Over 14 million COVID-19 cases in South Asia

Wimal Perera

South Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population, has seen a surge of COVID-19 cases and deaths in recent weeks. The total number cases now stand at more than 14 million, up by approximately eight percent since March 20—and over 195,000 deaths, a 3.5 percent increase in the same period.

The deadly consequences of this highly infectious disease for the region’s nearly two billion inhabitants are the result of the criminal policies of South Asia’s ruling elites who have placed the profit interests of big business over human life.

A health worker checks the body temperature of a voter outside a polling station during the third phase of assembly election in Gauhati, India, Tuesday, April 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

Having largely ignored the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, governments in South Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—were forced to declare lockdowns in March last year. These ill-prepared lockdowns, however, did not include effective mass testing procedures, contact tracing and adequate financial resources for the underfunded public health care systems and social support for millions of workers who lost their jobs and income.

Like their counterparts internationally, these governments began giving industries the go-ahead to begin reopening in late April. Lacking any real financial support, employees were compelled to return to their workplaces, despite unsafe conditions, paving the way for the current COVID-19 surge.

India is now a regional epicentre of the pandemic, with about 88 percent of total cases and 85 percent of total deaths in South Asia. On Sunday, the daily number of infections in India hit 100,000, a new record, taking the country’s total since the coronavirus struck to over 12.5 million cases with more than 165,000 deaths. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has insisted, however, that his government will not impose another national lockdown.

A recent statement from Modi’s office declared that the central government would maintain its “mission-mode approach in the states and districts reporting high cases so that the collective gains of COVID-19 management over the last 15 months are not squandered.” Modi’s claims of “collective gains” are a fraud—the massive increase of COVID-19 cases through the country is the result of his government’s policies.

The statement declared that there would be a “special campaign for COVID-appropriate behavior” from April 6–14 with “emphasis on 100 percent mask usage, personal hygiene and sanitation at public places, workplaces and health facilities.” In other words, the responsibility for safe and healthy workplaces is being placed on ordinary working people, while big business maintains production and profits.

The Modi government is attempting to cover up its failure to contain the pandemic by claiming that it is carrying out the “world’s largest vaccination program.” The reality is that only five percent of the Indian population has received a COVID-19 vaccination.

Maharashtra remains the most seriously impacted Indian state. On Sunday, it recorded over 57,000 daily COVID-19 cases, a new state record, with Mumbai and Pune the two worst affected cities reporting 11,206 and 12,472 new cases respectively.

While Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has been forced to declare a lockdown, all government offices and other industrial units, including construction sites, are allowed to maintain production at 50 percent capacity. This demonstrates that the Maharashtra government, a coalition of Thackeray’s fascistic Shiv Sena, Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, supported by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India, has no differences with Modi’s criminally inadequate response to the pandemic.

India’s ill-equipped hospitals are being overwhelmed by the current coronavirus surge. On April 1, the BBC reported that the Kasturba Hospital, some 80 kilometres southwest of Nagpur in Maharashtra, one of India’s worst hit cities, is confronting a massive crisis. “The COVID-19 ward with its 100 fewer beds,” it said, “is again filling up fast—170 patients have been admitted in the last couple of weeks, and the 30-bed ICU is packed to the brim with very sick patients. Deaths are climbing.”

Pakistan, which reported 5,020 daily COVID-19 cases on Sunday, has recorded 692,231 overall cases and 14,821 deaths in the past year. The more contagious UK variant is now dominant in the country. Prime Minister Imran Khan, however, has still not imposed a national lockdown.

On Sunday, Khan blandly declared that if the virus “continues to spread like this, it will have a very negative impact, and we will be forced to take strict steps.” He did not elaborate on what those “strict steps” would be. So far health and administrative authorities have only imposed a partial lockdown on affected areas in Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab, and in the northern part of the country.

In Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, infected patients are being turned away from hospitals because of lack of beds. On April 1, the Dawn newspaper reported that the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, which previously received emergency patients from across the country, could not take any more due to lack of beds.

The country’s current vaccination program covers a negligible portion of the population. As of April 1, only 800,000 doses had been administered in a country of 220 million people.

In Bangladesh, the total number of coronavirus cases stands at 637,364 with 9,266 total deaths. On Friday, it recorded nearly 7,000 daily cases, the highest since the outbreak of the pandemic, with 24 percent of those tested for COVID-19 found to be infected.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to declare a weeklong lockdown starting Monday. State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain declared that “industries and factories will remain open,” operating in shifts and supposedly following strict health protocols.

Bangladesh, whose under-resourced hospitals are now being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, has only vaccinated about 5.5 million people, or less than 3.5 percent of its population.

An editorial in Saturday’s Daily Star reported that the Mugda Medical College Hospital, which is dedicated to treating COVID-19, was turning away patients because it had no vacant beds. Health Minister Zahid Malik told the media that if the surge continued, Bangladeshi hospitals will not be able to accommodate and treat patients.

Sri Lanka has reported 93,436 total cases and over 581 deaths in the past 12 months. It is currently conducting just under 10,000 tests per day, one of the lowest in the region, and less than the previous inadequate daily rate between 15,000 and 20,000 tests, despite the threat of new variants spreading in the country.

The rise in COVID-19 cases is because the Rajapakse government has insisted that government offices and industries, as well as schools, should remain open. The country’s vaccination program is chaotic with just over 900,000, or less than 4.5 percent, of the population vaccinated.

German Defence Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer threatens Russia and China in interview

Johannes Stern

In an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced a further increase in military spending and a massive rearmament programme over the coming years. She threatened Russia and China, and underscored German imperialism’s aim of enforcing its economic and geostrategic interests around the world by military means, including independently of and in opposition to the United States.

“First of all, it’s about our own interests and our own security. It was never about doing the United States a favour. We have to ensure our own security,” she noted near the beginning of the interview. “American foreign policy” is “again more dependable” under the new president. However, “key foreign policy areas of focus” remain “under Biden … such as the Indo-Pacific. It is also clear that the issue of burden sharing within NATO remains on the agenda for the United States, even if they now adopt a new style.”

Germany Military Gays

In fact, the Biden administration and the US military are paving the way for a military confrontation with the nuclear powers Russia and China. They have intensified the conducting of provocative “freedom of navigation” exercises in waters claimed by China in the South China Sea and are planning to station offensive missiles along the coastlines of many densely populated islands, including Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Biden has also intensified the war drive against Russia since taking power. In mid-March, he described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “murderer” and threatened retaliatory measures. Since then, the Ukrainian regime of Volodymyr Zelensky, backed by the US, NATO and European Union, has stepped up its war with pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

German imperialism is responding to the threat of a nuclear war with its own major war drive. Amid the pandemic, the ruling class claims there is no money for the necessary protective measures and decent wages for health care workers. Welfare benefits are being cut, and the exploitation of the working class intensified. At the same time, billions of euros are to be funneled into military rearmament.

It is “good” that the army will receive “an additional €2.5 billion for the coming year, stated Kramp-Karrenbauer in the interview. This equates to a five percent increase in defence spending next year to reach €49.3 billion. Even though the defence budget is almost as much as the combined budgets for health and education, the ruling elite remains dissatisfied.

These sums are “nowhere near enough to further develop our capabilities to effectively combat the threats,” complained the defence minister and vowed to further increase defence spending after the September federal election. The “next coalition talks” would be “decisive.” They must “confirm major rearmament projects for the future. Security is a central task for the entire government,” she said.

Behind the backs of the population, the grand coalition government is working on Germany’s largest rearmament programme since the military buildup of the Wehrmacht prior to World War II. They have “presented a consolidated plan of what is necessary for our security,” stated Kramp-Karrenbauer. It “includes the major rearmament projects we have agreed to at the European level and which therefore have priority. These projects—together with the normal defence budget—must be guaranteed under a planning law, because they extend over 10 to 15 years.” They will “certainly need to spend more money.”

The figures and projects dreamt of by Kramp-Karrenbauer and the Defence Ministry are gigantic. “The sum to meet our calculated requirements by 2025 can be measured in tens of billions,” she remarked. “Fifteen armaments projects” have been “named, including their cost.” Along with “German-French projects like FCAS (Future Air Combat Systems) and MGCS (Main Ground Combat System),” these include “the replacement of the Tornado fighter jets, the replacement of out-of-date naval service ships, the purchasing of aircraft for defence against submarines, as well as a tactical air defence system.”

The rearmament is not aimed, as the Defence Minister likes to claim, at ensuring the “security” and “prosperity” of the German population, waging the “war on terror,” or even the enforcement of “women’s rights” and “democracy.” What is involved is the imposition of German imperialism’s interests by military means.

In the interview, Kramp-Karrenbauer defended parliament’s decision in late March to extend the German military intervention in Afghanistan, and prepared readers for a further escalation of combat operations in the Central Asian country. She has “in close consultation with the military leadership, ordered the strengthening of protective measures. Reinforcements, additional armaments, equipment and munitions will be sent there.” She would also have “liked to have armed drones available.”

But the ruling elite’s brutal occupation and plundering of Afghanistan are only the prelude to much wider wars. According to Kramp-Karrenbauer, the army “has learned a great deal from 20 years in Afghanistan.” She desires a “political debate about this whole-of-government intervention.” One is “obliged to do that for those who died or were injured in Afghanistan.” In addition, one must “with regard to the next German intervention, possibly in the Sahel zone, be clearer from the outset on which goals are achievable and which aren’t.”

With the characteristic hubris of the German bourgeoisie, which carried out barbaric crimes during the two world wars with the aim of seizing world power, Kramp-Karrenbauer threatened Russia and China. Russia is “with its arsenal of weaponry, unlike China, a very imminent threat, both with conventional and nuclear weapons.” However, China also has “a very ambitious plan to make its army the largest and most modern in the world.” And it has “evidently the desire to shape the world order in its image so as to force weaker countries in particular to take specific action. We, meaning Europe and the West, cannot afford to be the weaker ones.”

This is unmistakable. Germany and Europe are rearming to impose limits on Beijing and Moscow, up to and including a nuclear war. In this, it is not Russia and China, but the imperialist powers who are the aggressors. NATO has been systematically encircling Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and is now intensifying its hostility towards Beijing. Despite close economic ties between the two countries, Germany is playing an increasingly aggressive role.

After Berlin backed the right-wing coup in Ukraine in 2014 to install a pro-Western regime and weaken Russia, it is turning its attention further to the east. Already last September, the Social Democrat-led Foreign Ministry published a “doctrine for the Indo-Pacific,” which stated: “The Himalayas and the Straits of Melaka may seem far off. But our prosperity and geopolitical influence for the decades to come are based precisely on how we cooperate with Indo-Pacific states.” As a globally active trading nation, Germany cannot “be satisfied with the role of a spectator,” including on military issues.

This policy is now to be implemented. “The situation in the Indo-Pacific certainly interests us,” stressed Kramp-Karrenbauer. Germany will “send a frigate to the Indo-Pacific” in the coming months.” Ultimately, the “respect of rules for free trade and territorial integrity, the strengthening of our democratic partners in the region, like Australia, Japan, and Singapore, is in the German and European interest.” We are “not only talking about the threat to the freedom of sea lanes by China, but actually doing something about it,” she continued.

The deeper cause of the imperialist powers’ ruthless actions is the deep crisis of the capitalist system, which has been vastly intensified by the coronavirus pandemic. Like the murderous “profit before lives” policy, which has claimed the lives of over 75,000 people in Germany alone, the drive to war is being supported by all parties in parliament, including the nominal left.

In its election programme, the Greens plead for a massive rearmament programme for the German army, NATO and the European Union, and threatened Russia and China. And the Left Party long ago made clear that in a potential Social Democrat/Left Party/Green government, it would fully endorse the aggressive foreign policy course.

Ukrainian President Zelensky calls on NATO to step up its military intervention in the Black Sea as Russian press warns of war

Clara Weiss

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg amidst growing tensions with Russia in East Ukraine. Over the past weeks, fighting has escalated in the Donbass region between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists. A civil war has raged there since the 2014 US- and German-backed coup in Kiev, which heavily relied on neo-Nazi forces.

The war has claimed over 14,000 lives and displaced millions. In the past three months, an estimated 40 people have been killed in the clashes. Separatists in East Ukraine claim that at least one child was killed in the fighting this week.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky [Credit: en.kremlin.ru]

Last weekend, Ukraine and NATO announced joint military exercises. Now, Zelensky is calling upon NATO to accelerate Ukraine’s admission to the military alliance. He urged NATO to strengthen its military presence in the Black Sea region, claiming that such a move would act as a “powerful deterrent” to Russia.

Following the meeting, Stoltenberg tweeted: “NATO firmly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty & territorial integrity. We remain committed to our close partnership.”

The meeting with Stoltenberg was preceded on Friday by a call between Zelensky and US President Joe Biden, who assured Ukraine would receive the full backing of Washington. On Monday, the US State Department declared that it found reports of Russian military movements on Ukraine’s border “credible” and demanded that Moscow explain the “provocations.” UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also spoke with Zelensky.

Later on Tuesday, Ukraine’s foreign minister declared that Kiev would not accept an invitation to conduct peace negotiations in Minsk, where they have been taking place since 2015, involving Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.

The accusations of Russian “aggression” and “provocations” stand reality on its head. The conditions for the current escalation were created, above all, by the aggressive moves by US and German imperialism which, since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, have pushed ever closer to Russia’s borders, above all through the eastward expansion of NATO.

In Ukraine, two coups were orchestrated by the imperialist powers in 2004 Donbass region and 2014 to install pro-Western regimes that could play a key role in the war preparations against Russia.

Whatever his promises to fight for a “peace deal,” which played a key role in promoting Zelensky’s election in 2019, he has effectively continued the policies of his predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Last month, the Ukrainian government proclaimed a strategy to “recover Crimea,” a strategically located peninsula in the Black Sea which was annexed by Russia following the 2014 coup. It then approved a new military strategy that focuses on preparing for war against Russia with NATO support.

Two days ago the Russian press reported that Ukraine had gathered an offensive force in the Donbass region and the region around the Crimean isthmus. There have also been numerous unconfirmed reports of Russian troop movements in and near Crimea. Canada and a number of European countries have issued warnings to “be careful when flying over Ukraine.” Canada discouraged its airlines from flying over East Ukraine and Crimea due to the “unstable security situation.”

The escalation of the situation by Kiev is being seized upon to further the anti-Russia campaign in the US and step up military involvement in the region. Ben Hodges, a former commander of US Army in Europe, demanded in the military magazine Defense One, that the US develop a strategy for the entire Black Sea region and make it clear that it is “vital” to American interests. He also called for more aid to Ukraine and strategic exercises in the region. In a similar vein, the foreign policy think tank Atlantic Council demanded that the US supply the Ukrainian Air Force with fighter jets, smart munitions and cruise missiles.

Under Trump, the US had begun delivering weapons to Ukraine, on top of channeling hundreds of millions of dollars into funding the Ukrainian military. In March, a bipartisan group of senators proposed another $300 million aid package.

The US has also played a key role in politically and financially supporting Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces, which in turn have been integrated into the Ukrainian state and government. Zelensky’s minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, is notorious for his ties to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and similar far-right forces which had played a central role in the 2014 coup.

They have since been given virtual free rein to terrorize ethnic minorities and political opponents of the Ukrainian government and the far right. It is also primarily these forces that have been engaged in the fighting in East Ukraine.

The military confrontations in the Black Sea region are taking place in the context of rising geopolitical tensions, especially between the US and China but also between the imperialist powers. And the new Biden administration has embarked on an aggressive military course towards both Russia and China.

Just weeks after taking office, Biden bombed Syria, in a move that targeted not only Iran but also Russia and China. In an extraordinary breach of protocol, the US president called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a killer.” In response, the Kremlin recalled its ambassador to the US.

Fyodor Lukyanov, one of the leading Russian foreign policy pundits with close ties to the Kremlin, commented that this was not enough. He insisted that now was the “time to make a break in US-Russia relations, further engagement is pointless for now.”

In Russia, Zelensky’s moves are seen as open preparations for war and have provoked considerable nervousness. Shamil Gareev, a military expert and reserve officer, told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, “The beginning of the NATO Defender Europe 2021 exercises clearly coincides with the media discussion of possible temporary plans of Kiev to initiate active military actions in the Crimea and Donbass.” He added, “It is not excluded that Kiev will initiate its main strike on the Donbass in May or possibly in early July.”

Others are comparing the situation to the eve of the 2008 Georgian-Russian war, which brought the world to the brink of a confrontation between the US and Russia. The Kremlin has insisted that it does not want war with Ukraine but is now clearly making preparations for such a possibility.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has expressed anger, in particular, at Germany and France, accusing them of doing nothing to “bring Ukraine to its senses.” On Friday, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer called for an even further increase in German military spending in an interview with the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland .

Kramp-Karrenbauer stressed that German military rearmament was not about “doing the US a favor” but rather served “our own interests.” She explicitly referred to China and Russia as the main targets of the buildup, calling Russia “a very palpable threat, both on the level of conventional and atomic [warfare].”

The interview received wide press coverage in Russia and was immediately discussed by the State Duma (Parliament)’s committee for foreign affairs. While most media pundits and politicians tried to downplay it, suggesting that Berlin probably did not consider Moscow an enemy, it clearly raised concern.

In recent months, relations between Russia and Germany have soured considerably as Berlin has taken a leading role in the campaign over the right-wing Putin opponent Alexei Navalny .

There are ongoing conflicts within the German ruling class itself over its policy toward Russia. Many of these conflicts center on the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which the US has sanctioned. In his first meeting with US Secretary of State Blinken, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insisted that Germany would go ahead with the project despite US opposition.

A commentary by Daniel Brössler in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday demanded that, in response to the crisis in Ukraine, “The West must threaten sanctions that hurt.” It continued, “Russia’s show of military force on the border of Ukraine should finally make the EU take a clear stance and act in a deterrent manner, together with the US.” A war between Russia and Ukraine would have to signify the “end of Nord Stream,” he insisted. “At least this must now be clearly stated.”

IMF upgrades growth forecast but “vulnerabilities” remain

Nick Beams

The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its forecast for global economic growth prompting claims, as articulated in the Financial Times, that “most advanced economies will emerge from the coronavirus with little lasting damage,” thanks to the roll out of vaccines and the sharp increase in public spending and borrowing.

However, closer examination of the reports published for the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank being held this week reveals that the world economy as a whole, including the advanced countries, is far from attaining a post-pandemic equilibrium.

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, in Munich, Germany, February 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

The IMF projected what it called a “strong recovery” for the global economy in 2021, upgrading its forecast for growth by 0.5 percentage points to 6 percent and predicting a 4.4 percent rise for 2022. But it warned that the “outlook presents daunting challenges related to the speed of recovery both across and within countries and the potential for persistent economic damage from the crisis.”

It has estimated that the global economy suffered an “historic contraction” of 3.3 percent in 2020.

It reported that cumulative per capita income losses over 2020-2022, compared to pre-pandemic forecasts to be equivalent to 20 percent of 2019 per capita GDP for emerging markets and developing economies (excluding China) and 11 percent for advanced economies.

The impact of the pandemic has reversed poverty reduction with an additional 95 million people entering the ranks of the extremely poor in 2020 and 80 million more becoming undernourished.

The IMF noted that the main reason for its global growth upgrade was the forecast for increased output in the advanced economies, particularly for the United States where growth is expected to be 6.4 percent this year, a significant rise of 1.3 percent on previous projections.

Higher than expected growth was due to the easing of lockdowns in most regions for the second half to the year. However, it said that “high uncertainty” surrounded the global economic outlook primarily related to the pandemic.

“Further developments will depend on the path of the health crisis, including whether the new COVID-19 strains prove susceptible to the vaccines or whether they prolong the pandemic.”

Demonstrating the indifference in ruling circles to the health and well-being of the population, the IMF significantly failed to point out that the easing of lockdowns and the lack of meaningful measures to deal with the pandemic—the main factors in increased growth and profits—have resulted in continuing surges in its spread and the development of new, more infectious and dangerous virus mutations.

On the issue of vaccine distribution, it made the pro forma statement that “first and foremost” countries had to work together to ensure widespread vaccinations around the world. Then, however, it had to immediately acknowledge this was not taking place, noting that vaccine access was “deeply iniquitous” with high-income countries with 16 percent of the world’s population having pre-purchased 50 percent of the doses.

Pointing to “divergent recovery” paths, the IMF said they would likely create “wider gaps” in living standards across countries compared to pre-pandemic conditions.

Inequality will rise, not only between countries but within them. This is because “young workers and those with relatively lower skill remain more heavily affected, not only in advanced, but also emerging markets and developing economies.”

In her blog post on the report, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath noted that “because the crisis has accelerated the transformative forces of digitalization and automation, many of the jobs lost are unlikely to return, requiring worker reallocation across sectors—which often comes with severe earning penalties.”

Reports on the financial situation pointed to the dangers of “financial vulnerabilities.” The IMF estimated that without the $16 trillion worth of fiscal support by governments and the $10 trillion injected into the global financial system by central banks the impact of the pandemic on the global economy could have been three times larger.

The Global Financial Stability Report, said what it called “massive policy support” had led to an easing of financial conditions and kept risks at bay. But notable downside risks to future GDP growth remain.

It said the unprecedented financial support may have unintended consequences with “excessive risk taking” in markets contributing to “stretched valuations” and warning that “rising financial vulnerabilities” may become structural problems.

Equity markets had rallied strongly since the third quarter of 2020 and “are now trading at levels meaningfully higher than those suggested models based on fundamentals.” In other words, the stock market boom bears little or no relation to the state of the underlying real economy and is the result of the trillions of dollars of ultra-cheap money injected into the financial system by the world’s major central banks.

US government debt has increased, prompting a rise in long term interest rates as reflected in the rise in yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond from just over 0.5 percent last August to around 1.75 percent. As a result, concerns have been growing about the impact of these increases on the stability of the global financial system.

The IMF’s financial report noted that while a rise in interest rates on the back of improving fundamentals may be welcome, “a rapid and persistent increase, especially in real rates, may result in a repricing of risk in markets and a sudden tightening in financial conditions.

“Such a tightening could interact with elevated financial vulnerabilities, with repercussions for confidence and endangering macro-financial stability, especially in emerging markets.”

In other words, because the financial system, including the rapid expansion of corporate debt, has become so dependent on cheap money, even a small rise in interest rates, if it takes place rapidly, can have major consequences.

This issue was also raised by Gopinath in her blog. She warned that if interest rates rose further in the US in unexpected ways, “this could cause inflated asset valuations to unwind in a disorderly manner, financial conditions to tighten sharply, and recovery prospects to deteriorate, especially for some highly leveraged emerging markets and developing economies.”

There are also rising concerns in the advanced economies as well, especially in Europe where the increased holdings of inflated government debt by major banks have revived fears of the re-emergence of the crisis which threatened the collapse of the euro in 2012.

The holdings by major banks of government debt created a situation where a vicious circle, dubbed a “doom loop,” developed in which they mutually weakened each other. A rise in interest rates weakens the banks because it lowers the value of the government bonds they hold, while the government is in turn weakened by the problems of the banks.

Bank holdings of government debt declined somewhat after the crisis but are now on the rise again with the issuing of more debt by European governments in response to the pandemic, with total indebtedness now passing 100 percent of GDP for the first time.

The case for expropriation: Billionaires’ wealth surged 60 percent in first year of pandemic

Niles Niemuth

The collective wealth of the world’s billionaires exploded by more than 60 percent last year, from $8 trillion to $13.1 trillion, according to Forbes magazine’s annual list of global billionaires, released on Tuesday.

“COVID-19 brought terrible suffering, economic pain, geopolitical tension—and the greatest acceleration of wealth in human history,” Forbes writes.

Left: Jeff Bezos (AP Photo/Charles Krupa), Right: Workers wearing PPE bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island, April 9, 2020 (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The number of billionaires in the world grew by 660 to 2,775, biggest total number and the largest annual increase ever. A new billionaire was minted every 17 hours.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk lead the pack with $177 billion and $151 billion, respectively. They are followed by Bernard Arnault and family ($150 billion), who control the French luxury goods company LVMH, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($124 billion) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($97 billion).

Press reports discuss how Zuckerberg “earned” $50 billion and Elon Musk “earned” $130 billion last year. But the very term is an absurdity. One cannot “earn” a figure equivalent to the gross domestic product of a mid-size country.

This wealth is socially appropriated. First, through the exploitation of the working class in the process of production.

Second, and no less important, the wealth is appropriated as the result of state policy, designed to ensure the perpetual rise of the stock market through a combination of monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve and the provision of an endless supply of cheap labor for exploitation. As a result, the S&P 500 stock index has nearly doubled since its low in March 2020.

Amid a raging pandemic, every country in Europe and the Americas has refused to shut down nonessential production, claiming the cost would be too high. This policy, which has led to the deaths of over three million people, has the deliberate aim of expanding the wealth of the financial oligarchy.

With each death, an average of $1.7 million was added to the net worth of the billionaires. Hundreds of millions of people around the world got sick on the job or were thrown out of work. Hundreds of millions went hungry. But the stock portfolios of the wealthy soared to ever greater heights.

As Karl Marx noted more than 150 years ago in Capital, it is a basic law of capitalism that “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.”

The piling up of immense sums at the top of society is made possible by the immiseration of the working class and poor.

As global markets entered freefall in March of 2020, the US government and Federal Reserve, along with governments and central banks around the world, stepped in with trillions of dollars to buy up the bad debts of the banks and corporations and prop up the markets. No expense was spared to guarantee and expand the wealth of the very richest, while destroying the wages and conditions of the working class.

In other words, the government oversaw the massive creation of public debt, which was transferred, by the mechanism of the markets, into the private fortunes of the financial oligarchy.

As soon as the bailouts were secured, the push came to reopen the economy and overturn the lockdowns and other basic public health measures that had been put in place after wildcat walkouts by workers forced shutdowns in Europe and North America.

As US President Trump declared, echoing the line pioneered by the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, the “cure can’t be worse than the disease.” Workers were forced back into deadly factories and workplaces, and children were packed into schools, so that profit-making could be resumed. The capitalists were determined to ensure that the working class paid the full cost of the pandemic, and more.

Virtually every government around the world refused to carry out measures shown in the few countries that employed them, such as China and New Zealand, to be effective in containing the virus and minimizing the loss of life. It was no secret that what was required was an extended shutdown of nonessential industries and schools, strictly enforced social distancing, testing, quarantining and contact tracing.

All such serious and scientifically based measures were rejected because they impinged on the personal wealth of the financial oligarchs. The interests of the masses—the working class—coincided with the implementation of internationally coordinated measures that prioritized saving lives and protecting the income of the population. The economic interests of the capitalist class required a rapid and full resumption of profit-making in unsafe factories, offices and warehouses—and the herding of youth back into unsafe schools to facilitate their parents’ return to work.

Bezos and Musk have been among the most handsomely rewarded for rejecting any serious public health safeguards in their plants to protect the workforce and slow the spread of the virus. Musk reopened his Tesla auto factory in Fremont, California last May in defiance of public health orders, resulting in over 440 workers contracting COVID-19. Amazon has sought to cover up COVID-19 outbreaks and worker deaths at its plants around the world. The company finally admitted in November that nearly 20,000 of its employees had tested positive since the start of the pandemic. The number of workers who have died as a result of these infections has yet to be disclosed.

Thanks to tax cuts included in the CARES Act bailout and Trump’s tax cuts in 2017, 55 of the largest corporations in America—including FedEx, Nike and Salesforce.com—paid no federal income taxes in 2020, with most receiving rebates. All told, these companies received $3.5 billion in tax rebates from the US government.

Just over one year into the pandemic, as a fourth wave of infections surges around the globe and vaccine distribution remains limited, it is increasingly clear that the ruling class is prepared to send millions more to their deaths to satisfy its drive for profit.

Stopping this deadly accumulation of wealth in the hands of the oligarchy is critical to preserving the safety and well-being of the world’s population. Just as the spread of the pandemic is inseparable from the enrichment of the financial oligarchy, the ending of the pandemic is inseparable from the expropriation of the oligarchs. The vast wealth piled up by the financial elite must be used to finance e mergency measures to stop the spread of the virus and save millions of lives.

Four Words Gates and His Pals Despise: Democracy & Minimum Support Price

Colin Todhunter

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an assortment of high-profile figures and policy makers are pushing for unregulated gene-editing technologies, the rollout of bio-synthetic food created in laboratories, the expanded use of patented seeds and the roll back of subsidies and support for farmers in places like India.

These neoliberal evangelists despise democracy and believe that state machinery and public money should only facilitate the ambitions of their unaccountable mega-corporations.

Corporations are jumping on the ‘sustainability’ bandwagon by undermining traditional agriculture and genuine sustainable agrifood systems and packaging this corporate takeover of food as some kind of humanitarian endeavour.

The watchdog organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) notes that the European Commission has committed to a fundamental shift away from industrial agriculture. With a 50 per cent pesticide reduction target and a 25 per cent organic agriculture goal by 2030, CEO argues that business as usual is no longer an option. In effect, this creates an existential crisis for corporate seed suppliers and pesticide manufacturers like Bayer, BASF, Corteva (DowDupont) and Syngenta (ChemChina).

However, these corporations are fighting back on various fronts, not least by waging an ongoing battle to get their new generation of genetic engineering techniques excluded from European regulations. They do not want plants, animals and micro-organisms created with gene-editing techniques like CRISPR-Cas to be subject to safety checks, monitoring or consumer labelling. This is concerning given the real dangers that these techniques pose.

For example, a new paper published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, authored by Dr Katharina Kawall, indicates the negative effects on ecosystems that can result from the release of gene-edited plants. These unintended effects come from the intended changes induced by genome editing, which can affect various metabolic processes in the plants.

The new paper adds to a growing body of peer-reviewed research that calls into question industry claims about the ‘precision’, safety and benefits of gene-edited organisms.

Recent research by the Greens and the European Free Alliance in the European Parliament indicates that 86 per cent of Europeans who have heard of genetically engineered (GE) food want products containing GE organisms to be labelled as such. Some 68 per cent of respondents that have heard of new genetic engineering methods demand that food produced with these techniques, such as CRISPR, to be labelled as GE. Only three per cent agreed with the industry’s proposal to exempt these products from safety testing and labelling.

Regardless, with the help of 1.3 million euros from the Gates Foundation, the industry is paving the way for deregulation by widespread lobbying of policy makers and promoting these technologies on the basis of them protecting the climate and ‘sustainability’. Through greenwashing, the industry hopes its ‘save-the-planet’ products can dodge regulation and gain public acceptance in an era of ‘climate emergency’.

Not for the first time, the lobbying that the Gates Foundation is engaging in displays complete contempt for democratic processes or public opinion. In 2018, The European Court of Justice ruled that new genetic engineering technologies should be regulated. As described by Marie Astier and Magali Reinert in the French publication Reporterre, Gates is very much at the centre of trying to bypass this ruling.

Of course, it is not just the European agrifood sector that is being targeted by Bill Gates and global agrifood players. India has very much been in the news in recent months due to the ongoing mass protest involving farmers who want three recent farm acts repealed.

Environmentalist Vandana Shiva has described on numerous occasions how the Gates Foundation through its ‘Ag One’ initiative is pushing for one type of agriculture for the whole world. A top-down approach regardless of what farmers or the public need or want. The strategy includes digital farming, in which farmers are monitored and mined for their agricultural data, which is then repackaged and sold back to them.

Along with Bill Gates, this is very much the agrifood model that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and Cargill have in mind. The tech giants recent entry into the sector will increasingly lead to a mutually beneficial integration between the companies that supply products to farmers (pesticides, seeds, fertilisers, tractors, drones, etc) and those that control the flow of data (on soil, weather, pests, weeds, land use, consumer preferences, etc) and have access to digital (cloud) infrastructure. A system based on corporate concentration and centralisation.

Those farmers who remain in the system will become passive recipients of corporate directives and products on farms owned by the Gates Foundation (now one of the largest owners of farmland in the US), agribusiness and financial institutions/speculators.

The three pieces of farm legislation in India (passed by parliament but on hold) are essential for laying the foundation for this model of agriculture. The legislation is The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

The foreign and home-grown (Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani) billionaires who have pushed for these laws require a system of contract farming dominated by their big tech, big agribusiness and big retail interests. Smallholder peasant agriculture is regarded as an impediment to what they require: industrial-scale farms where driverless tractors, drones and genetically engineered seeds are the norm and all data pertaining to land, water, weather, seeds and soils is controlled by them.

It is unfortunate that prominent journalists and media outlets in India are celebrating the legislation and have attempted to unjustifiably discredit farmers who are protesting. It is also worrying that key figures like Dr Ramesh Chand, a member of NITI (National Institute for Transforming India) Ayog, recently stated that the legislation is necessary.

When these figures attack farmers or promote the farm acts, what they are really doing is cheerleading for the destruction of local markets and independent small-scale enterprises, whether farmers, hawkers, food processers or mom and pop corner stores. And by implication, they are helping to ensure that India is surrendering control over its food.

They are doing the bidding of the Gates Foundation and the global agrifood corporations which also want India to eradicate its buffer food stocks. Some of the very corporations which will then control stocks that India would purchase with foreign exchange holdings. At that stage, any notion of sovereign statehood would be bankrupt as India’s food needs would be dependent on attracting foreign exchange reserves via foreign direct investment or borrowing.

This would represent the ultimate betrayal of India’s farmers and democracy as well as the final surrender of food security and food sovereignty to unaccountable global traders and corporations.

The farm legislation is regressive and will eventually lead to the country relying on outside forces to feed its population. This in an increasingly volatile world prone to conflict, public health scares, unregulated land and commodity speculation and price shocks.

MSP, malnutrition and helping farmers

Consider that India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and has ensured that, in theory at least, there is enough food available to feed its entire population. Yet hunger and malnutrition are still major issues.

Initial results from the National Family Health Survey round 5 (NFHS-5) released in January indicate a stagnation or deterioration in most factors related to the nutrition status of the Indian population. These findings have not accounted for the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, which could see severe long-term adverse impacts on poverty, health and nutrition.

The survey findings suggest that people’s ability to access good quality diets has been impacted by the economic slowdown in recent years and a subsequent deterioration in poverty and consumption. Such a conclusion might not be too far off the mark given the findings of the consumption expenditure survey of the National Statistical Office (2017-18).

In a December 2019 article, economist S Subramanian writes:

“Employing the modest Rangarajan Committee poverty line… we find that the… proportion of the population in poverty, has climbed up from 31% to 35%, thus inverting a long trend of declining poverty ratios. If the poverty line is raised by 20% to a less modest but still modest level, then we find… [poverty]… rises precipitously from 42% to 52%.”

Supporters of the farm legislation are fond of saying the impact will be higher income for farmers and greater efficiency in food distribution. They fail to acknowledge that the neoliberal policies they have backed over the years have driven many farmers out of agriculture, into debt or to the edge of bankruptcy. They are now pushing for more of the same under the banner of helping farmers.

These policies mainly stem from India’s foreign exchange crisis in the 1990s. In return for up to more than $120 billion in World Bank loans at the time, India was directed to dismantle its state-owned seed supply system, reduce subsidies, run down public agriculture institutions and offer incentives for the growing of cash crops to earn foreign exchange.

The plan involves shifting at least 400 million from the countryside into cities. We have seen the running down of the sector for decades, spiraling input costs, withdrawal of government assistance and the impacts of cheap, subsidised imports which depress farmers’ incomes. The result is an acute agrarian crisis.

Through the new farm laws, the Modi government is now trying to accelerate the planned depopulation of the countryside by drastically reducing the role of the public sector in agriculture to that of a facilitator of private capital.

There is a solution to poverty, hunger and rural distress. But it is being side-lined in favour of a corporate agenda.

The Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE) notes that minimum support prices (MSP) via government procurement of essential crops and commodities should be extended to the likes of maize, cotton, oilseed and pulses. At the moment, only farmers in certain states who produce rice and wheat are the main beneficiaries of government procurement at MSP.

RUPE says that since per capita protein consumption in India is abysmally low and has fallen further during the liberalisation era, the provision of pulses in the public distribution system (PDS) is long overdue and desperately needed. RUPE argues that the ‘excess’ stocks of food grain with the Food Corporation of India are merely the result of the failure or refusal of the government to distribute grain to the people.

(For those not familiar with the PDS: central government via the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is responsible for buying food grains from farmers at MSP at state-run market yards or mandis. It then allocates the grains to each state. State governments then deliver to the ration shops.)

If public procurement of a wider range of crops at the MSP were to occur – and MSP were guaranteed for rice and wheat across all states – it would help address hunger and malnutritional as well as farmer distress.

Instead of rolling back the role of the public sector and surrendering the system to foreign corporations, there is a need to further expand official procurement and public distribution. This would occur by extending procurement to additional states and expanding the range of commodities under the PDS.

Of course, some will raise a red flag here and say this would cost too much. But as RUPE notes, it would cost around 20 per cent of the current handouts (‘incentives’) received by corporations and their super-rich owners which do not benefit the bulk of the wider population in any way.

Furthermore, if policy makers were really serious about ‘sustainability’ and boosting the rural economy, they would reject the fake high-tech corporate controlled ‘sustainability’ agenda and a reliance on rigged and unstable global markets. They would embrace an approach to agriculture based on agroecological principles, short supply chains and local markets. If the last 12 months have shown anything, it is that decentralised regional and local community-owned food systems are now needed more than ever.

But a solution that would genuinely serve to help address rural distress and malnutrition does not suit the agenda of the Gates Foundation and its corporate entourage.

Hospitals in Germany reach crisis point

Markus Salzmann

Despite urgent warnings from doctors and scientists, the federal and state governments are sticking to their policy of opening up the economy and are refusing to take urgently needed measures, such as the immediate closure of schools and businesses. The result is a dramatic situation in Germany’s hospitals, where, within a very short time, the care of seriously ill patients will no longer be guaranteed.

The seven-day incidence rate is currently 134.2 infections per 100,000 people per day—and rising. On April 1, almost 22,700 new infections occurred. With 232 deaths, almost 50 more people died than a week earlier. One reason for the steady increase in infections is the spread of the much more infectious and aggressive B.1.1.7 strain, which now causes almost 90 percent of infections in Germany and thus contributes to the increase in severe illness.

Patients requiring intensive care treatment are becoming younger and younger. COVID patients in the intensive care unit at Rostock University Hospital are on average 10 years younger than during the last wave of the pandemic, according to a hospital spokesperson. The proportion of patients treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) instead of a normal ward has increased. “It can be deduced from this that there is a high risk of intensive care capacities being overloaded,” the spokeperson told broadcaster NDR.

Intensive care bed (Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons)

The proportion of children falling seriously ill with the virus is also rising rapidly. “The sharpest increase is seen in children between 0 and 14 years of age, where seven-day incidence rates have more than doubled in the last four weeks,” notes the weekly report of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Recently, a four-year-old child in Schleswig-Holstein died from the coronavirus.

Data analysis by the scientific institute of the health insurance company AOK showed the effects of the course of the pandemic so far.

Of the nearly 52,000 patients included in the analysis who had been hospitalised with COVID-19 by the end of November 2020, 18 percent died. In the 60- to 69-year-old age group, the mortality rate was 14 percent; and in the 70- to 79-year-old age group, the rate was 23 percent. On average, patients were 67 years old.

A further drop in the average age also means that most people in this age group are not yet vaccinated, which will contribute to further overcrowding of intensive care units. For this reason, the chairman of the board of the AOK Federal Association, Martin Litsch, warned of the consequences of the third wave when presenting his evaluation. “We have to take countermeasures very quickly and consistently. I almost fear it is too late for that.”

Also, more and more people are suffering from the long-term consequences of COVID-19 and must be treated in hospitals more frequently. According to a British study, about one-third of hospital patients must be treated again within four months of initially becoming ill. One in eight even dies because of secondary damage to vital organs, such as the heart, liver or kidneys.

The German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine (DGP) estimates that about 10 percent of those infected develop what is known as Long COVID Syndrome.

On April 2, there were 3,849 patients in intensive care in Germany, 120 more than the day before. Between March 10-28 alone, the number of intensive care patients rose from 2,727 to 3,448. Currently, there are only about 1,500 ICU beds available for coronavirus patients. Several medical experts have been warning for weeks that these will soon no longer be sufficient and ICUs will be overcrowded within a very short time. Some regions, such as Thuringia, have already reached their capacity limits.

Even before all the available beds are filled, there will no longer be enough qualified staff to take over the complex care patients require. For more than a year, doctors and nurses have been working at their limits, especially in intensive care.

“This is not professional overload, it is physical and psychological,” medical experts have warned. “If we don’t do anything now and nursing staff leave, we will have an existential problem in intensive care medicine!” says intensive care physician Felix Walcher. Gerhard Schneider, director of intensive care medicine at Munich’s Klinikum Rechts der Isar, also told Der Spiegel that “a critical limit is now being reached.” Regarding the situation facing medical staff he warned, “People can’t take any more.”

This is also expressed in the fact that thousands of nursing staff have left the profession since the beginning of the pandemic. Even before that, poor working conditions and even poorer pay were the order of the day. Under the pressures of the pandemic and the constant fear of infecting themselves, many now see only the way out. Recently, therefore, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) warned of an international “mass exodus” from the nursing profession.

Doctors are working under similar conditions. The Badische Zeitung quoted hospital doctor Maximilian H.: “The number of coronavirus patients has risen massively during this time. Patients fell ill, many died, and wards were working to the brink of exhaustion. Colleagues also became infected.” The head physician for internal medicine at the Oberlausitzer Bergland Hospital in Zittau died in March after a coronavirus infection. He headed the clinic’s COVID ward and cared for critically ill patients.

Once again, scientists are warning of the dramatic consequences of the current policies. Renowned virologist Christian Drosten believes another lockdown is inevitable. “We will not get around a serious lockdown,” he said. He referred to experiences in other countries where “the number of severe and often fatal outcomes of the disease” had massively increased under a policy like the one in this country.

Christian Karagiannidis, the president of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, has been calling for an immediate lockdown for weeks. He also referred to the experiences in France. There, he said, there were now so many COVID-19 patients in ICUs that staff had to be deployed who were not even trained for this, and doctors were already preparing to implement a triage system, rationing who does and does not receive treatment.

Virologist Melanie Brinkmann made clear who was responsible for this development. “We could be at tens of incidences by now if politicians at the federal-state conference in January had taken seriously what we told them,” she explained.

It is hardly surprising that the majority of the population supports the call for a tougher lockdown to combat the pandemic. According to a poll by Infratest Dimap, 67 percent agree with the call by intensive care specialists. The current measures do not go far enough for about half of the respondents. On social media, under hashtags such as #generalstrike or #harderlockdownnow, thousands are calling for an end to the deadly policy of reopening the economy pursued by the governments at all levels.

The policies of the grand coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) at the federal level and those of the state governments are solely following the interests of big business, even as the situation continues to escalate dramatically. All the establishment parties—from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the Left Party—are in complete agreement on this.

In Saarland, the coronavirus restrictions under state Prime Minister Tobias Hans (CDU) will be largely lifted as of Tuesday. Among other things, theatres, cinemas, fitness studios and outdoor restaurants will be open. Up to 10 people will be allowed to gather outdoors.

In Thuringia, where there are counties with an incidence level of 500 and hardly any free ICU beds, the contact rules are being massively relaxed over Easter. The “little spring opening” of the Left Party state government provides, among other things, far-reaching relaxations for the retail sector. This is a conscious decision in favour of the profit interests of the economy and against the protection of the population. State Health Minister Heike Werner (Left Party) declared last week that the third wave “will hit us particularly hard this time due to the rapid spread of viral mutations.”

The Left Party’s unscrupulous policies are not limited to Thuringia. Among others, the Left Party mayor of Frankfurt/Oder, Rene Wilke, is also considered an advocate of a radical reopening policy. Although Frankfurt/Oder is located on the Polish border, where the spread of the virus has also been escalating dramatically for weeks, he only agreed to withdraw some relaxations for a short time after massive pressure and after the local hospital reached its limits. He only tightened contact restrictions in the private sphere up to April 5 when the incidence rate reached 180.

In contrast, the retail sector will remain open. Wilke coldly admitted at a press conference last week that with an incidence value of 180, the emergency brake should have been pulled. He said, however, that he was not aware of any case so far in which infections had occurred because of a visit to a retail outlet. A week ago, he had stated that he would not include two mass outbreaks at a day care centre and a facility for the disabled in the incidence value, as these events were localised.