Herd immunity policy leads to four-digit COVID-19 incidence levels in German schools

Tamino Dreisam

Daily infection levels are at an all-time high in Germany, currently doubling every 14 days. The seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants was more than 340 on Friday, after 65,371 people were infected in a single day on Wednesday. The increase runs across all age groups, but children and adolescents have the highest rates. The seven-day incidence level is currently 395 in the 15- to 34-year-old age group and 819 among 5- to 14-year-olds.

Incidence rates are highest in Saxony, with 935 among 15- to 34-year-olds and 2,284 among 5- to 14-year-olds. This means that one to two percent of all schoolchildren in Saxony are becoming infected every week. In Brandenburg, Berlin, Bavaria and Saxony-Anhalt, the incidence level among 15- to 34-year-olds is also in the four-digit range.

Pupils go to school in Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

According to figures from the Conference of State Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, there were around 45,000 known coronavirus cases among schoolchildren last week—almost double the figure of 23,000 cases in the previous week. Currently, nearly 87,000 of 10 million students nationwide are in quarantine. In addition, there are about 2,100 teachers quarantining.

The number of coronavirus outbreaks in schools remains higher than in any previous wave, according to the weekly report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). In the last four weeks, 856 school outbreaks have been recorded, although the last two weeks cannot be conclusively assessed yet because of late reports. On average, there are five to six cases per outbreak.

The catastrophic increase among largely unvaccinated—and thus defenceless—schoolchildren is a consequence of the criminal policy of deliberate mass infection supported by all parties. After the summer break, all federal states started with full in-person classes and gradually dismantled protective measures that were still in place.

Regulations benchmarking the level above which distance learning had to take place were eliminated. Even the requirement to wear a mask was suspended in some states. Students told the WSWS that quarantine regulations were mostly reduced to requiring only the infected person themselves to be quarantined—not even those who sit in their immediate vicinity. Since testing is usually only provided for unvaccinated students, those who are vaccinated often unknowingly infect fellow students. Also, very few schools are equipped with air filters, so ventilation must continue with open windows, even as winter approaches.

These deadly policies are being implemented by all bourgeois parties. Currently, Saxony (governed by the Christian Democratic CDU, Greens and Social Democratic SPD) has the most infections, followed by Bavaria (governed by the Christian Democratic CSU and the right-wing Free Voters) and Thuringia (Left Party, SPD and Greens). The parties of the planned federal “traffic light” (SPD, Greens and the Liberal Democrats-FDP) government under Olaf Scholz decided on Thursday to end the designation of an “epidemic emergency of national scope” on November 25, thus removing the basis for important protective measures.

The unions also support the removing of all barriers to the spread of the virus. GEW education union President Maike Finnern spoke out against school closures in late October.

On the other hand, opposition to this policy of deliberate mass infection is growing. In a joint press release, the State Parents’ Association for High Schools (LEV), the Association of Directors of Bavarian High Schools (BayDV) and the Bavarian Philologists’ Association (bpv) recently stated, “Parents, school administrators and teachers are unanimous: Talking up the situation at schools won’t help!”

They write, “In the first few weeks, work habits and structure had to be practiced again in class, and that took up a lot of time. Add to that the growing number of students in quarantine: they have to be provided with materials, they must not lose touch.” Due to quarantining and the first waves of illness, there had been a lot of coming and going in the classroom, and regular lessons were often impossible, they said. “Maintaining normal operations and managing coronavirus at the same time—this balancing act has become too great in many places.”

“The situation at schools is coming to a head,” reports LEV chairwoman Birgit Bretthauer from the parents’ point of view. “We receive reports every day that the mental health of many students has declined significantly and that gaps in subject matter are also increasingly causing problems in everyday school life.” Walter Baier, Chairman of the School Directors’ Association, said, “The wish for a normal school year has unfortunately not become reality—and everyone must admit this and draw immediate conclusions from it.”

Broad opposition in the population to the herd immunity policy is particularly evident in a petition calling for protective measures in schools and day care centres, which received more than 45,000 signatures in less than a week. The initiators are largely teachers and medical professionals.

The petition calls on Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholz (SPD) to “demonstrate leadership … in the fight against the pandemic.” The petition refers to a recent letter from 35 renowned scientists who stated, “Once again, the time for early action has passed, despite all warnings. Infectious disease is spreading unchecked. The health care system is in danger of collapse.”

The petition calls the impending end to the designated epidemic emergency “a serious political mistake [that] Germany may pay for with tens of thousands of additional coronavirus deaths. The overriding goal must be to contain new infections to low levels. High incidence levels overburden the health care system and put the entire population at risk—including the vaccinated.”

The strong support for these demands reflects immense opposition among workers and youth. But a humane pandemic policy cannot be achieved by appealing to the common sense of the politicians responsible for executing the herd immunity policy. Governments are not refusing to implement the necessary measures because they are ill-informed or unaware of the current situation.

Politicians like Olaf Scholz are regularly advised by leading scientists and are fully aware of the suffering their policies cause. In the penultimate debate in the Bundestag (federal parliament) to end the designation of an emergency situation, Scholz declared, “We know what the consequence will be: Very, very many of those who are not vaccinated will become infected, and many of those who become infected will become ill, and of those who become ill, some will be struggling for their lives in the intensive care units of our hospitals.”

Politicians of all the establishment parties are not implementing the necessary measures because above all else, they defend the economic interests of the banks and corporations. Even in the first lockdown, Scholz, as Finance Minister, organized the billion-euro handouts for the banks and corporations. The necessary coronavirus protection measures, however—such as the closure of schools and nonessential businesses—run counter to the profit maximization of the corporations and are therefore not taken.

US 2021 COVID-19 death toll now tops 2020

Patrick Martin

More Americans have died of COVID-19 in 2021 than in the first year of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The figures demonstrate the terrible human cost of the policy of “living with the virus,” pursued by the Biden administration and corporate America, which in reality means allowing hundreds of thousands to die from the virus.

US Army Capt. Corrine Brown, a critical care nurse, administers an anti-viral medication to a COVID-19 positive patient at Kootenai Health regional medical center during response operations in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on Sept. 6, 2021. [Credit: Michael H. Lehman/DVIDS U.S. Navy/via AP]

The figures from the CDC and Johns Hopkins were published by the Wall Street Journal, together with other information the newspaper collected from several health care and insurance company studies. The total number of deaths due to the pandemic hit 770,800 on Saturday, with 385,343 deaths in 2020 now surpassed by 385,457 deaths in 2021—and there are still six weeks remaining in the year.

The 2021 figure is particularly disastrous because vaccines have been available throughout the year, first for health care workers and the most vulnerable seniors, then more generally, for all adults and youth aged 12 and over. Most recently, vaccinations have been made available to children aged 5-11.

The most recent surge in COVID-19 has been in New England and the Upper Midwest, with the seven-day average for new cases hitting 93,196 on Friday, November 19, up 30 percent in just three weeks from 70,271 on October 25. The upcoming Thanksgiving holidays, filled with travel and family gatherings, will undoubtedly send the daily average rocketing past 100,000.

Among the worst-hit states is Michigan, which accounted for one in ten of all new coronavirus cases last week, even though the state has only three percent of the US population. According to the CDC, Michigan has the highest seven-day case rate in the country, 589.3 cases per 100,000, double that of neighboring Ohio. Hospitalizations have jumped 62 percent since November 1, and more than 400 people in Michigan died from COVID-19 last week.

The state’s fully vaccinated rate of 54.2 percent trails the US average of 58.9 percent. The state health department has issued an advisory urging everyone aged two years and older to wear a mask indoors except for family members who live under the same roof. This would apply to all Thanksgiving gatherings this coming week. At the same time, the state health director said there were no plans to stop in-person instruction in schools or impose mask mandates.

For the entire year, the worst-hit states are in the South: Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. Mississippi has both the highest death rate per capita, and one of the lowest vaccination rates, only 47 percent.

While nearly 200 million people in the United States are fully vaccinated, and 450 million jabs have been delivered, there are tens of millions of adults still not vaccinated, and tens of millions of children have either not received shots or are under five and remain ineligible. The unvaccinated make up the bulk of new cases of infection, hospitalization and death.

The Journal cited figures reported by the public health department of Los Angeles County, which found that “unvaccinated people were nearly five times more likely to get COVID-19 and about 29 times more likely to be hospitalized than fully vaccinated people.”

The Delta variant has played a major role in the continually rising toll from the pandemic, as it is far more transmissible. There are also a significant number of breakthrough infections, although as a percentage of those vaccinated, breakthroughs still remain comparatively low—roughly one percent.

The Journal also reviewed state-by-state data which is collected inconsistently, but reveals definite patterns. Of the 195 million fully vaccinated, about 1.89 million have contracted COVID-19, with 72,000 hospitalized and about 20,000 deaths, according to the figures reported by the states.

This means that breakthrough infections account for about seven percent of the 27.6 million people who have contracted COVID-19 in the United States this year, while the unvaccinated constitute 93 percent of the total.

Those vaccinated who suffered the worst results—hospitalization in an Intensive Care Unit and/or death—were overwhelming drawn from the elderly and those suffering from serious health problems pre-COVID, and usually both. The Journal reported, “people with diabetes, chronic lung disease, kidney disease and compromised immune systems were at risk of serious outcomes from breakthrough cases, the data show.”

According to one research firm with access to hospital medical data, Truveta Inc., “among 1.7 million fully vaccinated people … those with diabetes, chronic lung disease and chronic kidney disease were about twice as likely to be hospitalized for breakthrough cases as vaccinated people without these conditions.”

Vaccinated people with those conditions were both more likely to suffer a breakthrough infection and more likely to be hospitalized if they did contract the virus.

A second research firm which shared its results with the Journal, Epic Health Research Network, found that 80 percent of breakthrough deaths were among people aged 65 or older. By comparison, those aged 65 and older accounted for 69 percent of all COVID-19 deaths this year, counting both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

While people under 65 made up 19 percent of COVID-19 deaths in 2020, they accounted for 31 percent of all COVID-19 deaths this year. This is due in part to the much higher vaccination rate among the elderly, but the greater transmissibility of the Delta variant and the reopening of schools and workplaces must account for the bulk of this shift.

COVID-19 deaths among younger people more than doubled in 2021, although the death rate still remains far lower. About 10,000 of the 385,000 who died in 2020 were under 45 years old, while in 2021, that figure has risen to 20,563.

The Epic research found a “tipping point” for breakthrough cases at about 20 to 22 weeks after people received their second shot. This underscores the necessity for booster shots no later than six months after becoming fully vaccinated.

Behind Chinese President Xi’s populism, mounting social inequality

Peter Symonds

The Chinese leadership of President Xi Jinping has over the course of this year taken a distinctly populist tinge—including an emphasis on “common prosperity”—that is, prosperity for all; the announcement that absolute poverty has been abolished in China; and moves, limited in character, to rein-in billionaire tycoons such as Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent’s Pony Ma, as well as highly profitable private corporations that dominate the online education industry.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not about to seriously impede the operation of the market and privately-owned corporations in China that have flourished over the past four decades since Deng Xiaoping initiated the processes of capitalist restoration. The CCP bureaucracy and wealthy private entrepreneurs are closely intertwined—some of these successful capitalists are party members or sit on various government advisory bodies.

People wearing masks, walk in a subway station, in Hong Kong [Credit: AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

President Xi spelled out the regime’s chief fear in comments to provincial ministerial-level officials at the beginning of the year. “Achieving common prosperity,” he warned, “is not just an economic issue, but a significant political one that matters to the party’s basis to rule… We absolutely cannot allow [the] rich-poor gap to increase bigger and bigger, [resulting in] the poor poorer and the rich richer.”

In August, Xi told the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs that greater emphasis had to be placed on “common prosperity” and expressed the need to “regulate excessively high incomes” and “encourage high-income people and enterprises to return more to society.” However, corporate philanthropy and token government measures to help the poor are not going reverse the growing gulf between rich and poor in China or anywhere else for that matter, which is rooted in the profit system.

The processes of capitalist restoration, fuelled by a huge influx of foreign investment and technology to take advantage China large reservoirs of cheap labour, have certainly led to a huge economic expansion and lifted per capita GDP. However, as with other capitalist economies, social inequality has greatly widened and intensified social tensions. While absolute poverty, narrowly defined, may have been abolished, some 600 million Chinese are struggling to get by on a daily basis on a monthly income of less than Rmb1,000 or about $US155, while the country is now home to more dollar billionaires than the United States.

Many indices point to rising social inequality.

* The Gini coefficient is a standard measure of social inequality that ranges from 0, which represents absolute equality or all people earning exactly the same income, to 1, which represents absolute inequality or one person having all the income and everyone else having none.

China’s official Gini coefficient, has risen sharply since Deng’s “opening up” in 1978 from about 0.31 to 0.4 in 1997 and a high of 0.49 in 2008 before falling slightly to 0.47 in 2020. Any figure over 0.4 is regarded by the United Nations as indicating large inequality, while China’s leaders have themselves declared that level is potentially destabilising.

* According to the World Bank, in 1978, the top 10 percent of earners in China and the bottom 50 percent each accounted for about a quarter of the country’s total income. By 2018, the top 10 percent took more than 40 percent of total income, while the bottom half of earners received less than 15 percent.

In terms of wealth rather than income, the wealthiest 1 percent of individuals owned nearly 31 percent of China’s wealth in 2020, up from around 21 percent in 2000. In the US for instance, the share of wealth of the top 1 percent reached 35 percent in 2020. According to the Hurun Global Rich list, the number of dollar billionaires in China hit 1,058 last year, as compared to 696 in the US.

China has drawn the line for absolute poverty at $2.30 a day adjusted for inflation and claims to have lifted the income of 100 million rural residents above that level since Xi came to office in 2012. The World Bank, however, sets a higher poverty line of $5.50 a day for upper-middle-income countries like China. On this basis a quarter of China’s population is in poverty.

* The focus on rural poverty highlights the gulf between urban and rural areas where some 40 percent of China’s population reside. Figures published in the Australian Financial Review in September show that by 1997, urban household incomes were on average 83 percent higher than those of rural households. This rose to 167 percent in 2009, declining to 132 percent in 2019—still more than double the rural average.

An article in US magazine Foreign Affairs earlier this year explained that a person on the median urban income in China is in the 70th global percentile—in other words richer than 70 percent of the world’s population, whereas a person with the median rural income is in the 52nd global percentile. “Differently put, the average urban person in China is as rich as the average person in Hungary, whereas the average rural person in China is as poor as the average person in Vietnam,” it stated.

* The rural-urban divide is also manifested in the cities and major manufacturing centre where nearly 300 million internal migrant workers from rural China constitute a large proportion of the working class. Not only are they generally on lower wages and conditions and suffer discrimination but the overwhelming majority do not have an urban hukou, an official residency document that provide full access to local public services such as schools and hospitals. It is a system designed to provide cheap, easily exploitable labour to industry and services in the huge manufacturing hubs in the eastern coastal areas of China.

* Social inequality is also perpetuated in education where entrance to China’s elite universities and thus well-paid jobs in the government apparatus or private enterprise is determined by college entrance results. According to the Foreign Affairs article, “Average families in some top-tier cities have spent one-quarter of their take-home pay on tutoring… About 22 percent of students enrolled in China’s prestigious Tsinghua University in 1990 were from rural China, but by 2016, that percentage was 10.2 percent.” Urbanisation may account for some, but certainly not all of this huge change.

* The author of the Foreign Affairs article, Branko Milanovic, a London School of Economic professor, led a study into the changing social composition of what he termed China’s “elite”—the top 5 percent of the population—over the period 1988 to 2013. Whereas in 1988 three quarters of the elite were government-employed, 25 years later half were either capitalists or professionals. Moreover, that social divide was perpetuated within the CCP. When the study examined “rich members” of the CCP, “about half belonged to the private-sector-oriented classes.”

The last statistic is a significant indicator of the class-character of the CCP. Far from being a political vehicle for reducing social inequality, it is a mouthpiece for the bourgeoisie that has emerged out of the processes of capitalist restoration and the looting of the state-owned sector. Private entrepreneurs have relied on relations with the CCP hierarchy to advance their business interests, fuelling the corruption which is endemic at all government levels in China,

While Xi initiated a campaign against corruption on coming to office, he has no intention of carrying it through to the end, as that would destabilise the entire rotten bureaucratic apparatus on which he and the CCP rely to rule. Likewise, his calls for “common prosperity,” philanthropy from the super-rich and the need to reduce social inequality are aimed at deflecting mounting discontent and opposition among workers and young people that have the potential to erupt in widespread social unrest.

A comment by Chinese academic and venture capitalist Eric Li in the US-based Foreign Policy points to the fears in Chinese ruling circles of a political radicalisation taking place among layers of young people concerned about the gross social inequities in China.

Li, a strong CCP supporter, declared, “Whereas my generation was primarily concerned with China being poor and, as a result, focused on market economics, jiulinghous and linglinghous [those born after 1990 and 2000 respectively] see the main challenges to them and Chinese society as being rooted in inequality.

“Even in the extraordinarily entrepreneurial tech sector, calls by young people for stopping excessive exploitations, both of lowly paid delivery workers and more highly compensated but overworked technical and professional workforces, are becoming louder.”

Li also noted a growing hostility to the market and capitalism, and growing support for socialism and communism.

Farm Laws Repeal: A Historic Day For India

Bharat Dogra

On November 19 the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi announced the important decision of repealing three highly controversial farm laws. This decision should be widely welcomed cutting across narrow narrow political divides.

The Prime Minister has  been full of praise for his government’s farm policies and in fact even for the farm laws even while agreeing to repeal the three farm laws, saying only that as the government was not able to convince the farmers regarding the usefulness of the three laws these are being repealed. This praise is not justified, but we can leave this debate for another day. Now is the time to celebrate the victory of farmers, and also pay our homage to the nearly 700 farmers who died in the course of the year long agitation.

The movement on Delhi borders was only a week away from completing its one year. However if we count the earlier days of sporadic protests then the movement has already completed about 16 or 17  months. The fact that such a long movement continued peacefully while gaining strength and spread, culminating in the acceptance of its most important demand, is quite an important and wider victory for democratic struggles in India and should be celebrated as such.

At the same time this should also be seen as a reconciliation gesture. If the difference between government and opposition becomes so wide that there is no room for dialogue, then this is not good for democracy. So the opposition should on the whole welcome at least this single step of the government, although of course there is need to remain critical about the overall farm policy of the government.

The Modi government has been known to be very unresponsive to criticism in the past and this is for the first time that in a  very important context it has taken back something that it had been defending and propagating very strongly. Whatever may have been the political compulsions of this decision with approaching elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh , this decision  of the Modi government should be nevertheless  welcomed for its willingness at last in listening to public criticism and dissenting views regarding its policies and responding to them in a democratic way.

The fact that such a conciliatory gesture has been made on such an auspicious occasion as Guru Nanak Jayanti adds further to our happiness. This is a long awaited day of happiness and we will celebrate it with a great sense of solidarity, at the same time remembering the martyrs who sacrificed their life in the course of this great movement which, despite several limitations, will be remembered for a long time in the history of democratic struggles in India.

Johnson government moves to strip people of UK citizenship without notification

Paul Bond

The British government is escalating its assault on democratic rights, quietly introducing new amendments into its authoritarian Nationality and Borders Bill as it passes through report stage.

The latest update, noted in the UK’s media only by the Guardian, would further strengthen the state’s ability to revoke citizenship, without even needing to give notice of their actions. The new provision could be applied retrospectively to people deprived of citizenship before it became law.

The 111-page Bill is at committee stage ahead of its third reading in the House of Commons. It is due to receive royal assent in the spring and become law.

Home Secretary Priti Patel (left) and Prime Minster Boris Johnson (Credit: Hannah McKay Pool via AP)

The power to strip citizenship has been steadily extended over the last two decades. Although provision existed in law prior to the Labour government’s Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, in practice no deprivation powers were used between 1973 and 2002. Before 2002, the law only allowed deprivation of citizenship from naturalised citizens, not citizens by birth.

Tony Blair’s 1997-2007 Labour government extended the power to all British citizens, including birth citizens, in cases deemed “prejudicial” to national interests.

Since then, successive governments have further relaxed the legal constraints and broadened the range of justifications. Labour led the way. A 2006 amendment authorised deprivation of citizenship if it was “conducive to the public good.”

This has formed the basis for attacks on rights over the last decade, with successive Tory administrations linking the provision ever more closely to immigration. For the first time, the 2014 Immigration Act allowed for citizenship deprivation even where it might cause statelessness.

It set three conditions if statelessness might result: it only covered naturalised citizens; it applied to “seriously prejudicial” conduct; and the Secretary of State should have “reasonable grounds” for thinking the person can acquire citizenship elsewhere.

The number of deprivations of citizenship has risen drastically as a result. A Freedom of Information (FoI) request revealed that 81 deprivation orders were issued between 2011 and 2015. There were 14 in 2016, followed by 104 in 2017.

The government has already signaled its intentions. In 2019, then Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked the citizenship of Shamima Begum, who had left Britain in 2015 as a 15-year-old schoolgirl to join, after being groomed online, the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. Rendering her effectively stateless was justified on the grounds that she would be entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship.

The Bangladeshi government rejected this, as she had never visited the country, had no Bangladeshi passport, and had never applied for one. They said if Begum had been involved with IS in Pakistan she would face the death penalty: “If anyone is found to be involved with terrorism,” said Abdul Momen, Bangladeshi Minister for Foreign Affairs, “We have a simple rule. There will be capital punishment. And nothing else.”

Her case was used to generate a xenophobic and anti-Muslim storm and was a test case for further attacks. Israeli journalists have noted that all Jews, who are entitled to Israeli citizenship if they emigrate, could easily be deprived of British citizenship under the terms of the amendment.

Clause 9 of the current Bill, which was added without any discussion earlier this month, extends the provision, allowing the government to evade “Notice of a decision to deprive a person of citizenship” if that is not “reasonably practicable.” It also exempts the government from responsibility for notifying the person if this is deemed in the interests of national security, diplomatic relations or otherwise in the public interest.

This discretionary approach would augment the Home Secretary’s draconian powers. It was presaged by a 2018 provision allowing the government to “notify” someone simply by placing a copy of the order on their file if their whereabouts were unknown.

Now the requirement for notification has been eliminated altogether in cases where the home secretary deems it necessary. From the wording in the Bill, it seems this provision can also be applied retrospectively if an individual was not notified before the clause became law, which casts doubt on the possibility of appealing the decision.

May Foa, director of human rights organisation Reprieve, said the new clause would give Home Secretary Priti Patel “unprecedented power to remove your citizenship in secret, without even having to tell you, and effectively deny you an appeal. Under this regime, a person accused of speeding would be afforded more rights than someone at risk of being deprived of their British nationality. This once again shows how little regard this government has for the rule of law.”

Emily Ramsden of advocacy group Rights and Security International told Middle East Eye, “Allowing the government to strip people of citizenship without even telling them would deepen the already Kafkaesque struggle of people deprived of citizenship—most of whom are likely from migrant communities—to protect their rights against abuses of power that are allowed to go unchecked by independent judges.”

It is a deliberate removal of those rights. The Nazis stripped Jews and political opponents of their regime of their citizenship to deprive them of their basic legal and democratic rights. In the post-war period, there has been a consensus view of citizenship, cited by Ramsden, as “the right to have rights.”

Johnson’s government explicitly rejects this. In a typically underhanded statement, a Home Office official described British citizenship as “a privilege, not a right.” The Home Office justified amending the law “so citizenship can be deprived where it is not practicable to give notice, for example if there is no way of communicating with the person,” although this repressive condition already exists in law.

The government denies the Bill extends its scope to deprive citizenship, but the amendment is part of a raft of measures that tear up international legal obligations. The Bill is draft legislation of an autocratic despotism. A team of leading immigration lawyers have called it the “biggest legal assault on international refugee law ever seen in the UK,” breaching international and domestic law in at least 10 ways.

Patel has seized on last weekend’s terrorist bombing in a carpark at Liverpool hospital to attack both the asylum system and any rule of law based on democratic rights. The bombing, she said, reflected “how dysfunctional” the asylum system is, and how “we need to change” a “professional legal services industry [that] has based itself on rights of appeal, going to the courts day in, day out at the expense of the taxpayers through legal aid.”

The attack by the Home Office on lawyers emphasises there is to be no legal recourse for anyone. The Bill would criminalise anyone arriving in the UK by “irregular means” and “illegal routes.”

This is already in violation of the UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention of Human Rights. The Bill further criminalises anyone who seeks to save the lives of those in trouble during such perilous journeys. Its fascistic “ pushback ” policy will grant immunity to Border Force staff if migrants die in the English Channel in the process of its enforcement. In breach of all maritime laws, the provision demonstrates the government’s determination to make deliberate acts of murder official policy.

The Home Office is seeking to impose even more sweeping attacks on the right to asylum, as part of its declared “hostile environment” against refugees. The immediate deportation of detained migrants to a processing centre in Albania is being proposed, according to plans leaked to the Times on Thursday. This emulates the Australian government’s so-called “ Pacific solution ” —cruel, indefinite detention in remote locations. The Times reported, “Albanian ministers played down the report of an agreement today, although The Times understands that the talks are continuing. Edi Rama, the Albanian prime minister…”

“Offshore processing” is significantly more expensive even than detention in Britain but is part of attempts to tear up legal obligations. Detaining migrants at centres against their will would breach international law. The newspaper said that “Plans to fly illegal Channel arrivals out of the UK within seven days would cost £100,000 per asylum seeker.”

None of the bourgeois parties, including Labour, have any differences with the draconian plans being rushed through by the Homes Office.

Any criticism they can muster, as with a few dissenting Tory MPs such as David Davis, is centred on the measures being “unworkable.” Speaking to the Independent this week, Labour’s former Home Secretary, Lord David Blunkett (who served as home secretary between 2001 and 2004 under Tony Blair) said that Patel was “making it up as she goes along”. He declared, “All these ideas [!] were explored 20 years ago [during Blunkett’s period in office], and none of them added up to either a practical or coherent plan; no adherence to international conventions.”

Duterte loses elite support as Philippine elections open

John Malvar

The Philippines will hold a presidential election in May 2022. The current slate of candidates is the most right wing and openly fascistic in the country’s history.

The staggering levels of inequality in the country have worn the social fabric so threadbare that every postwar election has been, to an extent, a crisis of bourgeois rule. There are inevitably public discussions of military coups and rigged ballot boxes coupled with widespread violence at the polls.

Rival factions of the elite feverishly vie for positions and form alliances. Enemies of longstanding come to share a political slate and allies of yesterday become the opponents of today. There are no enduring party loyalties, no substantive platforms or programs; the only permanent interests are embodied in oligarchic clans and their political representatives, and these interests are preserved through shifting alliances.

The 2022 presidential elections has witnessed the marked heightening of all of these social and political tensions. No prior election has seen such a mad scramble in the elite, nor has any prior election seen its candidates so universally espouse the politics of the far right.

The period from early October to November 13 was the window for this jostling for positions. Every individual who had either declared candidacy or was currently in office by October had the space of a month in which they could withdraw their declared candidacy or state their intention to run for a different position.

Current Vice President Leni Robredo is the preferred candidate of Washington and has been the head of the bourgeois opposition to Duterte for several years. She has gathered around her a right-wing slate including former military coup plotters. Robredo has been largely quiet over the course of the past month, engaging in charitable activity and attempting to present herself as a simple, decent person.

It was a month of backroom bartering, lucrative payoffs, and lurid public denunciations. In the end the obvious loser in this political free-for-all, to widespread surprise, was President Rodrigo Duterte.

Over the past five years, Duterte has exercised repressive rule over the country. He imposed martial law on the southern island of Mindanao. His war on drugs, conducted by the police and paramilitary death squads, has overseen the murder of an estimated 30,000 poor Filipinos; a truly staggering number.

Throughout this period, the press—both domestically and internationally—repeatedly claimed that Duterte was overwhelmingly popular among the masses. The World Socialist Web Site challenged this claim, writing, “There is a climate of fear that grips the country and not mass approval for the fascistic policies of Duterte.”

The base of support for Duterte rested not in the masses, but the upper middle class and elite who saw in his fascistic policies a means of suppressing explosive levels of social tension and class conflict. The spectacular collapse of Duterte over the past month is proof of this point. The ruling elite is abandoning Duterte for a new candidate, but they are preserving his repressive policies.

Duterte is constitutionally prohibited from running for re-election as president, but he can run for a lesser office. Over the past six years, Duterte cultivated ties with Ferdinand Marcos Jr, known as Bongbong, son of the country’s former dictator, as a means of preserving his political influence and legacy.

On taking office in 2016, Duterte arranged a state funeral for the country’s former dictator. Marcos Jr lost his vice-presidential bid that year, and Duterte did everything possible to indicate his support for overturning the election result so that Marcos could take office.

Marcos declared his intention of running for president in October. Duterte sought to have his daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, mayor of Davao city in Mindanao, withdraw her candidacy for re-election as mayor and run for president with Marcos stepping down to run as her vice president. It was at the same time widely mooted that Duterte himself would run for vice president on Marcos slate.

Duterte arranged for two close allies—Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, former head of police responsible for the launching the war on drugs, and Sen. Bong Go, Duterte’s right-hand man for decades—to file their candidacies for president and vice president. Duterte’s ability to secure their withdrawal from the race would serve him as bargaining chips.

There is obvious political continuity between Marcos and Duterte. Marcos intends to continue and even escalate the repressive law-and-order policies of the current president. He has declared his intention to rewrite the country’s textbooks on the martial period of his father’s rule, depicting it as a golden age. Marcos also has repeatedly declared that he will continue the economic and diplomatic policies of Duterte reorienting the country’s relations toward China.

There is obvious bad blood between President Duterte and Sara Duterte-Carpio, who is known in the Philippine press as “Daughterte,” but they have a common set of political interests as well. For years, the notoriously misogynistic Duterte passed over his daughter. His sons, however, turned out to be immensely incompetent and given to drug-fueled partying, while Sara proved herself to be every bit as capable a prominent fascistic political figure as her father.

Duterte-Carpio met publicly with Marcos, but neither side would agree to seek the vice-presidential slot. The deadline for final candidacy declaration approached. They could not run against each other; they were clearly vying for the same voter base.

Sensing his daughter’s inability to secure the presidential slot on the Marcos ticket, Duterte denounced Marcos and arranged for Ronald dela Rosa to step down, inviting Sara to run as president on a separate ticket with Bong Go. Duterte-Carpio hesitated. Two days remained before the deadline to file candidacy.

The standoff was resolved at the last minute through the intervention of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Arroyo made Duterte-Carpio chair of her influential political party, Lakas-CMD, in exchange for accepting the vice-presidential slot under Marcos. The choice entailed a clear break with her father.

Duterte exploded in fury. On the day before the deadline, he arranged for Bong Go to run for president and announced that he was running for vice president against his daughter. He denounced Marcos and his daughter and all of the other candidates as being “pro-Communist.” The press was filled with reports of the Bongbong-Duterte vs. Bong-Duterte rivalry, and comparisons were being widely drawn to the backstabbing of the popular television drama, Succession.

On Sunday, November 14, when all candidate substitutions had to be finalized, Duterte, apparently realizing he could lose to his own daughter, announced he was running for Senate instead, leaving Bong Go without a running mate. At this point it was apparent that ruling class support for Duterte had collapsed.

The head of Duterte’s anti-Communist task force, retired Gen. Antonio Parlade, announced he was running for president. Parlade is a fascistic figure, long tied to Duterte, who has overseen the red-tagging, criminalization and persecution of dissent in the country. Parlade denounced Go and Duterte, claiming that Go had for years been “controlling” the president.

The Duterte administration faces charges of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a result of its murderous war on drugs. For months Duterte has mocked the ICC, declaring that he would never be brought up on charges. He was counting on the next administration providing him immunity.

Over the past week, the Duterte administration drastically reversed course. Through the Philippine ambassador to the Netherlands, Duterte appealed to the ICC to delay its investigation citing the fact that the administration was conducting a domestic investigation, with which the ICC investigation would interfere. Of the estimated 30,000 people killed under the war on drugs in the past five years, 52 cases are under investigation in the Philippines.

On November 18, Duterte accused Marcos on national television of having a regular cocaine habit. The accusation smacks of desperation.

On top of Duterte’s other woes, the US government intervened. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that Duterte’s longtime spiritual advisor, Apollo Quiboloy, had been indicted by a grand jury for sex trafficking girls as young as 12 and that they would be seeking his extradition.

Quiboloy is a powerful cult leader, the head of the “Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” He claims to be the Son of God, and operates a radio network, owns private jets, and commands considerable influence. On the day his indictment was announced, he was laying hands on Bong Go, proclaiming him God’s anointed.

It is plausible that a realignment will occur in the ruling elite, even in the near future, and Duterte will be rehabilitated. It is apparent for now, however, that most have abandoned him. The mantle of overt repression and dictatorship is being passed to Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte-Carpio.

However, US hostility and opposition to another president oriented to Beijing rather than Washington will prove to be a powerful factor in the final electoral outcome in the former American colony.

Austria re-imposes partial lockdown as COVID-19 surges across Europe

Alex Lantier

After the Austrian government imposed a partial lockdown yesterday and mandatory vaccination, it is clear that European governments’ politically criminal policy of “living with the virus” has created a disaster. Europe faces the largest wave of the pandemic so far, with between 300,000 and 400,000 daily new cases and 4,000 COVID-19 deaths per day.

A nurse holds a phone while a patient affected with COVID-19 speaks with his family from the intensive care unit [Credit: AP/Daniel Cole]

With 15,809 cases yesterday, Austria is one of many European countries reporting the highest-ever daily new COVID-19 cases. These include Germany (64,164 Thursday), the Netherlands (23,591 Thursday), Czechia (22,507 Wednesday), Slovakia (8,342 Wednesday) and Hungary (21,058 on Monday). Cases are doubling once every one or two weeks, threatening to overwhelm hospitals.

In Austria, conditions are back to those when the pandemic began. Hospital morgues are full, and hospitals are setting up triage centers to pick who will be treated and who will be left to die.

“Corpses are overflowing and stacked in corridors,” a nurse in Upper Austria told APA. “No one outside can know what this means,” she added, stressing the psychological toll of not being able to prepare the body in a dignified way: “You put someone who died of coronavirus in a sealed plastic bag, close the zip, and that’s it. … We are swimming in COVID.”

In Salzburg and Upper Austria provinces, over 1.5 percent of the population is currently infected. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the state clinics of Salzburg province told Morgen Post: “We have not yet implemented triage, but it may be a question only of a few days.”

Much of Europe is only a few days behind. Dutch hospitals in Rotterdam and Limburg province will soon cancel non-COVID-19 care, including for cancer patients whose treatment has been delayed by the pandemic and who are now in critical condition. German hospitals in Bavaria are sending overflow patients to Italy.

The head of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute, immunologist Lothar Wieler, demanded urgent official action. “We don’t have to keep inventing something new. All the ideas and prescriptions we need are available,” Wieler said. “After 21 months, I simply can’t stand it that what I’m saying and what other colleagues are saying is still not being accepted. … We are currently in a serious emergency. We will really have a very bad Christmas if we don’t change course now.”

Since the pandemic began in Europe in February-March 2020, there have been vast improvements in knowledge of the virus, and protective equipment and effective vaccines are available. One must ask: How can it be that one of the richest areas of the world is again suffering a catastrophe?

This disaster flows directly from politically criminal policies of mass infection aimed at minimizing the cost of public health measures to governments and keeping workers on the job to pump out profits for the financial aristocracy. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke for the entire European bourgeoisie when he told his aides: “No more f*cking lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands!” After months in which European governments ignored the spread of the virus, rejecting lockdowns or mask mandates, Britain’s psychopathic prime minister is getting his wish.

Governments across Europe insisted that vaccination meant the rise of cases could be ignored. The British government said its “plan” was to “transition from pandemic to endemic,” that is, to let the virus spread permanently unchecked in the population. This same plan was followed across Europe, as officials made clear that once vaccines were available, they would no longer tolerate significant spending on measures to limit contagion.

“The rise is taking place across Europe, unsurprisingly,” French Health Minister Olivier Véran said last month in Libération. “However, we know that vaccination has strongly limited the correlation between the number of infections and the number of serious cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” he continued. His concern, Véran added, is “mainly the pressure on hospitals.”

Events are exposing Véran’s false claim that vaccinations break the link between rising infections and increasing serious cases or deaths. Vaccines are highly effective and must be administered as widely as possible. The contrast between Eastern Europe and more vaccinated Western Europe is a stark and tragic reminder. With fewer reported daily cases, there are more daily deaths in Russia (1,254), Ukraine (725), Poland (403) or Romania (254) than in Germany (230) or Britain (157).

Vaccinated people can however catch and transmit the virus, and vaccines substantially reduce but do not totally eliminate the risk of serious illness after infection. With large parts of the population still unvaccinated, including children, this means that many of the infected fall seriously ill, require critical care and struggle with Long COVID if they survive.

The only way to avert a further, truly catastrophic loss of life is to mobilize workers internationally against the European Union, fighting to eliminate all transmission of COVID-19 with scientific public health policies, including strict lockdowns and universal vaccination. Bitter experience teaches that the measures now being discussed will not halt mass deaths.

Austria has turned 180 degrees, announcing yesterday a partial lockdown, closing nonessential shops, limiting the right to go out and encouraging Austrians where possible to work from home. However, workers whose workplaces are still open are required to go to work, and schools will stay open for their children. Many studies have shown that around 60 percent of infections take place in workplaces and schools, so such a partial lockdown does not prevent mass infections.

Indeed, similar lockdowns were implemented across much of Europe a year ago. They kept hospitals from collapsing but did not prevent catastrophe. From October 2020 to April 2021, over 700,000 people died in Europe. The World Health Organization (WHO) projected last month that 500,000 people will die of COVID-19 in Europe by February 1.

In other areas—including Slovakia, the Netherlands, and several regions of Italy—authorities are considering a partial lockdown but only for non-vaccinated individuals. This provocative measure, which Austria briefly imposed earlier this week before discarding it as ineffective, will not halt contagion. Vaccinated individuals also transmit the virus.

In Germany, where talks are ongoing to form a new government, officials are making contradictory statements. “We need to quickly put a brake on the exponential rise” of the contagion, said outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling the pandemic situation “dramatic.” However, the outgoing government is not taking action, and officials of incoming ruling parties are demanding nothing be done.

SPD candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz, second from right, Green Party leaders Annalena Baerbock, second from left, and Robert Habeck, left, and FDP leader Christian Lindner, right, at a joint press conference in Berlin [Credit: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber]

“We cannot make the number of infections go down,” gloated Green Party politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt. “Many more people will be infected and sick.” She stressed, “Schools and day care centers should stay open as long as possible.”

If such murderous policies are adopted, the German health care system will collapse in weeks, or perhaps even days. Doctors and scientists studying the pandemic, like Professor Kristan Schneider of Mittweida University, are urgently calling for a strict lockdown, like those implemented in several European countries after mass strikes in March 2020.

“A strict lockdown, with limitations on movement and school closures could change things,” Schneider told ARD, “as it would prevent contact and infections. … Generalized mandatory vaccination slightly improves the situation in the simulation, but it is too late to halt the current infection surge. Previously, especially drastic measures have also been especially effective. An emergency brake with mandatory vaccination would now be the most advisable.”

Sudanese Military Regime Should be Ostracized

Cesar Chelala

The recent military coup in Sudan threatens to unleash a huge humanitarian catastrophe of hunger and disease with dire consequences not only for the people of Sudan but also for people coming from neighboring countries. This only adds to the violent crackdown by the military on peaceful civilian protesters throughout the country.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led the coup, which took place on October 25, 2021. The organizers detained the country’s civilian leadership, dissolved the government, and declared a state of emergency. al-Burhan contends that the military takeover was necessary to avoid civil war and promised to rule until elections in July, 2023.

There are widespread concerns of continuing and increased violence against civilians. “Fears of a fully-fledged, bloody crackdown are mounting,” stated a group of African and international humanitarian and human rights groups in a letter to the UN Human Rights Council.

In addition, the coup in Sudan will impact negatively on an already weak health system, which cannot take good care of the majority of the population. “The health system here is fragile –we have insufficient physicians, nurses, and midwives to meet people’s needs, particularly in rural areas. This, coupled with lack of essential medicines and supplies and poor infrastructure, makes access to quality health-care services extremely challenging,” declared to The Lancet Arif Noor, Sudan country director for Mercy Corps. Noor also expressed concerns about the consequences of a fourth wave of COVID-19, for which the country is unprepared to respond adequately.

There are considerable international concerns about the two main leaders of the military takeover: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagolo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). al-Burhan has been described as the main person responsible for the genocide in Darfur, while Hemedti Dagolo is also responsible for the scorched earth campaign in that region and for leading illegal gold-mining operations in Jebel Amer, Darfur.

As also happens in many other countries, the Sudanese military has numerous holdings in illegal gold mining operations, as well as in oil, aviation, and arms-building companies, whose profits bypass government coffers and go into the military officers’ private accounts overseas. This is despicable behavior for a country in dire need of foreign financial assistance to attend the basic needs of the population.

Immediately following the coup, the military shot down the transitional government’s Dismantling Committee, whose activities were met with considerable uneasiness by the top-brass military. This was a group created to seize economic assets allegedly stolen by leading military officers. Wajdi Saleh, one of that committee’s senior officials, was arrested after the coup and remains in detention. Before the coup, the committee was investigating several cases of gold smuggling and other illegal activities, suggesting high levels of corruption among high-ranking military officers.

In the meantime, increasing protests in Sudan, despite brutal repression, indicate that the Sudanese military may have misread people’s determination to defend the civilian government. People still strongly support Abdalla Hamdok, the transitional prime minister, who was detained during the coup but was later liberated and sent home.

“But people are more determined now. And more politically aware. After 30 years of military dictatorship, we will not submit. The youth represent more than 50 percent of this country and it’s clear we don’t want this government. They cannot kill us all. They cannot kill this dream,” stated to BBC News Suleima Elkhalifa, head of the transitional government unit in charge of protecting women and children.

In a continent rife with military coups, Sudan is the country with most military takeovers and attempted coups, amounting to 17, five of them successful, without including the current one.

The new coup in Sudan highlights a major weakness in worldwide efforts to promote democratic governments. It underscores the urgent need to establish binding international legal principles to ban the recognition of military governments that arise from military coups. The institutionalization of such principles, together with the creation of the legal mechanisms for applying them, would help foster democracy throughout the world.

China Enters Era of Cultural Resolution

Tom Clifford

The most powerful leader since Mao. In reality, President Xi Jinping has less control than the Mao but is more powerful as China was not the global economic titan it is today when the Great Helmsman died in 1976.  But Xi feels less comfortable than his status implies he should as he bids to be president for life.

The mountains are high and the emperor is far away is a saying in China that hints at how difficult it is to run a country of 1.4 billion people across 23 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities and two special administrative regions. Then there are 3,000 prefecture  and county level regions, and at least 40,000 township divisions. Consequently, local governments have long turned a blind eye to some Beijing diktats, a dynamic captured by a saying in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “A general in the field is not bound by the orders from his sovereign.” China is top heavy. Public dissent is verbotten, and officials hide problems and silence whistle-blowers. Simply put there is often nothing to be gained by trying to correct a wrong. When Covid-19 first appeared in Wuhan, police targeted eight doctors who tried to warn the public. The city’s mayor later said he had to wait for Beijing’s instructions before releasing information on the outbreak.

The cult of personality, once believed dead and buried, has been resurrected. No, we are not on the verge of a new cultural revolution but we are in a time of cultural resolution.

To confirm this, the Chinese Communist Party endorsed a “historical resolution” this month, putting Xi behind Mao but ahead of Deng Xiaoping the man who made modern China. It says that Xi is core leader and his beliefs are bedrock doctrine.

Without mentioning names, previous leaders are dammed.

Before Xi took office, the resolution says, China’s “capacity to safeguard its national security was lacking’’.

Xi has expanded China’s global influence, the resolution adds, with no hint of irony but it warns that the party needs to remain vigilant to tackle dangers ahead.

“Constant retreat will only bring bullying from those who grab a yard if you give an inch,” says the resolution ignoring that, officially, China is on the metric system. But it sounds better than grab a meter if you give a centimeter. “Making concessions to get our way will only draw us into more humiliating straits,” it claims.

This will give Xi the type of unquestioned authority necessary to push his agenda through. The endorsement is only the third of its kind since the founding of the party – the first was passed by Mao in 1945 and the second by Deng Xiaoping in 1981. The question is why was it necessary?

China was the future once, now it seems the past is looming ahead.

The light-touch relative liberalism of the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao eras are a distant memory. Dissent during their presidencies was allowed online and universities could debate democracy and constitutional change, even if discreetly. Under Xi they resemble almost halcyon days. The genuine pride felt in China’s rising global status seems to have kept the middle class broadly in line but this is not a blank check. An economic downturn could change the equation. Already property values are falling and the true cost of Evergrande and other failed developers has still to be factored in. And there is a sense that an opportunity has been lost. The international atmosphere has changed and China realizes it should have capitalized more in the goodwill it enjoyed globally up to about say four years ago. And the Taiwan issue has yet to be settled, from Beijing’s  point of view.

This is a pivotal 12 months with a major party congress in October next year, when Xi will seek confirmation of his third unlimited term. Both Jiang and Hu were forced to step down after two five-year terms each. This was meant to prevent the life-term power grab that Mao had enjoyed. Xi, in contrast, has made it clear that he intends to go for a third term and beyond. There seems little chance of home-grown political opposition derailing his plans. Xi has the army and presidency.

Xi, China’s first ruler for life since Mao, came to office extolling the virtues of the Chinese Dream. It is little mentioned here today.