What’s Inside Haiti’s New Security Decrees: An Intelligence Agency and an Expanded Definition of Terrorism

Jake Johnston & Kira Paulemon

On November 26, 2020, the Haitian government published two decrees on national security. The first creates a new national intelligence agency, while the second greatly expands the definition of terrorism. Haitian president Jovenel Moise has been ruling by decree since January when the terms of parliament expired, and has used that power to consolidate the strength of the executive branch. The government has framed the changes as a response to recently increasing insecurity, however the Port-au-Prince Bar Association and various human rights organizations have denounced the new decrees and warned that they could be used to increase repression.

Marie Suzy Legros, the head of the bar association, labeled the decrees as “tyrannical” and as the destruction of liberty. “Jovenel Moise has the madness of a dictator,” former Senator Steven Benoit commented in response to the decrees. “He does not realize that we are no longer in 1957,” he continued, in reference to Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier who created his own intelligence agency in the early years of the dictatorship. Even before these recent decrees, 11 human rights organizations had condemned the “dictatorial and unconstitutional” actions of the current administration.

On December 12, the Core Group in Haiti issued a press release “expressing concern” over the new decrees. The Decree on the Strengthening of Public Security, the diplomatic representatives note, “extends the qualification of ‘terrorist act’ to certain facts that do not fall under it and provides for particularly heavy penalties.” The intelligence agency, the Core Group, continued, gives “the agents of this institution virtual legal immunity, thus opening up the possibility of abuse.” Taken together, these decrees “do not seem to conform to certain fundamental principles of democracy, the rule of law and the civil and political rights of citizens.”

So, what is in these new decrees?

A New Intelligence Agency

The National Intelligence Agency (ANI by its French acronym) is a technical and administrative institution, whose primary focus is on information gathering and the repression of hostile acts that could be perceived as a threat to national security. Though the new agency will operate under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior, the president has the sole authority to name a director general and other high-level positions (Art. 54).

The ANI will be staffed by individuals recruited from the National Police Academy and from the military. The decree includes scant information on the vetting of ANI officers, but notes that recruits will be subject to testing as well as to psychological and moral inquiries (Art. 32). The officers, whose identities will remain anonymous due to national security concerns, will also be armed (Art. 51) . The decree also grants total secrecy to the ANI’s operations. The ANI is authorized to conduct surveillance and will have access to all relevant government databases. Officers will also be able to enter private homes or businesses at any time in order to access documents, objects, or anything else relevant to an ongoing investigation (Art. 55).

ANI officers will not be regular civil servants, but instead will hold a special status, de facto creating a third armed force in the country (Art. 33). The decree also grants legal protection to all ANI officers (Art. 49). There is no possibility for legal recourse in the case of abuse without prior authorization from the president. The agency itself is protected from any legal action that seeks to prevent its functioning or the execution of its activities (Art. 67). The decree offers relatively little information as to how this new agency might be funded.

An Expanded Definition of Terrorism

The Decree for the Reinforcement of Public Security expands the definition of “terrorism” to include such acts as robbery, extortion, arson, and the destruction or degradation of public and private goods.

Articles 1.12 and 1.13, however, go even further and specify that acts of crowding or blocking public roads to obstruct movement are included in this expanded definition. The decree specifies that even so much as placing garbage in a public road would fall under the new definition of terrorism. Blocking roads is a common protest tactic in Haiti, as in many other countries.

The decree also specifics penalties under the new definition. Those found guilty of committing “terrorist acts” can spend from 30 to 50 years in prison and face a fine ranging from two million to two-hundred million Haitian gourdes (about $28,000 – $2,800,000 at today’s exchange rate). The decree states that the penalties cannot be lowered under any circumstance. Individuals can be exempted from punishment if they provide the authorities with information that prevents a terrorist act and leads to the arrest of the individuals or groups responsible.

Oddly, the decree states that, if there are any reservations, the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate has 30 days to introduce a new law in parliament. The parliament has not functioned since January 2020.

Most Important Aspects of Nutrition Are Also the Most Neglected

Bharat Dogra

In India we have the biggest programs on nutrition and we have also have some of the highest rates of malnutrition. Despite the expanding nutrition programs (checked for the time being by Covid related factors ), malnutrition levels remain high, as revealed also in the latest surveys. This curious and sad phenomenon has been examined by several learned experts, but somehow some very important factors do not get the attention they clearly deserve.

Nutrition of various foods is  related closely to the soil in which food is grown . When the natural fertility of soil is badly affected due to the decline in the organic matter, by the imposing of various harmful chemicals on soil, by destroying earthworms and various micro-organisms in soil, by heavy erosion and in other ways, then the balance of various nutrients in soil is badly disrupted and the nutrition of various food and fodder crops grown in this is also badly disrupted. This cannot be made up by artificial additives. Hence maintaining good soil health and maintaining organic matter of soil are very important in themselves ( it is  increasingly realized that this is also very important for checking climate change  ) but in addition this is also very important for maintaining proper nutrition content of food , as soil is ultimately the greatest and most important source and resource of all farming.

When soil quality is badly impeded in a society of poor people, this leads to very disastrous nutrition results as many people are eating less than needed and whatever they are eating is also deficient  in nutrition due to soil-related factors ( as well as perhaps other factors as well). In rich societies as people are eating a lot, they may make up nutrition deficiencies  but in their case soil-related adverse factors may be reflected in disease.

Secondly a somewhat related factor is that balanced time-honored, traditional diets are fast being replaced by other foods. In India, for example the daal-roti and daal-bhaat traditional diet makes very sound nutritious sense which also relates beautifully and organically to soil-health. For example the proteins and other nutrients of important cereals and legumes often complement each other and hence make for a balanced diet, a scientific fact which is affirmed by common people every day as they find it more nourishing to eat these foods together rather than separately. In terms of soil health , in farming this corresponds to mixed farming of, for example, wheat and gram, or other mixed farming systems and rotations of cereals and legumes, as nutrients needed by cereals are provided free and effortlessly by nitrogen-fixing abilities of legume crops. Unfortunately, these balances of nutrition systems and their organic relationships with soil health have been neglected in recent times.

Instead the official food security system and public distribution system in India gives unbalanced, one-sided importance to just two cereal crops , neglecting pulses and millets, which in turn pushes poorer families towards a more unbalanced diet, leading not just to malnutrition but even higher possibilities of disease. Nutritionally some of the richest millet crops have been increasingly neglected, a fact which has proved costly also for soil health. Such trends towards malnutrition have of course been accentuated by the increasing arrival of packaged junked food even in many poorer households, particularly in urban households.

A frequently neglected factor not just in market-purchased and packaged food but sometimes even in food cooked at home  and even nutrition centers is the quality of cooking/edible oil. Unfortunately the use of hydrogenated edible oils, which convert healthy and useful unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats in oilseeds to unhealthy and harmful saturated fats has spread widely as this is promoted as cheaper oil in attracted ways by powerful agribusiness companies. In addition some of the cheaper imported oils( including possibility of  GM oils) are also not good for health. The domestically produced GM cottonseed oil, obtained from Bt. cotton, is widely used in some markets for making snacks and namkeens. It will be useful to know and monitor how healthy are the oils  used in our nutrition programs, as preparing safe healthy food is particularly important for small children as well as pregnant and lactating mothers.

All these factors are important but an even more important fact is the simple and very sad reality that a very large number of households in India ( and in several other  countries ) simply cannot afford  adequate and nutritionally balanced food for all family members on a regular basis. Their number is likely to be increasing and will increase more in times of climate change. Even the landless farm workers who toil the hardest directly in producing this food cannot afford this. As long as this very sad reality persists, only nutrition schemes by themselves cannot fill the gap in nutrition; we simply need more justice and equality in the world and ultimately this is the most important fact for ending hunger and malnutrition.

UK: Pandemic hits working class hardest due to deep social inequality

Robert Stevens

The Fifth National Congress Resolution of the Socialist Equality Party (UK) noted, “The working class has paid a heavy price for the collusion of Labour and the TUC [Trades Union Congress] with the Tories and the employers. The virus is a poor man’s disease. Those in the most deprived communities were more than twice as likely to die as those in the wealthiest districts, and males in manual jobs four times more likely to die than those in professional occupations."

This analysis is confirmed to devastating effect in the report, “Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review--The Pandemic, Socioeconomic and Health Inequalities in England”. Produced by the Institute of Health Equity at University College London (UCL) and the Health Foundation, the 221-page report confirms that the disease impacts most severely on the working class.

The report, "Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review--The Pandemic, Socioeconomic and Health Inequalities in England"

“There are clear differences in risks of mortality related to occupation,” it notes. “Being in a key worker role, unable to work from home and being in close proximity to others put people at higher risk. Occupations at particularly high risk include those in the health and social care, as well as those requiring elementary skills such as security guards and bus and taxi drivers.”

Lead author Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology at UCL and director of the Institute of Health Equity, and a leading authority on health inequalities for over four decades. A former president of the World Medical Association and the author of The Health Gap—The Challenge of an Unequal World, Marmot has published valuable studies and lectured on health inequalities in the UK, the United States and Australia .

His report explains, “England had higher mortality from COVID-19 and higher excess deaths in the first half of 2020 than other European countries for which comparable data are available.” The reason for this is because the working class has been under systematic assault over decades, leading to a gutting of living standards and the wholesale destruction of essential health and social protections:

“Not only does England vie with Spain for the dubious distinction of having the highest excess mortality rate from COVID-19 in Europe, but the economic hit is among the most damaging in Europe too. The mismanagement during the pandemic, and the unequal way the pandemic has struck, is of a piece with what happened in England in the decade from 2010.”

Sir Michael Marmot, NHS Confederation annual conference and exhibition 2010 - Liverpool ACC (credit: NHS Confederation - Flickr: Sir Michael Marmot)

The UK has suffered over 65,000 COVID-19 deaths according to government figures, but the true death toll is over 76,000. It fared so badly because of the class war austerity measures waged by successive governments.

The report notes, “Government policies of austerity succeeded in reducing public expenditure in the decade before the pandemic. Among the effects were regressive cuts in spending by local government including in adult social care, failure of health care spending to rise in accord with demographic and historical patterns, and cuts in public health funding. These were in addition to cuts in welfare to families with children, cuts in education spending per school student, and closure of Children’s Centres. England entered the pandemic with its public services in a depleted state and its tax and benefit system regeared to the disadvantage of lower income groups.”

Income inequality led to health inequality. “Health had stopped improving, and there was a high prevalence of the health conditions that increase case fatality ratios of COVID-19… The unequal conditions into which COVID-19 arrived contributed to the high and unequal death toll from COVID-19 in England.”

The “governance and political culture both before and during the pandemic have damaged social cohesion and inclusiveness, undermined trust, de-emphasised the importance of the common good, and failed to take the political decisions that would have recognised health and well-being of the population as priority.”

Prior to the pandemic “health was deteriorating, life expectancy stalling and health inequalities widening. Socioeconomic inequalities played a big part in these adverse health conditions in the decade before 2020.”

Marmot’s work historically has focused on the impact of de-industrialisation, forcing millions who live in former industrial heartlands into a life of poverty. The report states, “[T]he close association between underlying health, deprivation, occupation and ethnicity and COVID-19 have made living in more deprived areas in some regions particularly hazardous. Mortality has been particularly high in the North West and North East since the end of the first wave.”

Over the past decade, “Cuts to local government… were regressive, with more deprived local authorities experiencing greater cuts than wealthier areas. From 2009 to 2020, net expenditure per person in local authorities in the 10 percent most deprived areas fell by 31 percent, compared with a 16 percent decrease in the least deprived areas. In North East England spending per person fell by 30 percent, compared with cuts of 15 percent in the South West. Cuts to public services were also regressive and negatively impacted more deprived areas the most. In some areas, which we call ‘ignored places’, by the start of 2020 deprivation was entrenched and deepening.”

The report links deaths among BAME groups directly to the occupations they are employed in and entrenched social inequality these communities face. While the authors state their belief that racism is a factor, class issues related to employment and living conditions predominate.

Explaining why “mortality risks from COVID-19 are much higher among many BAME groups than White people in England,” it notes, “BAME groups are proportionately represented in more deprived areas and high-risk occupations, and these risks are the result of longstanding inequalities and structural racism.”

It states, “As well as social care being one of the occupations with the highest rates of mortality from COVID-19, the crisis has exposed the pre-existing difficult conditions and low pay in this sector. In the UK there are more than 900,000 people working in frontline social care roles as their main job. A high proportion are women (83 percent) and 18 percent are BAME compared with 12 percent for all occupations. One in 10 care workers is on a zero-hours contract and 70 percent earn less than £10 an hour (38). The proportion of care workers on low wages is highest in the North of England, which is also the region whose care homes have been the most affected by COVID-19.”

Many BAME workers also live in poorer areas in multi-generational households.

One of the main strengths of the study is its detailing of how the pandemic has accelerated a social crisis that has already devastated the lives of millions.

“As we set out in this report, COVID-19 has exposed and amplified the inequalities we observed in our 10 Years On report and the economic harm caused by containment measures—lockdowns, tier systems, social isolation measures—will further damage health and widen health inequalities. Inequalities in COVID-19 mortality rates follow a similar social gradient to that seen for all causes of death and the causes of inequalities in COVID-19 are similar to the causes of inequalities in health more generally…

“The COVID-19 pandemic and associated containment measures have led to declining incomes and an increasingly precarious financial position for many, which has exacerbated already concerning levels of poverty, debt and financial insecurity in England.”

The UK is depicted as torn asunder by class divisions. “The last decade was marked by low and stagnating wage growth and increases in rates of poverty for people in work and for children. There were associated rapid increases in food poverty and homelessness. The introduction of the living wage did not prevent poverty among working people, while the new Universal Credit limits to benefit entitlements and changes to the tax and benefit system were regressive and resulted in widening income and wealth inequalities. Incomes for wealthier people and regions increased markedly—buoyed by rising house prices and share values, and the relatively low levels of taxes.”

The precipitous decline of living standards accelerated during the pandemic:

· “Household income (from all sources, including wages, benefits, assets and savings) fell in the UK in April 2020, following the outbreak of the pandemic. Changes to the benefits system, introduced to support households, did reduce the impact on the lowest-income groups, but when these changes are reversed in March 2021 there will be great financial and health harm to those groups. People on a low income but who are not reliant solely on benefits have experienced large declines in their income.”

· “A higher proportion of people earning less than £20,000 reported receiving a reduced income than those in the higher income brackets”.

· “As a result of COVID-19, inequalities in wealth will widen even beyond their high level pre-pandemic. One-third of families in the top income quintile saved more than usual in the first two months of the pandemic, whereas lower-income families were more likely to have taken on additional debt and 50 percent of people with savings under £1,000 had used them to cover everyday expenses.”

· “Prior to the pandemic, food insecurity was already of significant concern in the UK and the Trussell Trust found that an estimated 8–10 percent of households had experienced either moderate or severe food insecurity between 2016 and 2018. These levels have risen considerably during the pandemic as a result of loss of income, school closures and the additional costs of having children at home. During March to August 2020, four million people in households with children experienced food insecurity--14 percent of households--up from 12 percent before the pandemic.”

Marmot’s report proposes dozens of recommendations that should be carried to reverse the results of a social counter-revolution. But these are all addressed to the very government than has waged this offensive against the working class. There will be no change of heart by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his gang of political criminals. Indeed, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s November spending review is acknowledged as leading to “a reduction of £10 billion in ‘normal public sector spending’ next year. Public sector pay outside the NHS will be frozen, and the temporary boost of £20 a week to Universal Credit is not set to continue beyond March 2021.”

Nothing is to be spared from cuts. “There are growing calls to reform social care pay to create parity with NHS pay but the November 2020 spending review subjected care workers to a pay freeze.”

Tens of millions of people, living in the fifth richest country on the planet, are suffering levels of social distress without precedent since the 1930s. This situation is entirely the responsibility of the pro-capitalist Labour Party and their partners in the trade union bureaucracy, who have collaborated in the greatest transfer of wealth from the working class to Britain’s oligarchy in history—leaving the UK the social wasteland and playground for the rich outlined in Marmot’s report.

When David Cameron’s Tory government began his “age of austerity” programme in 2010, he was not only acting in the spirit of Margaret Thatcher, but continuing the austerity of the Brown Labour government which had just overseen a £1 trillion bailout of the UK’s banks following the 2008 global financial crash.

None of this changed with the election of the nominally left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell were opposed to fighting the spending cuts imposed by the Tories and instructed Labour councils running virtually every major urban conurbation to impose “legal”, “balanced” budgets.

The bipartisan assault on workers livelihoods has continued throughout the pandemic, before and after Corbyn was replaced as Labour leader by Sir Keir Starmer. The suppression of all opposition in the working class to the Tories’ “back-to-work/back-to-school” drive by the trade unions and Labour has claimed tens of thousands of lives and will claim tens of thousands more.

German government increases military spending, cuts education and health care

Johannes Stern

The 2021 federal budget passed last week makes clear the priorities of the ruling class: not the health and lives of working people, but the interests of German imperialism at home and abroad. While the budgets for health, education and social affairs have been massively cut compared to this year, spending on the military and the security apparatus continues to rise.

Next year, for example, the defence budget will be increased by a further €1.3 billion to €46.93 billion. It has thus increased by almost €15 billion since 2014. In fact, it is even higher. The German government had already reported defence spending of over €50 billion to NATO for this year, as numerous military expenditures are hidden in other budget items. Money for the federal Interior Ministry, led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), will also be increased to €18.46 billion. This is almost €3 billion more than this year (€15.67 billion).

German army troops deployed during COVID-19 pandemic (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

The additional billions for the security forces and the military are just the start of a massive arms offensive. The economic stimulus package adopted by the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in early May already included €10 billion for “new armaments projects with a high proportion of German value-added.” In the new defence budget, €7.72 billion is earmarked for military procurement, which will swallow up billions more in the coming years: for 2021 alone, €350 million have been earmarked for the procurement of the A400M wide-body transport aircraft, €442 million for the Puma infantry fighting vehicle, €998 million for the acquisition of new Eurofighter fighter jets and €379 million for the construction of the multi-role Combat Ship 180.

While billions are being spent on militarism and war, cuts are being made in education, health and social welfare. The budget for education and research is to fall by €70 million next year to €20.24 billion. The cuts in the other two departments are even more severe. For example, the budget for the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will fall by €5.7 billion (!) to €164.92 billion, and the budget for the Ministry of Health by €5.95 billion (!) to €35.3 billion.

The so-called coronavirus bailout packages passed in March, and the 2020 supplementary budget, were always primarily billion-euro gifts for big business and the banks. Now, even the minimal additional spending that had been earmarked for pandemic control is being reversed. In addition, the new budget prepares even more comprehensive social attacks. “We must also always remember what public debt means,” Chancellor Merkel warned in her government statement on the budget. “It means, of course, burdening future budgets, it means the need to pay it back, and it means restrictions on future spending and future generations.”

The entire Bundestag (parliamentary) debate underscored that the ruling class sees the pandemic primarily as an opportunity to advance its policies of militarism, strengthening the repressive powers of the state at home and imposing social austerity.

Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) praised the budget as a “visible sign saying thank you to our troops at home and abroad, not only to give them warm words but also to make clear as budget legislators: The Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) are important to us, we stand by them, we put our money where our mouth is.” By this, she means preparing for new wars and crimes. She used the main part of her speech to “very briefly describe why we need armed drones.” Like the Americans, she said, the Bundeswehr needed to be able to “take out” enemy positions from the air.

In a fascist tirade, Martin Hohmann, who was expelled from the CDU in 2004 for an anti-Semitic speech, and now sits on the Bundestag’s defence committee as a deputy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), called on the grand coalition to implement its rearmament and war plans even more aggressively. He defended the right-wing terrorist networks and practices in the elite Special Forces Command (KSK), saying, “Of course, in such a unit there is a special kind of communication, of rituals and a sometimes coarse humour. There are sometimes pig heads flying at a party.” Ultimately, however, “these fighters” were “ready to go into action for Germany and German interests at any time and to stake their lives for others.”

He appealed to Kramp-Karrenbauer, “Madam Minister, please don’t let yourself be infected by the hysteria of the general campaign against the right! Do not unsettle these men!”

The grand coalition has long been putting this right-wing extremist party’s policies into practice, protecting far-right networks in the army and police. From the outset, Kramp-Karrenbauer’s planned restructuring of the KSK was aimed at organizing this elite force, riddled with neo-fascists, to be more effective in pursuing the interests of German imperialism externally and suppressing growing social opposition at home.

In essence, the supposedly left-wing opposition parties also support this course. Their speakers also beat the drum for strengthening German foreign and war policies and increasing police powers.

Green Party defence policy spokesman Tobias Lindner said, “We need ground-based air defence; we have one right now that requires modernization.” Moreover, he said, the Bundeswehr has heavy transport helicopters “that are over 40 years old—new ones are urgently needed,” fleet service boats “that we need to replace promptly,” and plenty of “old materiel that is falling apart at the seams” and needed to be replaced “with new, functioning materiel.” He said one must “really ask whether this coalition and where this coalition is setting the right priorities.”

Left Party spokesman Michael Leutert expressed similar views. “We have a fundamental problem; because German foreign policy is simply no longer visible,” he said. He said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (Social Democratic Party SPD) had “recently failed as head of the foreign ministry to position Germany strategically in such a way that the Federal Republic remains capable of acting.” The world, he said, “has been undergoing rapid and dramatic change for years, with all the effects that are well known. Shifts in power, the breaking away of international certainties.” This made it even more important to define “a strategic framework for action” that “naturally has our interests in mind.”

In his speech, Victor Perli, who sits on the Budget Committee for the Left Party, bragged about how he had advocated arming the police. He said he had “a tough debate in the committee” with the (notoriously right-wing) Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) over the issue. “But there is a happy ending: thanks to the efforts of the Left Party, 2,000 federal police officers are now enjoying winter boots. That’s nice news for once.”

The deadly impact of US college reopenings in the fall, a balance sheet

Genevieve Leigh

As the university and college campuses in the US begin to wrap up the fall semester, the devastating impact of campus reopenings for in-person classes in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century is becoming ever more clear.

According to new data collected by the New York Times, American college campuses have officially reported nearly 400,000 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in March. More than 85 campuses have reported at least 1,000 cases each—with some registering well over 5,000. More than 75,000 of the cases have come since early November alone.

Those cases include more than 90 deaths involving college employees and students.

Students wear masks on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Contrary to many nefarious statements from school administrators seeking to shift the blame of the outbreaks on students, spread of the virus on campuses has very little to do with misguided social gatherings or partying. The conditions in student dormitories, and even off campus housing, are simply not conducive to proper social distancing.

Furthermore, according to census data, more than 1.1 million undergraduates work in health-related occupations, including more than 700,000 who serve as nurses, medical assistants and health care aides in their communities, putting them at higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

As was predicted well before the fall semesters began, the spread of the virus among students and faculty was not contained to college campuses. Towns and cities with colleges that reopened for in-person learning, or which, for one reason or another, allowed large numbers of students to return to their dorms, quickly become some of the worst hot spots in the country.

The Times data comprises an analysis of more than 200 counties with substantial college student populations. According to the data, the overall COVID-19 deaths have risen faster in these counties than elsewhere in the country. In fact, deaths in those counties have doubled since the end of August, compared with a 58-percent increase elsewhere.

The experience over the last four months in the schools, both K-12 and college campuses, have produced incontrovertible evidence that in-person learning has led to an increase in community spread, hospitalizations and deaths.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham logged 972 cases, amounting to roughly four percent of the student population, by September 1, less than two weeks after the start of classes. Before opening, the university had claimed that an expansion of “in-house” university-owned testing, combined with rudimentary tracking and mask wearing would prevent an outbreak. The outcome of the Alabama “experiment” proved to be a complete disaster. The city of Birmingham in particular, and the state of Alabama as a whole, became leading coronavirus hot spots by mid-September.

The University of Iowa and Iowa State University, about two hours apart from each other, were both home to massive outbreaks of COVID-19. In Story County, where Iowa State is located, almost 4,000 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 by the end of September. The University of Iowa alone reported a staggering 1,804 total cases by September 15. Subsequently, Iowa held one of the top positions in the country for the worst outbreak of the pandemic per capita for the last two weeks of September. Colleges and universities in Iowa have since reported a total of 9,031 cases at 27 schools and counting.

San Diego State University’s reopening plans led to more than 700 COVID-19 cases among students within the first month of reopening. By November, the total number of cases among students since the start of fall instruction reached more than 1,700. As students began testing positive in large numbers, the university put hundreds of students into “isolation dorms” with no more than 10 minutes to pack-up after staff in hazmat suits arrived at their doors.

On the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, nearly 2,000 graduate student instructors, with widespread support from faculty, student workers, and the community at large, went on strike against the administration’s reopening plans. After the strike was abruptly shut down on September 16, at the behest of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), cases on the campus skyrocketed. In October, county health authorities were forced to order the whole campus to shelter in place.

This exercise could be repeated for almost every single university and college campus in the US, and in fact, internationally. In every case, the university administrations, backed by local and state politicians, played criminal roles in supporting reopening plans, downplaying outbreaks, and scapegoating students.

As a result of this reckless reopening of schools, and the economy more broadly, the pandemic is now raging out of control in the US.

This week, the US passed the grim milestone of 300,000 deaths. Nearly 3,000 people are dying every day. Hospitals and Intensive Care Units (ICUs) are being overwhelmed throughout the country. Nurses and doctors are being forced to make the choice of who will receive care and who will not. And new cases continue to rise each day.

Despite the dire state of the pandemic, the deadly experience of the fall semester, and the immense amount of scientific evidence advising against reopening, many colleges are still planning to bring thousands of students back after Christmas break in January for the spring semester.

Princeton University, for example, is offering dormitory space to thousands of undergraduates, a tenfold increase from last semester. The University of California, San Diego is expecting to board more than 11,000 students in campus housing—about 1,000 more than it housed in the fall. Harvard is expecting to double the number of students on campus in the spring compared to the fall. Cornell University expects about 19,500 students will be living on or around campus in Ithaca, New York.

The reopening of campuses amid the mass death taking place across the country is nothing short of criminal, particularly when one considers that coronavirus vaccines are expected to be widely available around the time of the end of the spring semester.

In other words, with a medical solution to the pandemic in sight, colleges and universities are taking action that will serve to maximize the number of deaths before it can be realized.

Behind this reckless decision is a broader campaign, spearheaded by the Trump administration but supported by both Democrats and Republicans, to reopen the economy and prevent any loss in corporate profits. There is no doubt that in the fall universities were also driven by profit concerns (having in mind tuition, college sports, dormitory real estate contracts etc.), prioritizing their bottom line over the health and safety of students and the broader community.

Now with Democratic president-elect Joe Biden ready to take office on January 20, the same deadly policy is being pursued. In a speech last week, Biden stated that reopening schools would be a “national priority.”

Opposition to the reopening of schools in the spring, both on the college level as well as K-12, is already beginning to forcefully emerge among students and faculty.

Over 70 faculty members at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill signed an open letter this week, published in the student newspaper, that predicted a repeat of the fall debacle in the spring. “We have every reason to expect that the university will—once again—be overwhelmed by infections when classes resume,” the letter said.

Anger and frustration among students at the University of Michigan has only increased since the shutdown of their strike, often erupting in fierce denunciations of the administration in public meetings. These sentiments are shared by students, teachers, and school staff throughout the country and around the world.

As for K-12, the World Socialist Web Site has facilitated the creation of rank - and - file safety committees, independent of the corporate-controlled trade unions, in dozens of cities to organize educators and students in the fight back.

As the spring semester approaches, there is no doubt that hundreds of college, university and K-12 campuses throughout the US will once again emerge as central battlegrounds in the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In this fight, teachers, students, faculty, and staff stand on one side of the barricade, fighting for an end to the reckless policies of in-person learning, for resources to be allocated for safety measures and online learning, and for policies based on science, that put life over profit.

On the other side of this fight stand the university administrations, the corporate-controlled trade unions and both the Democrats and Republicans.

Kia auto workers in South Korea launch week-long strike action

Ben McGrath

Auto workers at Kia Motors have struck again this week, their fourth industrial action within the past month. Workers stopped work last week from Wednesday to Friday and are demanding improvements in pay and other working conditions in a situation where the auto companies and the unions are attempting to impose wage freezes throughout the industry.

South Korean autoworkers strike last year

Workers began their latest strike on Monday and it will last until Friday. Both the day and night shifts at all three of Kia’s plants in Gwangmyeong, Hwaseong, and Gwangju will strike for four hours each on Monday through Thursday and then for six hours each on Friday. Workers are demanding a 120,000 won ($109) monthly wage increase, 30 percent of the company’s operating profits as bonuses, and raising the retirement age from 60 to 65. They are also demanding the restoration of 30 minutes of guaranteed overtime, which the company has rejected as too costly.

Instead, Kia is attempting to freeze wages while offering bonuses totaling as much as 150 percent of monthly wages as “performance-based” pay. In addition, Kia would also pay 1.2 million won ($1,097) as part of a COVID-19 package while providing 200,000 won ($183) in gift certificates. According to media reports, the Kia branch of the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) has reached an agreement with the company on these issues, but has still not reached an agreement on the additional overtime.

Kia workers should place no faith in the KMWU to bargain honestly on their behalf. As they walk off the job, the KMWU is attempting to force workers at General Motors Korea to accept a similar sellout contract, while isolating workers and their struggles at the two companies from one another. GM Korea workers are voting this week on whether or not to accept a tentative deal that is similar to the one they already rejected on December 1.

Looming over the heads of GM Korea workers is also the threat that GM will move operations out of the country, resulting in thousands of job losses, despite previously signing agreements to keep production in South Korea until 2028. That agreement, accepted by the KMWU, resulted in the closure of GM Korea’s factory in Gunsan.

The current deals are similar to the one already imposed on Hyundai Motors workers in September. It included a wage freeze for only the third time in the union’s history. The KMWU is making clear that it is on the side of management and the exploitative capitalist system, a fact that becomes all the more evident during the economic crisis facing the working class.

Throughout 2020, workers in South Korea have faced massive job losses and wage cuts. In the third quarter of 2020, monthly earnings for the bottom 20 percent income bracket fell 1.1 percent to 1.63 million won ($1,490) from the previous year while the second lowest bracket also saw a 1.3 percent drop. On the other hand, the monthly income of the top 20 percent rose 2.9 percent, to 10.39 million won ($10,000).

The official unemployment rate, which drastically undercounts the underemployed, rose to 3.7 percent in October, the highest in two decades for that month. Officially, 1.03 million people were out of work as of that month. The overall number of economically inactive increased by 508,000 to 16.74 million people. Young adults between 15 and 29 are especially hard hit, with the official unemployment rate at 8.3 percent. The actual unemployment rate skyrockets to 24.4 percent when the underemployed and economically inactive are taken into account.

In short, President Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea, who came to power posturing as a friend of the working class, has overseen widening social inequality and worsening working conditions. His government has defended the wealthy and the capitalist class no less than his conservative predecessors Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013-2017).

The KMWU is taking an active role in this attack on the working class as the largest union within the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The KCTU is one of the two leading umbrella trade union organizations in South Korea, the other being the yellow Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU). While the FKTU openly collaborates with the government and management, the KCTU postures as militant, and at times, even anti-capitalist. This is entirely fraudulent.

In fact, the KCTU bears direct political responsibility for the policies of the Moon administration, having helped elect the president in May 2017 by portraying him as a progressive alternative to the despised Park Geun-hye, who was ousted following mass protests. The KCTU worked to ensure the protests would stay within the confines of bourgeois politics.

Throughout the course of Moon’s administration, the unions have held only four mass protests, the most recent on November 25. These have been staged in order to allow workers to let off steam and to convince workers that the current government can be pressured to adopt worker friendly policies.

Furthermore, economic disaster facing the working class did not begin with the COVID-19 pandemic, but widespread restructuring was underway in numerous industries like auto manufacturing and shipbuilding. Hyundai Motors already planned to slash as many as 10,000 jobs last year. Retail giant Lotte announced tens of thousands of job cuts just prior to the pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and the corporate assault on the working class intensified, the KCTU promoted the government’s COVID-19 economic measures in March. It claimed that any negative impacts on workers were nothing more than unforeseen “blind spots” that could be resolved through “special labor supervision” and the KCTU’s collaboration with the government.

Over the summer, the KCTU gave de facto support to a “tripartite agreement” between the government, big business, and the unions, which approved job and wage cuts as well as other cost saving measures.

Workers at Kia and GM Korea must take their struggles beyond the confines imposed on them by the unions. This requires the building of independent rank-and-committees that will unite auto workers with their class brothers and sisters throughout South Korea and internationally, who face the same assaults on their working conditions and livelihoods. Such a struggle has to be based on a socialist perspective in opposition to big business, government and the unions, which all rely on and defend the capitalist system.

Almost 1,000 daily COVID-19 deaths in Germany: The criminal outcome of keeping businesses and schools open

Christoph Vandreier

The campaign to reopen businesses and schools in Germany amid a raging pandemic has led to a massive resurgence of COVID-19 in the country, with a record 952 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday. Despite these horrendous figures, all parties in the Bundestag (parliament) continue to put profit before lives and health. The so-called “hard lockdown,” which came into force yesterday, mainly protects the economy and does not go nearly far enough to save tens of thousands of lives.

With the recent highs, a total of 23,427 people have been confirmed to have died from COVID-19 in Germany. If the numbers remain at this level, Germany could reach 40,000 deaths before the end of the year. It is more likely that they will be much higher, as the country’s hospitals are already on the verge of collapse.

In Zittau, Saxony, a hospital director explained that in the last few days, his facility has already been forced to decide who is to be connected to ventilators and who is to be denied necessary treatment. Nursing homes are turning into death wards as these profit-oriented, cash-starved institutions do not even take rudimentary protective measures.

People walk in a shopping road in Cologne Germany, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020 during a spike in new cases of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Germany has long been advanced as a model for how to deal with the pandemic. Now, the daily death toll per capita in Germany has risen significantly higher than in the United States, the epicentre of the pandemic, where President Trump embodies like no other the ruthlessness of the ruling class and its anti-scientific ignorance.

Germany’s policy, despite all the concerned rhetoric, differs little from that of the White House, neither in its criminal methods nor in its deadly consequences. The federal and state governments of all stripes accept tens of thousands of deaths in order to protect the profits of major banks and corporations.

In the last few months, they refused to close any businesses. They kept schools open and even refused to restrict classes in schools, despite rapidly increasing numbers of infections. Workers were to be available to the companies without restrictions despite the pandemic. Thus, with the support of the trade unions and all the bourgeois parties, infection figures were pushed up, producing the terrible situation that is now claiming thousands of lives.

Only when anger grew in workplaces and strikes and protests were organised at dozens of schools did the government feel compelled to act, though largely symbolically. Last week, the ZDF Politbarometer polls showed that 73 percent of the population favoured the closure of schools and daycare centres and a far-reaching lockdown of the economy in order to contain the pandemic, which 84 percent of respondents considered to be the most important political problem they face.

However, the “hard lockdown,” which was subsequently decided on Sunday and came into force on Wednesday, does not even begin to do justice to the demands of the population and the necessities of the pandemic.

As before, the government is not closing a single business, besides in the retail sector. For workers to be able to work in the businesses that are kept open, schools across Germany are also not being closed; only compulsory attendance is suspended. In Berlin, Education Minister Scheeres even wants to offer childcare in schools during the Christmas holidays. In Austria, a similar approach led to attendance in primary schools of up to 50 percent.

Daycare centres are kept open in regular operation in many places. This is because, unlike the lockdown this spring, parents working in non-essential jobs can also use “emergency care.” Not only are many workers themselves forced to work in dangerous establishments, but they also have to expose their children to a high risk of infection in unsafe facilities.

With this policy, the ruling class in Germany is once again putting the profit interests of the financial oligarchy above social need. While the death toll rises, a small elite is earning fabulous fortunes. The German DAX stock market index has risen more than 60 percent since its low of March 18, reaching 13,546 points yesterday, Wednesday. In addition, a large part of the economic stimulus packages, amounting to hundreds of billions of euros, went to the big banks and corporations. On the other hand, new figures show 40 percent of the population suffered income losses, with workers earning less than €1,500 a month hit particularly hard.

The costs of the pandemic are to be passed on to the working class. Chancellor Angela Merkel categorically ruled out a wealth levy in parliament on Wednesday, making clear the super-rich will not be asked to contribute a penny to combating the pandemic. Last week, the Bundestag had already decided on massive budget cuts to health and education sectors in 2021, while military spending will be further increased.

The same ruthless policies that have led to horrendous death tolls in Germany are being pursued by the ruling class across Europe.

In the UK, schools and universities have been open continuously and without restrictions since September. As a result, infection and death rates immediately spiked again after the November partial shutdown, now standing at around 20,000 and 500 a day, respectively. Since November 12, the seven-day average of daily Corona deaths has never dropped below 400. In total, more than 65,000 people have already died from COVID-19 in the UK.

In France, the Macron government on Tuesday ended the partial lockdown introduced at the end of October, even though daily new cases are still far over the official target of 5,000. Yesterday, more than 17,000 new infections and 412 deaths were registered in France. Nonetheless, businesses and schools remain open. Macron has advised people to take children out of school two days early to comply with the quarantine before visiting family. Few workers can do that, however, as they are still forced into unsafe workplaces.

In Italy, which was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, mortality in 2020 is the highest since 1944, the penultimate year of the Second World War, with over 700,000 deaths.

The bankruptcy of capitalism leads to barbarism and mass death everywhere. The pandemic is exacerbating the crisis of a social system that can only survive through constant cash transfers to the financial markets and intensified exploitation in the factories.

Resistance is growing across Europe to this policy of death. In Germany, students are protesting the closure of schools. In Italy, 3 million public workers went on strike on December 9 against unsafe and poor working conditions. In Spain, thousands of doctors and nurses demonstrated against planned budget cuts in the health sector on November 29; two weeks later, educators and teachers went on strike in Portugal. In Greece, hundreds of thousands of workers brought public services to a standstill on November 26. Then there are the mass protests against the French police law.

It is crucial to unite these struggles, to conduct them under a socialist perspective and to develop them into a struggle against the rotten capitalist system. This means a conscious break with the social-democratic parties and trade unions through the formation of independent rank-and-file committees and the building of a new revolutionary leadership.

“The fight workers face against COVID-19 is an international political struggle against the capitalist system and a policy of mass death deliberately pursued by the financial aristocracy,” the European sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International declared at the end of September in the face of the opening policy, warning:

“After the premature lifting of lockdowns imposed this spring, the drive by European governments to fully reopen schools, workplaces and public gathering places has paved the way for a devastating resurgence of the virus. ... Only the mobilisation of the working class across Europe in an international general strike can halt the back-to-school and back-to-work drives launched by the European Union (EU), impose lockdowns to achieve social distancing, and prevent a horrific loss of life.”

Eight million plunged into poverty since US coronavirus aid ended

Patrick Martin

The cutoff of federal supplemental unemployment benefits in July has driven eight million Americans into poverty in the ensuing five months, according to a study published Wednesday by the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame.

The increase of 2.4 percentage points in the poverty rate, in the space of only five months, is the fastest increase since the US government began collecting figures on poverty in 1960. It is twice the size of the worst previous increase, during the 1979–1980 oil crisis.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, speaks to the media after the Republican’s weekly Senate luncheon, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020 at the Capitol in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP)

The increase in poverty is greater for African Americans (3.1 percentage points) and for those with only a high school education or less (5.1 percentage points). The biggest increases in poverty were found in those states with the most primitive unemployment compensation systems, such as Florida.

Even these figures grossly understate the colossal impact of the coronavirus pandemic on working-class living standards. The official US poverty line stands at $26,200 for a family of four, an income that would leave such a family homeless or near starvation in most major US metropolitan areas.

The study confirms that driving workers and their families into poverty is the deliberate policy of the US government and the two corporate-controlled political parties. The bipartisan CARES Act, adopted in March, led to a significant decline in poverty during the first three months of the pandemic.

The $600-a-week federal supplemental benefit and other subsidies, such as the one-time $1,200-per-person check from the Treasury, were more than many workers had received in low-paying jobs which they lost because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Once the back-to-work drive began in May, employers began to complain that workers would not go back to their jobs, mainly out of fear of contracting coronavirus, but in part because they would actually lose money. Senate Republicans and the Trump administration blocked any extension of the federal benefit past the July 31 deadline which they had agreed on with the Democrats, and the federal supplement expired, leaving most workers with nothing more than state unemployment compensation.

US state-paid unemployment insurance is among the worst of any industrialized country and expires after six months in most states, and even sooner in some. In many European countries, by contrast, unemployment benefits can last for as long as two years and pay 80 percent of lost wages, while US jobless benefits average only 20 percent.

With workers reduced to benefits as low as $100 a week, the poverty rate accordingly began to increase significantly. As the study details: “Poverty rose by 2.4 percentage points from 9.3 percent in June to 11.7 percent in November, adding 7.8 million to the ranks of the poor.” The increase comes despite the decline in the official unemployment rate from 11.1 percent to 6.7 percent during this period. This latter figure is a dubious one, since millions of workers dropped out of the labor force and are no longer being counted.

The unbridgeable class divisions which have been laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic are documented in another study made public Wednesday. The Washington Post analyzed the financial reports of the 50 largest US companies, and found that while 45 were profitable during the pandemic, 27 nonetheless carried out layoffs, cutting a combined total of 100,000 workers. At the same time, they delivered $240 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends between April and September.

The Post report observed: “The data reveals a split screen inside many big companies this year. On one side, corporate leaders are touting their success and casting themselves as leaders on the road to economic recovery. On the other, many of their firms have put Americans out of work and used their profits to increase the wealth of shareholders.”

One of those “shareholders,” of course, was Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, the richest man in the world, whose personal wealth increased by more than $80 billion while countless small businesses closed their doors permanently—and 300,000 Americans died.

This social catastrophe is set to worsen imminently. Twelve million more workers face a final cutoff of all benefits on December 26, barely a week from now, when special pandemic-related unemployment relief expires for “gig” and other self-employed workers, who are not eligible for state-paid unemployment compensation. Many of these are among the five million renters for whom a moratorium on evictions will expire December 31.

America is headed into a winter of homelessness, hunger, sickness and mass death without any parallel in the country’s history, with not the slightest hint of serious action to forestall it, from either the Trump administration or its Democratic Party replacement under Joe Biden.

The two capitalist parties are wrangling over “stimulus” legislation that is barely even a fig leaf to disguise their indifference to the coming calamities. The latest version of the bill, outlined Wednesday morning, would provide extended benefits of only $300-a-week for a smaller number of unemployed workers, plus a one-time check of $600 per person. Both amounts are half those provided in the CARES Act, although the social need is greater.

The largest chunk of funding would go to various business groups, including $300 billion for the misnamed Paycheck Protection Program, which was heavily skimmed by large corporations, not small businesses, and provides windfall fees for major banks. There will be no money for state and local governments to avert impending mass layoffs of public employees.

Only the intervention of the working class, through protests, strikes and establishment of new and independent forms of mass organization, can provide an alternative. The working class must put forward a revolutionary socialist program based on taking hold of the resources of society, created by the labor of working people, and putting them to use to save lives and prevent mass immiseration.