UK deploys troops to Mali

Jean Shaoul

Around 300 British troops have arrived in the west African country of Mali. Presented as a contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping mission, it is part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to reassert British imperialism’s interests in Africa against the challenge from its major rivals as the UK prepares to leave the European Union (EU).

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab sought to cover this blatant piece of imperialist militarism, declaring, “This new deployment of 300 British troops to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali is part of our ongoing work in the Sahel region to build stability, improve the humanitarian response and help protect innocent civilians from violence.”

While this is partly bound up with efforts to reduce migration to Europe, vital geo-strategic issues are also involved. First announced in July 2019 shortly after Johnson became prime minister, the deployment of troops to West Africa began earlier this year when around 30 soldiers and Royal Marines took part in training special forces from West African nations in a US-led “counter-terrorism” exercise in Senegal involving more than 1,600 troops. Major John House, commander of the Senegal team, declared it was in Britain's interests to get more involved in the region, saying, “If we don't act, we may find the problems getting closer to our door. The more they have a presence in the region, the more we can feel the effect back in the UK.”

The warring parties in Mali in March 2020 (credit: House of Commons Library)

That exercise included special forces troops from Cameroon, Morocco and Nigeria that conducted a raid on a village to “take out” an unspecified group of extremists. Troops in Cameroon and Nigeria have been involved in such operations for years. Cameroon is suppressing an anglophone separatist movement and Nigeria is conducting operations against Boko Haram in the country’s north east, as well as recurring conflicts in the country’s Middle Belt and the oil-producing Niger Delta.

In July, small teams of Special Airforce Service, whose tasks include covert reconnaissance, counterterrorism, direct action, and hostage rescue, were reported to be in Mali preparing for the main force of Light Dragoons and Royal Anglian troops to arrive later in the year.

UK forces were sent to Gao, in eastern Mali, where they will form part of Minusma, the UN’s peacekeeping operation with 14,000 troops from 56 countries, in the vast desert and semi-arid region of the Sahel. According to the Ministry of Defence, their main task is to mount reconnaissance operations around Gao where several Islamist groups, including various al-Qaida affiliates under the banner of Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and a rival Isis affiliate, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, are active.

The Minusma mission has been described as the most dangerous in the world. Last year, at least 500 civilians were killed by these groups that also attacked French, European, and local armed forces, with one suicide attack killing more than 50 Malians in a military base in 2017.

Earlier this year Mali witnessed months of protests against the French occupation, launched in 2013, and the ethnic massacres between rival militias that Paris tolerates, and uses to divide and rule the country. France intervened in Mali in January 2013 against separatist and Islamist forces who came from Libya in the aftermath of NATO’s regime-change war in 2011. It has maintained more than 4,000 troops in Mali, increased to more than 5,100 since the beginning of 2020, as part of an international coalition that includes Germany, Canada, the US and the so-called G5 force of troops from Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali.

British military personnel departing from a Hercules transport. [Picture: Corporal Andrew Morris RAF, Crown copyright]

Mali is Africa’s third-largest gold producer after Ghana, its southern neighbour, and South Africa. It also borders Niger, which hosts France’s military forces including drone bases and provides most of the uranium supplies required for nuclear power production in France.

Despite its gold, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 184 out of 188 on the United Nations Human Development Index, with 78 percent of the population living in poverty. The median age of its 19 million population is 16.3 years, many lacking access to education. Climate change is having a devastating impact on Mali and the entire Sahel, where droughts and floods have obliterated crops and livestock herds, creating tension between farmers and nomadic herders competing for land and shrinking resources.

According to the United Nations, about 12.9 million people are affected by the crisis in Mali, with 6.8 million in need of humanitarian assistance. There are more than 250,000 internally displaced people as well as nearly 30,000 refugees from Burkina Faso and Niger. The insecurity in neighbouring Burkina Faso is forcing many Malian refugees to return home.

On August 18, amid mounting protests, a junta of Malian army colonels launched a pre-emptive coup, toppling President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, and declaring loyalty to the French occupation force. France supported the coup because it was aimed against the anti-war protests of youth and workers. Like the 2012 coup that paved the way for the 2013 French invasion, the 2020 coup started in the Kita army base. General Ibrahim Dahirou Dembélé, who has been decorated for his services to French national security, was again one of its leaders.

When they took power, the coup leaders made their loyalty to French imperialism clear. They called on the Malian army to continue working with French troops (Operation Barkhane), their European allies (Takuba), their UN auxiliaries (Minusma), and their auxiliaries from the Sahel countries (G5 Sahel). They declared, “The Minusma, the Barkhane force, the G5 Sahel, the Takuba force are still our partners for stability and the restoration of security. We call on you, our brothers in arms, to continue discharging your law-and-order and operational missions.”

The Sahel, which includes the francophone countries of Mali, Burkino Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauretania, is not one of Britain’s traditional fields of operations. But Johnson is determined to recoup some of Britain’s lost influence in Africa, while embracing US imperialism and its militaristic agenda. This is centred on escalating aggression towards Russia and China, which has become Africa’s largest trading partner, as part of his efforts to salvage the UK’s global position, post-Brexit.

Operating under the UN mandate, British forces will not be involved in the EU operations in the Sahel, including the EU mission to train Mali’s police, although it does provide helicopter support for Operation Barkhane, France’s 5,000-strong anti-insurgency force, headquartered in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.

Africa is the arena for the largest number of Britain’s Armed Forces overseas on training or operational missions. According to the Ministry of Defence there many short-term military teams training security forces to respond “appropriately and proportionally” to security threats, terrorism, violations of human rights, wildlife preservation and emerging humanitarian crises.

Britain has for some years had forces in Nigeria, its former colony where Shell Oil Company has major investments, supposedly training its military and security forces to deal with Islamist terrorist groups. It recently emerged—after initial denials—that Britain had in 2019 provided training and equipment for Nigeria’s police and security forces, funded via its so-called “aid” budget. The notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), widely recognized as one of the worst in the world, was the focus of October’s mass anti-police brutality protest movement, which government forces ruthlessly suppressed.

In addition to its forces in Nigeria, Djibouti and Somalia, Britain has 14 training missions on the continent operating out of its base in Kenya, including in Gabon, Malawi, and Zambia. This is in addition to its participation in UN peacekeeping missions, recently doubling its deployments to South Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

News of the anticipated deployment to Mali comes in the wake of the government’s announcement of increased funding for the military that will lift the UK’s defence budget by £21.5 billion by March 2025, to £63 billion. This is the largest real terms increase in 30 years, confirming that the ruling elite are stepping up their military preparations in pursuit of their geo-strategic aims.

The Labour Party not only endorsed Johnson’s “long overdue” expansion of British militarism, but sought to outflank the Tory government on the right. Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey attacked the Tories for their decade in power, during which “the size of the armed forces has been cut by a quarter, defence spending was cut by over £7 billion.”

New Zealand housing crisis worsens under Labour

John Braddock

In response to growing outrage over New Zealand’s spiraling housing crisis, the finance minister in the Labour-Green Party government, Grant Robertson, last month wrote to Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr, asking him to cool the market.

According to Real Estate Institute and Statistics NZ figures, median house prices increased across the country by more in the past year than most workers earned. In Auckland, the median wage for a worker was $66,404, but the median house price increased by $140,000, with a similar increase in Wellington.

State Housing in Dunedin, New Zealand

The Reserve Bank, which is nominally “independent” of the government, is tasked with maintaining fiscal stability and keeping inflation under control. However, its low interest rate regime, imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a major contributor to skyrocketing property prices and rising social inequality.

The central bank’s Funding for Lending Programme (FLP), offering banks up to $NZ28 billion at the 0.25 percent Official Cash Rate, launched this week. The FLP is designed to provide additional stimulus, further reducing banks’ funding costs and interest rates. The program comes on top of the Reserve Bank’s purchase of up to $100 billion worth of government bonds with newly created money. The beneficiaries are big business, property investors and landlords.

Robertson’s letter was an empty charade. The minister sought Orr’s views on working together “to address the issue of rising house prices, as part of a wider suite of work that the government is carrying out on housing market settings in the economy.” Robertson politely suggested that the central bank take house prices into “consideration” when formulating monetary policy.

Orr’s response was swift and dismissive, insisting that the ball remains in the government’s court. He declared that lower interest rates “promote spending and investment,” and stated that there are “many long-term, structural issues at play” in determining housing affordability. He noted that the bank had reinstated loan-to-value ratio restrictions for “higher risk lenders,” essentially making it more difficult for those outside the financial elite to borrow.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern turned on the public who, she said, bore “some responsibility” for the crisis, telling TVNZ she lacked popular backing for tax increases. In fact, Ardern ruled out a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) in 2019 after caving in to her then coalition partner, the right-wing New Zealand First party, and insisting there would be no such property tax as long as she is PM.

There was substantial public support for Labour’s modest proposed CGT on property speculation. A 2017 ONCB poll found 58 percent backed a CGT and only 34 percent opposed. During the 2020 election campaign, Labour also ruled out any wealth tax, in a direct appeal to its upper middle-class supporters.

New Zealand is one of the most unaffordable countries in the world to buy a house. According to a 2019 Demographia International report, the median price is more than six times the median household income. Auckland was the seventh most unaffordable city, behind Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, San Jose and Los Angeles.

House prices have soared by 27 percent in the last three years and median rents have gone up 17.5 percent. Prices inflated faster in 2020 than in the previous 16 years. According to property researchers CoreLogic, it now takes 9 years to save a 20 percent house deposit, up from 8.2 years in 2019. The share of income going to rent has increased from 19.8 percent last year to 21.2 percent.

A social disaster is unfolding. Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft told Radio NZ that with one in five children living in poverty, and 150,000 experiencing “severe material hardship,” housing is “the big driver in child poverty.” He mentioned a family of 14 living in a two-bedroom home in the predominantly low-income Wellington suburb of Porirua, where house prices are approaching a million dollars, having spiked by 49 percent since 2017. Porirua Mayor Anita Baker told Stuff, “the word ‘affordable’ no longer has any meaning when it comes to buying a house.”

Rents are also escalating as landlords cash in. Stuff recently reported on a four bedroom flat in Wellington’s student quarter advertised at $815 per week. The illegal “dungeon-like” earthquake-prone building had no heating, there were missing and broken windows and curtains instead of bedroom doors.

The waiting list for public housing has more than trebled in three years to over 21,000 families. A UN investigator, Leilani Farha, described the situation as a “human rights crisis.” She said everyone has the right to secure, habitable affordable housing with access to services. People in “transitional housing,” however, have no legal rights. Many families have been living in unregulated accommodation, including crowded motel rooms, for years.

The crisis is a stunning exposure, not only of the Ardern government, but of its Labour predecessors. Ardern’s mentor, former Prime Minister Helen Clark, presided over the previous highest housing price boom from 1999-2008 of 102 percent, or 11 percent per annum.

Ardern campaigned in 2017 on eliminating child poverty and the housing shortage. However, Labour’s flagship “KiwiBuild” policy, which promised to create 100,000 “affordable” houses by underwriting private investors was a disaster. It was eventually dumped with fewer than 500 houses constructed. All were sold at market rates, placing them out of reach for those who needed them most.

The Greens, for their part, last week abstained on a parliamentary vote to marginally lift the top tax bracket to 39 cents. Co-leader James Shaw said that taxing income without taxing wealth and property “just makes the [housing] problem worse.” Their posturing is all theatrics. The Greens are part of the government and have pledged to keep supporting it.

Like governments around the world, Labour has used the COVID-19 pandemic to transfer tens of billions of dollars to the super-rich, rejecting appeals to urgently lift welfare benefits while pouring cash into the pockets of the wealthy.

With a social explosion looming, there is growing alarm among trade union bureaucrats, pseudo-left groups and liberal commentators that Labour is discrediting itself and jeopardising its ability to head off a growing movement of the working class.

Writing in the Guardian last month, academic Bryce Edwards glorified the “pioneering” first Labour government of the 1930s under which, he declared, “state house building was turbo-charged” and a “home for life” guaranteed.

With the country currently short of 500,000 dwellings, Edwards called for “a programme of mass state house production.” A “genuinely progressive government would simply return this country to the large-scale state housing that New Zealand used to be known for,” he declared.

There can, in fact, be no return to the Keynesian policies of limited social reforms which once served to subordinate the working class to the capitalist state. In response to the globalisation of production, Labour, like its social democratic counterparts elsewhere, ditched its reformist program in the 1980s to impose the dictates of the free market and begin dismantling earlier social reforms.

Labour and the Greens are the open representatives of finance capital and big business. The right-wing government will inevitably come into conflict with the working class, which will seek to fight back against the historic assault on its jobs and living standards. Workers can only carry this struggle forward by breaking with Labour and taking up the program of socialist internationalism.

Ukraine, Hungary clash as NATO discusses Ukrainian membership

Jason Melanovski

A long-running dispute between Ukraine and Hungary has worsened in recent weeks as the two right-wing governments continue to trade accusations over the status of ethnic Hungarians living in the Zakarpattia region of western Ukraine. The region, which had earlier been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is today home to 1.26 million people, with 80.5 percent ethnic Ukrainian and 12 percent ethnic Hungarian residents.

Kiev and Budapest have been at odds over the status of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Zakarpattia since 2017, when the right-wing nationalist government of former President Petro Poroshenko introduced an undemocratic language law that limited the ability of ethnic minorities to be instructed in their native language and made Ukrainian the required language of instruction for all students in secondary school.

National guard soldiers wearing face masks stand at the parliament building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (Credit: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

While the bill was clearly intended to target the use of Russian language in schools and “Ukrainianize” the country’s Russian population, it also angered the country’s other sizable ethnic minorities. Several European Union (EU) member countries, Hungary, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, all filed complaints with the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

The right-wing government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which has used the issue of ethnic Hungarian communities throughout Europe to expand its influence since it came to power in 2010, responded to the language law by distributing Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians within Ukraine. Hungary has repeatedly threatened to block Ukraine’s further integration into NATO and the EU and regularly cancels full NATO-Ukraine meetings over the language issue.

The most recent catalyst for a further breakdown in relations was a video on Facebook which showed local government officials in the western Ukrainian town of Siurte apparently singing the national anthem of Hungary during a meeting. Whoever posted the video purposely edited out the officials first singing the Ukrainian national anthem prior to the Hungarian.

The video was quickly exploited by right-wing Ukrainian nationalists who viewed the anthem singing as a deliberate provocation ordered from Budapest and pointed out that the meeting had taken place on November 21, which is known as the “Day of Dignity and Freedom” in Ukraine. The recently created holiday celebrates the anniversary of the beginning of the right-wing US- and EU-backed “Euromaidan” protests in 2013 that later led to the coup against the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

In response to the video, on November 30 the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) raided the offices of Hungarian political and civic organizations in the Zakarpattia region. The SBU claimed that they “were suspected of conducting subversive activity to the detriment of Ukraine in the interests of a neighboring country.”

As a result of the raids, the SBU claimed, “During searches, law enforcement officials discovered printed materials promoting a so-called ‘Greater Hungary’ and the creation of an ethnic autonomy in Zakarpattia.” Kiev also directly accused Hungary, a NATO member since 1999, of supporting Hungarian separatism and stated that it was investigating the Hungarian organization’s “complicity in a foreign government’s subversive activities to the detriment of Ukraine, including by committing high treason.”

Following the incident, Budapest summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to lodge a protest over the raids. In response, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba summoned the Ambassador of Hungary to Ukraine István Íjgyártó to call Hungary’s claims of persecution “groundless speculation.”

Earlier in October, Kuleba had filed a complaint with Íjgyártó over the supposed interference of Hungarian officials into local elections in the Zakarpattia region.

Two Hungarian government officials were refused entry into Ukraine in November after they were accused of campaigning for the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine in local elections.

The Zakarpattia region is strategically important to Kiev. Ukraine’s natural gas transit system has its westbound outlet there en route to the European Union and the region directly borders the EU and NATO member countries Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. As a result, the region is also home to sizable non-Ukrainian ethnic communities, which are suspect in the eyes of the right-wing nationalist forces that came to power in Kiev in 2014.

The fallout between Ukraine and Hungary came at a particularly inopportune time for the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky as it took place just prior to a meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Brussels on December 1-2.

Despite coming to power with pledges to end the now over six-year-long conflict in eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of over 14,000 people, the Zelensky government has doggedly pursued full NATO membership just as strongly as the previous regime of the right-wing nationalist Petro Poroshenko.

This past week Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrii Taran stated that he expects Ukraine to receive a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the next NATO Summit in 2021. Taran also called upon NATO member states to accept Georgia as well and claimed that “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s potential membership in NATO will have a significant impact on Euro-Atlantic security and stability, in particular in the Black Sea region.”

Prior to the 2014 US-backed coup, Ukraine had maintained a nonaligned status in regards to NATO, but after the coup the government embarked on a course of integration with NATO. In February 2019, the Ukrainian government passed a constitutional amendment, stating its commitment to join both NATO and the EU, and in June of this year it became a member of NATO’s Enhanced Opportunities Partnership program.

At the recent NATO ministers of foreign affairs meeting, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke directly on the dispute between Hungary and Ukraine, hinting at the deep crisis within NATO over the potential membership of Ukraine. He said, “I will not go into the details of a classified discussion at the NATO ministerial meeting. But what I can say is that it’s well known that there is a bilateral dispute between Hungary and Ukraine. And I hope that the two countries will be able to solve this bilateral dispute. But I think the meeting today demonstrates that we are able to continue to, of course, strengthen our partnership with Ukraine. We are able to provide more support, and we also are able to meet at the ministerial level to discuss issues of common concern.”

For Hungary, the meeting in Brussels was an opportunity to further condemn Kiev in front of its NATO allies. Speaking via video, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó ominously stated, “Ukraine, a country not a member of NATO, has launched an attack against a minority group originating from a NATO member country. This is obviously a scandal, and it is unacceptable in the 21st century,” Szijjártó said. “Especially from a country claiming to want to draw closer to NATO.”

Tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay rent as unemployment benefits and eviction moratorium near expiration

Alex Findijs

As the expiration of the federal moratorium on evictions looms at the end of the year, millions of working class Americans have fallen significantly behind on rent and utility payments.

According to Moody’s Analytics, 12 million renters will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utility payments by January 1.

A rental sign is posted in front of an apartment complex Tuesday, July 14, 2020, in Phoenix. (Credit: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that 7.5 million renter households (23.5 percent) that had at least one person working in February of this year have experienced unemployment at some point between March and August. They warn that evictions will increase 50 percent next year as millions struggle to pay back months of rent and utilities at once.

So far, more than 60 million workers have filed for unemployment this year, with 11.1 million currently collecting state benefits.

With these considerable disruptions to the labor market, the International Labor Organization estimates that North American workers have lost 15.3 percent of their work hours. In the United States, two-thirds of this cut in working hours came from job losses, with half of that coming from unemployment.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 159 million workers in November 2019, with an average hourly wage of $28.3 an hour. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that the American working class averages 1,779 hours worked a year per worker.

Using these figures, it can be estimated that American workers worked a total of 282.86 billion hours this year and lost approximately 42.4 billion hours during the pandemic, worth an estimated value of $1.2 trillion, or $10,000 per household.

With such substantial monetary losses for the working class, with the poorest and most disadvantaged certainly bearing the greatest cost, it is no wonder that so many families are struggling to pay their bills and a testament to the failure of the capitalist system to support them.

The Cares Act was signed into law on March 27, providing $300 billion in direct cash payments and $260 billion in supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. The enhanced unemployment benefits lasted for four months, after which rates returned to normal but with a 13-week extension to the maximum number of weeks allowed by each state.

According to data from the Department of Labor, the average weekly unemployment benefits for the second quarter—April, May and June—were just $318, even with the funding for extended benefits.

Four weeks of this sum is not even enough to cover rent alone in many cities. A review by Clever Real Estate found that workers could survive on unemployment insurance in just 12 out of 109 metro areas.

Now, with millions of Americans suffering from the pandemic, the Democrats and Republicans negotiate over pennies, taking turns rejecting deals that do not even come close to alleviating the crisis.

The Republicans, true to form, have offered nothing for housing and utility assistance. The Democrats proposed $50 billion for low-income renters. Ultimately, a $25 billion compromise was reached as part of the $908 billion stimulus package currently being discussed in congress.

Twenty-five billion dollars is a grossly insufficient amount. Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, estimates that there will be $70 billion in unpaid debt by January.

The political parties of the ruling class have demonstrated their complete indifference to the plight of the working class.

In 2019, US renters paid $512 billion for housing. With millions out of work and hundreds of billions of dollars in wages lost, it is impossible to expect workers to somehow conjure their debt payments from thin air by January.

To the extent that the US government offers anything, it is only to prop up the profits of the capitalist system, funneling trillions into the stock market and providing millions to big business through the Paycheck Protection Program, while small businesses owners and workers are left with nothing.

Even with the meager assistance that the federal government is offering, it will be extremely difficult for workers to pay off their debts.

Between 2001 and 2018, the median wage of a renter rose just 0.5 percent while median rent rose 13 percent. More than 8 million renter households pay more than half of their income toward rent, affecting 23 million people.

The Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey found that 83 million adults reported struggling to pay for essentials such as food, housing, transportation and medical care. Now, 66 percent of people receiving unemployment benefits will lose them on December 26 and face eviction at the end of the month.

All evictions must be halted, workers must be given full income support, essential workers must be granted substantial hazard pay and adequate utilities must be provided to all people without charge.

This is what is required to fight the pandemic and ensure that no person is forced from their home. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party can be trusted to provide workers with relief. Only an independent movement of the working class based on a socialist program demanding financial assistance and an end to evictions can save lives and bring the pandemic under control.

Poverty in Germany reaches a new record high

Elisabeth Zimmermann

More than 13 million people in Germany were afflicted by poverty in 2019, pushing the poverty rate to 15.9 percent, the highest measured poverty rate since reunification thirty years ago. These figures are presented in the newest poverty report of the German welfare association Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, published on Nov. 20.

The resurgence of poverty is widespread. Eleven of the sixteen German states have rising poverty rates, including North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Lower Saxony. The state of Bremen is worst affected, with one in four being poor, followed by Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia with poverty rates of between 18.5 and 19.5 percent.

Collecting discarded bottles to redeem deposits, a common sight in Germany (Image: Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Since 2006 the poverty rate in North Rhine-Westphalia has increased two-and-a-half times faster than the German average. Poverty is most concentrated in the Ruhr Valley region, with a poverty rate of 21.4 percent. According to the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, Germany’s largest metropolitan area is also the poorest.

Of the 5.8 million people in the Ruhr Valley, 1.3 million live in poverty. Since 2006, poverty there has risen by 36 percent. In comparison, in Germany as a whole, poverty rose by an average of 14 percent during the same period. In the urban region of Duisburg/Essen, the increase in poverty during the same period was as high as 48 percent. Last year, the poverty rate hit 21.5 percent, reaching as high as 22 percent in Dortmund.

The rise in poverty is also expressed in the number of people in Germany on social assistance, known as Hartz IV. While the percent of those drawing Hartz IV was 8.4 percent, in Germany on the whole, the rate in the Ruhr region was 15 percent, meaning almost every fourth child relied on government aid. In some cities and districts the figure exceeded even 30 percent. In the city of Gelsenkirchen, 40 percent of children are dependent on Hartz IV.

Regarding the geographical distribution of poverty, the report states: “In terms of geography, poverty in Germany differentiates into two halves—but not into East and West, rather into North and South. In the well-off south, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have a joint poverty rate of 12.1 percent. The rest of the republic, from the east to the north to the west, has a combined poverty rate of 17.4 percent. Outside Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, an average of more than one in six people live below the poverty line.”

In view of the massively slashed working hours and the announced mass layoffs in the automotive and associated industries, which are heavily concentrated in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, one must expect that poverty will rise in these states as well.

Of the 15 regions and cities with the highest poverty rates, one-third are in North Rhine-Westphalia, predominantly in the Ruhr Valley area. A further third are in Lower Saxony and Bremen and another third are located in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.

Poverty also increased sharply between 2006 and 2019 in the Rhine-Main region, especially the cities of Frankfurt/Main and Offenbach and in the region around Darmstadt in the south of the state of Hesse. Here, the poverty rate rose from 10.5 (2006) to 15.3 (2019) percent.

The report notes: “High wealth concentrations in a region or state commonly coincide with high poverty rates.” Hesse has the second highest wealth rate in Germany and now has a poverty rate of 16.1 percent, above the national average.

Poverty is defined as an income of less than 60 percent of the average income. Last year, this was 1,074 euros per month for a one-person household and 2,256 euros for a family with two children under 14 years of age.

The unemployed have the highest risk of poverty with 57.9 percent living in poverty. Among single parents 42.7 percent are in poverty and among families with many children the share is 30.9 percent. Those with poor qualifications are affected by poverty at 41.7 percent and people without German citizenship at 35.2 percent.

For all groups considered in the study, poverty in 2019 increased compared to the previous year. The most significant increase in a long-term comparison was among pensioners. Among them, the poverty rate has increased by sixty percent since 2006 to 17.1 percent. The majority of the poor work (33 percent) or are in retirement (23.6 percent).

Widespread poverty is the result of decades of anti-working class policies. A particular impetus for the development of the now vast low-wage sector was provided by the so-called Agenda 2010 and the Hartz laws of the SPD/Green coalition of Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer, which ruled from 1998 to 2005. Since then, all governing coalitions, mostly with the participation of the SPD, have driven these developments forward.

The figures in this year’s poverty report by the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband are from the period before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, social antagonisms have only increased and an additional rise in poverty is foreseeable.

The report states: “The effects of the corona crisis are likely to further accelerate this trend [toward inequality]. The impact of this crisis is not a general loss of prosperity, rather it particularly affects those working in the catering sector or in temporary employment, mini-job-holders and the self-employed, which means that the corona crisis will ultimately contribute to greater inequality and more poverty in this segment of society.”

The Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband warns: “There is therefore sufficient evidence that the corona crisis will lead to further growth in inequality and poverty. There is much to suggest that the current record poverty rate of 15.9 percent in 2019 will again rise significantly in 2020.”

The authors of the study criticize that present social security systems for not being sufficient to protect people from poverty, homelessness, poverty in old age and other precarious living situations. The benefits from Hartz IV and other social programs are much too low to finance a dignified existence. They also criticize the fact that of the hundreds of billions of euros that the German government has spent to support the economy, nothing is earmarked for those most affected by job losses and poverty.

No measures against poverty can be expected from the government. On the contrary, the policies of recent years have been and still are characterized by a frontal attack on the working class and its most vulnerable sections. Government action during the pandemic, as in all other countries, has been characterized by immense bailouts to protect the rich and the super-rich at the expense of workers, who are forced to work despite the risk of infection and loss of life.

Schools and daycare centers are kept open so that parents can go to work and generate profits. The last week of November saw the number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 in Germany exceeded one million. More than 15,000 people have died from COVID-19, with no end in sight.

The growth in poverty is the result of a gigantic redistribution of society’s wealth from the bottom to the top. The weekly Wirtschaftswoche from Oct. 7 reported that the rich have become even richer as a result of the coronavirus crisis: “In Germany, after a slump at the beginning of the corona pandemic, the net wealth of the ultra-rich rose to $594.9 billion until the end of July. At the last survey (to March 2019) it was 500.9 billion dollars. The club of the super-rich has since grown from 114 to 119 members. After the outbreak of the pandemic, the number of German dollar billionaires saw the greatest growth in the areas of technology (up 46 percent), health care (up 12 percent) and finance (up 11 percent).”

According to a recently published ranking by Manager Magazin, the Reimann family with an estimated 32 billion euros in assets are among the richest Germans. In second place is Lidl founder Dieter Schwarz with estimated assets of 30 billion euros. Third place goes to siblings Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt, who own almost half of BMW’s shares. Their assets have fallen by 1.5 billion euros to an estimated 25 billion euros during the pandemic—a hardly less dizzyingly high figure.

Over 2,200 students at Columbia University threaten tuition strike amid economic crisis

Elliott Murtagh

Students at Columbia University in New York City have launched plans for a tuition strike demanding decreased tuition and increased financial aid in 2021. The petition announcing the strike has grown to over 2,200 student pledges.

Columbia University is one of the most expensive universities in the country, costing over $60,000 a year, has one of the largest university endowments in the country, currently at $11.26 billion, and is one of the largest private landowners in New York City. Columbia recently reported an increase of $310 million to their endowment from returns in the university’s stock portfolio this year.

Columbia University Low Memorial Library (Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile, students face a dire economic situation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is beginning to rage uncontrolled once again in New York City, under Democratic Party leadership. The current threat of tuition strike follows a strike in April by Columbia University graduate workers demanding the university sufficiently address the impact of the pandemic on their lives, scholarship and research.

The strike campaign, which extends to the Columbia-affiliated schools of Barnard College and Teachers College, was initiated by the Columbia University-Barnard College chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA).

The primary demands of the tuition strike call for a reduction of the total cost of attendance by at least 10 percent and an increase of financial aid by at least 10 percent.

Other listed demands include ending university expansion in West Harlem, defunding Columbia’s Public Safety security force, divesting from fossil fuels and from companies tied to human rights violations, protections for international students, and granting union recognition for student workers to bargain for improved compensation and benefits.

The tuition strike, which entails withholding university payments, would be set to begin during the first scheduled payment for the Spring semester: December 14 for Barnard College and January 20 for Columbia and Teachers College students.

A collection of student testimonials in support of the strike points to the dire economic situation and financial hardship facing students as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the administration’s failure to adequately address community demands throughout the year.

One student wrote, “Members of the community are deeply suffering and could use the help of this prestigious and far reaching institute. Many, too many, have gone into financial debt for professions that no longer exist. To work in industries that have completely shut down. We are drowning… There’s no such thing as returning back to normal. For many, ‘normal’ consisted of barely keeping our head above water.”

One nursing student stated, “We are the future generation of healthcare workers. We play an important role in keeping the public safe and fighting this very pandemic, yet our educational needs are not being met. We are asked to sacrifice everything and be selfless, only to be taken advantage of.”

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in New York and New Jersey express our solidarity with all students who are forced to take out massive loans in order to get an education and who are struggling every day to pay them off. However, students who are looking for a way to fight back against the social and economic crisis facing young people today need to understand the political issues involved in this struggle.

Student debt plagues working class youth and their families throughout the country, and in fact, around the world.

For those who have student loans, the average student today leaves college with $37,172 of debt. Nationally, college debt stands at a staggering $1.56 trillion. College tuition has increased by 1,140 percent since the late 1970s. Despite this massive spike in tuition over the last five decades, the median household income has remained the same since 1999.

Students who take out loans to go to college often spend the majority of their lives trying to pay them off. Under pandemic conditions, in which unemployment figures are at the highest they have been since the Great Depression, taking on student debt can quickly lead to financial ruin.

Even if successful, the reduction of tuition at Columbia by 10 percent—from $64,000 to $57,600—will do little to alleviate this immense crisis facing workers and youth at Columbia, let alone the millions of students and their families across the country.

The astronomical rise in student debt over the past several decades is part of an overall attack on education overseen by both Democrats and Republicans. This includes the systematic dismantling of public schools through privatization and the promotion of charter schools and the transformation of universities into profit-making enterprises subordinated to the interests of giant corporations and the military-intelligence apparatus.

Whether it is under Bush, Obama or Trump, these tendencies have continued relentlessly.

The orientation of the YDSA, which initiated the petition, is to the Democratic Party, which has facilitated the relentless destruction of public education, the increases in tuition, and the destruction of jobs and wages.

Christian Flores, a Columbia University graduate student and member of the YDSA and leader of the tuition strike made this orientation clear in an interview he gave to CBS News on Monday, when he noted that it was “quite poetic that tuition is due on January 20th when that is also the inauguration of President Biden.” He added that he hoped the movement would allow students to have a “seat at the table”—that is, that it would help to pressure the incoming Biden administration to take action on student debt.

The student debt crisis will not be solved by getting “a seat at the table” in a Biden administration. If Biden comes to power, the policy that his administration implements will be dictated by Wall Street and the military. Biden has already made this clear in the composition of his proposed cabinet.

The role of the Democratic Socialists of America and its youth movement the YDSA has always been to sow illusions that the Democratic Party can be reformed. After campaigning for Bernie Sanders unsuccessfully for five years, the organization went all in for Biden in the final months of the campaign cycle, mobilizing all their resources to get out the vote.

What is needed to combat the student debt crisis, like all of the major crises facing workers and youth under capitalism, is the independent mobilization of the working class against the capitalist system in opposition to the Republican and Democratic parties.

While President-elect Joe Biden accepts the continuation of death on a mass scale, proclaiming, “I’m not going to shut down the economy, period,” the Democratic Party celebrates his incoming cabinet of thoroughly right-wing imperialist reaction as “the most diverse in US history.”

Combatting the widespread economic and social issues facing students and youth not only at Columbia, but internationally, requires a political understanding that these issues are the direct products of capitalism and are fundamentally class issues. In response, a political program is needed, based on expropriating the wealth of the ruling class to guarantee the right to free education and cancellation of all student debt, free housing, free healthcare, and safe working and learning conditions—that is, the establishment of a society based on social need.

California’s new COVID-19 restrictions place burden on workers and small business owners

David Fitzgerald

New COVID-19 restrictions across several California counties began Sunday night, with more coming into effect over the next several days. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom tied the measures to the proportion of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds available in several broad regions.

The stay-at-home order places the entire burden of the pandemic on workers and small business owners, closing outdoor restaurants and restricting retail shops’ capacity without any financial compensation, while allowing major sources of transmission like large workplaces and factories to remain open for generating profits. While many schools in the state have moved to online instruction, part of the governor’s guidance is that schools that have reopened to in-person instruction will not be closed.

A person administering a COVID-19 test (Wikimedia Commons)

In fifty-two of the fifty-eight counties in California, the pandemic is categorized as “widespread,” meaning that there are high positivity rates for COVID-19 tests and large numbers of cases per capita. Only 339,811 Californians live in counties where the virus is not widespread in a state of 40,129,160 people.

California is now the worst-hit state in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, with well over 1.3 million cases as of Monday. New cases have increased by 84 percent in California in the past two weeks. The number of deaths in California has now nearly 20,000, with many cases likely uncounted. Los Angeles county broke single day infection records on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday saw over 28,000 new COVID-19 cases, the highest recorded in a single day. Nearly one in ten Californians who are tested are positive.

Intensive care unit bed capacity has fallen to exceedingly dangerous levels in numerous counties. Southern California is now at 10.3 percent bed capacity, per the California Department of Health. As ICUs are stretched beyond their capacities, mortality rates will continue to climb. Lack of doctors, nurses, other health care providers and intensive care training compounds the crisis dramatically. A September report by National Nurses United revealed that 35,525 California health care workers have been infected, the most of any state. Only in New York and New Jersey have more health care workers died of COVID-19.

The new guidelines and restrictions suggest that residents refrain from holding out-of-household gatherings. Dining at restaurants, whether outdoor or indoor, is now prohibited, while outdoor religious services are exempt from restrictions. Film and television productions are also exempt. Retailers are allowed to conduct their business at 20 percent capacity as long as safety protocols are followed. Outdoor recreation facilities are allowed to remain open, as well as outdoor gym and fitness classes, while playgrounds will be off-limits for children.

None of these new restrictions will have any meaningful impact on the spread of the disease throughout factories, schools and many offices. In fact, childcare, pre-kindergarten and K-12 schools that are conducting in-person instruction will remain open, regardless of the lack of intensive care beds.

A new study conducted by University of California-Merced sociology Professor Edward Orozco Flores and Community and Labor Center Executive Director Ana Padilla reveal the remarkable ineffectiveness of the recent restriction measures by pointing out that counties with high numbers of low-wage workers, especially those deemed essential workers, are seeing far higher rates of infection.

Nearly all of the counties with high worker distress are on the state watch list for those with COVID-19 positivity rates above 8 percent. In comparison, only two of the 37 counties with low worker distress were above 8 percent. Worker distress is directly linked with higher infection rates. Tightly congested work environments, lack of safety measures, the flagrant secretiveness of management, and lack of health care options available to low-wage workers combine to create a public health disaster. The new public health measures will allow the virus to rip through the working class unimpeded.

Padilla emphasized that low-wage workers in agriculture, food services, transportation, and other essential roles have higher rates of infection. She noted that “our findings indicate low-wage work is associated with the spread of COVID-19, and that to mitigate COVID-19 spread it is not enough to simply regulate business openings and public gatherings.” The new restrictions clearly safeguard those who are able to stay at home, while disregarding essential and lower-wage workers.

Despite their limited nature, sheriffs in Ventura, San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties have announced that they will not enforce the new stay-at-home restrictions. These right-wing sheriffs have been emboldened by California Gavin Newsom’s blatantly hypocritical approach to restrictions.

Newsom has been exposed for eating out at extravagant restaurants in groups larger than state guidelines dictate, and with these new measures places the entire burden of prevention on workers and small businesses. The state’s decision to declare almost every large workplace essential while refusing compensation to small business owners and working class families gives room for these right-wing sheriffs to posture as defending democracy.

During the initial lockdown measures beginning in March, Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors, located in Fremont California in the Bay Area, flagrantly defied government orders to close the factory floor. Musk ranted on Twitter about public health measures and was allowed to continue operations even as numerous cases broke out in his factory. This time around, Alameda County, where the Fremont plant is located, is making no effort to close the it in the face of growing infection rates.

It is clear that the new restrictions are nowhere near sufficient to contain the virus. Nonessential work, including car manufacturing, must be closed while providing full compensation to small business owners, families, and workers. Schools must provide fully-funded remote learning with guaranteed access to high speed internet. It is only possible to do this if workers take matters into their own hands by forming rank-and-file-committees. An incalculable number of lives can be saved through an active struggle of the working class against the financial oligarchy and their murderous “herd immunity” policy.

Florida COVID-19 data scientist whistleblower raided by state police at gunpoint

Benjamin Mateus

“I tell them my husband and my two children are upstairs … and THEN one of them draws his gun. On my children. This is Desantis’ Florida.” - Rebekah Jones in a tweet Monday

Early Monday morning in Tallahassee, Florida state police raided the home of Rebekah Jones, the former Florida Department of Health data scientist turned whistleblower, with guns in hand prepared to fire at any sign of commotion. Jones had the lucidity to stage a camera in the house before letting the police inside.

Former state data analyst Rebekah Jones raising her hands up after she opened her door to the police. (Rebekah Jones/Twitter)

The video shows her opening the door and quickly raising her arms as she is rudely ushered out by the police brazenly wielding their guns. They then enter like a SWAT team shouting, “Mr. Jones, come down the stairs now! Police! Come down now!” The second officer points his gun up at the top of the stairs as Jones can be heard crying, “My husband and children are upstairs. What are you doing? They just pointed a gun at my children!”

Jones likened the harrowing scene to a Nazi raid intended to terrorize her and set her as an example. “This was Desantis. He sent the gestapo,” she tweeted shortly after the raid. “This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power,” Jones noted in a subsequent tweet.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, the Florida Department of Health filed a complaint against Jones on November 10 alleging unauthorized access to a department messaging system, part of an emergency alert system. During the raid, they seized her phone, all her computers, and equipment that she uses to provide up-to-date metrics on COVID-19 cases in Florida, an alternative source to Florida’s official dashboard which has been notoriously unreliable for tracking the course of the pandemic.

Late Monday afternoon, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement made a press statement that they had issued a warrant “after suspecting Jones of being responsible for a computer hack into the health department website,” as quoted by the Tampa Bay Times. The November 10 message urged health officials to “speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”

Jones, a geographer specializing in Geographic Information System (GIS) data science and responsible for tracking the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida, had garnered national attention for refusing to strategically manipulate the data to align it with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ push to reopen the state for commerce. She was bitterly denounced by the governor’s office, claiming that Jones displayed “insubordination” and “blatant disrespect” for her colleagues. As such, they felt “that it was best to terminate her employment.”

In a letter drafted on June 9 by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association of GIS professionals and sent to the governor’s office, they wrote, “While all the facts have yet to be made public, we are concerned that the actions taken potentially put the public at risk and prevented a certified GIS professional from following the Code of Ethics that guides all GIS professionals working in government, non-profit and private sector positions.”

Within a few weeks of being terminated, Jones launched an alternate Florida COVID-19 dashboard, Florida COVID Action, which uses the same data science software and data extraction techniques she had used to build the Florida Department of Health dashboard, adding an open data platform. The new dashboard provides an enhanced metric that includes hospital bed availability by facility, which was not being made public.

In September, she drew the ire of school superintendents and state officials while speaking in opposition to schools remaining open at a virtual town hall organized by Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.

She noted that “cases are trending upward for every single age group in the state. We have seen an astronomical increase in pediatric cases. We have seen additional pediatric deaths that the state has not been transparent about. Florida is now one of only a few states in the entire Southeast that is not reporting this information. More than half of all school districts have taken it upon themselves to publish information about cases in their schools every single day because the state leadership has failed to do so.”

In August, she and her COVID Action nonprofit proceeded to launch a second COVID-19 dashboard specifically to track cases in schools across the nation. This is being done in collaboration with Google’s COVID-19 Open Data Project. She explained that the number of school-related coronavirus cases had jumped ten times since the state accidentally released statewide data in August. Needless to add, the state data has since been taken down.

A recent South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation found that Governor DeSantis’ administration has been concealing and spinning the pandemic data to mislead the public on the dangers associated with the virus. Florida has seen more than one million COVID-19 cases and over 19,000 deaths. Cases have been surging again, approaching the summer peak. There has been a 23.3 percent rise in cases over a 14-day average. Hospitalizations and deaths have been following.

According to the paper: “DeSantis, who owes his job to early support from President Donald Trump, imposed an approach in line with the views of the president and his powerful base of supporters. The administration suppressed unfavorable facts, dispensed dangerous misinformation, dismissed public health professionals, and promoted the views of scientific dissenters who supported the governor’s approach to the disease.”