IMF cuts growth forecast and targets wages

Nick Beams

The International Monetary Fund has significantly cut its global growth forecast and made clear it supports a lift in central bank interest rates to clamp down on wage demands sparked by rampant inflation. It will push for austerity “restructuring” measures to deal with rising sovereign debt levels in poorer countries.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva speaks at the end of the Financing of African Economies Summit, in Paris. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

In its World Economic Outlook report issued yesterday, the IMF said global growth for this year would be 3.6 percent, down 0.8 percentage points from its estimate in January and 1.3 percentage points lower than the forecast six months ago. For 2021, it said growth would come in at 6.1 percent.

These figures, however, only partially depict a picture of a rapidly worsening economic outlook amid continuing supply chain constrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and surging inflation, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and tighter monetary policy, as central banks lift interest rates.

The WEO report said “unusually high uncertainty” surrounded its forecasts and “downside risks to the global outlook dominate.”

The growth forecast assumed the conflict remained confined to Ukraine, that further sanctions on Russia continued to exempt the energy sector and “the pandemic’s health and economic impacts abate over the course of 2022.” Each of these assumptions is, to say the least, highly problematic.

In a simulation exercise, it calculated that an immediate oil and gas embargo against Russia would further lift inflation and hit the European economy. In Germany, economic institutions have estimated it would destroy 400,000 jobs and reduce output by 2.2 percentage points. For Europe as a whole, the IMF calculated the total output loss would be 3 percent.

Even if its optimistic assumptions are realised, the IMF said that “with a few exceptions, employment and output growth will remain typically below pre-pandemic trends through 2026.”

In his foreword to the WEO, incoming IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said overall risks to economic prospects had risen sharply with policy trade-offs becoming ever more challenging.

“The economic effects of the war are spreading far and wide—like seismic waves that emanate from the epicentre of an earthquake—mainly through commodity markets and financial linkages.”

Even before the war, he noted, inflation had surged in many economies because of soaring commodity prices and pandemic-induced supply-demand imbalances.

He also pointed to the longer-term implications of the war, warning it had increased the risk of a “more permanent fragmentation of the world economy into geopolitical blocks with distinct technology standards, cross-border payments systems, and reserve currencies.”

While he did not make the point, such a fracturing was characteristic of the decade of the 1930s in the lead-up to World War 2.

However, he did note that such a fragmentation represented “a major challenge to the rules-based framework that has governed international and economic relations for the last 70 years.”

For the IMF, as is the case with the major central banks, the key issue regarding inflation is its effect on wage demands and the eruption of broad social struggles, such as those now taking place in Sri Lanka against devastating price hikes.

Gourinchas noted that in advanced economies, including the US and Europe, inflation had become a central concern, running at its highest level in 40 years “in the context of tight labour markets.” There was a rising risk that “inflation expectations become de-anchored.”

The language of the IMF and other financial institutions is always aimed at covering over the class meaning of economic information. “De-anchoring” of inflation expectations refers to a situation in which workers initiate struggles for wage rises to compensate for past losses and the further hits to their living standards in the immediate future.

In emerging and developing economies, he warned, “increases in food and fuel prices could significantly increase the risk of social unrest.”

The response was laid out clearly by the Gourinchas.

“Central banks will need to adjust their monetary stances even more aggressively should medium- or long-term inflation expectations start drifting from central bank targets or core inflation remains progressively elevated,” he wrote.

The effect of such aggression will be to induce recessionary trends in the major economies while adding to the interest rate and debt burdens of poorer countries that are already cutting health and social services to pay interest to banks, investment houses and the IMF.

The issue of wages was also highlighted in the body of the report. It said that inflation was rising rapidly in advanced and less developed countries alike. “In both cases, tighter monetary policy will be appropriate to check the cycle of higher prices driving up wages and inflation expectations, and wages and inflation expectations driving up prices.”

The IMF made it clear highly indebted countries will need to “restructure” their sovereign debt and undertake “consolidation” to meet international payments. The meaning of these words has already been made clear in bitter experiences going back decades. They signify even further cuts in public health, education and other vital social services.

The surge in global interest rates is already well underway, as reflected in sharp movements in US bond markets over recent weeks. Bond prices fell again yesterday sending interest rates, or yields, higher. [The two have an inverse relationship.]

The yield on those 10-year Treasury bonds indexed to inflation moved into positive territory yesterday for the first time since March 2020 before the effects of the pandemic led to a plunge in financial markets.

The Financial Times reported that real yields had “rocketed higher this year”, driving higher yields more broadly and “increasing pressure on riskier parts of the financial markets.”

The yield on the two-year Treasury bond has gone as high as 2.61 percent, its highest level since January 2019.

Members of the US Federal Reserve’s policy making body have stepped up the push for higher rates in advance of a speech by Fed chair Jerome Powell on Thursday in which he is expected to further elaborate on the central bank’s monetary policy.

The president of the Chicago branch of the Fed, Charles Evans, has said the base rate could go to 2.5 percent by the end of the year—from its present level of 0.5 percent—and may need to go even higher. One of the most persistent advocates for a higher rate, James Bullard, the president of the St Louis Fed, said a 0.75 percentage rate hike may be warranted at some point this year.

The effect of such increases—all aimed at pushing down on wage demands—will increase recessionary trends in the US and sharply increase mortgages costs for homebuyers, even as workers confront rising prices across a wide range of commodities.

And it will put increased pressure on other central banks in Europe and around the world to follow suit.

‘Towards a Multipolar World Order’: Is This the End of US Hegemony?

Ramzy Baroud

The meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in the Chinese eastern city of Huangshan on March 30, is likely to go down in history as a decisive meeting in the relations between the two Asian giants.

The meeting was not only important due to its timing or the fact that it reaffirmed the growing ties between Moscow and Beijing, but because of the resolute political discourse articulated by the two top diplomats.

In Huangshan, there was no place for ambiguity. Lavrov spoke of a new ‘world order’, arguing that the world is now “living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations” in reference to the escalating Russia-Ukraine/NATO conflict.

“We, together with you (China) and with our sympathizers,” Lavrov added with assuredness, “will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order.”

For his part, Wang Yi restated his country’s position regarding its relations with Russia and the West with precise words, some of which were used before in the February 4 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. “China-Russia cooperation has no limits … Our striving for peace has no limits, our upholding of security has no limits, our opposition towards hegemony has no limits,” Wang said.

Those following the evolution of the Russia-China political discourse, even before the start of the Russia-Ukraine war on February 24, will notice that the language employed supersedes that of a regional conflict, into the desire to bring about the reordering of world affairs altogether.

Though the readiness to push against US-led western hegemony is inherent in both countries’ political objectives, rarely did Moscow and Beijing move forward in challenging western dominance, as is the case today. The fact that China has refused to support western economic sanctions, condemn or isolate Russia is indicative of a clear Chinese forward thinking policy.

Moreover, Beijing and Moscow are clearly not basing their future relation on the outcome of the Ukraine war alone. What they are working to achieve is a long term political strategy that they hope would ultimately lead to a multipolar world.

Russia’s motives behind the coveted paradigm shift are obvious: resisting NATO’s eastern expansion, reasserting itself as a global power and freeing itself from the humiliating legacy of the post-Soviet Union. China, too, has a regional and global agenda. Though China’s ambitions are partly linked to different geopolitical spheres – South and East China Seas and the Indo-Pacific region – much of Beijing’s grievances, and priorities, overlap with those of Moscow.

Aside from the direct economic interests between Russia and China, who share massive and growing markets, they are faced with similar challenges: both are hoping to gain greater access to waterways and to push back against US-western military advancements in some of the world’s most important trade routes.

It was no surprise that one of Russia’s top strategic priorities from its war with Ukraine is to widen its access to the Black Sea, a major trade hub with a sizable percentage of world trade, especially in wheat and other essential food supplies.

Like Russia, China too has been laboring to escape US military hegemony, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The exponential rise in the Chinese military budget – estimated to grow by 7.1% in 2022, speaks of the way that China sees its role in world affairs, now and in the future.

The US trade war against China, which was accelerated by former US President Donald Trump, was a clear reminder to Beijing that global economic power can only be guaranteed through an equal military might. This realization explains China’s decision to open its first overseas military base in Djibouti, in the very strategic Horn of Africa, in 2017, in addition to Beijing’s military moves in the three artificial islands in the South China Sea, and its latest military deal with Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

While the Russian and Chinese motives, as enunciated by top officials on both sides are clear – to “move towards a multipolar world order” – the US and its allies are not motivated by a specific, forward thinking political doctrine, as was often the case in the past. Washington simply aims to contain the two rising powers as stated in the yet-to-be officially released 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS). According to the NDS, “the growing multi-domain threat posed by the (People’s Republic of China) PRC” is the primary challenge to US interests, followed by the “acute threats” posed by Russia.

Considering the complex interests of both Russia and China, and the fact that the two countries are facing the same mutual enemy, chances are the war in Ukraine is merely a prelude to a protracted conflict that will manifest itself through economic, political and diplomatic pressures and even outright wars.

Though it is premature to speak about the future of this global conflict with certainty, there is little doubt that we are now living in a new era of global affairs, one which is fundamentally different from the decades that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Equally true, we also know that both China and Russia will be important players in shaping that future, which could indeed push us away from US-western hegemony and “towards a multipolar world order”.

Now is the Time for Nonalignment and Peace

Roger McKenzie & Vijay Prashad

Wall art, Portland, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

War is an ugly part of the human experience. Everything about it is hideous. War is most obviously the act of invasion and the brutality that goes along with its operations. No war is precise; every war hurts civilians. Each act of bombardment sends a neurological shudder through a society.

World War II demonstrated this ugliness in the Holocaust and in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From Hiroshima and the Holocaust rose two mighty movements, one for peace and against the perils of further nuclear attacks, and the other for an end to the divisions of humanity and for a nonalignment from these divisions. The Stockholm Appeal of 1950, signed by 300 million people, called for an absolute ban on nuclear weapons. Five years later, 29 countries from Africa and Asia, representing 54 percent of the world’s population, gathered in Bandung, Indonesia, to sign a 10-point pledge against war and for the “promotion of mutual interests and cooperation.” The Bandung Spirit was for peace and for nonalignment, for the peoples of the world to put their efforts into building a process to eradicate history’s burdens (illiteracy, ill health, hunger) by using their social wealth. Why spend money on nuclear weapons when money should be spent on classrooms and hospitals?

Despite the major gains of many of the new nations that had emerged out of colonialism, the overwhelming force of the older colonial powers prevented the Bandung Spirit from defining human history. Instead, the civilization of war prevailed. This civilization of war is revealed in the massive waste of human wealth in the production of armed forces—sufficient to destroy hundreds of planets—and the use of these armed forces as the first instinct to settle disputes. Since the 1950s, the battlefield of these ambitions has not been in Europe or in North America, but rather it has been in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—areas of the world where old colonial sensibilities believe that human life is less important. This international division of humanity—which says that a war in Yemen is normal, whereas a war in Ukraine is horrific—defines our time. There are 40 wars taking place across the globe; there needs to be political will to fight to end each of these, not just those that are taking place within Europe. The Ukrainian flag is ubiquitous in the West; what are the colors of the Yemeni flag, of the Sahrawi flag, and of the Somali flag?

Return to Peace, Return to Nonalignment

We are overwhelmed these days with certainties that seem less and less real. As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, there is a baffling view that negotiations are futile. This view circulates even when reasonable people agree that all wars must end in negotiations. If that is the case, then why not call for an immediate ceasefire and build the trust necessary for negotiations? Negotiations are only feasible if there is respect on all sides, and if there is an attempt to understand that all sides in a military conflict have reasonable demands. To wit, to paint this war as the whims of Russian President Vladimir Putin is part of the exercise of permanent war. Security guarantees for Ukraine are necessary; but so are security guarantees for Russia, which would include a return to a serious international arms control regime.

Peace does not come merely because we wish for it. It requires a fight in the trenches of ideas and institutions. The political forces in power profit from war, and so they clothe themselves in machismo to better represent the arms dealers who want more war, not less. These people in the blue suits of bureaucracy are not to be trusted with the world’s future. They fail us when it comes to the climate catastrophe; they fail us when it comes to the pandemic; they fail us when it comes to peacemaking. We need to summon up the old spirits of peace and nonalignment and bring these to life inside mass movements that are the only hope of this planet.

It is not merely sentimental to reach back to the past to breathe life into the Non-Aligned Movement of today. Already the contradictions of the present have raised the specter of nonalignment in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Most of these countries voted against the condemnation of Russia not because they support Russia’s war in Ukraine, but rather because they recognize that polarization is a fatal error. What is needed is an alternative to the two-camp world of the Cold War. That is the reason why many of the leaders of these countries—from China’s Xi Jinping to India’s Narendra Modi to South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa—have called, despite their very different political orientations, for a departure from the “Cold War mentality.” They are already walking toward a new nonaligned platform. It is this actual movement of history that provokes us to reflect on a return to the concepts of nonalignment and peace.

Nobody wants to imagine the full implications of the encirclement of China and Russia by the United States and its allies. Even countries that are closely allied with the United States—such as Germany and Japan—recognize that if a new iron curtain descends around China and Russia, it would be fatal for their own countries. Already, the war and sanctions have created serious political crises in Honduras, Pakistan, Peru, and Sri Lanka, with others to follow as food and fuel prices rise astronomically. War is too expensive for the poorer nations. Spending for war is eating into the human spirit, and warfare itself increases people’s general sense of despair.

The warmakers are idealists. Their wars do not settle the major dilemmas of humanity. The ideas of nonalignment and peace, on the other hand, are realistic; their framework has answers to the children who want to eat and to learn, to play and to dream.

NHS in a state of collapse amid resurgent COVID hospitalisations and deaths

Stephen Alexander

The National Health Service (NHS) is facing an unprecedented and debilitating crisis amid a renewed surge of coronavirus hospitalisations and deaths following the Conservative government’s lifting of all key public health restrictions.

In a remarkable thread posted on Twitter Sunday, the chief executive of NHS Providers Chris Hopson set out the “four big, interrelated challenges” creating “the longest and most sustained period of NHS pressure” 20 experienced chairs and CEOs from across the health service had ever experienced.

Hopson lists as challenge one, “Much higher levels of covid prevalence that we were expecting”.

In the first week of April, patients in hospital with COVID-19 exceeded 20,000 across the UK—levels not seen since the worst days of the pandemic in January and February 2021. There are presently 19,028 patients in hospital with COVID infections, according to official figures, with 15,432 admitted over the past seven days. Hundreds are dying daily of the disease, including nearly 2,000 deaths over the seven days to last Thursday.

In the face of widespread calls by health leaders and scientists for the reintroduction of social distancing and masking requirements in public spaces to ease the pressure on hospitals, the Johnson government has insisted that there will be “no change to our guidance and our living with COVID plan still stands”.

Hopson told The Sunday Times that COVID is surging partly because the government is pretending “Covid doesn’t exist any more and that nobody needs to take any precautions.” This followed Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, telling the BBC earlier that week, “In our view, we do not have a living-with-Covid plan, we have a living-without-restrictions ideology”, and British Medical Association chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul warning of the consequent pressures on the health system, “This Easter looks set to be just as bad as some of the worst winters we have ever seen.”

Challenge two is a “very pressured urgent and emergency care pathway”. Pressures, says Hopson, are “significantly greater, lasting longer and more geographically widespread, than we have seen before.”

The worst hit area of hospital care is in accident and emergency departments, which have seen waiting times for acutely life-threatening type 1 patients increase to record levels in recent weeks. NHS Confederation reports:

“There were 1.42 million type 1 attendances in March, of which 58.6 per cent of attendances were completed within four hours. The worst performance on record prior to the pandemic was 68.6 per cent in December 2019, and performance in February was the previous worst on record (60.8 per cent).”

“Meanwhile there were 22,506 12-hour waits from decision to admit, to admission (or trolley waits, as they are known)… Across the whole of 2019, there were 8,272 12-hour trolley waits recorded, so March’s figure is 272 per cent of an entire year’s worth of 12-hour waits pre-pandemic.”

Deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust Dr Sarah Scobie said patients were facing “frightening levels of suffering” and warned, “It is hard to imagine an end in sight, with lengthy waits for healthcare firmly here to stay.”

Ambulances are also experiencing unprecedented delays. In five out of the last seven months, response times for the most serious, life-threatening injuries has been well over nine minutes compared to the standard of seven minutes. Likewise, category 2 patients, including suspected heart attacks or strokes, which guidelines say should receive treatment within 18 minutes, are taking an average of 1 hour and 1 minute to reach because of ambulance delays.

Overall waits for ambulances have reached an average 2 hours 17 minutes, which is the first time since records began that this figure has exceeded 2 hours.

The London Ambulance Service is now planning to use volunteers to answer category 3 emergency calls, including people in the late stages of labour, with abdominal pains, and cases of diabetes where patients can be treated in their own homes.

President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Dr. Katherine Henderson commented, “It feels shaming to me that we’re in this situation.”

Nursing staff in an NHS hospital (Credit: WSWS Media)

“Challenge 3,” Hopson writes, is the “care backlog”. The waiting list for elective procedures rose to a record 6.18 million patients in March, up from 6.1 million in February. This is despite the valiant efforts of NHS workers who cleared 1.26 million patients off the waiting list in February and achieved a reduction in still dangerously high waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The Financial Times reported Sunday that in the week ending April 12, fewer than 5,000 general or acute hospital beds were unoccupied in England, 5.4 percent of the total and the lowest level across the pandemic. Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, told the paper “No hospital system can run at that level of occupancy outside of very short periods of crisis.”

NHS managers have begun to ease infection control and prevention procedures to free up hospital capacity. These include measures such as ending the systematic testing of patients and the separation of COVID-positive patients from the general population, as well as relaxed protocols for personal protective equipment.

According to NHS sources, The Independentreports, “at least two major hospitals, in Newcastle and York, have dropped testing of all patients without symptoms in order to alleviate pressure on beds—raising fears that Covid could spread on unchecked wards. Other hospitals are also likely to do the same as bed pressures worsen.”

As well as high hospital demand due to COVID, clinicians are unable to discharge patients no longer requiring hospital treatment due to a staffing crisis in community health services and social care.

Workforce shortages are described by Hopson as “the biggest of challenge of all.” Daily staff absences now stand at approximately 71,000 on top of 110,000 staff vacancies in NHS England. The figure is approaching the previous peak in absences recorded on January 10, 2022. In the South West and South East regions of England absences had already exceeded their January peak in March, with 48 percent of absences due to COVID in the South West.

Approximately a quarter of health workers are looking for new jobs, according to a recent NHS staff survey, due to widespread staff burnout and low morale. NHS staff have suffered 8 million mental health sick days in the last five years, 2.2 million of them in 2021. Only 27 percent of the NHS workforce feel that there are enough staff in their organisation to allow them to do their jobs properly and safely. Close to half have been made unwell by work-related stress in the last month, a third say they feel burnt out and a third say they are exhausted at the thought of the next shift.

Dr Thomas Dolphin, a consultant anaesthetist, told the Guardian, “We brutalised our staff for months on end. Then, not surprisingly, quite a lot of them have left or retired, or moved to another country as soon as they could because it was soul-destroying. Now we’re in a position where we’re even more short staffed. The consequence is in those numbers.”

Hopson concludes his thread damningly, “These pressures are a result of four long term fault lines built up over last decade. Longest/deepest NHS funding squeeze ever. NHS therefore unable to build extra capacity to meet growing demand. Rising workforce shortages. Govt failure to address problems in social care.”

The Conservative government, which is committed to privatising the health service, has no intention of resolving the situation. Health Secretary Sajid Javid has insisted that workforce numbers will need to be addressed based on existing budgets. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has instructed NHS Trusts to make a £4.75 billion in “efficiency savings” as part of plans to slash “wasteful” spending across the public sector.

A British Medical Association (BMA) survey of 1,194 doctors found that 52 percent of doctors believe that the government’s recovery plans are “totally unachievable” and 36 percent believe they are “mostly unachievable” with existing health resources.

UK COVID-19 vaccine roll out for 5-11-year-olds mired in delays during unprecedented virus surge

Liz Smith & Tania Kent

Under conditions of an unprecedented rise in COVID cases, young children are being placed at continued risk by the delay of the vaccination programme for 5-11-year-olds.

National Health Service (NHS) staff only began vaccinating children aged 5-11 from April 4. Local vaccination centres or community pharmacies are being used rather than schools.

Huge numbers of children and their families have already been infected or re-infected needlessly. Last month, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data revealed that the highest infection rates for all age groups were among these unvaccinated 2-11-year-olds, expected to attend pre-school settings, nurseries and primary schools with no mitigation measures in place at all—no masks, no appropriate ventilation, no social distancing.

By January 2022, cumulative cases of COVID in the 0-19 age group had reached 3 million. Due to the unrestricted spread of the disease, in several variants, by April 13 this total had reached over 4.4 million in the 0-19 age group in England alone.

ONS figures from April 13, tweeted by Safe Education for All member @tigresseleanor, show that among children aged 0-9 there have been a total of 1,548,770 cases; among those 10-14 there have been 1,576,132 cases.

Child hospital admissions have increased since the April 1 decision to end the provision of free tests, including in schools. By April 13, total child COVID hospital admissions had reached 23,592. Of these 12,808 were aged 0-5, and 10,784 aged 6-17. On that day a further 95 children were admitted to hospital. There are over 150,000 children suffering with Long COVID and some 161 children have died from COVID in the UK, the highest toll in Europe, followed by Ukraine with 85.

A reception class teacher (left) leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Monday, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has now advised that all children in the 5-11 age group be offered two 10 microgram doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, a third of the strength given those aged 12 and over, with an interval of at least 12 weeks between doses—or 8 weeks for children who have medical conditions that put them at increased risk from the virus or who live with someone with a weakened immune system.

Almost five million children are eligible for two doses of the vaccine following the updated guidance, which recommends children can benefit from a “non-urgent offer of the vaccine.”

The phrasing consciously downplays the dangers. The JCVI and the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health (RCPCH) have been at pains to stress that COVID-19 is mild in children and that therefore the benefits of vaccination are minimal, in service to the government’s reopening agenda.

President of the RCPCH Dr Camilla Kingdon responded to the JCVI announcement by saying, “Any decision to vaccinate should be a matter of choice and it should never be mandatory.” Developing a false narrative that COVID vaccinations for children will reduce the uptake of other childhood vaccinations such as Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR), Kingdon stated, “The COVID-19 vaccination must not displace others”.

The opposite is more likely. There are financial incentives for GPs to meet MMR vaccination targets. These are being made more stringent, with the BMJ warning, “GPs in deprived areas now face being penalised financially at a time when they may need extra resources to improve uptake.” All of which threatens to sideline COVID vaccination.

Children aged 5-11 years who have serious medical conditions that put them at increased risk from COVID-19 or who live with someone with a weakened immune system have been eligible for the vaccine for some time, but even among these more vulnerable children there have been significant delays in accessing the vaccine.

Since the NHS National Booking System opened on April 2 for families of 5-11-year-olds, only around 40,000 have booked a vaccination appointment. This is a drop in the ocean, and it is not hard to see why. There has been little to no vaccine promotion, with the task being left to schools to inform parents via email where they can be accessed.

The continued downplaying of the risks for children and delay in organising vaccination, giving fuel to the anti-vax movement, has also had an impact on scientific awareness in the population.

ONS research found that “For pupils aged 5 to 11 years, 62% of their parents said they were likely to agree to their child having a COVID-19 vaccine compared with 24% who said they were unlikely to agree to their child having a vaccine (22 November to 15 December 2021). The most common reasons for parents not wanting their child to be vaccinated included worrying about the side effects (54%) and wanting to wait to see how it works for children aged 5 to 11 years (49%).”

Delayed vaccinations for 5-11-year-olds follows a similar story for 12-15-year-olds, finally provided jabs, through schools, midway through the autumn term. The vaccine rollout among children was delayed for months after the JCVI decided against recommending vaccination for almost all under-18s.

Documents leaked in May last year revealed that the JCVI made its decision with the claim, ripped straight from the “herd immunity” playbook, that “Circulation of covid in children could periodically boost immunity in adults.”  The document added that “Children rarely develop severe disease or die of COVID-19; even children with underlying comorbidities have a very low risk”.

By the time the government—under mounting pressure from concerned parents and educators—made the decision that some school-age groups, excluding those under 12, should be vaccinated, the entire summer period had been lost. The vaccine programme among 12–15-year-olds was finally rolled out in late September, but it has been marked by chaos, reaching only a fraction of pupils. Only19.3 percent of this age group had been vaccinated by the end of October, according to a UK Health Security Agency estimate. Over 40 percent of schools had not received the single vaccine for their pupils by half term (October 25, 2021).

Over two months later, masses of children are still unvaccinated with the required at least two doses. The latest ONS update published February 1, reads, “As of 9 January 2022, 52.5% of pupils aged 12 to 15 years and 69.7% of pupils aged 16 to 17 years in state-funded schools in England have received at least one dose of a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, while 5.8% and 46.0% respectively have received two doses.”

Government indifference over vaccination for children runs parallel with new isolation guidance for people aged 18 and under in England which states: “If they have mild symptoms like a runny nose, sore throat or slight cough, they can still go to school or college. If they have a temperature or are unwell the advice is for them to stay at home and avoid contact with others where possible—they can go back to school when they are well enough and don’t have a temperature. Testing isn’t recommended—but if they test positive they should try to stay at home for three days”.

With free testing having ended and a single test costing £3, parents already facing a steep rise in the cost of living estimated to plunge 1.3 million people into absolute poverty in the UK will be left with little choice but to try to manage without a test and risk their loved ones catching the virus.

Many schools have had to close again in the last week due to staff and pupil infections. Faced with an unprecedented crisis, the headteacher unions are demanding the return of free lateral flow tests, with the general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) Paul Whiteman saying the current setup “feels reckless in the extreme”.

Oxfam report: Poorer countries going from crisis to catastrophe

Nick Beams

In the lead up to the semi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank being held in Washington this week, the global aid agency Oxfam has produced a report detailing the horrendous impact of rising inflation, coming on top of the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, for almost half the world’s population.

Cover page of April 2022 Oxfam Report

It said the crises of extreme inequality and massive food and energy inflation, accelerated by the war in Ukraine and COVID-19, are converging to create a catastrophe for the world’s poorest people “that is unprecedented in living memory.”

The report, entitled “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe,” estimated that at least a quarter of a billion more people could be pushed into extreme poverty, defined as receiving below $1.90 per day, bringing the total to 860 million.

The number of people estimated to be living below the poverty line of $5.50 per day is already 3.3 billion, almost half the world’s population.

It noted that at the same time, billionaire wealth “has seen its biggest increase ever” with more accumulation at the top to come.

“Large corporations appear to be exploiting an inflationary environment to boost profits at consumers’ expense: soaring energy prices and margins have pushed oil company profits to record levels, while investors expect agriculture companies to rapidly become more profitable as food prices spiral,” Oxfam stated.

Inflation is rising rapidly and will far outstrip wages growth this year.

Poorer countries are being bled white by the international banks, multilateral lending institutions, including the IMF, and investment houses.

According to the report, debt servicing for all the world’s poorer countries is estimated at $43 billion for this year, equivalent to nearly half their spending on food import bills, healthcare, education and social protection combined.

The situation is even worse for the lowest income countries. In 2021 the amount spent on debt servicing and repayments was 171 percent of their combined spending on healthcare, education and social protection.

The report made clear that the very limited measures initiated at the start of the pandemic, supposedly to lessen the debt burden, the Debt Service Suspension Initiative and the Common Framework introduced by the G20, “have proven largely ineffective.”

Likewise, the much-trumpeted decision by the IMF to make available $650 billion of additional Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in August, which provides for greater access to foreign currencies without conditions being attached. The additional SDRs were not allocated in accordance with need but in line with IMF quotas which meant richer countries were the chief beneficiaries.

There were pledges by the G20 to reallocate some $100 billion but so far only $36 billion has been provided.

The financial situation confronting poorer and highly indebted countries is only going to worsen in the coming period because of the moves by the world’s major central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, to hike interest rates amid soaring inflation.

This is a recipe for financial turmoil in lower income countries that need dollars to pay for their energy, food and medical imports.

The report warned, “Several developing countries are likely to default on their debts in coming months, and will try to stave off bankruptcy as they try to maintain vital imports. This could mean drastic cuts to spending worldwide, exacerbating an already dangerous path towards austerity that countries were beginning to take with IMF backing.”

According to Oxfam representatives, whereas in 2020 the IMF had urged countries to spend money to combat the effects of the pandemic, without imposing the conditionalities that had been tied to loans in the past—measures such as cuts in social spending and privatisation of government-owned entities—these conditionalities were now returning in a large majority of loans and debt restructuring agreements.

The IMF is laying down such conditions as representatives of the government of Sri Lanka, one of the countries at the centre of the debt crisis, meet with its officials in Washington this week.

The Oxfam report provided figures showing there is more than enough money to deal with the crisis.

“A progressive wealth tax of just 2 percent on personal wealth above $5 million, rising to 3 percent for above $50 million and 5 percent for wealth above $1 billion could generate $2.52 trillion worldwide,” it said.

That amount of money would be “enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, make enough COVID-19 vaccines for the world, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries” with a combined population of 3.6 billion.

But such measures will never be implemented while control of the economy remains in the hands of the representatives of the financial elites, multi-billionaires and capitalist oligarchs that comprise the governments of all countries. In fact, they are moving in the other direction.

In the US, for example, the limited so-called “billionaire tax” floated by President Biden is already effectively dead in the water. In Australia, amid an election campaign, the opposition Labor Party has announced it will support tax cuts for the wealthiest sections of the population proposed by the Liberal government, while ruling out any increase in payments to the unemployed.

As is often the case with its reports, Oxfam produced a devastating picture of the workings of the capitalist system. But as always, the height of its indictment is only matched by the depth of its political bankruptcy when it approaches the key question: what is to be done?

A single paragraph in the report said it all:

“While the COVID-19 pandemic pushed people and countries into economic crisis worldwide, the compounding effects of the Ukraine crisis mean we risk now heading towards catastrophe. But this can be averted through bold and coordinated international and national action.”

In other words, if only reason and rationality prevailed the catastrophe could be prevented. But the capitalist profit system, which all governments serve, does not operate on this basis. The refusal of all governments to undertake science-based measures to eliminate COVID-19 demonstrated that fact once again.

A system which, through its very objective logic, necessarily produces fabulous wealth for an oligarchy at one pole and poverty, death and misery for billions at the other, cannot be made to change course by appeals to see reason.

Furthermore, no matter how rational and necessary international cooperation is in a world that has never been so intimately connected, it cannot be achieved under capitalism because the profit system itself is rooted in rival and conflicting nation-states and great powers.

Australian war crimes from 1999 in East Timor exposed

Patrick O’Connor

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Four Corners” current affairs television program released a two-part series, “Ghosts of Timor,” on April 4 and 11 that outlined evidence of significant war crimes committed by Australian military forces in East Timor in 1999.

These crimes included murder, the mutilation of corpses, and sexual assault and torture of prisoners, including children. “Four Corners” also provided evidence of a deliberate cover up orchestrated within the highest levels of the Australian military command. No soldier has ever been charged over the incidents.

One of the tortured, Julio Da Silva, who was 16 years old in 1999 (Credit: ABC/Four Corners)

Military lawyers interviewed on the program suggested that this cover up encouraged a culture of impunity within the Australian military, including its elite Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), paving the way for the even more widespread crimes carried out during the occupation of Afghanistan from 2001.

In 1999, following the downfall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto, Jakarta authorised a referendum in East Timor, which had been occupied by the Indonesian military since 1975. The ballot showed a large majority favouring independence. An Australian-led military force subsequently intervened, with the ostensible aim of “restoring peace and security in the territory” and “facilitating humanitarian assistance.”

The focus of the “Four Corners” report was the events following a clash between Australian troops and pro-Indonesian militia fighters near the Timorese town of Suai on October 6, 1999.

An Australian convoy, which also had several New Zealand troops, was ambushed and two SAS soldiers were wounded. The soldiers responded to the ambush with a hail of gunfire, killing two militia members. When their corpses were sent back to the Timorese capital, Dili, examiners found clear evidence, including muzzle blasts, that close range shots had been fired into the bodies after the two men were killed. One of the shots severed a large chunk of the person’s skull and brain.

These actions, of course, represented clear violations of international law. A legal officer from New Zealand deployed with the intervention force known as INTERFET (International Force East Timor), Andrena Gill, immediately requested an investigation into the incident, which was the first fatal shooting of the operation.

This, however, was rejected by the head of INTERFET, Australia’s Major General Peter Cosgrove (later to be the Australian governor-general from 2014 to 2019).

Shortly afterwards, “Four Corners” reported, witnesses from within the New Zealand military forces began to talk about what had happened. Within a year, this triggered a secret, internal Australian military police special inquiry. Investigators took sworn testimony from three New Zealand troops, who reported hearing at least two or three gunshots fired well after the initial ambush and firefight. One soldier said: “I heard someone call out, ‘They’re our rounds, just shooting the bodies,’ or words to that effect.”

Another New Zealand soldier testified that an Australian soldier, identified only as “Operator K,” later told him that one of the targeted Timorese had in fact only been wounded initially. Operator K explained that the man had tried to get up and run away, unarmed, and that he had shot him in the back, killing him. This, again, is a blatant violation of the laws of warfare.

One of the corpses mutilated by “Operator K” (Credit: ABC/Four Corners)

At least three other New Zealand witnesses told authorities that they saw Operator K further mutilate the corpses as they were being transported to Dili.

One said: “I can also recall seeing [Operator K] standing on top of this LAV [light armoured vehicle] towards the rear. I heard [Operator K] scream, ‘How dare you shoot my boys,’ or words to that effect. He was also kicking and punching the bodies as he said this. At this time I was about 10–15 [metres] away from the LAV and I thought to myself, ‘Fuck he’s lost it.’… He then kicked one of the bodies off of the back of the LAV.”

By 2001, the defence department contacted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to provide advice on the case. After reviewing the evidence, the AFP noted that rumours had “suggested the killings were an act of revenge for the wounding of the two Australian soldiers,” and that forensic evidence indicated that the two militiamen may have been shot “at short range with a 9mm pistol after they had been wounded,” with available material “provid[ing] some evidence toward substantiating an allegation of Murder.”

In a highly telling comment, the AFP stated that “the political impact of this investigation has been assessed as substantial and has to be managed.”

In October 2002, the bodies of the two men, who had been hastily buried three years earlier, were exhumed and autopsies carried out. These found evidence that one man may have been shot in the back of the head, while both corpses had shattered skulls and broken ribs, consistent with the witness testimony that Operator K had kicked and stomped on the bodies.

Operator K was finally charged. Australian authorities, however, refused the New Zealand military’s request to uphold the anonymity of their witnesses. “Four Corners” reporter Mark Willacy explained, “their superiors in the New Zealand defence force had genuine fears for their safety if they did take the stand.”

The case collapsed, nothing was made public, and the court records remain suppressed. Operator K received a formal apology.

Australian forces operate black site torture centre

The second part of the “Ghosts of Timor” broadcast exposed Australian military torture. On the same day as the Suai ambush, October 6, 1999, a separate incident nearby resulted in the detention of 14 Timorese boys and men that Australian forces incorrectly believed were pro-Indonesian militia and had been involved in the ambush.

Black site used as SAS torture centre (Credit: ABC/Four Corners)

At least 10 of the 14 individuals were brought to Dili but were not registered at the official INTERFET detention centre. Instead, they were taken to a heliport controlled by the Australian SAS, which was being used as a secret torture and interrogation centre—a “black site” in the language that subsequently emerged in the so-called war on terror.

The ten males, mostly young men but including at least one 16-year-old child and another approximately 13-year-old, were terrorised. First they were shown the bodies of the two men who were earlier mutilated by Operator K.

One witness who spoke with “Four Corners,” Alan Joyce, formerly of the Australian Defence Force Intelligence Corps, said: “There was a little kid, I think he was about 13, if that. He cried and screamed and almost dropped to the ground. We had to hold him up.”

Another witness reported that the boy, and some of the others, soiled themselves, fearing they were about to be murdered.

“Four Corners” tracked down and interviewed several of those subjected to Australian torture. They explained that they were stripped naked, blindfolded, not allowed to sleep, kept in stress positions, and kicked in the back if they attempted to move. They were also denied food and water and physically assaulted, including by being punched in the face. One man explained that after being stripped naked, a female Australian soldier fondled his genitals, with the sexual assault aimed at humiliating him.

Two other detainees who had suffered gunshot wounds while being detained by Australian troops were forcibly removed from the medical facility where they were receiving emergency treatment. They were taken to the black site for torture and interrogation. Witnesses reported seeing, several days later, that one of the man’s gunshot wounds was seeping with blood and pus and infested with maggots as a result of being denied intravenous antibiotics.

The criminality of the Australian military was so severe that forces from other countries sought to avoid any complicity, fearing legal repercussions. A British officer instructed his men to have nothing to do with the secret SAS detention site. A New Zealand military legal officer advised that what was happening may have legally obliged New Zealand troops to refuse to transfer detainees to INTERFET’s control.

INTERFET legal officer Andrena Gill attempted to investigate the issue, but was again blocked. She reported that when she raised the allegations with her boss, the chief INTERFET legal officer Australian Lieutenant-Colonel Drew Braban, he made dismissive jokes about the issue, saying, “Who cares if they are not being given or withdrawn food and water” and “what’s the big deal?”

Major General Peter Cosgrove ordered a cursory investigation. The chief of the torture centre insisted that detainees were being treated “humanely” and in line with the Geneva Conventions—the investigation concluded with “no recommendation for further enquiry.”

A later military police investigation reportedly assembled briefs of evidence for charges of torture to be brought against three Intelligence officer commanders. No one, however, was ever charged and the defence department has refused to explain why.

The “Four Corners” report is an important piece of investigative journalism, exposing for the first time appalling war crimes carried out with impunity by Australian forces in East Timor.

There was nevertheless a glaring absence in the two-part broadcast—an explanation as to why these crimes were carried out, and what they reflect about the nature of the Australian-led intervention in 1999.

The “bad apples” theory—chalking things up to one or two evil individuals, thereby explaining nothing —was trotted out, with the program concluding with the assessment of former military police investigator Karl Fehlauer: “Unfortunately, it only takes one or two bad apples to spoil a bunch.”

“Four Corners” insisted that the Australian military had “justifiable pride that they helped bring peace and stability to one of Australia’s closest neighbours,” and that the war crimes represented a “dark stain” on an otherwise noble endeavour.

In fact, the humanitarian rhetoric used to justify the 1999 intervention was nothing but a pretext. The Australian government had for decades collaborated with the Indonesian military junta in the oppression of the Timorese people, including through the illegal carve up of its lucrative oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. When Canberra assessed that continued Indonesian control over Timor had become untenable, it orchestrated a military intervention in order to dominate the process leading to formal independence. This was aimed at advancing Australian imperialism’s geostrategic position in the region and at securing its highly profitable investments in the oil and gas industry.

The operation was of a neo-colonial nature—and it is only within that context that one can understand the criminal activities of the SAS, supported and covered up by the highest levels of the military command.

The Timor intervention was an important turning point. The bogus humanitarian pretext had been boosted by pseudo-left organisations who organised “troops in” demonstrations. These events, the Australian Financial Review noted at the time, helped create the political climate for the first large-scale overseas military deployment since the Vietnam War. The 1999 deployment was followed by an upsurge of Australian militarism, including involvement in the US-led wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, in which both American and Australian forces committed countless atrocities and war crimes.

The “Ghosts of Timor” broadcasts can be viewed here: Part 1 and Part 2.