Military threatens Congress over COVID inquiry as Bolsonaro says Brazil “may not have” elections

Miguel Andrade

With a Senate investigation implicating a number of military officers in corrupt multi-million-dollar COVID vaccine deals, the Brazilian high command issued an ominous threat last week. In a joint statement, the generals declared that they will “not tolerate any frivolous attack against the institutions which defend democracy and the freedom of the Brazilian people.”

Emboldened by these threats from the military chiefs, Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro told his supporters that Brazil “may not have elections” in 2022, when his term ends. He would claim the right to cancel the elections, he said, if his discredited charges of fraud in the country’s electronic balloting are not addressed through the adoption of his proposed “printed ballot” backup system.

Such threats from both Bolsonaro and the military command have no precedent in Brazil since 1985, when the military, faced with a mass strike movement of the working class, left power, ending 21 years of US-backed dictatorship. The immediate trigger for these threats is the Brazilian Senate’s Inquiry Commission (CPI) into Bolsonaro’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than half a million Brazilians. A tumultuous hearing last Wednesday ended with the arrest of the Health Ministry’s former logistics director, Roberto Dias.

Brazilian Army commandos. (Credit: Marcos Corrêa/PR)

Dias’ imprisonment for perjury was ordered by the CPI’s chair, Senator Omar Aziz. He charged the Health Ministry official with lying when he denied holding a pre-arranged meeting in a restaurant in the capital Brasília with Luiz Paulo Dominghetti, the representative of a US-based medical supply firm. Dominghetti denounced him for demanding one dollar in kickbacks for every jab of the AstraZeneca vaccine being negotiated by the government. Dias claimed he had a casual encounter with Dominghetti, but the CPI was in possession of messages from Dominghetti’s phone arranging the meeting. At the end of Wednesday’s proceedings, Aziz declared he would not allow the CPI to be mocked, and ordered the Senate’s police to take Dias to jail. He was later released on bail.

In his testimony, Dias denied any wrongdoing, shifting the blame onto the Health Ministry’s ex-executive secretary, Col. Élcio Franco, who now works as an aide to Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Gen. Luiz Eduardo Ramos. During the testimony, Aziz, informed that Dias was a retired Air Force sergeant, declared: “The good ones in the Armed Forces must be very ashamed with some people being featured in the press today, because for a long time, many years, Brazil hasn’t seen members of the rotten side of the Armed Forces marred in wrongdoing within the government.”

Aziz then proceeded to cite by name a number of those involved in the scandal, including Gen. Eduardo Pazuello, who was health minister for most of the pandemic after two civilian medical experts resigned in protest over Bolsonaro’s adamant opposition to social distancing and the use of masks, and his promotion of quack cures such as hydroxychloroquine.

Aziz used a common Brazilian expression – “the rotten side” – which is more commonly applied to the state-controlled military police forces, and refers to tolerance within their high commands for criminal elements involved in extra-judicial killings and organized crime. The Armed Forces are increasingly seen as a pillar of the crisis-ridden Bolsonaro government, which shares political responsibility for the mass death and current social catastrophe in Brazil.

Far from indicting the Armed Forces, however, Aziz intended his remarks as a warning against the threat to Brazilian capitalist stability posed by the open involvement of the military in the crimes of the hated Bolsonaro government. In the same remarks, he contrasted the current scandals with the period of the dictatorship, saying “one thing the military was not accused of was corruption” – a lie in itself. To emphasize his “loyalty” to the military’s murderers and torturers, Aziz ended his remarks with a eulogy to the dictators Ernesto Geisel and João Baptista Figueiredo, who he claimed “died in poverty” for being “honest.”

Nonetheless, the Armed Forces considered Aziz’s right-wing remarks intolerable. Late Wednesday, the defense minister and the heads of the three branches of the military released a joint statement repudiating “the remarks of the CPI president, Omar Aziz” as “striking the Armed Forces in a vile and frivolous way with a grave, unfounded and above all irresponsible charge.” It concluded with the phrase about the military being the institution that upholds “democracy and freedom” for the Brazilian people.” In other words, “democracy” is something that the Armed Forces alone have the right to to give, and to take away.

On the next day, the threat from the high command was reaffirmed by the Air Force chief, Lt. Brig. Carlos de Almeida Baptista Jr., who said that it was a “warning to the institutions” of the Brazilian state. It was the “only time” they would warn Aziz, he said, adding that the military had the “legal means” to enforce its warnings. The “legal means” reference echoes the discredited claims made by Bolsonaro and other right-wing figures that article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution allows the president to call out the military against Congress or the Supreme Court in in the event they “overstep” their authority.

General Baptista specifically named as a “victim” of Congress former Health Minister General Pazuello, who appointed all the major figures in the scandal. He was ousted under pressure from Bolsonaro’s supporters in parliament in March, at the height of a second wave of the COVID pandemic, which was claiming 4,000 lives a day. Pazuello, an active-duty general, then violated the military code by joining a political rally in support of Bolsonaro. Dissident generals warned that his going unpunished threatened to “create anarchy” in the barracks. Pazuello is now Bolsonaro’s strategic affairs advisor.

The growing threats by the military have been coupled with the renewal of Bolsonaro’s claims that Brazilian elections are essentially fraudulent and that the 2018 elections were rigged to stop him from winning outright in the first round. Bolsonaro now claims this would justify the suspension of the 2022 elections, if no changes are made to the system.

Bolsonaro is finding himself increasingly cornered by the spiraling economic and social crisis, with growing sections of the ruling class considering him a liability to bourgeois rule. His charges of systemic electoral fraud have been repudiated by every significant political force, including his own Congressional base. A number of dissident senior military figures have warned that he will attempt a coup and must be reined in. In the final analysis, Senator Aziz was speaking for such layers.

Nonetheless, the threats from the military expose the advanced preparations for dictatorial rule, whatever Bolsonaro’s political fate. The driving force behind these preparations is the objective incompatibility, in Brazil and internationally, between the unprecedented growth of social inequality and democratic forms of rule.

Bolsonaro’s herd immunity policy towards the COVID-19 pandemic, with its horrific toll of 540,000 deaths and millions suffering with the disease, has been the most naked expression of the relentless pursuit of profits by the ruling class, at whatever cost. In taking over the Health Ministry under General Pazuello’s term, the military became the direct enforcers of this murderous policy.

The latest resurgence of authoritarianism was politically prepared by the three decades of rule by the Workers Party (PT), the supposed center of political opposition to Bolsonaro.

The PT endorsed the blanket amnesty granted to the military in exchange for the gradual return to civilian rule. In the four decades that followed, none of the dictatorship’s crimes, including the murder, torture and disappearance of workers, students and left-wing opponents, were prosecuted. When it finally came to power in 2002, the PT promoted a massive rearmament program under the guise of industrial and technological development, and bloodied the Brazilian Army in foreign interventions in Haiti and other countries under the command of the very generals who are now backing Bolsonaro.

From the outset of the pandemic, the PT demanded that Bolsonaro resign in favor of his vice-president, Gen. Hamilton Mourão, as the “least costly way” of solving the crisis. When Bolsonaro replaced the entire military command in late March in order to align it with his plans, the entire bourgeois setup, including the PT, welcomed the new commanders, who are now threatening Congress, as the ultimate guarantors of Brazilian democracy.

These political forces, which have have helped create the conditions in which the Brazilian military now claims impunity and the right to overrule the elected government, have responded to the latest crisis with further lies and deceit. The PT, accused the Bolsonaro government of promoting a “lack of discipline and insubordination” within the military. The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, called a press conference to condemn Bolsonaro’s threats against elections as “anti-patriotic.”

The growing sections of the Brazilian ruling class that openly criticize Bolsonaro and are toying with a possible impeachment believe that the conditions for a new dictatorship are not yet in place. Their attempts to subordinate the growing movement of the working class to the capitalist state, including through a possible return to power of the PT in the 2022 elections, has the ultimate goal of creating such conditions.

Fiji faces unprecedented COVID-19 disaster

John Braddock

Under the impact of the virulent Delta COVID-19 variant, Fiji is heading towards a health and social disaster on an unprecedented scale.

A new record of 636 cases and six deaths was reported on Tuesday July 6. The next day, 791 infections and three deaths were confirmed, followed Friday by 860 cases and three more deaths. Over the weekend 991 new cases and four deaths were reported across 48 hours.

Among the population of 900,000, there have been 10,512 cases since March 2020. Fiji now has 8,576 active cases in isolation and 55 people have died, all but two of them from the latest outbreak, which began in April. One of the deceased is a 15-year-old.

The seven-day average of new daily cases has increased to 627, with a positivity rate of 16.8 percent and trending upwards. A week ago, Secretary of Health James Fong predicted case numbers could reach 800 a day.

A nurse stands outside Tamara Twomey hospital in Suva, Fiji, Friday, June 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Aileen Torres-Bennett)

According to New Zealand Canterbury University statistician, Michael Plank, based on official figures, Fiji’s numbers are higher per capita than those in India, at the peak of its outbreak. According to Plank, an outbreak on a similar scale in New Zealand would mean more than 2,500 cases per day.

In the year to March 2021, the Pacific island state managed to largely shut out the virus, recording just 70 cases. The government used the relatively low number to declare Fiji “safe” for opening up the tourism industry. The Delta variant subsequently entered the country through a quarantine breach.

With the ICU full at the capital Suva’s main hospital, the health system is under severe stress and struggling to deal with the escalating number of serious cases. People going into the Suva field hospital are unable to access a ventilator. Fong has declared that officials expect to see “more people dying at home.” The morgue, which can take 60 bodies, is at full capacity, and families are being urged to collect their loved ones for burial.

With hospitals unable to cope, authorities have sent more than 1,000 COVID-19 infected people back home to self-isolate. Many are going into multi-generational, crowded households.

TVNZ Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver reported on one family with two members who had contracted COVID and was told to isolate at home. Desperate, with no food, a contact within the household had gone out to buy some. This is now a common occurrence. Dreaver said many people were “very angry,” while others were “extremely scared.”

In the face of the deteriorating situation, Prime Minister and former military coup leader, Frank Bainimarama, has not resiled from his criminal stance of opposing a full lockdown. In the name of saving the economy, the regime is allowing a range of businesses to remain operational. Retail businesses, restaurants and gyms are all open, on the spurious grounds that minimal safety measures are being followed. People are being told to socially distance and wear masks.

Radio NZ’s correspondent in Suva, Lice Movono, said: “There are a lot of fearful people, so much anxiety and continuing distrust of the government, but the government is not coming out to explain itself very well, and we haven’t seen our ministers, our Prime Minister, for a very long time now.”

In a sign of growing alarm within Fiji’s ruling elite, deputy opposition leader, Biman Prasad, from the National Federation Party, told Radio NZ that the government’s strategy had been an “utter failure,” and called for a lockdown. He pleaded with the government to listen to health experts and not to rely only on vaccinations.

Officials claim that they now have enough AstraZeneca vaccine supplies from Australia, India and New Zealand to vaccinate the entire population. So far, however, only 59.6 percent of the population has received one jab and 11.2 percent have been fully vaccinated.

Neil Sharma, Fiji’s Health Minister from 2009-2014, told Radio NZ the nation was “crippled,” the crisis is “mind boggling” and a “sickening environment to be in.” Pointing to a looming social disaster, Sharma noted that about 20 percent of Suva’s population lives in poor, crowded conditions. “You have six, seven people living in one room. A lean-to shed. So how you separate, how you socially distance, is a problem.”

Up to 30,000 people have applied to volunteer relief agencies for help. They are among the poorest, with no savings, surviving for more than two months with no income and no national social protection and struggling to put food on the table. The Fiji Times cited psychotherapist Selina Kuruleca pleading with the government to “listen to people” because “[w]e have a mental health epidemic on our hands.”

On Wednesday, the Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) called on the government to activate the Disaster Management Committee to address the crisis before “systems collapse.” Chief executive Vani Catanasiga said the health services and front-liners were overwhelmed, “and may not be able to cope much longer.”

FCOSS emphasised that the situation was no longer just a health crisis, but a “humanitarian crisis with far-reaching and long-term impacts on the well-being of Fijian citizens.” There have been two protests from communities in local lockdowns in recent weeks, over access to food. FCOSS, however, has confined itself to a demand that value added tax (VAT) be removed from food, a measure that will do nothing to alleviate widespread food insecurity and hunger.

Facing the prospect of a complete social breakdown and rising popular anger, the government is adopting more authoritarian methods. While absolving the government of any culpability, authorities are blaming ordinary people for failing to comply with warnings, while stepping up enforcement measures.

Last week, 48 people were arrested for failing to wear a mask in public, while more than 1,000 have been arrested for breaching curfews. Along with clamping down on social gatherings, police have been ordered to enforce mask wearing, and ensure that business operators comply with COVID-19 restrictions. Spot fines, ranging from $20 to $4,000, for breaching any of more than 20 offences outlined in public health regulations, are being imposed.

In his first public statement in more than six weeks, on Thursday Bainimarama appeared on television to threaten unvaccinated workers with the sack. Public servants who have not received their first vaccine dose were ordered to take leave and not return to work until they have had one dose by August 15 and been fully vaccinated by November. Private sector employers and workers face a similar directive, with the possibility of non-compliant businesses being shut down. “No jabs, no job,” Bainimarama bluntly declared.

Haitian government calls for international military intervention after President’s assassination

Richard Duffour & Roger Jordan

In the aftermath of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in the early hours of the morning last Wednesday, the impoverished Caribbean nation’s interim government has appealed for a foreign military intervention to protect key infrastructure. The call was made as evidence emerges that the 28 mercenaries accused of invading Moïse’s home and firing dozens of rounds at the president and his wife had the support of powerful sections of the Haitian ruling elite.

The assassination occurred at 1 a.m. local time on July 7 and involved 26 Colombian nationals and two Haitian Americans. Seventeen suspects have been detained, three have been killed, and eight are still being pursued. Underscoring that the attack enjoyed inside support, the armed gang gained access to Moïse’s residence in Petionville, a suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince. The gunmen reportedly had access to plans indicating the layout of Moïse’s home, and none of the president’s security detail was injured during the assault.

Haiti’s ambassador to Washington, Bocchit Edmond, addressed a letter requesting the presence of American troops to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “We look forward to working with the US embassy in Port-au-Prince as we seek truth and justice for the family of President Moïse and the people of Haiti,” he wrote.

Soldiers stand guard near the residence of Interim President Claude Joseph in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, July 11, 2021, four days after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

The idea that the military intervention of the United States or any other imperialist power, including Canada or France, could stabilize the situation is preposterous. In reality, it is the decades-long imperialist domination of Haiti, the Western hemisphere’s most impoverished country, that has created the disastrous social and economic conditions under which the present political conflicts are raging.

The last assassination of a Haitian head of state in 1915 triggered a two-decade-long American occupation of the country. In the more recent past, US imperialism, with the support of Canadian and United Nations troops, ousted the elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004 in a regime-change operation that was cynically labelled a “liberation.” The US and Canadian forces collaborated with the most right-wing political forces to establish a government more amenable to Washington’s interests, overseeing the creation of a regime supported by privately funded death squads that rampaged with virtual impunity through Haiti’s impoverished slums. The thirteen years of military operations in the country under the auspices of the United Nations that followed included repeated accusations of human rights abuses against the Haitian masses and the triggering of a devastating cholera epidemic that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Moïse, a right-wing politician who was widely despised, was the hand-picked successor of Michel Martelly, a former singer who was installed as president following the direct interference of the US State Department led by Hillary Clinton into Haiti’s elections in 2010 and 2011. Both Martelly and his successor enjoyed close ties to representatives of the US-backed Duvalier dictatorship, which ruled the impoverished country with an iron fist for three decades until 1986. Washington supported Martelly and Moïse because they made clear their determination to abide by International Monetary Fund-dictated policies aimed at upholding the interests of the imperialist powers.

However a possible military intervention is packaged, its aim would be to deepen the already horrendous levels of exploitation of the Haitian masses by the local ruling elite and its imperialist patrons. The Washington Post has already begun a propaganda offensive for a fresh military occupation, declaring in an editorial following Moïse’s assassination that “swift and muscular international intervention” is required. Haiti is “at risk of anarchy,” the paper wrote, which “poses an immediate humanitarian threat to millions of Haitians and an equally urgent diplomatic and security challenge to the United States and major international organizations.”

Although the Biden administration has said it has no immediate plans to send in the military, a US-led international intervention is already under way. Washington has vowed to deploy FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials to Port-au-Prince, ostensibly to help with the investigation into the Haitian president’s assassination.

The aim of this deployment will not be to expose, but rather to cover up, the real sponsors of the assassination of Moïse and their likely backers within rival sections of the Haitian ruling elite. Sections of the ruling elite had a fallout with Moïse over the latter’s attempts at remaining in power as a dictatorial figure and using his control of the state apparatus to grab a bigger share, for himself and his cronies, of some the most profitable sectors of the Haitian economy. This included his challenging of the monopoly historically enjoyed by the country’s richest families over public works contracts, the distribution of fuel, and cell phone networks, which has resulted in exorbitant prices for the impoverished population and outrageous profit margins.

Behind the cover of “helping with the investigation,” US officials will no doubt be engaged in a combination of arm-twisting and bribery to cobble together some sort of power-sharing agreement between the various factions, equally venal and corrupt, of the Haitian ruling elite that are engaged in a bloody struggle for political power and the wealth and privileges that come with it.

The hope of the foreign policy strategists in Washington is to establish enough of a political truce in Haiti to enable the holding of another round of bogus elections later this year, so as to maintain the fiction that the poorest country of the Western hemisphere—the result of over a century of US imperialist domination and plunder—is on the path to “democratic renewal.”

This is a tall order, given the level of animosity among the competing sections of the Haitian ruling elite, which led to the assassination of a sitting president for the first time in over a century. No less than three individuals have already laid claim to the position of interim president that would be in charge of holding new elections: Moïse’s outgoing Prime Minister Claude Joseph; Moïse’s nominated but yet-to-be-sworn-in Prime Minister Ariel Henry; and the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, Joseph Lambert.

Moïse’s attempts at a power grab included: rule by presidential decree for more than a year after failing to hold parliamentary elections; refusing to step down in February this year after his five-year term ended under Haiti’s constitution; the unconstitutional “retirement” of three Supreme Court justices; and a planned referendum to amend the country’s constitution to eliminate the position of prime minister and strengthen presidential powers.

In the months immediately prior to his assassination, Moïse attempted to strike a populist pose against sections of the ruling elite, including by railing in speeches against “oligarchs.” This was an utter fraud, given that Moïse was a despised figure due to his ruthless enforcement of IMF-backed austerity, including a sudden hike in gas prices of 50 percent in 2018 that triggered mass protests against him and his government.

Even if some political deal is worked out and elections are held later this year, they will be no less marred with fraud, intimidation and violence than the last elections that brought Moïse to power with a participation rate of barely 23 percent of the electorate. And they would in no way constitute even a small step out of the political, health and socioeconomic chaos in which the country is engulfed, which has only been deepened by the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The overcoming of the disastrous conditions facing the Haitian masses can only be accomplished in an independent political struggle led by the Haitian working class, at the head of the oppressed masses and in the closest unity with their class brothers and sisters in the US, Canada and the entire region, to end the imperialist oppression of the country.

G20 pushes ahead on global tax deal

Nick Beams

The finance chiefs of the G20, representing the world’s largest economies, have signed off on a deal crafted with the aim of preventing multinational companies shifting profits to low-tax havens.

Under the agreement, there will be a global minimum tax of 15 percent on corporations. New rules will be developed so that large corporations, including tech giants such as Amazon and Google, will pay taxes in the countries where they obtain revenue, even if they have no physical presence there.

The deal was endorsed at the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in Venice over the weekend. Whether it is enacted remains to be seen. There are still several lower-tax countries that have refused to sign, including European Union members, Ireland and Hungary.

United States Secretary of the treasury Janet Yellen speaks during a press conference at a G20 Economy, Finance ministers and Central bank governors' meeting in Venice, Italy, Sunday, July 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Their support is necessary, in order to secure the deal’s endorsement by the EU, where a unanimous vote is required. Speaking after the agreement was reached, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen indicated maximum pressure would be applied and the holdouts would be “encouraged” to sign on before the deal goes for final ratification, at a meeting of G20 leaders in October.

Even if they did not, other measures could be used. She said that agreement contained “the kind of enforcement mechanism” that holdout countries would not be able to undermine.

Yellen and the Biden administration have their own problems in getting US endorsement. The tax deal comes in two parts, designated as pillars. Pillar one, which is promoted by the European powers, allows for greater taxation of multinational companies. Pillar 2, which has been promoted by the US, sets the global minimum corporate tax rate at 15 percent.

The two parts of the deal are interconnected. Endorsement of Pillar 1 in the US may need changes to existing treaties, requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate, which is divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. If Pillar 1 falls through, then all bets are off, and the European powers go ahead with their imposition of digital taxes on the large US tech giants. If this were to take place, it would mean a return to the kind of confrontation that occurred during the Trump administration, which the tax agreement is aimed at avoiding.

Even if the deal is implemented, it will not bring a major boost in tax revenue, as experience has shown that major corporations are certain to devise new avoidance mechanisms.

The tax deal was the central focus of the meeting, with the key issues of an increased COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the related question of debt relief for poorer countries all but ignored.

The meeting’s communiqué contained boilerplate phrases such as “we remain determined to bring the pandemic under control everywhere as soon as possible” and declared support for efforts to accelerate the delivery of vaccines. But no money was allocated or specific proposals made to achieve these objectives.

In the lead up to the meeting, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned of a “worsening two-track recovery,” driven in part by differences in vaccine availability. She called for “urgent action” by G20 leaders and policymakers in this “critical moment.”

It was not forthcoming, either on the vaccine issue or on the worsening debt position of many poorer nations, as a result of the deep economic and financial problems resulting from the pandemic.

Last week a Washington Post article by David Lynch pointed to the significant increase in indebtedness, as countries in Asia, Latin American and Africa stepped up their borrowings.

The result is that emerging market borrowing, at the end of March, totaled $86 trillion, up by $11 trillion during the pandemic. So far, the flow of money to emerging markets has been sustained, because their debts offer better rates of return than in the US, due to the ultra-low interest rate regime maintained by the Fed.

However, according to the article, if monetary conditions tighten in the US faster than expected, it could trigger a “bout of capital flight that could shake both emerging market borrowers and the US economy.”

As much of emerging market debt is denominated in US dollars, these countries would be faced with either raising interest rates to try to stop the capital outflow, likely bringing about a recession in their economies, or letting the value of their currencies slide, thereby increasing the cost in local currency of repaying dollar-denominated loans.

Last year a debt service suspension initiative (DSSI), implemented by the G20, saved 43 poorer countries some $5.7 billion, a level described by World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart as “disappointing.” The total servicing costs for developing countries this year are expected to be $1.1 trillion.

Agustin Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, sometimes described as the bank for central banks, has warned that developing countries are close to exhausting their capacity to borrow.

In an interview with the Financial Times last week, he said: “They have to start facing the music of how to get growth going [with] all these things working against them ... reduced fiscal space, they don’t have monetary space, they have higher corporate debt and higher sovereign debt.”

Carstens pointed to a significant change in the growth pattern of the global economy, as a result of the pandemic.

“This is the first time in the world that advanced economies’ growth is above global growth, and global growth is above emerging market growth,” he told the FT. “Growth in emerging markets has been slowing down, and we don’t see it picking up.”

Carstens said that so far, emerging markets had been able to get through the pandemic without a crisis, but there was still a substantial risk of one. “Some of us think that this may not be the final picture, and that what we have seen so far is too good to be true.”

But the warnings from both the World Bank and the BIS were largely ignored. No new initiatives were announced on debt relief and debt restructuring, with the G20 communiqué declaring that the G20 welcomed the “progress” under DSSI, widely regarded as inadequate. It also declared support for the proposal by the International Monetary Fund to expand Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which enable countries to boost their foreign currency reserves, by an amount equivalent to $650 billion.

This measure has also been criticised as inadequate, because SDRs are available in proportion to a country’s size within the IMF, meaning that poorer countries in most need of additional currency reserves would get the least.

US imposes new sanctions on China over Uyghurs

Peter Symonds

The Biden administration last Friday adopted further sanctions against China for alleged human rights abuses against the minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang in the west of the country. The punitive measures are part of the escalating US confrontation with China, in which a propaganda campaign of lies and distortions is accompanying a relentless military build-up against Beijing.

The US Commerce Department added 34 companies to its Entities List, which effectively prohibits American citizens or corporations transacting business with those sanctioned. Of those, 14 were Chinese companies that allegedly enabled Beijing’s “campaign of repression, mass detention, and high-technology surveillance” in Xinjiang.

Another five Chinese companies were added to the list for supporting China’s military modernisation programs related to lasers and battle management systems. In addition, eight entities were cited for facilitating the export of US items to Iran and another six for helping to procure US-origin items “likely in furtherance of Russian military programs.”

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (Creative Commons/Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs)

The sweeping character of Washington’s unilateral measures is underscored by the Commerce Department’s statement, which declared that the entities were added to the list “for their involvement in, or risk of becoming involved in, activities contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.”

In other words, the sanctions have been added to further the interests of US imperialism. This includes cynically exploiting bogus “human rights” campaigns to target countries, in preparation for launching criminal wars of aggression. The phrase “or risk of becoming involved” makes clear the US imposes its punitive measures on the most tenuous grounds.

Once again, without providing a shred of evidence, the US accused China of committing “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” in its treatment of the Uyghurs. While the Beijing regime undoubtedly uses police-state measures in Xinjiang against alleged threats of terrorism and separatism, US claims of “genocide” are a gross lie. Moreover, its allegations of “human rights” abuses are based on the highly questionable evidence of right-wing academics and pro-US Uyghur exile organisations.

The US routinely turns a blind eye to the human rights abuses of its allies and strategic partners, such as Saudi Arabia, when it suits its interests. When the Bush administration sought Chinese support for its illegal and brutal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it endorsed Beijing’s own “war on terrorism” in Xinjiang. Now as it prepares for a showdown with China, the US under Biden, as under Trump, is ramping up its attacks on the Chinese regime with an abrupt about-face on the issue of the Uyghurs.

Last Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with seven Uyghur exiles in what was nothing more than a media stunt. According to a State Department spokesman, the secretary wanted to hear their stories of detention in China, “to hear first-hand their impression of the ongoing atrocities in Xinjiang and the internment of a million Uyghurs.”

In reality, while Uyghurs are clearly being held in what Beijing calls “re-education” and “training” centres, there is no first-hand evidence of the scale of Uyghur detentions. The figure of one million, concocted from dubious second-hand information, is simply repeated endlessly in the US and international media as if it were an established fact.

The latest round of US sanctions against China is a further sign that the Biden administration intends to intensify its propaganda war. It provocatively imposed the previous round of sanctions on Chinese officials in March, just days before Blinken was due to hold his first face-to-face meeting with top Chinese diplomats in Alaska. His blunt denunciations of China before his Chinese counterparts in Alaska were calculated to create a diplomatic row before the TV cameras and ensure that no meaningful dialogue took place.

More than Trump, Biden has sought to enlist US allies and partners in the accelerating war drive against China and ensure that they parrot the propaganda emanating from Washington, including on the alleged abuse of Uyghurs. In the wake of the summit in Alaska, the US, in league with the European Union, Britain and Canada, imposed a coordinated series of sanctions on China, specifically over the Uyghurs—measures that were also endorsed but not implemented by Australia and New Zealand.

Last month, an Australian parliamentary committee recommended the adoption of a global ban on the import of goods made with forced labour. The committee inquiry followed the introduction of a bill by independent senator Rex Patrick calling for a ban on goods from Xinjiang over China’s alleged use of the forced labour of Uyghurs, in particular in the manufacture of cotton in Xinjiang. The committee’s report endorsed the legislation and called for further measures against China in collaboration with the US, Britain and Canada.

In Britain, the parliament’s foreign relations committee brought down a report last week calling for measures to stop the abuse of Uyghurs, including through a ban on the import of Chinese cotton and solar panels from Xinjiang. It also called on the government to announce that no British officials would attend the Winter Olympics in Beijing, establish special fast-track systems for Uyghur asylum seekers, and ban imports from Chinese technology firms involved in providing surveillance equipment installed in Xinjiang.

The British parliamentary report accused China of using its Belt and Road Initiative, which provides loans for infrastructure projects across Eurasia, to put pressure on many Islamic countries not to speak out against atrocities in Xinjiang. It is part of an emerging US-led campaign to bully and strong-arm countries to fall into line with anti-Chinese propaganda. That Muslim countries have not, in the main, joined in US denunciations of alleged Chinese abuse of the Muslim Uyghurs is clearly regarded as a setback in Washington, and one that must be rectified.

The Washington Post, which has been prominent in propagating the lie of Uyghur genocide, last week took Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, to task for lining up with China’s policy toward the Uyghurs. “We have a very strong relationship with China… What they say about the programs in Xinjiang, we accept it,” Khan said in remarks to mark 100 years since the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. He added that it was hypocritical that other human rights issues were not afforded the same attention.

On Sunday, in response to the latest US bans, the Chinese Commerce Ministry branded Washington’s move an “unreasonable suppression of Chinese enterprises and a serious breach of international economic and trade rules.” Without specifying, it warned that China would “take necessary measures to firmly safeguard Chinese companies’ legitimate rights and interests.”

Along with the lie that COVID-19 emanated from a virology laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the US intends to exploit its bogus “human rights” campaign over the Uyghurs as a central element of its anti-China propaganda. Its focus on Xinjiang is not accidental. The region is strategically sensitive for China as it is adjacent to Central Asia and crucial for its Belt and Road Initiative. Washington calculates that turmoil in Xinjiang would weaken China and advance US interests in energy-rich Central Asia.

Pornography: Studies And Activists Warn About Neglected Aspect of Violence Against Women

Bharat Dogra

“ As a result of our efforts violence against women was decreasing in villages here. But ever since this new menace of ashlilta on phone ( porn available on mobile phone) became easily accessible, problems have been increasing. In fact things have come to such a pass that even some new marriages are breaking down as a result of this.”

The speaker was an experienced woman activist. We –about 40 women and men—were sitting in a workshop on recent trends in violence against women in villages. This workshop had been organized in a village in Western Uttar Pradesh. Those present were mainly village based activists, mostly women, and a few media persons.

When the workshop ended I approached the speaker to ask her if she could explain a little more what she meant when she said that marriages were breaking down. She took me to her office and pointing to some files she said—I cannot divulge any names but in our dispute reconciliation efforts an increasing number of women have been coming up with some similar but new kinds of problems. The men who are much more exposed to phone porn want the brides to indulge in certain forms of sexual activity. The women who are from traditional background may often find this disgusting. This leads to discord, leading to a situation where the marriage may break down. In fact some men show certain things on phone and say this is what they want in their real life too.

This is just one indication of the unexpected impacts of sudden exposure of traditional societies to pornography. Perhaps an even more disturbing aspect relates to the brisk sale specifically of rape videos under the counter in many markets.

According to a widely quoted study by Seiya Morita in the context of Japan, a survey conducted  among  suspects hauled up for rape and indecent assault asked a question—when watching a porn video did  you feel  the urge to do the same in real life? 33 per cent replied in the affirmative. When juvenile offenders were asked, the number went up much more– 50 per cent said yes. This study also established a co-relationship between increase of access to porn and increase of sexual crimes in Japan.

A study of adolescents in the 10-15 year age-group conducted over a period of 3 years in the USA ( year 2011, authors Ybarra et al ) revealed that those adolescents who were accessing/consuming violent pornographies were six times more likely to be sexually aggressive, compared to both those who viewed nonviolent  pornographies and those who did not use pornography.

In a school survey in Sweden (2010, Kellerman et al) those boys who had perpetrated sexual aggression ( as well as those who had other conduct problems ) were more likely to use pornography frequently and had exposure to violent  porn.

Of course frequent consumption of pornography does not necessarily make any man sexually aggressive entirely on its own. Such an adverse impact is more likely to be seen in men who have some or all of several other negative behavior patterns including hostility towards women, domination, tendency for impersonal sex, anti-social tendencies and overall lower intelligence. As Malamuth and Huppin argue in their study (2005), “ the extent to which a person possesses certain combinations of risk factors determines how likely he is to be sexually aggressive following pornography exposure.” Such men are likely to be easily convinced in the course of watching violent porn that women derive pleasure from sexual violence ( the rape myth).  Such men in turn are more likely to seek violent pornography.

Kingston et al. have summarized this view in their 2006 study, “When examined in the context of multiple, interacting factors, the findings are highly consistent across experimental and non-experimental studies and across differing populations in showing that pornography use can be a risk factor for sexually aggressive outcomes, principally for men who are high on other risk factors and who use pornography frequently.”

According to a Swedish study, (Lofren-Martenson,2010), male youth fervently denied that they wanted to imitate pornographic practices in their own sexual relationships. However female respondents in the same study disagreed and said that their boyfriends insisted on activities, like anal sex, that they had seen in pornography.  An American study (Rothman et al.,2015 ) reported similar results.

A study (Vennier et al.,2014) has pointed out that in many  videos the girl who resists sexual advances initially is later seen to be not just submitting but also enjoying, thereby perpetuating the myth of only token resistance which is a motivating factor for sexually aggressive men.

Many porn videos promote unsafe sex. A study based on analysis of  many porn web-sites ( Gorman et al., 2010) found that condoms were used rarely, only in 2 per cent of scenes. Most porn films depict women primarily as sex objects, focusing too much on certain body parts, thereby dehumanizing them.

A study by the Australian Institute of Family affairs which has used these and other studies to draw conclusions on this issue for youth guidance and policy says, “ There is a range of intersecting risk factors that increase the likelihood that male consumers of pornography will perpetrate sexual aggression or have a predisposition towards sexual aggression.”

In recent times there has been an increasing tendency to consider porn as an acceptable part of routine life and questions regarding its actual impact are not considered the subject of serious discussion. On the contrary the available evidence indicates that this impact can be quite disruptive, even more so for traditional societies. While studies from developed countries also indicate serious harm, these cannot fully capture several more disruptive impacts on traditional societies. There is need to examine this, as  increasingly porn is also aimed at more traditional and rural societies in harmful ways, for example in terms of harming very close and sensitive relationships. Hence there is certainly need for giving more importance to avoiding and reducing social adverse impacts and in particular to avoiding any adverse impacts on the safety and well-being of women.

England’s Euro 2020: “National unity” in furtherance of “herd immunity”

Thomas Scripps

The UK government’s organisation of the postponed 2020 European Football Championship has produced scenes of politically orchestrated insanity.

Fans gather outside Wembley Stadium in London, Wednesday, July 7, 2021, ahead of the Euro 2020 soccer championship semifinal match between England and Denmark. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Amid a huge surge of the pandemic threatening thousands more mostly working-class lives, the population is being encouraged to crowd together in large numbers and sign up to a fairy-tale of “national unity”.

Widespread passion for the game, an appreciation for a national team shorn of its usual egos and including admired public figures like Marcus Rashford and, above all, the emotional tensions built up during the pandemic have combined to give England’s success a larger-than-life character. 20.9 million people tuned in to watch the quarter-final match against Ukraine (26.1 million including online streams), 81.8 percent of the possible audience. 27.6 million people watched the semi-final match against Denmark on ITV, making it the largest ever peak football audience for a single channel.

But neither politics nor the pandemic are suspended by fond hopes and good will. Following a well-worn playbook, the Euros are being used as a vehicle for anti-scientific propaganda and nationalist mythmaking.

In addition to the millions watching at home, 66,000 people were packed into Wembley Stadium in London. But this was only the most visible of countless other gatherings in pubs, city centres and family homes throughout the country. Looking at photo features in one newspaper after another is to see what a massive super-spreader event looks like.

Even this will be dwarfed by Sunday’s final against Italy, also being held at Wembley. Broadcasters are predicting it could exceed the record 32.3 million people who watched the 1966 World Cup final—the last occasion that England reached a major soccer final. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not ruled out opening Wembley to its full 90,000-person capacity. A government advisor told the i newspaper, “There’s a growing feeling that this could be a moment we cannot let pass.”

These activities are accelerating the already rapid spread of COVID-19. Imperial College London’s React study reported on Thursday that between the periods May 20-June 7 and June 24-July 5, the number of new infections quadrupled. Cases are now doubling every six days and are, for the first time, significantly (30 percent) more prominent among men.

Head of the study Professor Stephen Reilly explained, “Because of the timing, it could be that watching football is resulting in men having more social activity than normal. If I had to speculate about the impact of the Euros I would first think about the increased probability that people are mixing inside more.”

According to the Imperial study, if infections continue to multiply at this speed, the country will breach 100,000 cases a day even before the last public restrictions are ended on July 19.

Using the infection rates after the June 18 England-Scotland match as a guide, leading modeler Professor Karl Friston estimates that some 70,000 people will have contracted COVID-19 as a result of events surrounding the semi-final. He predicts they will go on to infect another nearly 500,000 people within a month. The effect of the final will be larger.

The whole political establishment is encouraging this behaviour. Johnson has extended pub opening times on Sunday and told businesses to consider being flexible to cater for staff absences and lateness on Monday, especially grotesque given the government’s refusal to protect workers from COVID-19. Labour Party Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has created a prize draw for tickets to the final for people who have received their first, insufficient, vaccine or even just booked an appointment to receive it.

The media is reveling in the carnival atmosphere, with warnings from scientists reported as if coming from another planet if at all. On June 29, the Guardian’s James Greig wrote in praise of “moments of collective joy”, “Yes, we must mourn our losses, but we must also party in the streets.” In the closing minutes of the England-Denmark game, ITV commentator Sam Matterface told tens of millions of viewers, “I tell you what if this comes off, you can do what you want tonight, you’ve had a terrible 16 months… You deserve this, England deserves this.”

No one should believe that it is a love for football driving the enthusiasm in political circles. There is a lot of money at stake. Besides the tens of millions that will be spent in pubs in just a few hours on Sunday, there is a hope that “Winning the final, along with lots of other things, like reopening, the easing of restrictions, could help unlock many billions of pounds worth of additional spending,” says Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Gordon, speaking to the BBC.

Fundamentally, the Euros are the high point of the propaganda campaign to insist that the pandemic crisis is over and that any public health restrictions harmful to big business can be scrapped.

Large gatherings have been encouraged by the relentless insistence, across the political spectrum, that the real threat of COVID-19 has passed, and are meant to serve as further proof of the population successfully “learning to live with the virus”.

They are a cynical attempt to push a programme of herd immunity and weaken broader scientific consciousness and social responsibility. It should be noted that vaccination uptake has almost halved in England over the past fortnight, with public health officials blaming the “return to normality” narrative.

The political scaffolding for this homicidal agenda, which has so far cost 150,000 lives and brought the conflict between the working class and the government and corporations to an extraordinary degree of tension, is the myth of a national unity in which all social conflicts and ills are supposedly dissolved. England’s exploits on the football pitch are held up as the promise of a potentially united nation, which can jointly overcome all challenges.

This has led to the usual noxious jingoism, with England fans told not to invoke the Second World War by singing “Ten German bombers” and censured for booing the Danish national anthem and for one imbecile shining a laser pointer in the eyes of Danish goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel during an England penalty. The Daily Mail trumpeted “Danes gelded” after the country’s defeat.

However, the dominant theme this tournament, led by the “left”, has been of a supposedly “progressive patriotism”, a “patriotism that is generous and enhances national cohesion”, writes New Statesman editor Jason Cowley. The England team has been touted as a model of national pride combined with modern values and a “social conscience”, an alternative to the Johnson government’s tub-thumping jingoism and racism. Figures around Labour have urged the party to seize this opportunity to tell “Labour’s story on patriotism and national identity”, in the words of LabourList writer Jake Richards.

There is an air of the absurd to these efforts. The England football team has “achieved the formidable feat of uniting a fractured, polarised nation”, claims Martin Fletcher in the New Statesman, producing a tournament in which “England itself seemed transported” by a squad of players who have “pointed the way, on and off the field, to a better England”, according to the Guardian’s David Conn.

England’s amiable and popular manager Gareth Southgate has been elevated to the status of a political idol, upon whose shoulders the fate of English society rests, and whose “Letter to England” written at the start of the tournament is a masterpiece of world literature. Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have been called on by columnists, pollsters and each other to “emulate”, “study” and generally “be more like” Southgate.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson poses for a photograph outside 10 Downing Street with a giant St George's flag ahead of the England Quarter Final game against Ukraine. July 1, 2021 (Picture by Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street/Flickr)

Behind the breathless rhetoric is a clear and reactionary political agenda. These commentators are attempting to engineer a major shift to the right in British politics, summed up by the demand from John Denham, the former Labour MP and now director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics, to go beyond what he derisively calls “a 90-minute nation”.

No matter how palatably presented, the function of this rebranded nationalism is the same as it always has been. Just as much as Johnson, the “progressive patriots” hope to use the Euros to promote the dangerous political lie that “we are all in this together”, a filthy whitewash of the policy of mass infection and death, wage cuts and job losses pursued by Labour and the Tories for more than a year and continued to this day.

Scotland leads Europe in coronavirus transmission

Stephen Alexander

Scotland is facing a deepening public health disaster as the Delta variant surges, resulting in record daily infections and a resurgence of hospitalisation and deaths. The country accounts for four of Europe’s top 10 COVID-19 hotspots in the last 14 days according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with the UK as whole accounting for seven regions. The other regions in the top 10 are in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Cyprus.

Tayside in northeast Scotland has the highest infection rate in Europe, with 1,223 new cases per 100,000 people recorded over the 14-day up to the July 7. Lothian, home to Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, currently registers third with 1,083 cases per 100,000 behind North-East England. Greater Glasgow and Clyde had the fifth highest rate of cases with 899 per 100,000. The Scottish health boards of Fife and Lanarkshire also feature in the top 10 together with North-West England.

Scottish Government COVID-19 press conference at St. Andrew's House, Edinburgh with the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon and National Clinical Director Jason Leitch. (credit: Scottish Government/Flickr)

The true infection rate is already far greater as Scotland’s overwhelmed Test and Protect system is only picking up approximately half of all cases and contact tracing is experiencing widespread delays beyond the WHO guidance of 72-hours for informing the contacts of positive cases. According to the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app, 1 in 83 of all people in Scotland have COVID-19 against 1 in 159 across the UK. Scotland registered a record daily surge of 4,234 cases on Thursday July 1, although the recent totals have subsequently fallen to around 3,000.

While the vaccine has successfully reduced the rate of hospitalisation, serious illness and death, only 64 percent of adults have been fully vaccinated in Scotland. The Delta variant, which capitalist governments have criminally allowed to spread globally, is far more transmissible and deadly than the original variants of coronavirus. Vaccine efficacy has been reduced considerably by the mutation, leaving the health and lives of millions at risk even among the vaccinated.

Hospitalisations due to coronavirus still take place at the considerable rate of 5 percent of all cases, compared to rate of 10 percent in the second wave. The latest figures show that 401 Scots are now in hospital with the virus, up 41 since Monday, with 38 people in intensive care.

At National Health Service (NHS) Tayside, where admissions doubled recently in the space of 24 hours to 36, operational medical director Dr Pamela Johnston warned, “We currently have 36 patients in hospital requiring care for Covid, with some of those requiring more intensive care in our ICU and HDU… many of these patients are under the age of 40 and we expect this number to increase over the next few weeks.

“Our GP colleagues at the Covid assessment centre in Dundee are also very busy, seeing five times as many people as last month”, she added, “These are people of all ages who are feeling very unwell with the virus and coming for assessment.”

The strain on the health service is already overwhelming several NHS hospitals. Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, the largest in the Highlands, has been placed on “code black status” after reaching full capacity, as have Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin at NHS Grampian.

The head of the British Medical Association Scotland, Lewis Morrison, told BBC Radio Scotland, “Raigmore is an example of what might well happen in other places if we don’t take some action to deal with what is a very high level of pressure on healthcare, both in general practice and in hospitals, combined with rising Covid cases leading to a large number of staff having to self-isolate.”

Cancellations to non-urgent surgery and outpatient services are already widespread. NHS Lanarkshire has reduced elective procedures after 700 people were admitted with the virus across three hospitals over the last weekend. Additional surge wards are being set up at hospitals across the country, including at NHS Fife and NHS Tayside. Tayside now has 60 dedicated beds for COVID-19 patients.

Hospital-acquired COVID-19, which has killed 1,600 Scots since the onset of the pandemic, is also again on the rise. University Hospital Hairmyres, in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, was placed on high-alert Monday after an outbreak in Ward 15, which has been closed to new admissions and visitors. This is under conditions where hospitals face a spike in demand for emergency surgery and medical attention due to the huge backlog built up over the pandemic, which includes a quarter of a million operations.

Around 70 percent of patients hospitalised with coronavirus had not made a full recovery at their five month follow up appointment, the Post-Hospitalisation COVID-19 Study found. With record cases, already dangerously overstretched GP surgeries and outpatient services are threatened with an avalanche of cases of Long COVID, to which children are also susceptible.

According to weekly data published by National Records of Scotland, coronavirus related deaths have also begun to climb, albeit from a low level. There were 21 COVID-19 related deaths in Scotland over the week ending July 4, up from 17 deaths recorded in the previous week. Of these, 15 died in hospital, 4 in care homes, and 2 in private residences or non-institutional settings. The majority of fatalities (11) were among people aged 75 or over, with 6 deaths between the ages of 65 and 74, and four deaths among the under 65s.

In total there have now been 10,189 deaths where COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate, amounting to nearly 2 deaths per 1,000 of Scotland’s 5.5 million population.

The devolved Scottish National Party (SNP) government projects that hospitalisations will reach 1,000 by mid-July, yet it is moving forward with the full reopening of the economy in line with the demands of all sectors of business. Scotland’s Finance Secretary Kate Forbes conceded that the pandemic is at a “fragile moment” but reiterated the government’s intention to remove all restrictions by August 9, just a few weeks after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is scheduled to end restrictions in England.

The Scottish government has dishonestly presented its approach to ending lockdown restrictions as more cautious and scientific than the Conservative government’s in London. In truth, it has adopted the murderous “herd immunity” strategy of mass infection and death pioneered by Johnson as its own. It piloted many of Westminster’s socially criminal “public health” measures in Scotland, including the unsafe reopening of schools and universities weeks in advance of England, with in-person education a major transmission vector in the second and third waves. The SNP is again seeking to disguise its collaboration in social murder with cosmetic timing differences in the relaxation of lockdown restrictions.

In line with this, Professor Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s National Clinical Director, parroted the murderous logic of capitalist governments the world over which have justified a bonfire of public health restriction prior to full vaccination as necessary to save the economy, i.e., the profits of big business and the wealth of the super-rich. Speaking to the media this week, Leitch stated, “Of course, when you open there is more risk to the population, but you have to balance that with economic harms and social harms.”