapes were provided by an anonymous source and show officers brutally arresting Floyd and then killing him.

Transcripts of the videos were released last month but a judge ordered the footage not to be released to the public, it could only be viewed at a courthouse by appointment. Now, for the first time, the public can view George Floyd’s agonizing last moments of life.

The footage includes 18 minutes from Officer J. Alexander Kueng’s body camera and 10 minutes from Officer Thomas Lane’s. They were the first to be called to the Cup Foods convenience store after Floyd allegedly tried to buy cigarettes with a fake $20 bill.

Image Credit: Video screen capture / Daily Mail

The video begins with Lane and Kueng, their first week as rookie cops, entering the store where an employee approaches them with the counterfeit bill saying, “Before they drive off. He’s parked right here. It’s a fake bill from the gentleman.”

The police walked up to Floyd’s blue Mercedes SUV parked on the other side of the street. Lane goes to the driver’s side where Floyd was sitting while Kueng approached the passenger side, where Floyd’s ex, Shawanda Hill, was in the back seat and Maurice Hall, a friend, in front.

Almost immediately upon encountering Floyd in his car, Officer Lane pulled his gun aiming for Floyd’s head. Floyd, clearly terrified, began sobbing uncontrollably, pleading, “Mr. Officer, please don’t shoot me. Please man.” Floyd told the officers he had been shot before to which Lane responds, “Keep your f**king hands on the wheel.”

Although Floyd was clearly distraught, the officers yelled obscenities at him as they manhandled him out of the vehicle. Officers Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao were called in to assist.

Floyd was ordered out of the car with Lane saying, “Hands on top of your head. Step out of the vehicle and step away from me.” Floyd pleaded with the police not to shoot him. Lane said, “I’m not going to shoot you. Step out and face away.”

“I’ll look at you eye-to-eye. Please don’t shoot me man. I just lost my mom, man,” Floyd said.

After Floyd exited the car, Lane approached Hill and Hall who were standing next to the car. Lane asked, “Why’s he being all squirrelly and not showing us his hands and just being all weird like that?”

Hill explained, “Because he’s been shot before.” Lane said, “Well I get that. But still, when officers say: ‘Get out of the car…’ Is he drunk or something?”

“No, he’s got a thing going on,” Hill said as she pointed to her head and made a circular motion, implying Floyd had mental issues, adding, “About the police.”

When the officers tried to get him into the squad car a struggle began to escalate as Floyd refused to get in, saying he had claustrophobia and falling to the ground. Kueng yelled, “Stand up. Stop falling down. Stay on your feet and face the car door.”

Floyd begged them, “Please man. Don’t leave me by myself man, please. I’m just claustrophobic.” Lane responded, “Well you’re still going in the car.”

Floyd kept protesting, “Y’all, I am going to die in here. I’m going to die, man. I just had COVID, man. I don’t want to go back to that.” Lane offered to roll the windows down to calm Floyd but he was still agitated, saying, “I’m scared as f**k.”

Eventually people began to gather on the sidewalk with one bystander telling Floyd to calm down, saying he could not win. Floyd replied, “I don’t want to win. I’m claustrophobic and I’ve got anxiety. I don’t want to do nothing to them.”

While seated in the car Floyd declared for the first time, “I can’t breathe.” Officers Chauvin and Thao then arrived on the scene.

All four officers struggled to restrain Floyd in the car but he fell outside of the passenger side door. Within moments, Floyd was pinned on the ground with Chauvin’s knee pressing down on his neck.

For the next several minutes Floyd repeatedly yelled he couldn’t breathe and called for his mother as he slowly suffocated to death. He said at one point, “Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead.”

Chauvin asked his fellow officer if he was okay to which Lane answered, “My knee might be a little scratched but I will survive.”

As Floyd continued to say he couldn’t breathe, Kueng is heard saying, “You’re fine. You’re talking fine.” Floyd responded, “I’ll probably just die this way.”

A crowd had gathered by this point with one man heard shouting, “Check his pulse” and “You call what you are doing okay?” The officers did not respond but Lane asked, “Should we roll him on his side?” Chauvin answered, “No, he’s staying where we’ve got him.”

Floyd was seen motionless and silent on the ground and died before an ambulance arrived. All four were fired the next day after initially being placed on administrative leave.

The footage makes clear the reckless and callous manner in which the cops brutalized a non-violent person. A seemingly insignificant event, the alleged use of a counterfeit bill, is apparently enough to warrant a public execution by police officers in America.

Liberal advocates of police reform will argue the footage shows the need for “better training” of the police, as if this would alter the fact that the police primarily exist to defend the rich and their private property and no amount of training would prevent such violent encounters from taking place in a country as socially polarized and unequal as the United States.

Hennepin County District Court spokesman Spenser Bickett told the media that the court is working with police to determine who leaked the two videos. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is prosecuting the four fired Minneapolis police officers, denied being the source of the leaks.

Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter, while Lane, Kueng and Thao have been charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. Lane and Kueng have been released after posting bond while Chauvin and Thao remain in custody. All four officers have a tentative trial date of March 8, 2021.

Tropical Storm Isaias causes flooding and power outages across the US east coast

Aaron Murch

Tropical Storm Isaias continues to wreak havoc on the Canadian Maritimes with high winds and heavy rain after crashing ashore Monday in North Carolina as a Category 1 Hurricane and moving along the US east coast and into New England Tuesday.

The storm is historically significant for its unusual speed. CNN meteorologist Chad Meyers reported that this fast-moving storm means it will take longer to weaken as it moves across vast distances along the Atlantic coast. According to Meyers, this means tornados that drop quickly and cause great devastation in brief periods of time with little warning, often less than 20 minutes.

More than a dozen tornadoes were spawned across the mid-Atlantic. Two people in North Carolina were killed Tuesday when a tornado caused by the storm struck a mobile home park in the town of Windsor, at least twelve people were hospitalized.

One resident caught in a tornado in North Carolina told CNN reporters about the moment it struck, “We didn’t have a lot of time to react once it finally hit. I mean, it hit all at

once,” Desaree Pike said. “For lack of a better word, it was hell. You don’t really think about anything else but just holding the kids and hoping it doesn’t tear the house up.”

The tropical storm caused flooding and power outrages along the coast. From North Carolina and up along the northeastern states, 3 million people were without power on Tuesday night

according to poweroutage.us.

Historic storm surge caused massive flooding in the Cherry Gove neighborhood of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina resulting in street closures and several drivers needing rescue as vehicles became overwhelmed by flood waters.

Wind gusts up to 90 mph were reported across the Carolinas causing massive property damage and dangerous amounts of debris. Trees blowed down and crashed into homes and streets caused severe property damage in the New England area and even New York City reported wind bursts of 70 mph.

All along the storm’s path, rainfall has caused flooding on average of 6 inches across the east coast and as of Tuesday evening the storm was projected to continue its path up into Canada.

Collapsed and flooded homes pose grave danger for millions of residents along the coast. Along with flooding, several housefires were reported in beach communities in North Carolina. On

Monday, Oak Island Water Rescue, a volunteer emergency response team, posted on Facebook, “Tonight the Brunswick County beaches suffered a direct hit from Hurricane Isaias. County wide and on Oak Island, there were numerous calls for water rescues, structural fires, structural collapses, and people trapped in houses that were flooding. Storm surge has caused significant damage as has the wind and tornados. The beach front roads were impassable due to high water on much of the island.”

Pictures of flooded neighborhoods and streets turned into rivers have spread across several

social media platforms on Monday and Tuesday as thousands of affected residents are forced to look to community aid and charity to clean up debris and rebuild destroyed homes in an environment made increasingly dangerous by the coronavirus pandemic.

The storm is certain to have an exacerbating effect in areas already ravaged by COVID-19, with thousands forced to evacuate their homes and seek safety with family, friends or in emergency shelters where social distancing measures are nearly impossible.

Massive population centers in the Northeast have seen surges in coronavirus cases in recent weeks and nationwide unemployment benefits have dried up causing an imminent eviction crisis in millions of poor and working-class communities. Already there are over 10,000 eviction

cases on file in North Carolina courts.

Some 43 percent of the renters in North Carolina are expected to face eviction or otherwise be unable to pay rent by the end of the month. As thousands are now dealing with storm and tornado damage these numbers are in danger of rising drastically.

In North Carolina alone, more than 1.2 million workers have filed for unemployment since the beginning of the outbreaks, workers who are now faced with losing their benefits just as the virus is surging in cases amid back to work campaigns pushed by both Democratic and Republican politicians locally and nationally. On Tuesday, over 2,117 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the state along with 26 new deaths.

Residents in the affected communities in North Carolina expressed to reporters their dismay at the fight which will be required to gain access to a limited amount of disaster aid. On Tuesday morning Holden Beach resident Jessi Viox told CNN reporters, “Getting ready for Round 2. The eye has moved around us, and now here comes the back end.”

US imposes new sanctions on China over alleged Uyghur abuses

Peter Symonds

As part of its escalating conflict with China, the Trump administration last week imposed another set of sanctions on Chinese officials and an organization over their alleged abuse of the rights of the Muslim Uyghur minority in the western province of Xinjiang. The allegations have centred on the mass detention of Uyghurs in re-education camps, as the Beijing regime attempts to stamp out Uyghur separatism.

Last Friday, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp, as well as two officials connected with it—Peng Jiarui and Sun Jinlong. As a result, in a move designed to block access to the US financial system, American companies and citizens are banned from carrying out economic transactions with them.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin issued a thoroughly hypocritical statement declaring that the US would use “the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world.” In reality, Washington’s highly selective “human rights” campaigns are aimed at furthering the interests of US imperialism and providing the pretext for aggression and war.

The latest sanctions are part of a far broader anti-China campaign involving trade war measures and a military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific, as well as denunciations of Beijing over human rights in Tibet and Hong Kong, and unsubstantiated accusations of spying and intellectual property theft.

Last week’s measures are just the latest in a series of sanctions leveled against Chinese officials and entities over Xinjiang.

* In October 2019, the Trump administration placed 28 Chinese companies and police departments on a black list banning American companies from selling them technology and other goods without a licence. A number of Chinese officials were also subjected to visa restrictions.

* On July 9, the US imposed sanctions on four high-ranking officials, including Chen Quanguo, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo and Xinjiang party secretary.

* On July 20, the Trump administration added 11 new Chinese companies to the list that restricts them from purchasing American products. These included Chinese suppliers for major American corporations such as Apple, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.

The Beijing regime is based on the use of police state measures to suppress any opposition to its rule, in particular from the working class. Its response to unrest in Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs have been increasingly marginalized by Han Chinese from other areas of the country, has undoubtedly been repressive.

The hue and cry from Washington, however, has nothing to do with defending the basic democratic rights of Uyghurs, or, for that matter, the people of Hong Kong and Tibet. Rather, it is part of a strategy aimed at encouraging separatist sentiment and undermining China, which the US regards as the chief threat to its global hegemony.

The US has particularly focused on Xinjiang, which not only has significant natural resources including oil, but is also adjacent to the energy-rich Central Asia republics with which Beijing has sought to establish close economic and political ties. Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative—a massive infrastructure project linking the Eurasian landmass—involves crucial road, rail and communication routes that pass through Xinjiang.

The US propaganda campaign denouncing Chinese detention camps in Xinjiang is based on inflated figures of a million plus Uyghur detainees that lack any serious documentation, along with lurid individual accounts fed to the media by Uyghur exile organisations. Likewise, Chinese counter claims that the camps are simply vocational centres lack any credibility. In the absence of independent reporting, the extent of detentions remains unclear.

US condemnations of Uyghur detentions have now been supplemented by allegations of “genocide” against the Uyghurs, based on claims of enforced birth control and the sterilization of Uyghur women. Once again, the allegations are based on the sensational accounts of individuals and tendentious reports of the broader situation in Xinjiang.

The latest claims rest on another report produced by German anti-communist academic Adrian Zenz, who was also closely involved in the release last year of leaked CCP documents purporting to show the extent and purpose of the Xinjiang detention camps. Zenz is associated with a network of right-wing think tanks, including the European School of Culture and Theology in Germany and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington.

Zenz’s latest document “Sterilisation, IUDs and mandatory birth control: The CCP’s campaign to suppress Uyghur birthrates in Xinjiang,” was published by a Washington-based think-tank, the Jamestown Foundation. His main contentions are that population growth in predominantly Uyghur areas is declining, that birth control violations have been punished by detention, and that a campaign is underway “to sterilize rural minority women with three or more children, as well as some with two children.”

The central flaw in Zenz’s research is that it is ripped out of the context of China’s birth control policies, including the one child policy that was introduced in the late 1970s by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and that generated widespread opposition. It was enforced with police state measures including forced abortions and sterilisations.

The policy was directed in particular against the working class, with exceptions made for rural families and, also significantly, for China’s minorities including the Uyghurs. There were also ways for individuals with money and/or influence to avoid the limit of one child per couple. Such was the opposition to the policy, including concerns in ruling circles about an ageing workforce, that the one-child limit was modified and finally dropped in 2016, when all couples were permitted to have two children.

Even if accurate, Zenz’s figures on slowing Uyghur population growth from 2010 as compared to the Han Chinese do not to take into account the change in policy, let alone other factors such as Uyghur emigration. Nor does his report bother to consider that the current two-child policy is enforced not only against Uyghurs but against the broader population, including Han Chinese.

None of this has stopped American media outlets, such as the Washington Post and Foreign Policy, from ramping up sensational stories about Uyghur “genocide.”

This dovetails with the decision of two Uyghur exile organisations based in the US—the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement—to file a case alleging genocide in the International Criminal Court last month against China.

The Uyghurs are one of the Turkic speaking groups that trace their origins to the Silk Road land routes from China through Central Asia to Europe. Uyghur separatist groups claim areas of Xinjiang as their homeland of East Turkistan.

These Uyghur organisations, which are led by wealthy and well-connected exiles, have close connections to the US state apparatus and its intelligence agencies. The CIA and its front organization, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), have long funded and promoted exile Uyghur organisations, including the World Uyghur Congress based in Europe and the American Uyghur Association, as a means of fostering separatist sentiment in Xinjiang.

The democratic rights of the Uyghur minority in China cannot be defended through US imperialism, which has flagrantly used “human rights” as a means of waging war and regime change. The fight for the democratic rights of Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in China is completely bound up with a political struggle of the Chinese working class as a whole against the oppressive regime in Beijing. Above all, that needs to be informed by the historical lessons derived by the Trotskyist movement from its protracted struggle against Stalinism, including its Chinese variant, Maoism.

Zimbabwe: Government repression as social unrest mounts

Stephan McCoy

The ZANU-PF government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa has deployed the police and military to shut down the capital Harare, having ordered people to stay indoors ahead of rallies planned for July 31.

In Bulawayo, the streets were equally deserted with only security forces seen roaming the city centre.

The security forces have arrested dozens of opposition critics, including one involved in organising the rallies, and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, investigating corruption allegations involving Health Minister Obadiah Moyo. More than a dozen others were forced into hiding.

The pro-imperialist Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-A) and smaller opposition parties had called the rallies opposing the deteriorating economic situation, the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, rampant corruption, and the wave of arrests and abductions over the last few months.

While the main rally could not go ahead, the security forces arrested dozens of people participating in smaller protests, including Fadzayi Mahere, spokeswoman of the MDC-Tsvangirai, and the prominent author Tsitsi Dangarembga, whose new book This Mournable Body has been long-listed for the Booker Prize.

Security forces also kidnapped Tawanda Muchehiwa, a 22-year-old student and nephew of Mduduzi Mathuthu, editor of the newspaper Zim Live, and two other relatives, after a raid by armed men—believed to be Zimbabwe Police—did not find Mathuthu at home.

While Muchehiwa’s relatives were released without charge, Tawanda was later dumped near his home after being severely tortured. Doctors who treated him said they were “alarmed” by the extent of his injuries that included deep cuts and severe kidney damage.

This follows a spate of arrests and kidnappings by plainclothes government thugs that began in May, giving the lie to the claims that Mnangagwa, one of long-time ruler Robert Mugabe’s closest political associates who succeeded him in 2017 after a military coup, would bring an end to tyranny, corruption, and social misery.

The Mnangagwa government’s assault on democratic rights has given rise to mounting opposition, to the extent that it has been necessary to deny that the military that brought it to power was plotting a second coup. Last month, security forces in the Joint Operations Command (JOC) made up of heads and senior personnel of the military, police, and secret services sidelined the government and shut down mobile money transactions and the stock exchange, amid charges they were being used for black-market activities, collapsing an already falling currency.

Mnangagwa, speaking on television Tuesday, threatened opposition figures and human rights campaigners, condemning the planned protests as the “machinations of destructive, terrorist opposition groupings.” He pledged that “security services will continue to carry out their duties with appropriate astuteness and resolve.”

Officials from his ruling ZANU-PF party, which has encouraged greater investment and trade with China, have portrayed the planned rallies as a Western plot, calling US Ambassador Brian Nichols a “thug” and suggesting that he might be expelled for criticising the government’s response to the protests.

With the ongoing collapse of the currency against the dollar, foreign currency reserves are vanishing. According to Bloomberg, following the removal of Old Mutual from the stock market, which paved the way for the reopening of the stock market on August 3, the main index tumbled 4.5 percent.

The annual rate of inflation has shot up to 800 percent, devaluing already paltry wages and making basic commodities unaffordable. The price of fuel has gone up 150 percent and there are severe shortages of basic household goods. Some 90 percent of Zimbabweans work as day labourers in the informal sector that has been devastated by the lockdowns and curfews.

The economic situation has been exacerbated by US and European Union sanctions, maintained since 2003. The sanctions and restrictions target specific individuals, including Mnangagwa, and some 56 companies and organisations, making it difficult for Zimbabwe to obtain loans.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the economy will contract by 10 percent this year. The World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing to donors for $250 million to prevent 8.6 million people—a staggering 60 percent of the population—becoming food-insecure this year due to the pandemic, drought, and the dire economic situation.

WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa Lola Castro said, “Many Zimbabwean families are suffering the ravages of acute hunger, and their plight will get worse before it gets better.”

So far, the country has recorded more than 4,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 80 deaths, both likely to be a vast underestimate. Parliament was forced to suspend sessions recently after two legislators and a driver and journalist travelling with them tested positive.

A leading secret service official and the agriculture minister, former Air Marshal Perrance Shiri, have both died of the coronavirus. Shiri played a major role in the planning of the Gukurahundi massacres, carried out by Mugabe’s ZANU forces against his ZAPU opponents in Matabeleland, that killed 20,000, commanding the Fifth Brigade responsible for widespread torture and mass executions.

Health care conditions are atrocious. There are serious shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect medical staff, and a lack of key drugs and blood supplies.

Last week, pictures released by Dr. Peter Magombeyi, the former head of the doctors’ union, showing the bodies of seven stillborn babies at Harare Central Hospital caused widespread horror. He tweeted, “We have been robbed of our future, including our unborn babies. Please stop the looting.” One doctor told the BBC the deaths were just “the tip of the iceberg.”

Mnangagwa was forced to sack Health Minister Obadiah Moyo following his involvement in a corruption scandal—revealed by detained journalist Hopewell Chi’nono. Moyo had awarded a $60 million contract to an unknown company that had overcharged the government for COVID-19 medical supplies. Moyo is to be replaced with a military doctor, Air Commodore Jasper Chimedza.

At Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo, a further 32 nurses have tested positive for COVID-19, while across the city 115 nurses have tested positive, as have 300 nurses nationwide. Nurses have been on strike for 46 days, demanding PPE and calling for their salaries to be paid in US dollars. They have vowed to continue their strike until their demands are met.

While the Health Services Board maintains that the nurses’ month-long strike is illegal, the government is trying to recruit more nurses to break the strike. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said, “More nurses will be urgently recruited from the available pool of qualified nurses, while processes to resolve those on industrial action continue.”

Doctors have also downed tools, demanding their salaries be paid in US dollars, which the government derided as “insane.” Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights Secretary-General Norman Matara responded with fury to Mnangagwa’s demand that they return to work and sacrifice their lives for the “national interest.” He said, “Health workers cannot work on empty stomachs and without protective clothing simply because they save lives.”

The ZANU-PF government has caused outrage for signing an agreement with white farmers, whose lands were seized by Mugabe’s government, awarding them $3.5 billion in compensation even as the health care system is in complete collapse with nurses being paid as little as US$30 a month and the country is in the midst of a dire economic crisis. Mnangagwa said of the signing, “This momentous event is historic. It brings closure and a new beginning.”