Can You Truly Own Anything in the Metaverse?

João Marinotti

In 2021, an investment firm bought 2,000 acres of real estate for about US$4 million. Normally this would not make headlines, but in this case the land was virtual. It existed only in a metaverse platform called The Sandbox. By buying 792 non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, the firm then owned the equivalent of 1,200 city blocks.

But did it? It turns out that legal ownership in the metaverse is not that simple.

The prevailing but legally problematic narrative among crypto enthusiasts is that NFTs allow true ownership of digital items in the metaverse for two reasons: decentralization and interoperability. These two technological features have led some to claim that tokens provide indisputable proof of ownership, which can be used across various metaverse apps, environments and games. Because of this decentralization, some also claim that buying and selling virtual items can be done on the blockchain itself for whatever price you want, without any person or any company’s permission.

Despite these claims, the legal status of virtual “owners” is significantly more complicated. In fact, the current ownership of metaverse assets is not governed by property law at all, but rather by contract law. As a legal scholar who studies property law, tech policy and legal ownership, I believe that what many companies are calling “ownership” in the metaverse is not the same as ownership in the physical world, and consumers are at risk of being swindled.

Purchasing in the metaverse

When you buy an item in the metaverse, your purchase is recorded in a transaction on a blockchain, which is a digital ledger under nobody’s control and in which transaction records cannot be deleted or altered. Your purchase assigns you ownership of an NFT, which is simply a unique string of bits. You store the NFT in a crypto wallet that only you can open, and which you “carry” with you wherever you go in the metaverse. Each NFT is linked to a particular virtual item.

It is easy to think that because your NFT is in your crypto wallet, no one can take your NFT-backed virtual apartment, outfit or magic wand away from you without access to your wallet’s private key. Because of this, many people think that the NFT and the digital item are one and the same. Even experts conflate NFTs with their respective digital goods, noting that because NFTs are personal property, they allow you to own digital goods in a virtual world.

NFTs and the hype about the metaverse have sparked a virtual land rush.

However, when you join a metaverse platform you must first agree to the platform’s terms of service, terms of use or end user license agreement. These are legally binding documents that define the rights and duties of the users and the metaverse platform. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, almost no one actually reads the terms of service. In one study, only 1.7% of users found and questioned a “child assignment clause” embedded in a terms of service document. Everyone else unwittingly gave away their first-born child to the fictional online service provider.

It is in these lengthy and sometimes incomprehensible documents where metaverse platforms spell out the legal nuances of virtual ownership. Unlike the blockchain itself, the terms of service for each metaverse platform are centralized and are under the complete control of a single company. This is extremely problematic for legal ownership.

Interoperability and portability are defining features of the metaverse, meaning you should be able to carry your non-real-estate virtual property – your avatar, your digital art, your magic wand – from one virtual world to another. But today’s virtual worlds are not connected to one another, and there is nothing in an NFT itself that labels it as, say, a magic wand. As it stands, each platform needs to link NFTs to their own proprietary digital assets.

Virtual fine print

Under the terms of service, the NFTs purchased and the digital goods received are almost never one and the same. NFTs exist on the blockchain. The land, goods and characters in the metaverse, on the other hand, exist on private servers running proprietary code with secured, inaccessible databases.

This means that all visual and functional aspects of digital assets – the very features that give them any value – are not on the blockchain at all. These features are completely controlled by the private metaverse platforms and are subject to their unilateral control.

Because of their terms of service, platforms can even legally delete or give your items away by delinking the digital assets from their original NFT identification codes. Ultimately, even though you may own the NFT that came with your digital purchase, you do not legally own or possess the digital assets themselves. Instead, the platforms merely grant you access to the digital assets and only for the length of time they want.

For example, on one day you might own a $200,000 digital painting for your apartment in the metaverse, and the next day you may find yourself banned from the metaverse platform, and your painting, which was originally stored in its proprietary databases, deleted. Strictly speaking, you would still own the NFT on the blockchain with its original identification code, but it is now functionally useless and financially worthless.

Virtual items like this avatar are sold in NFT marketplaces. Nescolet/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND.

While admittedly jarring, this is not a far-fetched scenario. It might not be a wise business move for the platform company, but there’s nothing in the law to prevent it. Under the terms of use and premium NFT terms of use governing the $4 million’s worth of virtual real estate purchased on The Sandbox, the metaverse company – like many other NFT and metaverse platforms – reserves the right at its sole discretion to terminate your ability to use or even access your purchased digital assets.

If The Sandbox “reasonably believes” you engaged in any of the platform’s prohibited activities, which require subjective judgments about whether you interfered with others’ “enjoyment” of the platform, it may immediately suspend or terminate your user account and delete your NFT’s images and descriptions from its platform. It can do this without any notice or liability to you.

In fact, The Sandbox even claims the right in these cases to immediately confiscate any NFTs it deems you acquired as a result of the prohibited activities. How it would successfully confiscate blockchain-based NFTs is a technological mystery, but this raises further questions about the validity of what it calls virtual ownership.

We reached out to The Sandbox for comment but did not receive a response.

Legally binding

As if these clauses weren’t alarming enough, many metaverse platforms reserve the right to amend their terms of service at any time with little to no actual notice. This means that users would need to constantly refresh and reread the terms to ensure they do not engage in any recently banned behavior that could result in the deletion of their “purchased” assets or even their entire accounts.

Technology alone will not pave the way for true ownership of digital assets in the metaverse. NFTs cannot bypass the centralized control that metaverse platforms currently have and will continue to have under their contractual terms of service. Ultimately, legal reform alongside technological innovation is needed before the metaverse can mature into what it promises to become.

Finland and Sweden prepare to join NATO

Jordan Shilton

The imperialist powers in North America and Europe are preparing to dramatically intensify their military encirclement of Russia aimed at regime change by accepting Finland and Sweden into NATO. The ruling elites in both Scandinavian countries, which maintained formal neutrality after World War II, have seized on the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine to overcome long-standing popular opposition to the aggressive US-led military alliance.

Finland’s parliament, with the approval of the country’s Social Democrat-led government under Prime Minister Sanna Marin, began debating NATO membership last week. The outcome is a foregone conclusion, with observers expecting that Helsinki could formally apply for NATO membership as soon as mid-May. The political establishment has exploited the war fever whipped up by the imperialist powers against Russia and public opinion polls ostensibly showing a substantial growth in support for NATO membership to impose a policy they have long sought to adopt.

Newspaper reports Monday confirmed that Sweden will submit its application simultaneously with Finland, possibly during the week of May 16, when Finland’s president is scheduled to make a state visit to Stockholm.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, center, participates in a media conference with Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, left, and Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde, right, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

Finnish membership in NATO will extend the military alliance’s border with Russia by 1,300 kilometres (about 800 miles), more than the current border Russia shares with the imperialist military alliance. A train journey from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city, takes just three-and-a-half hours. The country will become yet another staging ground for aggressive NATO operations to subjugate Russia to the status of a semi-colony.

In their rush to join NATO, the Finnish and Swedish ruling elites are reviving their historic role as servants of the most rapacious imperialist powers. Every article dealing with Helsinki and Stockholm’s imminent NATO membership repeats uncritically the fact that both countries remained “neutral” after 1945, as if they have only now been awoken from their naive peaceful slumbers by the “Russian aggressor” Putin. But an examination of Finland and Sweden’s history refutes such claims.

Both countries’ ruling elites were among the bitterest opponents of the 1917 Russian Revolution and collaborated first with Nazi Germany and then the US Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Finland never existed in modern times as an independent state until the Bolshevik government under Lenin’s leadership extended it the right of self-determination following the successful conquest of power by the Russian working class in October 1917. Less than three months later, the Finnish bourgeoisie used its “independence,” based on a dependent and subservient relationship to German imperialist militarism, to wage a brutal civil war against its own working class to prevent a socialist revolution.

The prospects for such a revolution loomed large. Finnish workers had responded to the Bolsheviks’ taking of power in Petrograd by launching an indefinite general strike in November 1917 that directly posed the question of which class would rule society. But it was betrayed by Finland’s Social Democrats, a party that loyally followed the pro-imperialist Second International.

The Finnish white terror in the winter and spring of 1918 was the most savage display of butchery since the Paris Commune of 1871, with tens of thousands of workers, including women and children, massacred in one-sided battles and in concentration camps. In addition to German military expertise and weaponry, the Finnish bourgeoisie received military support in the civil war from Sweden, which had ruled Finland as a colony as part of the Swedish Empire until its defeat by Russia in the Swedish-Russian war of 1808-09.

Advocates of Finnish NATO membership invariably cite the 1939 Winter War with the Soviet Union, which was the result of Stalin’s nationalist policies that stood diametrically opposed to the principles of Soviet democracy fought for by Lenin and Trotsky when they granted Finland independence from Russia in 1917. The conflict was a disaster for Soviet forces, who faced stiff Finnish resistance and suffered 321,000-381,000 casualties, including 120,000-170,000 deaths. Finland suffered around 70,000 casualties and 26,000 deaths by comparison.

As Trotsky wrote in his Open Letter to the Workers of the USSR in April 1940, “(T)he infamous oppressive regime of Stalin has deprived the USSR of its attractive power. During the war with Finland, not only the majority of the Finnish peasants but also the majority of the Finnish workers, proved to be on the side of their bourgeoisie. This is hardly surprising since they know of the unprecedented oppression to which the Stalinist bureaucracy subjects the workers of near-by Leningrad and the whole of the USSR.”

However, none of the present-day proponents of Finnish and Swedish NATO membership care to mention the “Continuation War” between 1941 and 1944, when Finnish divisions participated in Nazi Germany’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, which claimed the lives of at least 27 million Soviet citizens and made possible the Holocaust of European Jewry. Both Finland and Sweden were notified in advance of Operation Barbarossa, with Finnish officers travelling to Germany in May 1940 for consultations so they could coordinate their attacks on the Soviet Union. Stockholm granted passage by train for German troops to deploy from Norway to Finland to support the Finnish offensive, which would go on to play a key role in the blockade of Leningrad.

Adolf Hitler with Marshal Mannerheim, Supreme Commander of Finland's armed forces and Risto Heikki Ryti, President of Finland. Hitler visited Mannerheim on his 75th birthday, 4 June 1942. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The “continuity” between the Finnish white terror of 1918 and the Continuation War was personified by the man who led the Finnish army during both, Supreme Commander Karl Mannerheim, a former general in the Tsarist Russian army who headed the Finnish white army in 1918 when it exterminated Finnish workers. Mannerheim celebrated his 75th birthday in 1942 in the company of Adolf Hitler, who paid a surprise visit to Finland to mark the occasion. Mannerheim, known for his aristocratic tendencies and inability to speak the Finnish language fluently, went on to serve as Finland’s president between 1944 and 1946.

Swedish “neutrality” during World War II was based on Stockholm’s supply of iron ore and other critical raw materials to Nazi Germany’s war machine. After occupying Norway and Denmark in the spring of 1940, Hitler saw no reason to waste additional military resources on a takeover of Sweden, which was cut off from the possibility of receiving allied military aid and more than willing to do business with the Third Reich. Stockholm’s cordial relations with Berlin were assisted by an affinity with fascist ideology in Swedish ruling circles, a fact underscored by the country’s continuation of eugenics policies long after World War II. Protected from the ravages of modern warfare, Sweden’s economy boomed during and after the war, laying the basis for the ruling elite’s substantial concessions to a radicalized working class to safeguard capitalist rule—the so-called “Swedish model.”

Finnish and Swedish “neutrality” after the Second World War was motivated not by some altruistic commitment to peace, but by political necessity and military expediency. The Finnish bourgeoisie, thoroughly discredited by its collaboration with Nazism, saw neutrality as the price to pay for maintaining the existence of a capitalist state, avoiding the fate of the ruling elites in the Eastern European buffer states, which the Stalinists removed from power and replaced with loyal servants of the Moscow bureaucracy as the Cold War intensified. For its part, Swedish neutrality did not prevent it from serving as a key player in US imperialism’s spying on the Soviet Union. Documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed that Swedish intelligence signed a top-secret agreement with the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance—in 1954 to share intelligence on the Soviets.

With the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and restoration of capitalism, the Finnish and Swedish ruling elites sought to return more openly to their counter-revolutionary traditions of the first half of the 20th century. They began to shift more directly into the orbit of the major European and North American imperialist alliances. Both countries joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace during the 1990s, a framework that allowed non-alliance members to participate in NATO exercises and training. They also joined the European Union.

Sweden’s formal break with almost two centuries of neutrality came in 2002, when the Social Democrat government led by Göran Persson agreed to dispatch troops to Afghanistan as part of the US-led occupation of the Central Asian country. Swedish Saab-Gripen fighter jets flew missions in NATO’s savage bombardment of Libya in 2011, which plunged the North African country into a bloody civil war that continues to the present day.

In 2015, representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden signed a multilateral Nordic defence agreement explicitly aimed at confronting “Russian aggression.” The deal included the coordination of military equipment production and joint military exercises conforming to NATO standards.

In March 2015, the Nordic Defence Ministers conducted a Ministerial meeting in the North of Sweden and visited the Army Ranger Battalion I19. From the left: Policy Director Arnór Sigurjónsson (Iceland), Defence Minister Carl Haglund (Finland), Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist (Sweden), Defence Minister Nicolai Wammen (Denmark) and State Secretary Øystein Bø (Norway). (Credit: Jimmy Croona/Swedish Armed Forces)

Swedish and Finnish troops have played a prominent role over recent years in some of NATO’s largest military drills, including exercises involving tens of thousands of troops in the Baltic Sea and in Arctic conditions in Norway. They also joined some of the provocative manoeuvres organised by NATO with Ukraine in the Black Sea in the months leading up to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Swedish forces participated in Exercise Sea Breeze in June and July 2021, a massive NATO-led provocation that saw over 5,000 troops from more than 30 countries practice amphibious, air, and naval warfare manoeuvres co-hosted by Ukraine and the US Sixth Fleet.

US imperialism and its European allies see the integration of Finland and Sweden into NATO as crucial in opening a new front in their efforts to cripple Russia and turn it into a semi-colony. As former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen wrote in the New York Times, Finland and Sweden represent “a convenient buffer zone between Russia and current NATO members,” which “would make it easier to react to any incursion by Russian forces into the Baltic states.” He continued, “At NATO headquarters, membership could be approved overnight.”

In December 2021, two months prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US officials concluded with the Finnish government the largest single military purchase in the country’s history—Helsinki’s procurement of 64 F-35 fighter jets from US military contractor Lockheed Martin. To give a sense of the extraordinary scope of the deal for Finland, a country of just 5.4 million people, it would equate to a country the size of Germany buying over 900 warplanes.

Beyond Finland’s lengthy border with Russia, Both Sweden and Finland have Baltic coasts, providing ideal locations for NATO to launch aggressive provocations and attacks on Russian forces. Of strategic significance is the Swedish island of Gotland, which lies about 90 kilometres off the Swedish east coast in the Baltic Sea. A NATO presence there would give the alliance the opportunity to directly strike the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Lithuania and Poland about 300 kilometres southeast of Gotland and is home to Russia’s Baltic fleet.

Magnus Christiansson, a researcher in military strategy at the Swedish Defence University, told France 24 in January that Gotland could function as a launching pad for NATO attacks on Russia. Couching his prediction in the language of an altruistic United States rushing to the defence of the tiny republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Christiansson commented, “To help its allies, the Americans would have to send jets over – fast – and fly over the Baltic Sea. But if the Russians gained control of Gotland, they could use anti-aircraft missiles and coastal robots, making it extremely difficult for the Americans to reach and defend the Baltics.”

Fabrice Pothier, former head of NATO policy planning also noted, “It’s big deal militarily, but it’s an even bigger deal politically. Putin has lost two valuable ‘on-the-fence’ countries… Appeasement has failed.”

The claim that Sweden and Finland’s ruling elites performed a 180-degree turn in their foreign policy the morning after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is nothing but self-serving propaganda. Their joining NATO has long been in the works, but they have confronted the hurdle of widespread popular opposition. Their headlong rush into NATO’s arms is designed to present the Swedish and Finnish populations with a fait accompli: the transformation of both countries into frontline states in the imperialist war drive against Russia. As Petteri Orpo, head of the conservative opposition National Coalition Party in Finland, put it during a visit to Washington for consultations with Biden administration officials, “For 16 years, we have supported NATO membership, and now it’s possible. Thanks, Putin.”

Orpo and the rest of the political establishment know very well that it is not Putin, but US President Joe Biden, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that they must thank for their opportunity to join NATO. Putin, the representative of the bankrupt Russian oligarchy that emerged due to the Stalinist restoration of capitalism, was goaded by the imperialist powers through a succession of provocations and threats to launch his reactionary invasion of Ukraine. The US-NATO war with Russia threatens to escalate into a broader global conflagration, including the Baltic and Nordic regions.

Wimbledon bans Russian and Belarusian players in foul anti-Russia campaign

Robert Stevens

Britain’s prestigious Wimbledon tennis tournament has banned Russian and Belarusian players from competing in this year’s event, which takes place in London from June 27 to July 10. The decision by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) accompanied a ban from all UK tennis events announced by Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association (LTA).

Centre Court at Wimbledon in May 2019 (Credit: Creative Commons/ GATORFAN2525)

The announcements deepen the Russophobic crusade in all professional sports being driven by the NATO powers. The International Olympic Committee has called on sports bodies to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from international events. UK Conservative government Home Secretary Priti Patel, while finalising her plans to send desperate asylum seekers to Rwanda, found time to cancel visas issued to the Belarusian men’s basketball team ahead of a scheduled World Cup qualifier match with Britain.

The AELTC said in imposing the ban, “Given the profile of The Championships in the United Kingdom and around the world, it is our responsibility to play our part in the widespread efforts of Government, industry, sporting and creative institutions to limit Russia’s global influence through the strongest means possible.”

Originally the government had planned to force players from Russia and Belarus to sign a statement before competing declaring their opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, thereby proving themselves “genuinely neutral”. They would also have had to provide assurances that they did not receive financial support from Putin or the Russian government. UK Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston commented last month, “If some individual sports or entities choose to do an outright ban of Russian or Belarusian athletes, then we will support that as well.”

The Wimbledon ban placed the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in an embarrassed position, outflanked by their own filthy anti-Russia campaign.

On March 1, together with the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the ATP and WTA banned Russian and Belarusian teams from their competitions “until further notice”, while decreeing that Russian and Belarusian individuals would be allowed to play—without displaying their national flag or having their national anthem played.

The ATP said as Wimbledon’s ban was announced, “We believe that today’s unilateral decision by Wimbledon and the LTA to exclude players from Russia and Belarus from this year’s British grass-court swing is unfair and has the potential to set a damaging precedent for the game. Discrimination based on nationality also constitutes a violation of our agreement with Wimbledon that states that player entry is based solely on ATP Rankings [emphasis added].”

The ATP seemed not to notice that their own ban on teams from those countries was “discrimination based on nationality” and nothing else.

This year’s Wimbledon tournament has been rendered absurd and meaningless, given that a host of the best tennis players on the planet are among those banned.

Daniil Medvedev during practice at Queen's Club in 2019 (Credit: Creative Commons/Carine06/flickr)

Russian star Danil Medvedev is ranked number two in the world and was second favourite to take the men’s Wimbledon trophy. Russian Andrey Rublev is the seventh-ranked men’s player in the world, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka the women’s number four, and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova ranked 15th. The 18th ranked woman, Belarusian multiple Grand Slam winner Victoria Azarenka, twice a Wimbledon semi-finalist, is also barred.

Overall, nine of the best 30 players in the world are banned, and nearly a fifth of the top 100.

As the WSWS noted previously, “most of the Russian athletes” banned from competing in the world’s most prestigious sports events “have reacted to the February 24 invasion with sympathy for the Ukrainians and pleas for an end to war.”

Among them is Rublev, who denounced the ban on himself and the other players as “complete discrimination”, adding, “The reasons they gave us had no sense, they were not logical.” On his way to winning the Dubai Championships in February, Rublev concluded his semi-final victory by using a marker to write “No more war please” on a TV camera lens.

Medvedev said in a Twitter post, “I want to ask for peace in the world, for peace between countries…”

The most significant opposition to the ban has come from defending champion Novak Djokovic, a six times Wimbledon winner and holder of 20 Grand Slam titles.

Djokovic was born in Belgrade and said as he competed in this month’s Serbia Open tournament, “I will always be the first one to condemn the war. As a child of war, I know what kind of emotional trauma a war leaves. Us in Serbia, we know what was happening here in 1999. Ordinary people always suffer—we’ve had lots of wars in the Balkans. That being said, I cannot support the Wimbledon decision. It’s not the athletes’ fault. When politics interfere with sport, it usually doesn’t turn out well.”

Others have drawn a line in their opposition between banning individuals versus national teams.

Alexander Zverev, the leading German player and men’s number three, said that while he did not oppose bans on Russian teams competing in team sports, including tennis, he opposed the “general” exclusion of individual players from Russia and Belarus, saying, “I don’t think that's correct.”

Eighteen-time grand slam winner Martina Navratilova said in an interview with London’s LBC Radio, “The Russian and Belarusian players, some have even expressed, vocalised, their opposition to the war… I understand the banning of teams, of course, representing the countries, but on an individual level, I just think it’s wrong.”

Among the legends of the game opposing the ban are former Wimbledon champions Michael Stich and Billie Jean King.

While declaring that “The decision of the LTA and the AELTC regarding the Russian and Belarusian players at this year’s tournament was a difficult and complex undertaking, and I appreciate the challenges and pressures they are facing,” King insisted, “One of the guiding principles of the founding of the WTA was that any girl in the world, if she was good enough, would have a place to compete. I stood by that in 1973 and I stand by that today. I cannot support the banning of individual athletes from any tournament, simply because of their nationality.”

It testifies to the enormous pressures being placed on individuals in the public eye that even many of those who react against bans applied in their own sphere feel required to carefully limit their opposition. In truth there is no division between bans on individuals and teams, all of which drip with hypocrisy and carry with them profoundly reactionary implications.

None of the athletes or national team members participating at Wimbledon, now and in the past, are or were responsible for the conduct and decisions of the ruling class of their countries—some of which involved monumental crimes far beyond any that Russia may have committed in the war in Ukraine.

While inevitably reflecting the impact of incessant anti-Russia propaganda, the opposition of some of tennis’ leading figures to the banning of Russian and Belarusian players is nevertheless a healthy response to a filthy and polluting campaign. It must be strengthened and carried forward by workers and youth internationally, against any and all bans of Russian and Belarussian teams and individuals from participating in global cultural and sports events.

Brazilian government announces fraudulent end of pandemic

Eduardo Parati

On April 17, the government of fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro announced the end of the health emergency decree that began in February 2020, making official the turn to scrap all restrictions on the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.

In a nationally televised speech, after admitting that the world is still “facing the greatest health emergency in history,” and pretending to mourn “the victims and those who still suffer as a result of the sequelae of this disease,” Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga hypocritically said that “with the strength of the Unified Health System (SUS), we saved many lives.”

Bolsonaro and his health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, in May 2021 (Wikimedia Commons)

The criminal implications of the Bolsonaro administration’s new decree were raised by epidemiologist Ethel Maciel at a discussion hosted by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). Maciel stated: “We need to strengthen the capacity of epidemiological teams and laboratories. The great concern with revoking the [health emergency] decree is that these structures will be closed.”

Together with the end of mask mandates in all Brazilian states and the prevalence of the Omicron BA.2 subvariant in the country, the Brazilian government’s decision to end the health emergency can cause a new outbreak, as is now happening in the US, the UK and other countries.

On April 14, the All for Health Institute (ITpS) reported that the highly transmissible BA.2 subvariant accounted for almost 70 percent of COVID-19 cases. Less than a month ago, on March 19, 27.2 percent of the positive tests reported were from the subvariant.

In light of this, several scientists and health experts have warned of the implications of ending the emergency decree.

On April 7, it was confirmed that the Butantan Institute found the first case of the Omicron subvariant XE in Brazil, which combines characteristics of BA.1 and BA.2. On the 16th, the first case of recombination of the Delta and Omicron variants was confirmed in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Richard Steiner Salvato, a specialist from the state’s genomic surveillance agency, stressed the importance of continuing to monitor the trajectory of these variants. Salvato said, “The case identified here has additional mutations, which does not allow us to know what impacts this recombination brings to the behavior of the virus.”

Nésio Fernandes, president of the National Council of Health Secretaries (CONASS), told the Piauí magazine: “With the cuts and the discontinuing of these investments, there will be a great demobilization of ICU beds.” According to him, the Unified Health System did not collapse in February, during the Omicron wave, only because it maintained these beds, which will now be decommissioned.”

Epidemiologist Marcia Castro from Harvard University emphasized to Piauí the great regional inequality in vaccination and the fact that less than 40 percent of the Brazilian population has taken the first booster shot: “We still have many people not vaccinated, the number of cases is increasing in Europe, we have environments where the ventilation conditions are terrible. This message that ‘it’s over’ is very concerning.”

The ruling class campaign to demobilize all efforts to contain the virus is based on the narrative that, after repeated waves of SARS-CoV-2 and the spread of the supposedly “mild” Omicron variant, the pandemic is becoming “endemic.” The term has been used by governments around the world as they declare an end to all control measures, and cut the resources needed to carry out treatment of patients with COVID-19.

A critical element of this “herd immunity” policy is to cut funding for testing centers, effectively eliminating the ability to predict the trajectory of the virus and prepare any kind of response, while also hiding the real severity of the pandemic from the population.

In the United States, where mandatory masking on public transportation was dropped last week, the Biden administration has cut funding for free testing and vaccines for uninsured people, while criteria are being drawn up that remove tens of thousands of deaths from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) count.

In the UK, Boris Johnson’s government ended free test distribution earlier this month, and other critical measures in the fight against the virus have been dropped since February 24, such as requiring self-isolation for people who test positive. The real impact of BA.2 in the country is being seen in the near-record number of hospitalizations and almost 2,300 deaths in the last seven days.

In Brazil, on December 10, after a hacker attack on the Health Ministry website brought down the counting of new cases, deaths and vaccinations, Bolsonaro redoubled his offensive against any remaining mitigation measures and against the implementation of vaccination certificates to control the entry of people from outside the country before the New Year and carnival holidays.

In December, with the impending approval of the vaccination of children ages 5 to 11, Bolsonaro incited violence against technicians of the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa), responsible for the decision, and threatened to force parents to obtain a medical prescription to vaccinate their children. The federal government delayed the childhood vaccination campaign for weeks, while the governors, including of the self-declared left, declared unanimously that they would not postpone the mandatory return to schools.

After the Omicron variant wave receded in January-February, state governors, some of whom had been pushing for an end to mandatory masking indoors since October, joined Bolsonaro’s efforts and ended mask mandates in March.

In the face of the campaign to allow the virus to spread and the recent announcement of the end of the health emergency, the true meaning of the “endemic” narrative becomes clear: the population must accept a “new normal” of mass infections, deaths, and suffering with long COVID.

The Bolsonaro administration and governors of every political party represent the interests of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, which sees the remaining mitigation measures as an unwelcome reminder that the pandemic is not over. Their goal is to ensure that workers remain in workplaces, even if infected, to maximize profits for big business.

It is necessary to oppose these measures, which lack any scientific basis. The history of the past two years shows that continued large-scale infection risks the emergence of new variants with increased virulence and resistance to vaccines. The COVID-19 pandemic will not end by decree, but only through a policy of global elimination of the new coronavirus.

The actions of the governors of the Workers Party (PT), who carried out economic and school reopenings hand in hand with Bolsonaro, show that the election of a new government of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will not provide an alternative to fight the pandemic, and indeed any of the urgent problems confronting the Brazilian working class.

In April 2020, while Bolsonaro reaffirmed that no public health response should be implemented to fight the pandemic, Congress approved, with the support of all major parties, including the PT caucus, a multi-billion bailout package for big business, while a fraction of that amount was directed to providing limited economic aid to working people.

WHO warns of severe hepatitis among children across several countries, possibly tied to spread of COVID-19

Benjamin Mateus

The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised countries that there has recently been a sudden rise in cases of acute hepatitis of unknown origin among children. Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver that can lead to jaundice (the yellowing discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes), poor appetite, fatigue, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Blood work usually reveals very elevated liver enzymes.

A father helps his child with a mask in front of Bradford School in Jersey City, New Jersey on June 10, 2020 (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Typically, acute hepatitis resolves on its own, but it can progress to acute liver failure in some. In such instances, liver transplantation becomes a life-saving surgery. Long-term concerns include progression to scarring of the liver (cirrhosis), chronic liver failure, and liver cancer.

As of April 21, 2022, at least 169 of these rare cases have been reported to the WHO across 12 countries. The age of the patients has ranged from one month to 16 years old. The United Kingdom, with 114, has reported the majority of cases. Ten of these children have required liver transplants, of which seven were in England. Spain has documented 13 such cases and Israel 12. The US has reported at least 14 severe hepatitis cases: nine in Alabama, two in North Carolina, and three in Illinois.   

The other countries include Denmark (six), Ireland (less than five), the Netherlands (four), Italy (four), Norway (two), France (two), Romania (one), and Belgium (one). In total, 17 children (10 percent) have undergone liver transplantation, and one child has died.

The Scottish National Health Service first broke the news of these cases of acute hepatitis among children to the WHO in early April. A rapid communication to Eurosurveillance on their experience was published on April 14.

They wrote in their report that “five children aged 3-5 years [presented] to the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow with severe hepatitis of unknown etiology within a three-week period. The typical number of cases of hepatitis of unknown etiology across Scotland would be fewer than four per year.” Of the first 10 cases in children under the age of 10 requiring hospitalization, nine of these cases had symptom onset in March and the first one was in January.

By April 8, an additional 64 cases were identified, raising the total to 74 who met the case definition specified by the UN health authority. Several children were transferred to pediatric centers specializing in liver disorders, and six children had undergone liver transplants by then.

All tested cases excluded hepatitis type A, B, C and E viruses (and D where applicable.) However, the SARS-CoV-2 and/or adenovirus infections were documented in several cases. Health authorities caring for these children are also investigating epidemiological risk factors such as recent international travel and exposure to chemicals or toxins.

An additional five cases were then reported from Ireland, prompting the WHO to release a Disease Outbreak News alert on April 15 regarding these developments and calling for diligence in identifying, investigating, and reporting such cases in the UK and internationally.

They wrote, “The priority is to determine the etiology of these cases to guide further clinical and public health actions. Any epidemiological links between or among the cases might provide indications for tracking the source of illness. Temporal and geographical information of the cases, as well as their contacts should be reviewed for potential risk factors. While some cases tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and/or adenovirus, genetic characterization of viruses should be undertaken to determine any potential associations between cases.”  

Since that initial report, cases have grown more than expected. The WHO said, “Given the increase in cases reported over the past one month and enhanced case search activities, more cases are likely to be reported in the coming days.”

During an emergency session at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon on Monday, Dr. Meera Chand, who is the incident director for the UK Health Security Agency investigating these outbreaks, said, “The cases in England are not known to be connected to each other and are dispersed all over the country,” meaning there is no epidemiological linkage like with the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, implying the disease is not being transmitted.

Chand explained, “I think our leading hypothesis, given the data we’ve seen, is that we probably have a normal adenovirus circulating, but we have a co-factor affecting a particular age group of young children which is either rendering that infection more severe, or causing it to trigger some kind of inappropriate immune response.”

In their April 23 report, the WHO noted that in 74 cases, an adenovirus infection was detected, of which 18 on molecular testing were identified as type 41. Though adenoviruses have been implicated in rare cases of acute hepatitis, most of these cases occur in immunocompromised children, and such complications have not been documented among previously healthy children. Additionally, 20 of these cases were positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and 19 were co-infected with both viruses.

Adenoviruses are respiratory viral infections that generally cause symptoms analogous to the common cold or flu, presenting with fever, cough and sore throat. Other characteristics of the infection can include conjunctivitis, bronchitis and diarrhea. Individuals with weakened immune systems can suffer more severe complications.

After dropping to unusually low levels during the pandemic, the complete social relaxation and return to in-class instructions have meant a surge in adenovirus infections. At the same time, the incidence of COVID infection among children in the US has risen to 75 percent, according to data recently published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One of the working theories being proposed is that recent COVID infections could sufficiently alter the immune response, making children susceptible to severe side effects from relatively harmless viruses. Genotyping of adenoviruses in these cases has not revealed that there might be a more virulent strain of adenovirus circulating in communities.

Still, Jim McMenamin, Scotland’s director of public health, told Reuters that “work was underway to establish if the adenovirus involved had mutated to cause more severe disease.” He added, however, “Or [possibly the adenovirus] could be causing the problems ‘in tandem’ with another virus, including possibly SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.”

Dr. Yael Mozer-Glassberg, head of the pediatric liver transplant unit at Schneider Children’s Medical center in Petah Tikva, speaking on the cases from Israel, said, “After we ruled out all the various possibilities, the common denominator in all the cases we found was that all had come down with the coronavirus around three and a half months before the infection appeared. This certainly raises the question. But I don’t think it’s possible to say yet that all these cases are a post-COVID phenomenon.”

All authorities agree that there is no link to the COVID vaccines. None of the cases in the UK in the under-10-years of age are known to have been vaccinated. However, vaccination rates among the youngest are the lowest in any age category. Should the linkage between seasonal viruses and SARS-CoV-2 prove to trigger the development of severe acute hepatitis among the most vulnerable, it only further confirms the importance of eliminating COVID and the criminal negligence in allowing it to spread throughout the world’s population.

COVID-19 spread among Australian political establishment exposes pandemic lies

Martin Scott

With Australian Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese still conducting his campaign for the May 21 federal election from isolation, further information has come to light about the spread of COVID-19 within the political and media establishment.

Anthony Albanese appears on ABC TV via Zoom (Screenshot: ABC)

According to the Australian, at least seven journalists in the Labor media contingent contracted the virus in the first two weeks of the campaign. Yet the incursion of the deadly pandemic into the corporate media’s own ranks has done nothing to reverse their relentless promotion of a “return to normal.”

Senior members of the opposition leader’s shadow cabinet have also been hit by the pandemic in recent weeks. Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last Friday that Tony Burke, Kristina Keneally and Jason Clare had all been infected with COVID-19 since the federal budget announcement, less than a month ago.

The string of infections exposes the lies pushed by both major parties that the pandemic is over. This unscientific and criminal fabrication is being used to justify the ending of all COVID-19 mitigation measures in line with the profit demands of big business. Meanwhile, more than 40,000 new cases are being detected each day around the country despite declining test rates.

The outbreak also reveals the extraordinary lengths to which the political establishment will go—even if it means putting themselves and their families at risk—to promote the subordination of the health and lives of working people to corporate profit interests.

COVID-19 has killed an average of more than 40 per day in 2022, making it the second or third most common cause of death in Australia, based on pre-pandemic figures. Fifty deaths were reported yesterday, yet the pandemic is virtually absent from the nation’s news headlines, except to denounce China’s continued efforts to quash the virus.

Western Australian (WA) Labor Premier Mark McGowan last week tested positive for COVID-19, while his son was hospitalised for four days “in a serious condition” for the virus.

Prominent politicians, including Albanese, Liberal-National Prime Minister Scott Morrison and WA Liberal Party leader David Honey, rushed to send public messages of support for McGowan and his family on Twitter.

The “thoughts and prayers” conveyed by McGowan’s colleagues are utterly cynical and entirely at odds with the complete disregard shown by the entire political establishment for the health and lives of the working class during the pandemic. In one tragic example of this, the same day McGowan’s son was released from hospital, the WA health department announced that another teenager had died from COVID-19.

In line with the demands of big business and the actions of capitalist governments in every country except China, all Australian governments—state, territory and federal, Labor and Liberal-National—have deliberately let the virus rip.

As a direct result of these profit-driven policies, more than 7,000 Australians have died from COVID-19, including 4,769 since the beginning of the year. More than 5.7 million people have been infected according to official figures, which vastly understate the real spread of the virus.

In the past week, over 300,000 new infections were recorded across the country, and 262 people died. More than 3,100 people are currently hospitalised with the virus and 131 are in ICU.

The pandemic has hit hardest among the most disadvantaged sections of the working class. According to an Australian Bureau of Statistics report released last week, 35.9 percent of COVID-19 deaths occurred in the 20 percent of areas with the greatest socio-economic disadvantage. Just 9.8 percent were in the most advantaged quintile.

Immigrants to Australia have died from COVID-19 at more than 2.5 times the rate of people born in the country. Those born in the Middle East died at almost nine times the overall rate.

The same report found that at least 42 people have died in Australia from Long COVID, raising the spectre of the long-term ramifications of mass infection.

The deadly consequences of the reckless “let it rip” policies are perhaps most exposed in McGowan’s own state. Like all Australian governments, the WA administration implemented lockdown and safety measures early in the pandemic following demands from key sections of the working class, including health workers and teachers. As a result, the virus was effectively eliminated from the state.

With most of the population isolated from the rest of the country by vast stretches of desert, and exemptions granted to the mining corporations which dominate the state’s economy, the WA government was able to maintain strict border controls throughout much of the first two years of the pandemic.

Labor was returned to office with a landslide victory in the March 2021 election, which demonstrated the mass popular support for the public health measures and the relatively “normal” life enjoyed by WA residents. McGowan promised to continue to keep the population safe from COVID-19, while the Liberal opposition vowed to tear down the “hard border.”

In fact, less that one year later, the McGowan government followed the lead of the other state and territory governments and threw open the WA border.

Up until the end of last year, WA had recorded just 1,158 COVID-19 infections and 9 deaths. Not a single death was recorded between May 3, 2020 and February 11 2022. Since the border was reopened on March 3, more than 330,000 people have contracted the virus in WA and 107 have died.

Despite the rapidly mounting toll of infection, illness and death, and the impact on McGowan himself, the WA government yesterday announced the further easing of public health measures in line with the ending of restrictions announced last week in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

From today in WA, asymptomatic close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases are no longer required to self-isolate. Masks no longer must be worn except in “high-risk settings” including health and aged care facilities and public transport. Venue capacity limits have been abandoned.

In the Australian Capital Territory, the Labor government yesterday ended the requirement for close contacts to isolate, on the same day the territory recorded its second-highest number of COVID-19 hospitalisations.

Mask mandates have now been abolished in all Australian states and territories, while only Tasmania maintains venue capacity limits and a requirement for all close contacts to self-isolate.

The destruction of public health measures throughout the country by Labor and Liberal-National governments alike makes clear that, as long as the capitalist parties are in control, the working class will be subjected to the ongoing threat of the deadly virus.

German-European war plans: politics and media rejoice over Macron's election victory

Johannes Stern

The re-election of Emmanuel Macron as French president has triggered a mixture of jubilation and relief among German politicians.

On the very evening of the election, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) wrote on Twitter: “Félicitations, hearty congratulations, dear President Emmanuel Macron. Your voters have also sent a strong message of commitment to Europe today. I am happy that we will continue our good cooperation!”

French President Emmanuel Macron, left, greets German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as he arrives for an EU summit at the Palace of Versailles on March 10, 2022 (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

Leading representatives in government and opposition expressed similar sentiments. “I’m sure it’s not just me who feels a load off my mind right now. Félicitations, Président Emmanuel Macron & my colleague J. Denormandie!” said the Green Minister for the Environment, Cem Özdemir.

SPD leader Saskia Esken wrote: “I’m dancing! Great relief and our warmest congratulations to Emmanuel Macron and our French friends!”

Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) leader and German Finance Minister Christian Lindner described Macron’s victory as a “direction-setting election,” meaning “the united Europe is the biggest winner of this election. Vive la France, vive l’Europe.”

Apart from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose leader Tino Chrupalla congratulated “our partner Marine Le Pen”, the opposition parties also joined in the chorus.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Fredrich Merz declared that with Macron, “Europe has also won today”. And the Thuringia State Premier Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) cheered: “The election of President Macron is good for Europe and the Franco-German relationship. Congratulations President Emmanuel Macron.”

Politicians and the media justify their mantra of support for Macron with their supposed opposition to nationalism and right-wing extremism. “The normalisation of extremist discourse in the French election campaign is a warning,” cautioned Green Party leader Omid Nouripour on Twitter, for example. It was now necessary to “stand up for democracy and freedom with all our strength and defend our European values”.

All of this is patently absurd. In fact, Macron has increasingly adopted and implemented the programme of the far right over the last five years. Macron’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, a sympathiser of the far-right Action Française, passed discriminatory laws against Muslim associations and publicly criticised Le Pen for being too “soft” on Islam.

Macron himself called Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain a “great soldier” and repeatedly mobilised the notoriously right-wing French police against the “yellow vests”, protesting students and striking workers. In the pandemic, the “president of the rich” pursued a herd immunity policy of deliberate mass infection in the interests of the financial markets, he deported refugees en masse and in foreign policy pursued militarism and war.

In Germany, the same parties that are now celebrating Macron are also pursuing an extreme right-wing programme. Since coming to power last November, the “traffic light” coalition of SPD, FDP and Greens has steadily intensified social austerity, stepped up the powers of the state, massively rearmed the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and implemented a strict herd immunity policy. It has ended all protective measures against COVID-19 and intensified the state crackdown on the left.

Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine was immediately used by the government as a pretext for tripling Germany’s military budget, the biggest rearmament spending since Hitler. Eighty years years after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Berlin is again waging war against Russia in Ukraine—with all the tragic consequences. Politicians and the media are engaged in an anti-Russian witch hunt reminiscent of the darkest times in German history.

It is precisely these martial ambitions that lie behind German support for Macron. Since 2014 at the latest, the ruling class has openly pursued the goal of militarising Europe under German leadership in order to pursue its global geostrategic and economic interests. As a supporter of the European Union and a more independent European foreign policy, Macron is seen as an ally in the implementation of the German-European great power offensive.

Significantly, a recent commentary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) is entitled, “In Paris sits a partner with guts”. It celebrates Macron for “not seeking his salvation in tactical Euroscepticism” despite the large number of “malcontents” in the French electorate. Rather, Macron “had the guts to promote the EU as a solution to the problems of globalisation, both the material and in terms of identity.

But now the French president and the EU must also “deliver”. And that would “not be possible without Chancellor Olaf Scholz” and the “turning point in foreign policy” he had announced. The FAZ’s hope: “If Scholz were to succeed in making Germany a pillar of European sovereignty in military and political terms, then the Franco-German motor would gain some traction.”

A look at the so-called “Strategic Compass for Security and Defence” shows what this means in concrete terms. The document, adopted by the European Council on 21 March, reads like a blueprint for a more independent European war policy. In an era of “strategic competition” and “major geopolitical shifts”, it must be a matter of “defending our interests”, it says in the introduction.

What follows is a catalogue of military and security measures that would transform Europe into a veritable war union, capable of military intervention even independently of the USA and NATO. “We must be able to act rapidly and robustly whenever a crisis erupts, with partners if possible and alone, if necessary,” the document says.

“To that end”, the EU will 1) Reinforce its “civilian and military CSDP [Common Security and Defence Policy] missions and operations”, 2) “Develop an EU Rapid Deployment Capacity that will allow us to swiftly deploy up to 5,000 troops into non-permissive environments [...]” and 3) strengthen “our command-and-control structures, in particular the Military Planning and Conduct Capability”.

To achieve the necessary war capabilities, the EU members commit themselves to “spend more and better in defence” and on massive rearmament. Among other things, the aim is to “jointly develop cutting-edge military capabilities” in all operational areas, “such as high-end naval platforms, future combat air systems, space-based capabilities and main battle tanks”.

Some of these projects are already being pushed through. For example, the total €100 billion “Special Assets of the Bundeswehr” provides for spending of about €34 billion on “multinational armament projects”. These include Franco-German mega-projects such as the new European Future Combat Air System—FCAS and the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS).

In the election campaign, Le Pen had threatened to cancel these projects and called Germany “the absolute negative of French strategic identity”. Franco-German tensions have objective causes and will also intensify under Macron, but the ruling class in Germany hopes to continue the collaboration as long as possible and use it for its own rearmament plans.

A recent commentary in Der Spiegel entitled “How I learned to love the bomb,” openly calls for German nuclear weapons and participation in France’s “Force de frappe”—also against the background of growing tensions with the USA.

“In terms of security, we are more dependent on the USA than we are on Russia in terms of energy,” complains author and former editor-in-chief of Bild Zeitung Nikolaus Blome. That was why time is pressing. “If Putin stays in office and Trump wins the next US election,” he says, “the Bundeswehr will be largely on its own by the end of 2024.” Because Trump “would not risk a nuclear war for Germany or Europe, let alone wage one.”

Blome’s apocalyptic conclusion: Berlin must be able to do this itself! It should “not remain unthinkable that Germany arms itself with nuclear weapons. That it and France should stretch a joint nuclear umbrella over the EU.” From Macron comes the phrase, “‘L’Europe qui protège’, a ‘Europe that protects’,” he adds cynically. The expression already fitted during the coronavirus pandemic and now fitted “even better because of Putin.... for a long time, even better.”