The global monkeypox outbreak and its implications

Benjamin Mateus

Since the first case of monkeypox infection was confirmed on May 7, 2022, by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in a British citizen returning from Nigeria, the epidemic of community acquired cases has rapidly climbed into the hundreds, spanning multiple countries in Europe, Americas, Middle East and Oceania.

By May 21, 2022, 92 laboratory confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases across 12 countries had been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). By May 24, 2022, the geographic span of monkeypox infections had increased to at least 20 non-endemic countries and at least 300 confirmed and suspected infections. The current epidemic is the largest outbreak of the virus outside of sub-Saharan Africa ever reported. Fortunately, no deaths have occurred up to now.

The monkeypox virus has been endemic to Central and West Africa since the first human infection was reported in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a young boy. The virus was first isolated in 1958 by virologist Preben von Magnus in Copenhagen, Denmark, from macaque monkeys that were used as laboratory animals.

The double-stranded DNA monkeypox virus, one of four human orthopoxviruses that include variola, the virus that causes smallpox, is endemic to 11 African countries, including Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak. [AP Photo/Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC]

In the last several months, the WHO has documented 77 cases in Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Nigeria, with fewer than ten deaths. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, from January to May of this year, 1,238 cases with 57 fatalities where the more deadly Congo-basin clade (a subdivision based on genetic ancestry) of the monkeypox virus is endemic. Unlike the human-to-human transmissions in the current outbreaks in non-endemic countries, the typical pattern of spread in these endemic regions is spillover from infected wild rodents and primates into people.

As of Wednesday, May 25, the following countries have reported confirmed cases thus far: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (23), Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal (37), Scotland, Slovenia, Spain (101), Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK (57 in England), and the US (7). The case from the UAE was from a woman traveling there from West Africa.

Argentina has one suspected case. Pakistan’s National Institute of Health in Islamabad clarified that no cases of monkeypox had been diagnosed though the Economist noted there were two cases there. Though it remains unclear if there is a suspected case, health officials issued a health advisory.

On May 19, 2022, Portugal released the first partial sequence of the monkeypox virus from an infected patient, followed by Belgium the next day releasing the full sequence. Based on an analysis of the viral DNA extracted from skin lesions it appears the virus causing the current epidemic is identical to the genome that was sequenced in 2018 from the UK, Singapore, and Israel, linked to cases exported from Nigeria.

The analysis also confirms the virus belongs to the clade from Western Africa which carries a lower mortality risk of around one percent, compared to the more virulent clade from the Congo basin, with an infection fatality rate of ten percent.

A report published in New Scientist this week said, “What isn’t clear is whether this virus has any changes that make it more transmissible in humans, which would explain why the current outbreak is so widespread and by far the largest seen outside of Central and West Africa, where the virus spreads in monkeys. This could take some time to establish, given the monkeypox has a large complex genome.”

The monkeypox virus genome is 200,000 DNA letters long compared to SARS-Cov-2’s 30,000 RNA letters.

Sylvie Briand, WHO director for Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness, speaking at the recent World Health Assembly that voted Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus a second term as WHO Director-General, assured the press that it was unlikely for the virus to have mutated. Instead, the current driver of transmission is being linked to “human behavior.” In other words, the complete lifting of all social restrictions that has allowed people to socialize more widely has contributed to the monkeypox outbreak.

David Heymann, an American infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, speculated that monkeypox may have been present at low levels in the UK or Europe for several years.

He said, “If you look at what’s been happening in the world over the past few years, and if you look at what’s happening now, you could easily wonder if this virus entered the UK two to three years ago, it was transmitting below the radar screen, with slow chains of transmission. And then all of a sudden everything opened up and people began traveling and mixing.”

Heymann explained that the “leading theory” links the outbreaks to large parties held in Spain and Belgium where intimate contact between people has amplified the current transmission. Many have observed that most of the infected are among men who have sex with men. However, monkeypox is not a recognized sexually transmitted disease, as close contact with an infected individual, including their clothes or bedding, can spread the infection.

This hasn’t prevented the ultra-conservative and reactionary Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research to write that the monkeypox virus “is only spreading within the gay community.” Brownstone has strong ties to the group that issued the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for the lifting of all restrictions on the young and healthy and promoting herd immunity of the population. Such statements are odious and completely unfounded, and attempt to stigmatize a particular group for political purposes.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has downplayed the global outbreak by indicating that smallpox vaccines have proven effective at preventing severe cases and therefore there was no need for a stronger reaction.

Specifically, earlier in the week while at a press conference in Tokyo, he was asked if Americans infected with monkeypox could expect to quarantine for 21 days. He replied, “No, I don’t think so. I just don’t think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19, and the smallpox vaccine works for it. But I think people should be careful,” meaning individuals should make these choices.

Because of the similarity to variola virus, which causes smallpox, vaccines against smallpox are around 85 percent effective against severe monkeypox infections, based on observational data from Africa. Because of the eradication of smallpox in 1980, a significant proportion of the population posses no antibodies. Those that had received their smallpox vaccine as children more than 40 years ago can assume that they have had significant waning of their previous immunity.

As countries begin to reassess their smallpox vaccine reserves, the US emergency stockpile is holding on to 100 million doses of the original vaccine. However, the side effects of these vaccines and the risks associated with using them on immune-compromised individuals mean they will need to be used judiciously in a ring vaccination approach where the confirmed contacts of monkeypox patients would receive the vaccine in order to eradicate the virus.

Since 2010, Bavarian Nordic, a Danish pharmaceutical company, has been manufacturing its liquid-frozen MVA-BN smallpox and monkeypox vaccine based on a live, attenuated vaccinia virus (thought to represent a hybrid of the variola and cowpox viruses.) In 2019, the FDA approved the vaccine, under the brand name of Jynneos, for the prevention of both smallpox and monkeypox.

The company said on May 18, 2022 that BARDA, a unit of the US Department of Health and Human Services, had exercised the first options (119 million doses) under a ten-year contract awarded in 2017. According to the CDC deputy director Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, more than 1,000 doses are currently being held in the stockpile. “We expect that level to ramp up very quickly in the coming weeks, as the company provides more doses to us,” she told the New York Times.

Given that the monkeypox virus spreads through contact and respiratory droplets (with a theoretical risk of airborne transmission) health authorities have assured the public that despite the unprecedented global nature of the outbreak it would be limited and quickly contained.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, speaking on CNBC, said more bluntly, “I don’t think this is going to be uncontrolled spread in the same way that we tolerated COVID-19 epidemic. But there is a possibility now this has gotten into the community, if in fact it’s more pervasive than what we’re measuring right now, that becomes hard to snuff out.”

Yet, few have asked what the implications of the current outbreak of monkeypox virus are. John Vidal, an environmentalist and editor for the Guardian, observed that alongside COVID and HIV, which are prevalent globally, several animal pandemics are occurring in parallel.

African swine fever continues to affect the world’s pig population. Several outbreaks of avian flu have led to the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry. Fungal disease is being found among marine life in Australia. He wrote, “We live uneasily with many thousands of potentially fatal viruses circulating in other species, but what is remarkable is that most of those that affect humans today were unknown just 70 years ago. Not only are new pathogens jumping from animals to humans more often, but an increasing number are linked to the changes in the global and local environments.”

The sudden appearance of a monkeypox global outbreak is an objective verification of these concerns. Though less lethal and transmitting much more slowly than COVID-19, it must be seen as a cautionary note about the impact of globalization that the corporate oligarchs do not care to address.

Vidal warned, “The big lesson of COVID—and now of monkeypox—is that much infectious disease has its roots in ecological change. That means the health of the planet and the health of humans and must be considered alongside that of animals. It also means we should prepare now for the unexpected, invest in public health as never before, stop cutting down forests, address climate change and phase out intensive farming. A ‘one health,’ planetary approach to health is the best—and possibly the only—hope we have.” It is precisely in this formulation of the solution that capitalism cannot address despite ample warnings for decades by scientists on the gravity of these for human civilization. 

Ford Europe prepares job cuts with union support in Spain, Germany

Santiago Guillen

Ford Europe has announced it will impose savage attacks on workers’ wages and conditions irrespective of which plant—Almussafes in Spain or Saarlouis in Germany—“wins” the inter-company bidding war supported by both German and Spanish trade unions.

The announcement confirms the warnings of the WSWS. Since Ford announced the bidding war in December 2021, the WSWS has called on workers to reject the blackmail and brutal competition being instigated by the trade unions between workers in different plants, insisting that playing one off against the other would only lead to disaster and open the door to a downward spiral without end. In the end, there will be no “winning” factory.

The WSWS has insisted that the only way workers in Germany, Spain and internationally can defend jobs is through a common struggle together against the trade unions and works council representatives, who have pushed through all the corporation’s attacks against the workforce in recent years with their nationalistic divide-and-rule policies. The warnings of the WSWS have been fully substantiated.

In an open letter addressed to the workforce, the president of Ford Europe, Stuart Rowley, warned that “it is foreseeable” that both plants “must undergo a resizing of their current structure,” irrespective of which factory produces the new electric cars for Ford Europe. “Both Saarlouis and Valencia are expected to undergo downsizing from their current structure. Exact details will not be available until we have selected a preferred plant,” added Rowley. That date is June 2022.

Rowley cynically stated that winning a factory will not mean “a decision to close” the losing plant, since the multinational is “actively looking for future opportunities for the plant that is not selected,” something that will require “an effort that includes multiple parties, including local and national governments.” Rowley also noted that job cuts “will be a difficult process for many employees involved.”

In other words, Ford Europe will implement massive job cuts on the losing plant, while the winning one will have “won” thanks to the union-sponsored wage slashes and worsening of work conditions. Rowley’s claims that plant closure is not on the table must be taken with a grain of salt. Over the past decade, production has already been halted in Belgium, France and Wales, and four plants have been closed in Russia. Just recently, Ford announced it was ending production in India and Brazil.

Rowley also noted that “regardless of the plant that is ultimately selected, it is important to remember that it is not yet a product investment decision” and that after the selection of the plant it will be “a lot of work to be done to secure the product for Europe.” This means that even the winning plant will be called upon to make additional cuts to secure Ford’s investments in the factory.

Rowley’s letter underscores the reactionary role of the trade unions and the dead end of a national perspective for struggle. Both IG Metall in Germany and the General Union of Workers (UGT) in Spain have collaborated with the company’s plans, supporting Ford’s bidding war. The unions’ strategy has meant that not only one of the factories may close, but the “winning” one will fire additional workers in addition to suffering other labor and salary cuts on top of those previously agreed with those same unions.

In Germany, IG Metall has not provided any details of its offer. It is known that it has offered to include all workers in Germany in the cuts, including, besides those in Saarlouis, at the main plant in Cologne that employs 21,000.

In Spain, the UGT, the majority union in the Valencian factory, signed the so-called electrification agreement with Ford management by which it agrees to reduce wages, make work shifts more flexible and increase the working day by 15 minutes. With the current inflation rate, workers could lose €4,000 this year alone with the application of the electrification agreement.

The union has refused to hold a vote on the agreement, fearing mass opposition. To save face, the UGT organised a fraudulent consultation where the workers had to register with their name and ID to vote electronically through an application controlled by the union itself so that their vote would be known to the union bureaucrats, exposing them to possible future retaliation.

The agreement has been denounced by the local metalworkers union STM together with the other two minority unions, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and Workers Commissions (CCOO). However, these unions don’t oppose the bidding war. STM said, “we ask that the parties sit down again to have another agreement that does not leave the workers so badly off.” That is, they accept the framework of the attacks—the bidding war with Saarlouis—but are hoping for marginally better terms.

Since Rowley’s letter, the unions have continued shamelessly serving business interests. The European Works Council run by the UGT and IG Metall have ludicrously called for 30-minute stoppages to let off steam.

These stoppages are not even meant to oppose the announced job cuts but to “alert the local and European Ford management before resorting to the current legislation in each country [to enforce job cuts] to commit to seeking all possible solutions and on a voluntary basis.” The unions state they are “aware” that “once the transformation towards electrification begins, a high surplus of personnel will be generated throughout Ford Europe.”

That is, they support the measures proposed by Ford and only ask that before dismissing workers, they make the cuts in staff through voluntary redundancies if possible.

None of this is new. The trade unions have been preparing these cuts together with the company management for a long time. In November 2020, the European Works Council already signed a declaration with Ford committing “wherever it is necessary to make staff adjustments,” but “to the extent possible, apply a voluntary approach.”

But voluntary dismissals, if they finally occur, are not a solution and will hardly limit the broader catastrophe. A 2016 study by the European University of Valencia indicated that for every job created at the Almussafes plant, another 5.8 are created in the Valencian Community and 11.7 in Spain as a whole. Thus, the 6,038 Ford Almussafes workers generate some 70,644 jobs in Spain. Thus any reduction in the workforce will have a significant impact on Valencia, just like closures or job cuts in Saarlouis would devastate the working class in Germany.

Last March, the Economia Digital newspaper published leaked information from the company indicating that, although Almussafes would manufacture the new Mustang electric vehicle model from 2026, 3,000 jobs—half the workforce—would be lost.

Ukraine sentences Russian soldier to life in prison

Jason Melanovski & Andrea Peters

A Ukrainian court sentenced a Russian soldier to life in prison on Monday in what can only be described as a politically motivated show trial conducted by Kiev for its propaganda value.

Twenty-one-year-old Russian tank commander Vadim Shishimarin pled guilty to the killing of 62-year-old civilian Oleksandr Shelipov, but said he was ordered to carry out the shooting. The soldier claims that his commander was worried that the man, who was talking on his cell phone, was reporting the position of Russian forces to Ukraine’s military. 

The trial was not intended to, nor could it have, established the real guilt or innocence of the young soldier. The Ukrainian regime, nationalist and ferociously anti-Russian, is dominated militarily by far-right forces that have been tormenting Russian soldiers and Russian Ukrainians they accuse of aiding the enemy. It is carrying out its own war crimes, which, while receiving little coverage in the Western press, are documented.

There is no reason to believe that Shishimarin’s confession was given voluntarily, as the Ukrainian state is known for systematically violating prisoners’ rights and subjecting them to cruel treatment. A 2015 report by Amnesty International about the torment of detainees by Kiev as well as separatists in the Donbass, reported, “Former prisoners described being beaten until their bones broke, tortured with electric shocks, kicked, stabbed, hung from the ceiling, deprived of sleep for days, threatened with death, denied urgent medical care and subjected to mock executions.” It made clear that Kiev was as guilty as its opponents of the brutality.

While Shishimarin appeared to be in decent health at the trial, the psychological and physical treatment he was subjected to beforehand and the threats made against him are completely unknown. There would have been no way for him to bring such evidence into a courtroom stacked with prosecutors, judges, government officials and witnesses seeking only one outcome—a guilty verdict.

Even if he was not mistreated, he would have no doubt been terrified, locked up in a Ukrainian prison without any access to Russian diplomatic officials or human rights monitors. Under these conditions, he would have been unable to resist the self-declaration of guilt expected of him.

That Shishimarin’s trial took place in a totally undemocratic and partial forum was made clear by his attorney, Viktor Ovsyannikov, who himself is hated by Ukraine’s far right because he defended former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych against charges of high treason leveled against him in absentia.

Ovsyannikov noted to the Guardian that Shishimarin was already widely presumed to be a war criminal before the trial. The attorney said that he was threatened for representing the Russian soldier.

“How can you defend a war criminal?” Ovsyannikov says he was repeatedly asked, adding, “My family, friends and colleagues support me. They know someone has to do it. But there are other people who ‘invited’ me to go to Moscow or Donbas [the area in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia-backed separatists].”

Furthermore, the trial itself was of highly questionable legality under international law. First, the Geneva Conventions state that “in no circumstances whatever shall a prisoner of war be tried by a court of any kind which does not offer the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality as generally recognized.” This was clearly not the case in Shishimarin’s trial.

Second, according to the third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war like Shishimarin should be tried in a military court and not a civilian one. The reason for this, according to American University Law Professor Robert Goldman, is that the laws governing these issues are highly complex and specialized, and only military courts are trained in this area. Holding war crimes trials in civilian courts is “unprecedented.”

In a recently published statement in The Conversation, Goldman explains, “[A]n issue central to the Russian soldier’s case—whether the civilian killed could be seen as a legitimate target—is a highly technical area that only an expert of the law of war will understand.

“Under protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, a treaty added in 1977, a civilian loses immunity when he or she directly participates in hostilities.

“And this is where it gets tricky. If the Russian soldier believed that the civilian he shot posed an immediate threat, say by reporting his position to Ukrainian military, then it would not be unreasonable for the defense to argue that the civilian was a legitimate target. Indeed, in the current trial, the court heard that the Russian soldier was ordered to shoot the man for that very reason—his superior believed the civilian may have been using a cellphone to give away their location.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross has also expressly warned against the holding of war crimes trials during hostilities, as an accused person like Shishimarin can be given no meaningful chance to “to prepare his defense.”

Moscow, for its part, called the charges “outrageous” and “staged.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov noted, however, 'We do not have many opportunities to protect his interests on the ground, as foreign institutions actually have no activity [in Kiev]. But this does not mean that we will not consider the possibility of making attempts through other channels.”

Shishimarin’s trial was entirely motivated by a political agenda. The US and NATO are preparing for all-out, direct war with Russia. Justifications have to be found, particularly under circumstances where 90 percent and more of the world’s population do not want a third world war and do not want to see all of Europe and beyond transformed into a killing field. Russia and its soldiers must be seen as war criminals and Ukraine’s forces must be viewed as virtuous defenders of freedom and democracy, or the war propaganda project falls apart.

Shishimarin’s sentence was announced as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was appearing virtually at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In his remarks, he accused Russia of “becoming a state of war criminals.” The world’s financial elites applauded.

Following the announcement of Shishimarin’s life-long imprisonment, Ukrainian Prosecutor Andriy Sunyuk made clear that the trial was carried out as part of Kiev’s ongoing military efforts and for its publicity value on the international stage.

Making clear that the authorities are preparing similar show trials in order to send a message, Sunyuk stated, 'I think that all other law enforcement agencies will move along the path that we have traveled.”

'This will be a good example for other occupiers who may not yet be on our territory but are planning to come, or for those who are here now and plan to stay and fight. Or maybe they will think that it's time to leave here for their own territory,” he said.

Kiev is moving quickly to charge other captured Russian soldiers with war crimes as it loses territory in the country’s eastern Donbass region. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said that this month she is preparing more than 40 cases for trial and that there are more than 11,000 ongoing investigations.

Shishimarin’s trial and sentencing has been celebrated in the Western media and subject to no criticism by press outlets housed in states guilty of the most savage brutalization of the innocent—Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo Bay; extraordinary rendition; the bombing of schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure, and on and on. Not a single high-level individual who ordered any of these crimes has ever been held responsible. When the working masses of the world take power, the court dockets will be filled not by 11,000 cases as in Ukraine today, but hundreds of thousands.

The only limited political objection raised in the press to Shishimarin’s trial is that holding it during wartime is of questionable strategical value, as Moscow will likely respond in kind by prosecuting Ukrainian soldiers. According to Goldman, Russia is now holding “around 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers.” Many of these are members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has committed documented war crimes against both Russian forces and Ukrainian civilians.

As France’s Le Monde newspaper confirmed on May 16, in a video widely shared on social media, Azov members can be identified shooting the knees of defenseless Russian soldiers. Former French soldier Adrien Bocquet, who traveled to Ukraine to serve as a volunteer medic with the Azov Battalion in Kiev and then Lviv, has said that he witnessed Azov troops shelling civilian areas in Bucha, where Russian forces have been accused of killing ordinary people.

Civilians in the recently captured city of Mariupol have also accused Azov of deliberately shooting at fleeing cars and kidnapping residents in order to have them serve as human shields at the Azovstal plant.

The Ukrainian military broadcasts and celebrates its own violations of international law on social media. In a sympathetic report, the Washington Post recently revealed that Kiev is tormenting the families of dead Russian troops, with the aid of US-made facial recognition technology, by sending them photos of their sons’ blood-soaked bodies.

But should Russia prosecute captured Ukrainian troops as war criminals, the trials will be denounced. The hypocrisy of these objections will be so blatantly obvious that some, as expressed in the recent observations of American University Law Professor Goldman, are concerned. Nonetheless, the groundwork is already being laid for an attempted cover-up of the hypocrisy by the promotion of the line that while Russia’s courts are known for their violations of modern judicial standards, Ukraine’s are a shining example of a well-functioning liberal democracy.

This is completely untrue, and those painting this portrait know it. Western powers have long identified Ukraine’s judiciary as dishonest, crooked and dysfunctional, and demanded that Kiev clean up its act in order to receive foreign loans and make the country business-friendly.

In December 2020, the Atlantic Council published an editorial describing Ukraine’s “corrupt judiciary as a criminal syndicate.” In September 2021, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, hardly a pro-Russian outlet, published an article detailing the frustrations of Western diplomats over the Zelensky government’s failure to implement judicial reforms. In January 2022, Transparency International ranked Ukraine 123rd out of 180 countries on its corruption scale, giving Kiev a score of just 32 out of 100.

The grotesque character of Ukraine’s courts is a problem for the US and the EU only when it cuts across their financial interests. When it comes to preparing for war against Russia, it is highly useful.

It must be said, however, that the Russian government is also responsible for Shishimarin’s life-long imprisonment. The young man from Ust Illyinsk, a town of about 87,000 in Irkutsk Oblast in Siberia, was described by his Ukrainian attorney as “an ordinary person, just like you or me,” who “began to understand what he had done.”

“The only thing he desires now is to go back home. I am under this impression that he perceives this as some kind of a dream,” he added.

Shishimarin was sent by the Kremlin to kill or be killed in an invasion that, albeit provoked by the US and NATO, is itself a criminal act with no progressive content. It is serving only to further divide the working masses of the two countries, spreading death and destruction in the process. The Russian troops dying and being captured in Ukraine are cannon fodder in the desperate effort of the Russian capitalist elite to maintain its stranglehold over an important portion of the highly valuable Eurasian landmass.

US arms Taiwan to prepare a Ukraine-style quagmire for China

Peter Symonds

US President Biden’s trip to Asia has brought the mounting tensions with China over Taiwan into sharp focus. For a third time since taking office, Biden emphatically declared that the US had a “commitment” to back Taiwan militarily in the event of a conflict with China—overturning decades of US policy.

From left: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the Quad leaders summit at Kantei Palace, Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

When the US established diplomatic relations with China in 1979, and ended all formal ties with Taiwan, it adopted the One China policy—de facto recognising Beijing to be the legitimate government of all China, including the island of Taiwan. The corollary was “strategic ambiguity”—refusing to categorically commit to siding with Taiwan in a war with China. That policy was aimed not only at warding off aggression by China, but also at blocking provocative actions by Taiwan.

While the White House has insisted that there has been no change of policy, the US, first under Trump and now under Biden, has been deliberately undermining the status quo over Taiwan, the most potentially explosive flashpoint in Asia. Top-level visits to Taiwan, the open presence of US military trainers on the island, stepped-up arms sales and increased transits through the Taiwan Strait amount to calculated provocations against China.

Now having transformed Ukraine into a military quagmire to weaken and destabilise Russia, US imperialism is deliberately setting and baiting a similar trap for China in Taiwan. Drawing on the Ukraine war, open discussion is taking place in the media and in strategic and military circles about arming Taiwan for a protracted conflict with China.

An article in the New York Times yesterday reported: “US officials are taking lessons learned from arming Ukraine to work with Taiwan in molding a stronger force that could repel a seaborne invasion by China, which has one of the world’s largest militaries. The aim is to turn Taiwan into what some officials call a ‘porcupine’— a territory bristling with armaments and other forms of US-led support that appears too painful to attack.”

As in the conflict between Russian and Ukraine, US war planning is dressed up as the defence of “democratic Taiwan” from Chinese aggression. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a reactionary response, the US armed Ukraine over years and then goaded and provoked a Russian attack. In the case of Taiwan, which Washington itself recognises as part of China, the US has any number of triggers that could provoke a conflict.

Any step by the government in Taipei to declare formal independence from China, and/or the growing incorporation of the island into the US sphere of influence poses a direct threat to Beijing. Taiwan is not only strategically located just off the Chinese mainland but its Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has a virtual global monopoly on the production of high-end computer chips.

Buoyed by “success” in Ukraine, US plans for a protracted military conflict on Taiwan against the Chinese military are being rapidly advanced. As the New York Times explained: “American officials have been quietly pressing their Taiwanese counterparts to buy weapons suitable for asymmetric warfare, a conflict in which a smaller military uses mobile systems to conduct lethal strikes on a much bigger force, US and Taiwanese officials say.”

The article added: “The American-made weapons that it has recently bought—mobile rocket platforms, F-16 fighter jets and anti-ship projectiles—are better suited for repelling an invading force. Some military analysts say Taiwan might buy sea mines and armed drones later. And as it has in Ukraine, the US government could also supply intelligence to enhance the lethality of the weapons, even if it refrains from sending troops.”

Washington is not only “pressing” but insisting that Taipei buy weapons in line with the Pentagon’s war planning.

The Financial Times reported earlier this month that US deputy assistant secretary of state Mira Resnick told defence industry executives in March that the Biden administration wanted to “steer Taiwan more strongly” to buying weaponry for asymmetric warfare and would not allow US manufacturers to sell arms outside those parameters.

According to the article: “Washington has subsequently told Taipei that it would not approve the sale of 12 MH-60R anti-submarine helicopters if they were requested. The US has also blocked a Taiwanese plan to acquire E2-D early-warning aircraft.”

The mounting drumbeat in the US media and official circles over the acute “threat” of Chinese invasion speaks more to the timetable that the Pentagon war planners are working to than it does to any evidence of Chinese aggressive intentions. Taiwanese military analyst Su Tzu-yun told the Financial Times: “I believe that currently the possibility of China taking military action is very low.”

Nevertheless, war planning and debate is recklessly proceeding apace, not only on the military front but also for economic warfare against China. As the New York Times reported: “US officials are already discussing to what extent they could replicate the economic penalties and the military aid deployed in defense of Ukraine in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.”

The New York Times pointed out that the number of transits through the Taiwan Straits by US warships has increased to 30 since the start of 2020, supplemented by transits by allied warships from Australia, Britain, Canada and France. US arms sales to Taiwan also have increased, with more than $23 billion in purchases announced since 2010, including $5 billion in 2020 alone.

Those in US strategic circles are well aware that the steps taken by Washington over Taiwan are highly provocative and could precipitate conflict. In comments to the New York Times, analyst Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the US German Marshall Fund, in a convoluted way, admitted as much. “Are we clear about what deters China and what provokes China?” she asked. “The answer to that is ‘no,’ and that’s dangerous territory.”

In the words of the New York Times: “President Biden’s strong language during a visit to Tokyo this week tiptoed up to provocation, Ms Glaser and other analysts in Washington said.” In other words, it is well understood in Washington that overturning “strategic ambiguity” could tip Asia into a war that, as in the case of Ukraine, has the potential to blow up into a conflict between nuclear-armed powers.

Washington’s deliberate baiting of China over Taiwan is part of its escalating confrontation with China that began with Obama’s “pivot to Asia.” For over a decade the US has sought to undermine Beijing diplomatically and economically, hand-in-hand with a massive military build-up throughout the region in preparation for war.

In its historic decline, US imperialism is desperate to weaken and destabilise potential challengers to its global position—Russia and above all China—and gain unfettered access to the immense resources and strategic position of the Eurasian landmass. As is demonstrated in Ukraine, it is doing so with criminal indifference to the devastation and huge loss of life that the war has produced so far. Now the US is preparing to do the same in Taiwan.

Australia surges past seven million COVID-19 infections, 8,000 deaths

Martin Scott

The official infection total across Australia has soared past seven million, with more than 995,000 cases recorded in the last three weeks. Australia has now registered a total of 8,264 COVID-19 deaths.

More than 290 people died from the virus in the past week alone, an average of almost 42 per day. An additional 47 “historic” deaths were reported in Victoria yesterday.

Staff prepare to collect samples at a drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

An average of more than 46,000 new infections are recorded each day and there are currently over 340,000 active cases across the country, higher than on all but 76 days of the pandemic.

There is a vast chasm between this objective reality and the lies promoted by the entire political establishment that the pandemic is over. This was a striking feature of the recent election campaign, in which COVID-19 barely rated a mention, because all the parliamentary parties are in total agreement with the homicidal “let it rip” program demanded by big business.

Labor was silent on the pandemic during the campaign despite the infection of leader Anthony Albanese and numerous senior party members and mass opposition to outgoing prime minister Scott Morrison over his government’s handling of the crisis. This, along with the critical role of state Labor governments in spearheading the reopening drive responsible for almost 6,000 deaths this year alone, makes clear that the newly elected government will do nothing to stem the tide of mass infection, illness and death.

Despite the efforts of the parliamentary parties to keep COVID-19 off the official campaign agenda, the impact of mass infection was undeniable. Less than 24 hours before polling day, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the federal government were compelled to expand phone voting eligibility after public opposition to the possible disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of people who had tested positive in the week before the election.

The AEC also reported staff shortages of up to 15 percent due to COVID-19 infection, forcing reduced operating hours at many polling stations. Days before the election, it was unclear whether dozens of booths in regional areas would operate at all.

The record-high rate of pre-poll and postal voting, which together made up more than half the vote, reflected widespread concern among workers that the election, held under conditions where masking requirements and capacity limits have been abolished across the country, would be a national “superspreader” event.

The current situation is particularly stark in Western Australia (WA), the last state to adopt the “let it rip” strategy. On Saturday, there were 91,162 active COVID-19 cases in WA, more than 3 percent of the state’s population. Since the WA Labor government reopened the border on March 3, the state has recorded over 660,000 infections. All but 11 of the 222 COVID-19 deaths recorded in WA since the start of the pandemic have occurred since the reopening.

Australia’s infection figures, among the highest recorded in the country at any stage of the pandemic, likely reflect only a fraction of the true rate, due to the the dismantling of organised COVID-19 testing, including the abandonment of regular surveillance tests in schools and workplaces.

As in Australia, capitalist governments around the world, with the exception of China, have increasingly moved to shut down testing and suppress reporting of infection numbers. As a result, only limited conclusions can be drawn from international comparisons.

Nevertheless, the fact that Australia consistently appears among the ten countries with the highest official weekly case numbers, according to Worldometer, reflects the devastating impact of the bipartisan adoption by Australian governments of the “let it rip” agenda. Worldometer also lists Australia as having the world’s 11th-highest COVID-19 death toll over the past seven days.

The COVID-19 surge continues as scientists and health authorities warn that that this year’s flu season promises to be among the worst in recent memory. In New South Wales (NSW), almost 12,000 people have tested positive for influenza this month, four times the figure recorded in April.

Across the state, 150 people were admitted to hospital with influenza last week. With health systems already in crisis due to COVID-19, the additional impact of widespread influenza threatens to catastrophically overwhelm the country’s hospitals.

The dangers are demonstrated by the breakdown of healthcare during the Omicron wave that began in December. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) mortality figures, the country recorded 5,052 more deaths than average—a 20.5 percent increase—in the first two months of 2022.

Already, almost 2,400 health workers in NSW and more than 3,500 in WA are unable to work due to COVID-19 infection or exposure.

Also adding to the mounting crisis is the low rate of COVID-19 “booster” vaccination. State, territory and federal governments and health authorities continue to downplay the threat of the virus and proclaim it a thing of the past, partly as a result of Australia’s high initial vaccination rate. However, this campaign of lies has contributed to a slow take-up of third doses. Just 53 percent of the population have received a third dose, although 70 percent of second doses were administered more than six months ago, meaning a growing number of “fully-vaccinated” people have little or no protection from serious illness and death.

A survey conducted by the ABS in late April found that 62 percent of respondents across the country reported that a member of their household had taken a COVID-19 test in the previous four weeks, up from 46 percent in March and 47 percent in February. Of those who said a household member had taken a test, 23 percent reported a positive result, up from 14 percent in March and 17 percent in February.

In other words, around 14 percent of households surveyed reported positive COVID-19 tests. Given the propensity of the virus to spread throughout homes, this would indicate that at least 1.5 million and up to 3.6 million people tested positive to COVID-19 during the four-week period.

One third of surveyed households with children reported that attendance at school, preschool or childcare was affected by COVID-19 in April, up from 23 percent the previous month. Almost half of these households said that this was because the child had tested positive for COVID-19.

Of the 18 percent of respondents that reported a household member’s job situation had changed due to COVID-19, 32 percent said that this was because the worker had contracted the virus, up from 13 percent in March. By contrast, the number who reported changed work circumstances because they were a close contact or because colleagues were absent remained at similar levels to the previous month.

This exposes the false and dangerous character of the slashing of close contact rules in schools, workplaces and the broader community, carried out in recent months by all state, territory and federal governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike. These anti-scientific measures, eagerly enforced by the unions, were taken in response to the assertions of employers that healthy workers were being forced to stay at home by overzealous isolation rules.

Far from resolving the labour shortage, the herding back of possibly infectious workers and children has only deepened the crisis by massively increasing the spread of the virus.

Contrary to the criminal mantra of the ruling elite, ordinary people in Australia and globally cannot “live with the virus.” COVID-19 can and must be eliminated, but this requires that the international working class take matters into its own hands.

Sri Lankan central bank governor warns of unprecedented economic contraction in 2022

Pradeep Ramanayake

Addressing the Sri Lanka Press Club on Monday, Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe warned that the country’s economy “will contract at the highest rate than any other year in history.”

Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe [Image: CBSL Twitter]

While Weerasinghe did not provide an exact figure, the Central Bank’s annual report noted on April 30 that the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate for 2022 had dropped to 1 percent. The Central Bank governor’s remarks indicate that growth will fall into the negative.

In 2020, Sri Lanka recorded a 3.6 percent negative growth rate, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country hard with the collapse of tourism, falling remittances and declining exports. In 2020, the poverty rate, calculated at $US3.20 per person, increased to 11.7 percent of the population, up from 9.7 percent in 2019, according to the World Bank. Another 500,000 more people fell into poverty.

Twenty-one years ago, in 2001, Sri Lanka recorded 1.2 percent negative growth, as a result of the devastation caused by Colombo’s anti-Tamil communal war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that began in 1983.

This year’s predicted unprecedented negative growth is the result of two factors: the deepening global economic crisis, and the impact of the harsh International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies being imposed on Sri Lanka. These entail restructuring the economy, including the public sector, sharp fiscal deficit cuts, privatisation and a market-driven flexible rupee exchange rate, which saw the currency free fall earlier this year.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed finance minister, immediately declaring that a new “interim budget” would be announced in six weeks, and in line with the IMF’s austerity measures. The interim budget, he said, “is just about cutting down expenditure, cutting to the bone where possible, and transferring it to welfare. For instance, the ministry of health, we just can’t cut down its expenditure, and the ministry of education, it’s a limited cut down, but there are many other ministries where we can cut.”

The measures will include the slashing of infrastructure projects and other cuts that will shrink the economy with catastrophic consequences for jobs, wages and living conditions.

Explaining the deepening crisis, Central Bank Governor Weerasinghe told the Press Club that Sri Lanka could not pay for “normal imports for the next three to six months,” despite industries reporting that they had “no raw materials.”

Without dollars, the Central Bank has had to drastically curb imports, threatening the collapse of industries and huge job losses. Free trade zone investors have already warned about the plight of their investments.

The Joint Apparel Association Forum has previously reported that Sri Lanka’s apparel sector was losing around 10 to 20 percent of its orders to neighbouring India and Bangladesh, with buyers voicing “concerns over the country’s economic and political situation.” Sri Lanka’s apparel sector currently has orders only until June 2022.

Yesterday, the Sri Lanka United National Businesses Alliance warned about their increasing inability to pay wages.

“Nearly 4.5 million workers belonging to 4,500 small and medium enterprises will be in the streets protesting in the coming months over the non-payment of wages,” the lobby group declared. It also complained that the Central Bank has told the business group that it could not grant extensions on loan repayments.

On Tuesday, the Sri Lanka Petroleum Corporation and Lanka-India Oil Company, with government approval, announced a record increase in fuel prices—petrol up by 24.3 percent and diesel by 38.4 percent. These increases are in line with IMF recommendations, which wants fuel subsidies slashed and prices determined solely by the market.

The latest fuel increases saw bus fares rise by 19.5 percent, port container transport charges up by 65 percent, three-wheel taxies fares by around 20 percent and other increases to come.

These rises will drastically worsen inflation. On Monday, the Department of Census and Statistics reported that the National Consumer Price Index jumped to 33.8 percent in April, up from 21.5 percent recorded in March 2022 on a year-on-year basis. Food inflation rose more steeply to 45.1 percent in April.

Hyperinflation has drastically increased the daily living costs to dire levels. The cost of rice, Sri Lanka’s main food item, has risen by 100 percent in almost two months, making it unaffordable for many. The prices of most essential food items have increased by at least 50 percent since the beginning of the year with the cost bread nearly tripling.

Significantly, the Central Bank governor’s speech noted that “the economic crisis has also spilled into a political crisis and social unrest,” a reference to the mass protests and two general strikes over the two past months demanding the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse.

Hundreds of health workers in Kandy march in protest against thug attacks on Galle Face Green demonstrators.

Referring to the governor’s remarks about the sharp economic decline and rising social unrest, Economy Next drew similarities with the 1953 general strike and hartal (small business shutdown) in Sri Lanka. The mass industrial action and protests by the working class and rural poor was in response sharp cost of living increases, including the price of rice. While the Lanka Sama Samaja Party called the hartal, it limited the action to one-day and abandoned the continuing struggles.

Economy Next also referred to the revolutionary uprisings in Europe in 1848, describing it as a “Springtime of peoples, where monarchs were driven out and constitutional restraint established.”

The February 1848 revolutionary uprising in France resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy, spread to Germany in March, and rapidly expanded across Europe. The feudal rulers of the German states were forced to accept parliaments and constitutions. References to these uprisings are yet another indication that Sri Lanka’s ruling elite is acutely aware that the new IMF austerity measures will deepen the popular opposition and see a massive eruption of the working-class struggle that draws in the rural and urban poor.

Yesterday, Wickremesinghe declared: “Looking at the hard days ahead, there has to be protests. It’s natural when people suffer, they must protest… But we want to ensure that it does not destabilise the political system.”

President Rajapakse and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe will not hesitate to unleash brutal state repression. Although the state of emergency was allowed to lapse last week, Rajapakse ordered the military mobilised in 25 districts in the country and its territorial waters. Two anti-government demonstrations by the university students last week were viciously attacked by the police using teargas and water cannons.

Above all, the ruling elite and its government is utterly dependent on the trade unions to stop any destabilisation of “the political system.” The unions are playing a politically criminal role, betraying one struggle after another since April. The general strikes in April and May were only called to dissipate the seething anger over price hikes and daily power cuts.

The trade unions are desperately seeking to tie workers to the opposition capitalist parties—who all support the IMF cuts—and their calls for an interim government to replace Rajapakse regime.

German imperialism sets its sights on Africa

Johannes Stern

Germany’s coalition government is systematically working to increase the country’s economic, political, and military weight in Africa. Currently, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) is visiting Senegal, Niger and South Africa along with a high-level business delegation.

Scholz’s trip centred on a visit to Bundeswehr soldiers in Niger on Monday. It was the Chancellor’s first troop visit abroad. “The Bundeswehr is doing extraordinary things here and has also achieved extraordinary things under very difficult conditions,” Scholz said at the military base in Tillia.

Officially, 200 German soldiers are deployed in the resource-rich and geostrategically important country. The Bundeswehr is training Nigerian special forces as part of Operation Gazelle, which has been running since 2018 and is part of the EU’s EUTM mission.

NH90 multi-purpose helicopter of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) transports German soldiers in Mali (Photo: Defensie, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Last Friday, the Bundestag (federal parliament) decided to extend the German war missions in the Sahel. Niger is playing an increasingly central role in this, with the EUTM mission being transferred almost entirely from Mali to Niger. “The focus of Germany’s participation in the EU’s capability building in the Sahel is Niger,” read the motion passed by the federal government.

According to the new mandate, up to 300 Bundeswehr soldiers are meant to be helping improve the “operational capabilities of the security forces of Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger and the Joint Task Force of the G5 Sahel states.' This involves “military advice and training, including pre-deployment training” and “support.” In other words, German war policy is being extended to the entire Sahel via Niger.

Scholz made it clear in Tillia that German troops were there to stay. The mission should also be continued beyond the mandate that has just been extended, he said. The task now, was to identify “a good follow-up project.”

“Seeing the motivation of our soldiers,” Scholz said, he had the feeling they were all looking forward to it. The mission so far had been “very successful and driven forward with great passion.”

The crimes committed by the Malian army in cooperation with Russian units is cited by Berlin as the reason for the shift of focus to Niger. In this way, the German government also wants to conceal the criminal character of its own intervention. In reality, the massacres of the civilian population are being perpetrated by the same troops that the Bundeswehr has trained for years. The imperialist occupation forces are directly or indirectly involved in these crimes and have engulfed the entire region with terror and war.

Berlin also plans to continue cooperating with the publicly criticised Malian coup regime. It was “devastating that Russian mercenaries are now in Mali”, Scholz said at a joint press conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall on the first day of his trip to Dakar. Germany would continue to “live up to its responsibility” and had “therefore also decided that we will continue to support the UN mission MINUSMA.”

In fact, the Bundeswehr is increasing its MINUSMA troops in Mali from 1,100 to 1,400 soldiers, preparing for an escalation of the fighting. According to the mandate text, even more troops may be mobilised “for phases of redeployment as well as in the context of troop rotations and in emergency situations.” In doing so, MINUSMA was “authorised to take all necessary measures, including the use of military force, to accomplish the mission.”

The offensive in Africa is not, as the official propaganda would have one believe, about “the fight against terrorism” or “human rights” and “democracy.” It is about naked imperialist interests. Already during the Bundestag debate on the extension of the mandate, numerous speakers stressed that Germany must also assert its interests in the region militarily.

Germany’s presence in the Sahel is “a sign of new responsibility, a response to geostrategic challenges,” claimed the Green Party member of parliament, Merle Spellerberg. “When French troops withdraw from Mali in late summer, we will be the largest provider of troops from the global North.” With “300 new soldiers,” Germany is “closing the gap left by the French.”

Leading members of the government, such as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), explicitly emphasised that the aim is to contain other powers, first and foremost Russia. “If MINUSMA were to withdraw from Mali, the vacuum would be filled even more by other forces,” Baerbock warned in the Bundestag. This applied “to Islamist fighters,” but “also to Russian forces.”

Why Germany wants to fill the vacuum is clear. Mali and Niger are not only geostrategically important, but also rich in raw materials. Niger is the largest uranium producer in Africa and the fifth largest worldwide. Since 2011, the country has also been one of the oil-exporting states. Other raw materials that are mined and processed locally are phosphate, gypsum, and limestone. Mali is Africa’s third-largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana, and it has large deposits of bauxite, phosphate, and iron ore, among other minerals.

Scholz’s visit to Senegal highlights Germany’s hunger for African mineral resources and raw materials, which has been intensified by the conflict with Russia. In Senegal, it is above all the country’s gas deposits that Germany wants to secure as quickly as possible.

“I want to be very clear about this,” Scholz stressed in Dakar. “Of course, we want to cooperate with Senegal in particular not only on the issue of the future generation of energy from renewable sources ... but we also want to do so with regard to the LNG issue and gas production here in Senegal.” The two countries had begun to “exchange views on this,” he said, and would “continue this very intensively at the technical level following these talks.”

In South Africa, too, where Scholz was welcomed with military honours by President Cyril Ramaphosa in Johannesburg on Tuesday, energy interests are at stake. The trip included a visit to Sasol. The transnational petroleum and chemical company is South Africa’s second largest industrial enterprise, with more than 30,000 employees and 17 plants in different countries. Sasol is known for the construction of gas-to-liquid plants, especially in Qatar. A few days ago, Scholz agreed a comprehensive energy partnership with the emirate and the world’s largest exporter of liquefied gas.

Another motive behind the German offensive in Africa is undoubtedly the fear of revolutionary unrest. We are facing “dramatic global challenges,” warned Scholz in Dakar. The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis would have “devastating consequences for the African states” and “on the reality of our lives.” They endangered “the social and economic achievements that the global South has worked for.” So that “these crises do not fan new flames,” he said, Germany must “act decisively.”

Scholz’s brash posturing in Africa, like NATO’s proxy war against Russia, which Berlin fully supports, stands in the tradition of Germany’s murderous colonial and world power policies. The warmongers in the media say so openly and are demanding an even more aggressive showing by Germany in the new scramble for Africa, at the expense of the nominally allied imperialist powers.

“Germany must catch up,” is the headline of a commentary by Nikolas Busse in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Although Germany itself was once a colonial power,” “other Western countries [were] gladly given precedence, above all France,” he enthused. This can no longer be tolerated “if one wants to be a leading European power.”