Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion attempts rebranding

Jason Melanovski

Following the surrender of hundreds of its members to Russian forces in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine’s Azov Battalion has undertaken a PR rebranding effort to distance itself from its neo-Nazi background by introducing a new chevron which Azov refers to as “Three Swords,” or a golden trident. The symbol will be used by the newly created Azov Special Forces Unit based in Kharkov. 

The “Three Swords” refers specifically to a monument installed at the Azov Regiment’s base in Mariupol. Oleksyi Reins, a member of the Azov Battalion described it as a “symbol of military glory and promise of revenge on its enemies.”

Previously, Azov forces used a Nazi-linked Wolfsangel symbol that Azov claims represents the “idea of the nation,” and which unites the letters “I” and “N” in old cyrillic script. In reality, the insignia is a blatant copy of the Wolfsangel symbol, which was widely used by various Nazi military formations, including several SS divisions that committed massacres during World War II. 

Azov Battalion fighters with Nazi flag (WikiCommons)

While Mariupol was the main headquarters of the original Azov Battalion, various forces operating under the Azov umbrella exist in several other major Ukrainian cities, namely Kharkov and Kiev. 

The logo swap was first reported widely in English by The Times in an article entitled “Azov Battalion drops neo-Nazi symbol exploited by Russian propagandists,” suggesting the use of neo-Nazi imagery by a Western-backed military organization is only of note due to ubiquitous “Russian disinformation.”

The article tried to deny that the Ukrainian government is attempting any conspicuous rebranding effort by pointing out that the new logo was unveiled for the Azov Special Forces Kharkov and is supposedly separate from the Azov Battalion formerly based in Mariupol.

However, in reality, as Azov member Oleksyi Reins acknowledged, Azov Special Forces Kharkov was “founded by veterans of the Azov Battalion.” 

Furthermore, during the unveiling of the new “Three Swords” logo in Kharkov, the commander of the new unit, Maksym Zhorin, stated, “On the same principles and ideological basis as the legendary Azov Battalion, we form new divisions. Every day they become more numerous and professional.” 

According to the Ukrainian government, the supposedly new “Azov” was formed as part of the Territorial Defense Forces on February 24, 2022—the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine—and is now part of the Ukrainian Special Forces. 

The various shifts in Azov’s naming, logos and official status within the Ukrainian state are an obvious attempt to obfuscate its neo-Nazi ties. 

These efforts are no doubt coordinated with Washington as part of an attempt at “damage control” amid growing suspicion and wariness about Western propaganda on the war in Ukraine and the “democratic” pretenses of the imperialist powers, in particular. The imperialist powers, with the US taking the lead, have been funding these neo-Nazi militias with billions of dollars as COVID-relief measures have been scrapped and inflation at home is tearing away at basic living standards.

As for Azov’s history and ideology, it is clearly a fascist organization that traces its heritage back both to Nazism and far-right Ukrainian nationalist organizations such as Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and the Ukrainian Insurgency Army (UPA), which were responsible for the massacres of tens of thousands of Jews, Poles as well as Ukrainians during World War II.

Its founder Andriy Biletsky, previously the leader of the fascist paramilitary Patriot of Ukraine organization, is an outright white supremacist who in 2010 stated that the mission of Ukraine is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen[subhumans].”

In 2014, far-right thugs, including many future members of Azov, helped carry out a US-backed coup against the elected, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. The Azov Battalion was formed right after the coup. Following the outbreak of civil war in the eastern Donbass region, it was systematically built up and supported with military aid and training primarily coming from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. 

In November of 2014, with the official Ukrainian Army in shambles and plagued by mass desertions, Azov was incorporated into the newly created National Guard of Ukraine. In the following years, Ukraine received billions in funding and training from Western military officers and played an essential role in carrying out the war against pro-Russian separatists in the east, often with notoriously brutal tactics.

Between 2015 and 2016, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights connected Azov with war crimes, including mass looting, unlawful detention and torture. 

Despite its minimal electoral support within Ukraine, Azov became so powerful within the Ukrainian state that in October 2019 Azov effectively shut down the recently elected President Voldymyr Zelensky’s initial attempts to withdraw Ukrainian forces from the frontlines in the Donbass and implement the 2015 Minsk peace accords. 

During a visit to the demarcation line near the village of Zolotoye, Zelensky was confronted by Azov veterans who warned him against withdrawing troops and continuing the peace process as outlined by the Minsk accords. Azov’s leader, Biletsky ominously threatened at the time, “If the President and the Government do not fulfill their direct duty to protect every inch of the Ukrainian land, then we, the volunteer veterans, will do it again.”

Zelensky, originally elected in 2019 due to widespread disillusionment with the war and widespread poverty, would subsequently go on to adopt increasingly pro-war nationalist policies in agreement with Washington and the far-right, helping create the conditions that led to the current disastrous war that has already killed tens of thousands and ruined the lives of millions. 

Following the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, Azov soldiers were shown carrying out war crimes using cruel tactics in line with their neo-Nazi ideology and history. 

Despite a massive propaganda campaign aimed at legitimizing the Azov Battalion in the Western media, more and more reports have surfaced, including in the bourgeois media, that clearly show Azov’s fascist orientation, and explode the “democratic” pretenses of imperialist propaganda over the war. 

In Mariupol, civilians have accused Azov forces of deliberately shooting at fleeing cars and kidnapping residents in order to have them serve as human shields while they bunkered within the Azovstal plant and hid from Russian forces. 

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, in a video recently 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.

Kiev’s half-hearted efforts to rebrand Azov make clear that the Ukrainian government will continue to heavily rely on these fascist forces as it functions as a proxy for an ever more direct war by the imperialist powers with Russia. 

Brutal police murder by gassing in Brazil provokes international outcry

Eduardo Parati

The killing of a man by the police on May 25 in Brazil caused shock and angered millions around the world, with video of the brutal assault going viral on social media.

Video recordings show 38-year-old Genivaldo de Jesus Santos being approached in the city of Umbaúba in the state of Sergipe by the Federal Highway Police (PRF) for riding a motorcycle without a helmet. The man, diagnosed with schizophrenia, can be seen cooperating with three police officers, who approach Santos aggressively, manhandling and cursing him while carrying assault rifles. Santos’ nephew, one of the witnesses to the attack, said the officers took the medication Santos kept in his pocket.

Federal Highway Police (PRF) suffocating Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, May 25, 2022

The videos show the violent response of the officers, surrounding, pushing, knocking down and pointing their guns at Santos in what witnesses said lasted half an hour. Then the officers decide to trigger a tear gas bomb inside the trunk of the police car with Santos inside, who can be seen swinging his legs out of the back hatch until he passes out. In the police report, the officers said that Santos had a “sudden illness” on the way to the police station and was taken to the municipal hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The sadistic public torture and murder of Santos provoked anger among the residents in the city, who blocked the highway where he was killed, burned tires and carried signs denouncing his death and calling for justice. In the newspapers and social media, many compared Santos’ suffocation by asphyxiation to the Nazis’ gas chamber.

The attack in Umbaúba occurred exactly two years after the police murder of George Floyd in the US and is a particularly brutal expression of the response of the Brazilian capitalist class to the intensifying social crisis in Brazil and internationally.

Over the past two years, the Bolsonaro government’s indifferent and criminal response to the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed the virus to spread through the population, resulting in over 660,000 deaths and leaving millions more with the after-effects of Long COVID.

This period of suffering and death for millions has meant financial prosperity for a thin layer. Brazilian billionaires increased their wealth by 30 percent during the pandemic, while 90 percent of the population became poorer. The richest 1 percent in Brazil owned almost half of the national wealth in 2021, an increase of 0.5 percentage points since 2019.

Santos lived and was brutally killed in Sergipe, the fifth poorest state in Brazil according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), with 46.8 percent of the state’s population facing serious problems related to the lack of food. Luís Moura, regional coordinator of the union-funded social studies institute DIEESE, pointed out that the population considered poor increased from 42 percent in 2019 to 46 percent in 2021. This situation is repeated throughout the country, with an increase in poverty from 25 percent to 29 percent in the same period.

A study by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) showed that while 30 percent of Brazilian households had no money to buy food at least once in the previous 12 months in 2019, that number increased to 36 percent in 2021. Among the poorest 20 percent, food insecurity jumped from an already staggering 53 percent to 75 percent in the same period.

Today, the enormous poverty and social inequality in Brazil, which has only intensified with a dramatic rise in food and fuel prices, are raising social tensions.

According to data surveyed by the University of São Paulo Center for the Study of Violence and the Brazilian Public Security Forum, 5,200 people died as a result of police violence in Brazil in 2017. In 2020, the number killed jumped to 6,400 and last year it was 6,100.

Under such conditions, the assassination of Genivaldo de Jesus Santos was met by the PRF command with cold indifference. A “technical note” from the PRF blamed Santos himself for his death and covered up the actions of the agents. The note stated that he “actively resisted an approach by a PRF team. Due to his aggressiveness, immobilization techniques and instruments of less offensive potential were used to restrain him.”

It is not a coincidence that the sadistic violence released against Santos occurred just one day after fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro praised one of the deadliest operations ever carried out by the murderous Military Police (PM) in the Vila Cruzeiro favela in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The operation resulted in the death of 25 people, including one killed by stray bullets and four people still hospitalized. The police took responsibility for only ten deaths, while local residents were forced to take the bodies of their relatives and neighbors to the hospital.

The operation, carried out in the morning of May 24, had the participation of the PRF and the notorious Special Operations Battalion (BOPE). After it became news, Bolsonaro stated: “Congratulations to the warriors of the BOPE and the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro who neutralized at least 20 criminals linked to drug trafficking in a confrontation, after being attacked by gunfire during an operation against criminal faction leaders.”

The PM portrayed the operation as an ambush for a convoy of the drug trafficking gang, Comando Vermelho, which was leaving the Vila Cruzeiro favela. According to the official narrative, the operation was compromised when a group of plainclothes police at one of the entrances to the community was intercepted by drug traffickers, leading the police to react by entering the favela and killing them. However, the facts point less to an ambush and more to a provocation to justify the assault inside the favela that resulted in the massacre.

The commander of the Military Police of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Uirá do Nascimento Ferreira, declared the day after the operation that it had been planned months before and cruelly stated that it “did not have the objective of serving arrest warrants.”

How the operation, which officially was to target criminals caught in the act leaving Vila Cruzeiro, ended with a violent assault inside the favela has not been explained except by the untenable police narrative. The presence of 11 police armored cars in positions that so far have not been publicized and the movement of dozens of plainclothes agents around the slum has all the indications of an operation planned to provoke a response from the drug traffickers. The alleged initial attack against officers was responded with more than a hundred agents entering the community.

Almost a week after the brutal murder of Santos in plain sight, Bolsonaro finally responded to the episode by lamenting not his death, but that of PRF agents in another case the same week. Bolsonaro concluded that the media “always has a side, the side of the criminals.”

In the same week of these two horrific incidents, the Bolsonaro government also published a report on human rights abuses with a glaring absence of the section on “public security,” that is, abuse by cops.

Bolsonaro’s statements are a signal to the president’s fascistic supporters in the state apparatus, including the police forces and the military, that launching the brutal crackdown on the working class amidst the upsurge in strikes and protests in Brazil will have no repercussions for the agents involved.

So far, the only repercussions for the three policemen recorded in the scenes in Umbaúba have been minor. Kleber Nascimento Freitas, Paulo Rodolpho Lima Nascimento and William de Barros Noia were relieved of duty and a disciplinary action process was initiated. The cruel response of the PRF command, blaming Santos for resisting the officers’ aggression, expresses Bolsonaro’s encouragement of these fascistic sections.

The cultivation of such forces is an expression of the ruling class’s fear in the face of intense social crisis. On Tuesday morning, a day after Bolsonaro’s statements defending the police in the Santos case, Bolsonaro’s chief-of-staff, minster Ciro Nogueira, signed the dismissal of the PRF’s executive director and intelligence director, only to announce on the same day that they were being promoted to higher positions in the US.

The Bolsonaro government’s encouragement of these forces is also a response to tensions building up across the region. In Chile, where huge demonstrations against former President Sebastián Piñera’s policies in 2019 were seen by Bolsonaro as a major domestic threat, current President Gabriel Boric is plummeting in approval ratings just months after his election. The country experienced a refinery workers’ strike in early May, while in Argentina, a simultaneous truckers’ strike with no deadline to end was barely averted after its third day.

In Brazil, workers at Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) in Volta Redonda in the state of Rio de Janeiro went on strike at the end of March, creating a commission elected by the rank-and-file to negotiate independent of the union. After a campaign of isolation and suppression aided by the unions, the company is feeling emboldened, sending in police to prevent worker assemblies this week. On the day of Santos’ murder, Bolsonaro's communications minister, Fábio Faria, revealed the fear within the ruling class of a strike in a critical sector of the economy. Faria said, “Is R$15 billion [from Petrobras’] R$44 billion profit too much to subsidize truckers’ diesel to avoid a strike? I’ve heard the market saying it’s not.”

Meanwhile, all three countries are facing new outbreaks of COVID-19 cases, with ICUs filling their capacity and reports of outbreaks in schools.

In this explosive situation, with less than five months to go until the elections in October, Bolsonaro sees the police forces as a shock troop against any political opposition, while preparing to respond to the scenario of a defeat with a coup, with the increasingly direct collaboration of the military.

Bolsonaro’s unfettered encouragement of the police forces immediately after they commit acts of extreme violence is only possible amid a shift to the right of all forces in the political establishment. The intensification of poverty and social inequality in Brazil and throughout Latin America, at the same time that a thin layer has become richer at an unprecedented rate, are being responded with the promotion of the repressive forces of the state by the entire political spectrum, including the nominal opposition to Bolsonaro led by the Workers Party (PT). 

In an expression of the enormous nervousness throughout the political establishment following the recent episodes of police violence, the PT’s response was limited to PT president Gleisi Hoffmann, tweeting that the Santos murder and the slaughter in Rio are examples that it is necessary to “review the command and training of police officers.”

After remaining completely silent about the massacre for a week, PT’s former president and front runner for the October elections, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, refused to make any call for an end to the police killing spree. Instead, he stated in a conformist and empty fashion: “If the state was present in these areas, the police would only be a component to maintain tranquility. ... the state only appears when it is to kill someone, through the police.”

In fact, the apparatus of repression being thrown at the working class on the highways and slums was strengthened during the PT governments. The foremost example is the Drug Law passed in 2006, which according to the National Prison Department resulted in the increase of those arrested for drug-related crimes from 9 percent in 2005 to 28 percent in 2014, while the prison population more than doubled in the same period, from 361,400 to 607,700.

The order of the day in the so-called “left” is to provide a political cover for the fascistic forces being cultivated by Bolsonaro. Marcelo Freixo, Lula’s main ally in the race for governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), responded to the slaughter in Vila Cruzeiro by posting a series of tweets to clarify that he did not call for the end of BOPE and CORE, the notoriously violent special forces of the military and civilian police in the state, respectively. 

The same reasoning is true for the media. It presents the response of the Brazilian judiciary, demanding explanations from the police about the operation in Rio, as a sign that there will be significant repercussions for the killings in Vila Cruzeiro. However, it was the STF itself that upheld the extension of powers of the PRF to “investigative and intelligence operations” in 2020, allowing it to take part in the killing of Santos and the Vila Cruzeiro massacre.

The chief goal of the opposition is in fact to deflect social opposition and disarm the working class while Bolsonaro aims to create a fascist movement within the security forces.

Massive job cuts in Europe at the food delivery services Gorillas and Getir

Markus Salzmann

The food delivery services Gorillas and Getir have announced the layoff of hundreds of employees as part of a wave of mass redundancies by start-ups and tech companies.

Gorillas workers on strike

Gorillas says it is laying off 300 employees in its administration, i.e., half of its administrative staff, with major layoffs in the company's human resources department. Bike riders and workers in warehouses are not immediately affected, but that will change soon. According to media reports Gorillas is planning to withdraw from a number of European countries, including Italy, Spain and Belgium. The company announced that in the future it would concentrate on Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.

Gorillas CEO Kağan Sümer reaffirmed the company's tough austerity measures. He told Reuters news agency: “When we go public, we want to do it as a profitable company.” He added that the start-up would have to “take further steps to move towards profitability.” Sümer said as recently as January that of the company’s 230 warehouses, only 25 to 30 percent were operating at a profit.

The road to profitability consists of layoffs as well as starvation wages and miserable working conditions for the company’s remaining workers.

Following numerous protests, the company fired 350 workers in Berlin and Leipzig last October, claiming that unannounced and non-union strikes by workers were illegal. The message attached to the dismissals was obvious: anyone who is not prepared to accept slave-like conditions of exploitation will be sacked. This policy was given a legal blessing by the Berlin Labour Court last month.

Like a number of its competitors, Gorillas, which was founded only two years ago, had expanded rapidly and was valued by investors at around 2.5 billion euros at the end of last year. Last October, Gorillas had raised funds with a volume of 860 million euros from investors. According to company information, the projected turnover for 2022 is around 750 million euros.

Rival food delivery service Getir also plans to lay off 4,500 employees worldwide, about 14 percent of its total workforce. The company has not yet provided any details, but according to the online portal Techcrunch, 400 jobs could be affected in Germany. According to Bloomberg, Getir expects a loss of about $1 billion in 2022.

Getir received even larger sums from investors than Gorillas. In March, the Arab sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, among others, invested a total of almost 700 million euros, making Getir a so-called “decacorn”—a company with a valuation of over ten billion dollars.

The two delivery services are not the only service companies to announce massive job cuts. Payment service provider Klarna plans to lay off around 10 percent of its 7,000 employees. Although the Swedish company has not disclosed any details, it can be assumed that a large part of the job cuts apply to Germany, where 1,000 are employed, including 800 in Berlin.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski deliberately left it open whether there would be further job cuts in the near future. Siemiatkowski, whose fortune is estimated at $3.2 billion (Forbes), complained instead about “unfair” criticism of the layoffs.

Industry experts regard the layoffs as a signal that the company’s good times are over. Klarna had received (US)$1.6 billion from investors as recently as last year and was valued at $46 billion, although it made a loss of around 630 million euros in the same year.

The Berlin-based banking start-up Kontist is also laying off 50 employees, a quarter of its workforce, while its rival Nuri is shedding 45 jobs. In the UK, delivery service Zapp is laying off 10 percent of its staff.

The portal Techcrunch reported that around 15,000 workers in tech companies and start-ups worldwide lost their jobs in May. Dozens of other companies announced that they would no longer take on new staff. Among them was the food delivery service Instacart, whose company valuation recently fell by almost 40 percent from $39 billion to $24 billion.

Behind the mass layoffs and austerity measures is the rapid decline of company valuations in the tech and start-up scene. Gorillas, for example, has for months been seeking investors for a fourth round of investment. In the future, the industry expects so-called “flat rounds” or “down rounds,” which means that future financing will be unable to turn around the company’s flat or declining valuations.

The war in Ukraine and rapidly rising inflation are the principle factors behind the decline in company valuations and prospects. The recent interest rate hikes in response to inflation have slowed down the torrent of cheap money handed out to even the most unprofitable companies in recent years.

With the layoffs, the crisis is now being laid full square on the backs of workers, who are being confronted with soaring prices for food and energy on the one hand and dismissals and unbearable working conditions on the other. According to a recent study by Allianz Trade, food retail prices in Germany could rise by more than 10 percent in 2022.

In 2021, delivery workers held a series of strikes and protests against starvation wages and poor and dangerous working conditions. The companies, governments and trade unions are alarmed at the growing militancy of a layer of mostly young, well-educated workers. They fear that such protests could link up with the growing resistance to mass layoffs and wage cuts in other major industries, transport companies and administrations.

To counter such a development, efforts are being made to form trade union led “works councils,” whose job it is to prevent strikes and any broader mobilization. Such a works council was set up at Gorillas last year, but not surprisingly has proved completely incapable of preventing a single dismissal or improving the appalling working conditions.

Martin Bechert, who worked as a lawyer for the Gorillas works council, explained the role of the works council in the now pending dismissals: “It will probably come down to the works council trying to negotiate a social plan for the employees affected in Berlin,” meaning the works council has long since accepted the redundancies.

In striving to prevent any further protests, the works council and the unions are working closely with the Social Democrat- Left Party-Green Senate in Berlin. Recently, members of the Gorillas works council met with Berlin’s social senator Katja Kipping (Left Party).

While Kipping was shedding crocodile tears over the layoffs at Gorillas, her party is in the process of implementing a radical austerity budget together with the SPD and the Greens. It is therefore not surprising that after the meeting with Gorillas staff, Kipping merely promised to initiate more regular controls in the area of occupational health and safety.

Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia exposes the hypocrisy of the imperialist war against Russia

Joseph Kishore

US President Joe Biden will be traveling to Saudi Arabia later this month to visit with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. A principal aim of the trip, which will include meetings with other Arab leaders and a trip to Israel, will be to strengthen broader support for the US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine.

The New York Times, in its article on the subject, commented that it “represents the triumph of realpolitik over moral outrage, according to foreign policy experts.” On the part of the Times and the “foreign policy experts,” this was a polite way of addressing the undeniable hypocrisy of US claims to be defending “democracy” in Ukraine while courting one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.

It remains to be seen whether Biden will broach the subject of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was brutally murdered on the orders of bin Salman in 2018, or if he will ask where Khashoggi’s dismembered body is located. It is even less likely that Biden will take the occasion to express his “moral outrage” over the execution of 81 prisoners on March 12, mainly political opponents of the blood-drenched Saudi regime.

The Biden administration has accused Russia of “war crimes” and even “genocide” in Ukraine, which, in the 100 days since the invasion on February 24 has killed an estimated 4,200 civilians, according to the United Nations. If the term “genocide” can be applied to a war taking place now, however, it would be the US-backed Saudi war against Yemen, which began in 2015 under the Obama administration.

Calculations of the casualties from the systematic bombardment and starvation of the impoverished country vary but are presently at least 400,000. However, the United Nations Development Report issued a report in November 2021, seven months ago, that estimated 377,000 people had died. This is somewhat more than one percent of Yemen’s population of 30 million.

The UNDP estimated that more than 260,000 of those killed were children under the age of five, largely through hunger and disease produced by a Saudi blockade backed by the UAE and the United States. The report also estimated that the death toll will rise to 1.3 million by 2030, with 70 percent killed from the catastrophic social and economic impact of the war. The number of people living in extreme poverty is expected to rise to 22 million by 2030.

A separate report issued by the UN Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in March found that 538,000 children in Yemen are already severely malnourished, but this is expected to soar to 2.2 million by the end of the year, in part due to sharply rising food prices throughout the world. UNICEF also estimated that more than 10,000 children have been directly killed or injured by bombs and other military actions since 2015.

The war has been characterized by repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure by the Saudi-led coalition. On January 21 of this year, an airstrike (reportedly using laser-guided missiles supplied by Raytheon) killed at least 82 and injured 266 at a detention center housing African migrants in Saada. The attack followed strikes against civilian buildings in the capitol of Sanaa, including against a water treatment center that cut off 120,000 people from clean drinking water.

There was no condemnation in the US media at the time of Saudi “war crimes” against Yemen, nor were their howls of protest from the pseudo-left backers of US imperialism over the war crime. Two-and-a-half months later, however, a missile strike on a Ukrainian train station that killed 50—blamed, dubiously, on Russia—was seized on to demand a major intensification of US military support for Ukraine. This is “genocide,” Biden declared.

When he came to power in January 2021, Biden said that he would make the Saudi regime “pay the price,” particularly for the murder of Khashoggi, and that his administration would “make them in fact the pariah that they are.” He also made a vague declaration that his administration would end “American support for offensive operations” in the war against Yemen.

This, however, was entirely for show. Military weaponry has continued to flow into the country unabated. The US is the principal supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia (accounting for 73 percent of arms imports, according to the Brookings Institution). Per the US State Department website, “Saudi Arabia is the United States’ largest foreign military sales (FMS) customer, with more than $100 billion in active FMS cases. Through FMS, the United States has supported three key security assistance organizations in Saudi Arabia—the Ministry of Defense, the National Guard, and the Ministry of Interior.”

That is, the US is not only supplying weapons used to bomb Yemen and enforce its economic blockade, but also to bolster its apparatus of domestic repression—the Ministry of the Interior is the body responsible for executions.

In anticipation of Biden’s trip, the administration is working to reformulate its official appraisal of the Saudi regime. As recently as this week, the White House affirmed the previous statement that Biden considered bin Salman a “pariah.” However, on Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre praised Saudi Arabia for “helping consolidate” a temporary truce in Yemen, that is, to put a partial pause on a bloody carnage it has led with the backing of American imperialism.

Beyond Russia, the US will discuss with Saudi Arabia a renewed US and Israeli offensive against Iran. It is also seeking Saudi agreement to increase oil production, as the American ruling class confronts a mounting wave of social anger within the country over the soaring costs of gasoline and other consumer goods. The meeting, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will address “the totality of our interests in that relationship.”

The naked hypocrisy of US imperialism, we can rest assured, will not stop the upper middle-class moralists in the media and academia from giving their full support for the imperialist crusade against Russia, waving the tattered and bloody banner of “human rights.”

Danish referendum produces majority for participation in European Union defence policy

Jordan Shilton

Approximately two-thirds of voters backed Denmark’s involvement in the European Union’s (EU) defence policy in the June 1 referendum, according to exit poll projections. The government and main opposition parties campaigned to overturn the country’s 30-year refusal to participate in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy.

The result means that Danish troops will be integrated into EU military operations and Copenhagen will participate in EU decision-making processes for military deployments. This will also open up opportunities for the EU to deploy military forces in the Arctic, an increasingly geopolitically explosive region.

The referendum was the product of the Social Democrat government’s full support for the US-NATO war against Russia. On March 6, less than two weeks after Washington and its European allies successfully goaded Russian President Vladimir Putin into launching his reactionary invasion of Ukraine, the Danish government announced a comprehensive agreement on defence policy with the opposition Venstre (Liberal) and Conservative parties. The agreement, also supported by the ex-Stalinist Green Left, included a pledge to hike Danish defence spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2033, end the country’s reliance on Russian gas and hold the June 1 referendum.

In another indication of Copenhagen’s backing for military escalation against Russia, the Social Democrat government confirmed last week that it is sending Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Ukraine to target Russian vessels in the Black Sea.

Denmark negotiated the opt-out from EU defence policy in 1992 following the rejection of the Maastricht Treaty. The defence opt-out was one of four in the Edinburgh Agreement, which included exceptions for justice, immigration policy, and economic and monetary union (the euro currency).

Denmark’s defence policy has traditionally focused on its full participation in NATO, of which it was a founding member in 1949, and cooperation with the US military in operations from its Arctic bases in Greenland. Denmark agreed to the establishment of a US military presence on the island during World War II, after Washington expressed growing concern that Greenland could become a base for Nazi Germany to launch attacks on North America. The main US base is Thule, which was built in 1951 and became a key location for ballistic missile defence and spying activities.

Although EU military operations have been less extensive than those of NATO, there have been more than 30 EU-led operations since the first deployment to Macedonia in 2003. They range from missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bosnia, Mali, Somalia, Iraq, Georgia, and Afghanistan. An EU-led naval operation also patrolled the central Mediterranean to prevent refugees fleeing imperialist wars from reaching Europe.

Sections of the European ruling elite, above all in Germany and France, are pushing to strengthen the EU’s military capabilities in order to facilitate a European imperialist foreign policy that is more independent of, and if necessary in opposition to, the United States. This includes the development of joint European weapons systems and command structures.

Denmark’s participation in the CSDP could open up new possibilities for EU military operations in regions where it has yet to establish a foothold. Although Denmark, with a population of only 5.8 million, has a relatively modest military of between 7,000 and 9,000 professional troops, its control of the Faroe Islands and Greenland give it access to geostrategically important areas in the North Atlantic and Arctic.

Denmark is one of a handful of nations, including Canada, Russia and the United States, that has territorial claims to vast areas in the Arctic. Due to climate change, control over the Arctic is an increasingly significant concern for the major powers, and minor ones like Denmark. Melting ice caps are opening up access to significant deposits of oil and gas, critical minerals, and other raw materials, and to previously ice-blocked sea lanes that would significantly shorten trade routes.

One of the most highly contested routes is the North Sea Route (NSR), which passes along Russia’s Arctic coast and is claimed by Moscow as internal waters. Russia has begun to develop cooperation with China to enable Chinese ships to use the NSR. Washington opposes this, claiming the NSR should be considered international waters with free passage for all shipping.

Danish military and surveillance activities in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and their territorial waters is overseen by the Joint Arctic Command. In October 2020, NATO entered a formal partnership with the Joint Arctic Command, which included the sharing of intelligence, joint military exercises, and monthly coordination meetings.

The NATO powers seized on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to ratchet up tensions in the Arctic. Seven of the eight members of the Arctic Council, a body established in 1996 to oversee inter-state cooperation on ecological, economic, and research issues in the region that is currently chaired by Russia, suspended their participation in its committees.

This provocative move by the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden effectively brought the Arctic Council’s activities to a halt. Finland and Sweden’s joint decision to apply for NATO membership also impacts Arctic geopolitics: they are located on the shores of the strategically important Baltic Sea, and they provide NATO military forces the opportunity to train in Arctic conditions.

The EU and its largest states, in particular Germany, have long been pushing for a larger role in Arctic affairs. In 2021, the EU published its new Arctic strategy. One of its main complaints is that it has yet to be granted official observer status at the Arctic Council. The strategy also pledged to open an EU Commission office in Greenland. The press release announcing the new strategy noted that the Arctic is “of key strategic importance for the European Union, in view of climate change, raw materials as well as geostrategic influence.”

In its first official strategy document for the region, titled “Guidelines for German Arctic Policy,” Germany’s Foreign Ministry noted in 2019 that Berlin views the Arctic as a “region with increased crisis potential.” The document continued, “Several states are increasingly securing their interests in the Arctic militarily. This could lead to an arms race. The development of dual-use capabilities as well as their constant modernisation, and technological progress and the strategies of external players undermines the division between defensive and offensive policy options. … The possibility thus increases of non-cooperative behaviour in the Arctic, which would endanger economic, ecological and security policy stability in the region and thereby impact German security interests.”

A study published this February by the government-aligned German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) was even more explicit on the growing importance of the Arctic for Berlin’s foreign policy, which is based on a revival of global German imperialist ambitions not seen since the first half of the 20th century. Entitled “Russia in the Arctic,” the paper observed, “The area is, of course, also of critical importance to Germany: in any military confrontation, the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) would be called on as part of NATO; and Germany itself lies on Northern Europe’s geo-economically and geo-strategically important sea lines. Any disruption of these would have consequences for the security and stability of the whole region.”

The European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, suggested in a recent report that the EU could propose an Arctic Council 7+ model, i.e., to form a body consisting of the seven Arctic Council members boycotting the organisation and the EU.

At a conference in Esbjerg on May 18, ostensibly held to discuss wind energy generation between Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen expressed their support for Denmark abolishing its opt-out in EU defence policy. Two days later, Danish Defence Minister Morten Bødskov announced that plans are under way to make the port of Esbjerg a NATO hub for transporting military equipment and personnel to the Baltic Sea region by the end of 2023.

Overwhelming support in Denmark’s political establishment and media for abolishing the defence opt-out, together with the lack of any genuine opposition to the move, helped produce Wednesday’s lopsided result.

The “no” campaign was led by the far-right Danish People’s Party on a nationalist basis. They said Denmark should retain full sovereignty over its armed forces and warned of Danish personnel being deployed in a European army.

The pseudo-left Red-Green Alliance (RGA) sought to salvage its tattered anti-militarist credentials by campaigning for a “no” vote. Its campaign had virtually no credibility, however.

The RGA has long worked to suppress and strangle left-wing opposition to war. Since 2019, its votes in parliament have been critical in securing a majority for Mette Frederiksen’s minority Social Democrat government, which is sending Ukraine military equipment and weaponry, including Harpoon missiles. The RGA also voted for imperialist wars, including the US-led war in Syria and Iraq from 2014.

US infant formula shortage continues to surge, with ten states 90 percent out-of-stock

Harvey Simpkins

The already-dire infant formula shortage in the United States continues to worsen, putting thousands of infants, children and those with special nutritional needs at risk of going hungry. Last week, the national out-of-stock rate climbed to 74 percent, up four percentage points from the prior week. Three weeks ago, the rate was 45 percent. 

An aisle at a Target store in Chicago with sparsely stocked baby formula (WSWS Media)

Ten states, Arizona, Mississippi, California, Nevada, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Florida, Washington, and Georgia have reached out-of-stock rates above 90 percent. Colorado, the state with the most supply, has an out-of-stock rate of 44 percent. By comparison, this time last year, the average out-of-stock rate was about six percent.

In February, Abbott Nutrition voluntarily shut down its plant in Sturgis, Michigan after the FDA found hazardous bacteria in the plant and warned consumers not to use certain powdered infant formula manufactured there. Since September 20, 2021, at least four infants became ill and two died after being fed products from the Sturgis factory. In October 2021, the FDA received a whistleblower complaint detailing negligent cleaning practices and efforts by Abbott officials to prevent the FDA from learning about safety issues with the plant.

More than three months after its closure, the plant remains shut down, with FDA Commissioner Robert Califf telling Congress last week that the plant is still “several weeks” away from reopening, with further delay possible if Abbott does not meet safety requirements. According to Califf, the company has to complete “hundreds” of steps under an agreement with the FDA before reopening. “Abbott actually did start remediating the plant, but it was so bad,” Califf said.

On top of severe supply chain issues caused by the government’s reckless response to the pandemic, Abbott’s plant shutdown has caused a massive loss in production and supply of formula. Abbott controls over 40 percent of the baby formula market in the United States, with the Michigan facility producing half of its domestic production. 

The Biden administration responded to the crisis far too late and with far too little assistance. To much media fanfare, Biden launched Operation Fly Formula last month with an initial planeload of 75,000 pounds of baby formula arriving by military plane from Germany on May 22.

On May 18 Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to increase supply of formula. His order under the act merely requires suppliers to fulfill orders from the formula companies before other customers. Far more an exercise in public relations and damage control than an actual solution, the lack of formula in stores has only increased since Biden put these measures in place.

Despite the clear danger to infant health represented by the Abbott plant shutdown, cutting off 20 percent of the total infant formula supply in the country, Biden said on Wednesday that he did not realize the seriousness until April. 

“Once we learned of the extent” of the plant shutdown “and how broad it was, we kicked everything into gear,” he told reporters. “I became aware of this problem sometime in early April, about how intense it was,” Biden added. “We did everything in our power from that point on.”

According to Biden, “kicking everything into gear” and doing “everything in his power” includes taking nearly two months to summon even the smallest of measures, in the form of his meager Operation Fly Formula and invocation of the Defense Production Act.

With the crisis continuing to worsen, Biden announced on Wednesday that Bubs Australia will send approximately 4.6 million bottles worth of its infant formula from Melbourne to the United States on June 9 and 11. He also said that the US will import 3.7 million bottles worth of Kendamil formula from the United Kingdom, beginning June 9.

In contrast to Biden’s claims of ignorance, infant formula manufacturers knew immediately that the Abbott plant shutdown would cause major supply issues. At a meeting on Wednesday with the President, Robert Cleveland, a senior vice president with Reckitt Benckiser Group, another formula company, told Biden, “We knew from the very beginning that this would be a very serious event.” He added, “From the moment that that recall was announced we reached out immediately to retail partners like Target and Walmart to tell them this is what we think will happen.”

Murray Kessler, the CEO of another formula maker, Perrigo, similarly told Biden at Wednesday’s meeting that when his firm learned of the Abbott recall, the company “could foresee that this was going to create a tremendous shortage.”

In fact, back on November 16, 2021, well before the Abbott plant shutdown, Walgreens, with 9,000 locations across the country, reported that demand for infant formula was surging and that it was struggling to keep up.

To cope with the escalating formula crisis, desperate parents are traveling hundreds of miles in search of formula, only to find shelves empty wherever they go. Parents are also resorting to diluting formula in order to make supplies last longer. Dilution, however, offsets the electrolyte balance in infants, leading to low sodium, which, in turn leads to low blood pressure and life-threateningly low levels of circulating oxygen. Fatal seizures can also result from such an imbalance.

“A formula is essentially regulated as closely as any prescribed medication when it comes to the ingredients in it to make sure a baby's kidneys are developing, their liver, their electrolytes — everything else is in a very fine balance,” Dr. Owais Durrani, an emergency room physician, told Business Insider.

The Biden administration’s contrasting responses to the formula crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine starkly reveal the priorities of the American ruling class. On February 27, just ten days after the Abbott plant was shutdown, Russia, instigated by the United States and NATO, invaded Ukraine. In the three months since, the Democratic-controlled Congress, including its so-called left wing, has approved $59 billion to support Ukraine as it carries out a proxy war on behalf of the United States against Russia. By contrast, Biden took no meaningful measures to combat the infant formula crisis for more than three months after the Abbott plant shutdown.

While endless supplies of money are made immediately available for US imperialism to carry out its plans to weaken and ultimately carve up Russia, mere crumbs are provided, months late, to feed the most vulnerable.  

The Biden administration’s handling of the infant formula crisis is completely in line with its handling of the pandemic, where, despite the wide availability of vaccines and an understanding of the public health measures needed to stop the virus from spreading, it is responsible for more deaths than the gross buffoonery and callousness of the Trump administration. The American ruling class, through its political servants, has once again revealed its complete contempt for the lives of the working class.

Sri Lankan government increases VAT and other taxes in a new round of social attacks

Saman Gunadasa

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan government sharply increased a range of taxes, driving up the cost of hundreds of items. These hikes will worsen existing inflation rates and push many more people into starvation. The already unbearable cost of essential food items has forced many workers and the poor to reduce the quality and quantity of basic foods, skipping at least one meal a day.

Ranil Wickremesinghe [Source: United National Party Facebook]

The cabinet-approved proposals presented by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, increases the Value Added Tax (VAT), income taxes and imposes surcharges on certain goods.

The prime minister’s office estimates that these increases will add 300 billion rupees ($US836 million) annually to the dried-up state coffers. Half of the amount is expected to come from the increase in VAT.

The new measures include:

* An immediate increase in VAT to 12 percent, up from 8 percent, and applicable to almost all products and services. The current VAT annual turnover threshold will be reduced from 300 billion rupees to 120 million rupees in October 2022, drastically hitting small businesses.

* The current levy on telecom services was immediately increased from 11.25 percent to 15 percent, driving up the cost of all telecommunications.

* The imposition of a 5 percent withholding tax on interest payments from savings, including pensioners’ deposits. Pensioners over 60 years of age are exempted, but only up to 1.5 million rupees of their savings.

* The current 3 million rupees annual income threshold for Personal Income Tax relief will be slashed to just 1.8 million rupees, which means that tens of thousands more workers will have to pay tax.

* An increase in the corporate income tax rate from 24 percent to 30 percent, in line with other countries in South Asia, along with a 1 percent rise in the concessionary corporate tax applicable to some sectors, from 14 to 15 percent.

* Massive tax increases or surcharges were also imposed via a separate gazette on several imported items, including food, by branding them unessential. These include an 850 percent tax on butter, 250 percent on cheese, and 100 percent on other dairy products, 200 percent on chocolates and 100 percent on fruit juices, alcohol and tobacco. The cost of imported fruits, such as apple, oranges and dates, will be two or three times higher than current prices.

A 75 percent surcharge was also imposed on cosmetics and 25 to 50 percent on footwear and other imported goods, while basic electrical appliances, such as mobile phones, rice cookers and refrigerators, are now subjected to a 100 percent tax.

Justifying the harsh new measures, Wickremesinghe blamed President Rajapakse’s previous government, headed by former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse for reducing VAT, personal income and corporate taxes and increasing tax holidays. These reductions, he said, led to annual revenue losses of between 600 and 800 billion to the state coffers.

After being elected in November 2019, President Rajapakse’s government announced some limited populist measures while granting huge tax concessions to big business. Rajapakse claimed these measures would “revive” the economy by attracting foreign investments.

The Sri Lankan economy, however, was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, suffering a collapse of tourist income, and sharp falls in remittances and export earnings. The economic crisis worsened early this year with the US-led NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, resulting in spiraling oil prices, food shortages and supply chain disruptions. On May 18, Sri Lanka defaulted on a $78 million interest payment for sovereign bonds, becoming the first country to do so in two decades.

Wickremesinge’s brutal attempts to cut Sri Lanka’s fiscal deficit via higher taxes and other measures are in line with International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictates. The Daily FT, the voice of Sri Lanka’s business elite, praised Wickremesinghe’s higher taxes, declaring, “It’s payback time even though you are poorer.”

The new measures were announced on the same day as Sri Lanka’s latest official inflation rates were released. The annualised inflation rate for May climbed to 39 percent, up from 28 percent the previous month, and food inflation jumped to 57 percent from 45 percent in April.

As Bloomberg and other international business media outlets have noted, Wickremesinghe’s austerity measures were imposed in preparation for the next round of negotiations with the IMF early this month for a $3 billion bailout loan.

Next Tuesday, Wickremesinghe is expected to announce a 695-billion rupee “revenue collection” package with more austerity measures to follow. Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera has declared that electricity tariffs will triple in the coming period. The cabinet is also expected to increase water tariffs.

The IMF is demanding drastic downsizing and privatisation of the state sector, as well as the slashing of social programs, including more cuts to public education and health. The cabinet is currently discussing how to reduce Sri Lanka’s 1.7 million public employees by half or more.

On Thursday, Wickremesinghe met with the Joint Chambers leadership, who represent Sri Lankan’s major business lobbies. According to a statement issued by his office, Wickremesinghe said the government was planning to claw back $5 billion to repay foreign debts and another $1 billion to bolster the country’s reserves.

Even more vicious social attacks are being prepared against the Sri Lankan masses. Some indication of these measures were revealed by a World Bank spokesperson in comments published on the Voice of America website last Wednesday.

“The human development impact of the unfolding economic crisis [in Sri Lanka] is severe. The crisis has disrupted economic activities and households’ capacity to afford basic necessities, including adequate nutrition… A worse-case scenario contraction in economic activity in 2022 and 2023 would translate into an increase of over 11 percentage points… with the resulting poverty rate close to 22 percent in 2023,” he said.

Earlier this year, Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe declared that the Sri Lankan economy in 2022 “will contract at a higher rate than in any other year in history.”

The pro-imperialist Rajapakse and Wickremesinghe regime is dragging the working class and the poor further into poverty and starvation. The opposition parties, such as the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Tamil National Alliance, who support the IMF “reform” program, are continuing their empty criticisms of the government in order to hoodwink the angry masses.

The protests which erupted in early April and involved workers, youth and the poor calling for the resignation of President Rajapakse and his government, made clear that the masses will not tolerate the worsening social catastrophe. One day general strikes on April 28 and May 6 powerfully demonstrated the depth of working-class hostility and its social strength.

This movement, however, was politically blocked by the trade unions, backed by pseudo left groups, which directed it towards the official opposition parties and their calls for an interim parliamentary regime.

TED Fellows Program 2023

Application Deadline: 30th June 2022 at 11:59pm UTC.

About the Award: Every year the TED Fellows program selects a new group of extraordinary, multidisciplinary individuals by open application. We look for innovators on the rise in their respective fields who are doing bold, original work.

Since launching the TED Fellows program, we’ve gotten to know and support some of the brightest, most ambitious thinkers, change-makers and culture-shakers from nearly every discipline and corner of the world.

Whether it’s discovering new galaxies, leading social movements or making waves in environmental conservation, with the support of TED, Fellows are dedicated to making the world a better place through their innovative work. And you could be one of them.

Apply to be a TED Fellow now through June 30, 2022 — that’s coming up soon, so don’t procrastinate!! We do not accept late submissions!

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• An idea worth spreading!
• A completed online application consisting of general biographical information, short paragraphs on your work and three references. (It’s fun, and it’ll make you think…)
• You must be at least 18 years old to apply.
• You must be fluent in English.
• You must be excited to participate in a collaborative, interdisciplinary global community.
• You must be available for in-person conference

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): Vancouver, Canada

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: TED will cover the costs of transportation to and from the TED conference, any visa you may need, accommodations and food while at the conference and conference registration.

• You become part of a diverse, collaborative and global community of more than 500 emerging and established experts.
• You receive professional development through virtual workshops and webinars.
• You gain valuable feedback from TED’s expert coaches on how to hone, express and communicate your work and your ideas.
• You will give a TED Talk (at a virtual or live event, depending on the state of the global pandemic).
• You’ll receive career coaching and mentorship from our team of professional coaches.
• You’ll get public relations guidance and media training.
• You’ll participate in virtual programming for TED Fellows.
• You will have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to a thriving and connected global community.

Duration of Award: April 7-15, 2022.

How to Apply: The TED Fellows program is currently accepting applications for the TED2023 Fellowship. Apply now. Applications for the 2023 TED Fellowship will close on June 30, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. UTC.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details