Last-minute ruling prevents UK government deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda

Robert Stevens

The Johnson government has pledged to enforce its brutal policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda after being prevented from launching its first flight on Tuesday evening.

After a legal challenge, seven people sat on the runway of Boscombe Down Air Base in Wiltshire in a Boeing 767 were told they would not be deported and to leave the plane.

The flight was stopped by an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over legal issues surrounding one of the people on board—a 54-year-old Iraqi man, K.N., who was a victim of torture, and who arrived in the UK by boat in May. The court ruled “that the applicant should not be removed until the expiry of a period of three weeks following the delivery of the final domestic decision in the ongoing judicial review proceedings.”

K.N. had been served a removal notice on June 6 and had his appeals denied by the UK High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The ECHR decision provided a legal basis for the remaining six to appeal for their removal orders to be discarded, leading to two further injunctions by the ECHR and three successful challenges at the UK Court of Appeal.

Protesters stand outside the High Court where a ruling on Rwanda deportation flights took place, in London. June 13, 2022. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

The judicial review specified in the ECHR ruling was granted by the High Court in London last Friday and will take place in late July. It was brought by the Care4Calais migrant advocacy group, organisations including the Public and Commercial Services Union and Detention Action, and four asylum seekers scheduled to be on Tuesday’s flight.

They argue the Rwanda policy is illegal on multiple grounds. Care4Calais explained, “These… include, but are not limited to: the vires or legal authority of the Home Secretary to carry out the removals; the rationality of the Secretary of State’s conclusion that Rwanda is generally a ‘safe third country’; the adequacy of provision for malaria prevention; and compliance with the Human Rights Act.”

The ECHR is overseen by the European Convention on Human Rights, of which the UK is a founding member. Britain’s departure from the European Union (EU) did not affect its membership of this body, separate from the EU and its own European Court of Justice.

Johnson’s Conservative Party MPs responded to Tuesday’s ruling with frothing hostility. The prime minister warned that night that Britain may withdraw from European Convention on Human Rights. A Downing Street press spokesperson confirmed Wednesday, “We are keeping all options on the table including any further legal reforms that may be necessary.”

That this is considered is a milestone in the British ruling class’s rapid dispensing of democratic norms and repudiation of international law. The European Convention on Human Rights was set-up after the Second World War on the initiative of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who envisaged a “Charter of Human Rights”. Established by the Council of Europe—a body founded in London—it was drafted mainly by British lawyers, with the Financial Times noting this week that they “based it on the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Signed in Rome on November 4, 1950, Britain was the first signatory to the Convention, which came into force on September 3, 1953. Its governing court was established January 21, 1959.

After announcing the Rwanda deportation policy in April, Johnson told the Daily Mail in May—in an intervention designed to throw “red meat” policies to his right-wing base and shore up his leadership—that 50 people had been given “notices of intent” to be flown to the East African country within two weeks. Johnson pledged then that the government would “dig in for the fight… We’ve got a huge flowchart of things we have to do to deal with… the Leftie lawyers.”

As it became clear on Monday that a number of those served with notices had successfully challenged their removal orders, leading Tory Brexiteer Peter Bone said in Parliament, “We hear that a number of the people who were to be on the flight to Rwanda tomorrow have somehow—miraculously—got some leftie lawyer to intervene and stop it. May I suggest… that instead of booking 50 people on to each flight to Rwanda, he books 250 people so that, when half the people are stopped from travelling, we would still have a full flight? Come on—get on and send them.”

The response to the ruling has been even more demented. On the WhatsApp group of “Common Sense Conservatives”, which represents at least 72 backbench right-wingers, one message immediately following the ECHR intervention read, “It’s time we kicked these bastards into touch. For once I won’t apologise for my French.”

Speaking in Parliament Wednesday, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the next flight to Rwanda was already being planned and that the government “will not be put off by the inevitable last-minute legal challenges, and nor will we allow mobs to block removals.” She attacked the “opaque nature” of the ECHR ruling made by an “out-of-hours judge in… Strasbourg”. Patel proclaimed the ECHR had not declared the Rwanda policy illegal, concealing the fact it has required to the government to prove the legality of its policy before any flights can be allowed.

A swathe of Tory MPs are calling for the government to just ignore the ruling with one telling the Mail that “ECHR decisions, unlike the European Court of Justice, do not have direct effect so can simply be overridden. 

“When our own courts accept something is legal we should not allow an oddly constituted international court to overrule the democratic process. We should assert Parliamentary sovereignty.”

Among those making this demand is the Tory’s Daily Telegraph house organ. It warned in Wednesday’s editorial that “Boris Johnson’s flagship migration policy risks becoming a fiasco”, concluding “It is all very well blaming the lawyers, but if there are legal impediments to the proper operation of ministers’ desired approach, including the role of overseas courts, the Government has it within its power to address them. Perhaps it ought to do so…”

Johnson is already planning to ditch the 1998 Human Rights Act, which requires UK courts to “take account” of ECHR rulings and case law. It would be replaced by a Bill of Rights scrapping this requirement.

Johnson and Patel can carry out their agenda because its faces no opposition in principle in parliament. The initial response of Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper to the ECHR ruling was a complaint that the government’s policy “isn’t workable” and “won’t tackle criminal gangs”—a line that Patel herself has used to justify the policy. The policy was also too expensive, she said, as “they still paid Rwanda £120m and hired a jet that hasn’t taken off”. Cooper told MPs on Wednesday that the Rwanda flight “shambles” was “putting our country to shame”.

Even such carefully limited opposition is raised only to gloss over the fact that Labour has no real differences with the Tories’ anti-immigration agenda. The Mail trumpeted that “while Ms Cooper was on her feet, a spokesman for [Labour leader] Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly refused to confirm it would scrap the hardline policy if the party won the next election.”

In the population, however, there is massive opposition to the Rwanda policy and scapegoating of immigrants and asylum seekers generally. Patel’s denunciation of “mobs” who “block removals” was an angry reference to the hundreds of people who protested in Peckham, south London only last Saturday, gathering in the street to block a police van attempting to take away a man arrested in an immigration raid. This is the third such spontaneous event in the space of a year after another in Hackney, London last month and an earlier popular intervention in Glasgow.

Germany’s Supreme Court strengthens far-right Alternative for Germany

Peter Schwarz

On Wednesday, Germany’s Supreme Court handed down a ruling in favour of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) that amounts to a carte blanche for future government participation by the far-right party.

The AfD had sued then-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU, Christian Democratic Union) for publicly criticising the election of Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) politician Thomas Kemmerich as Thuringia’s state premier with the help of the AfD’s votes in February 2020.

Kemmerich, whose party had only five seats in the state parliament, was elected state premier of the eastern German state on February 5, 2020 by a three-party alliance of AfD, CDU and FDP in a surprise coup. Of the 45 votes for Kemmerich, 22 came from the AfD, which is led in Thuringia by neo-Nazi Björn Höcke.

Scene from the Thuringia parliament: Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) front left); behind him, Björn Höcke of the neo-Nazi AfD; on the far right, Left Party leader Bodo Ramelow. (Source Sandro Halank/Wikimedia)

For the first time since the end of the Third Reich, a prime minister was thus elected in a German state with the votes of a right-wing, fascist party. This triggered a storm of indignation nationwide and internationally. Merkel, who was on a foreign trip to South Africa, felt compelled to react publicly.

At a press conference with the South African president, she condemned Kemmerich’s election in a “preliminary remark for domestic political reasons.” She spoke of a “unique event” that had broken with the basic convictions of the CDU and of herself “that no majorities are to be won with the help of the AfD.” This was “unforgivable” and had to be “reversed.” His election was “a bad day for democracy.”

Three days later, Kemmerich resigned after the Thuringia CDU and the federal FDP, which had originally supported his election, withdrew their support.

Now, at the request of the AfD, the Supreme Court has ruled that Merkel’s public statement and its publication on the Chancellery’s official website violated the “right to equal opportunities for political parties” enshrined in Article 21 of the constitution. It ordered the state to reimburse the AfD for its legal costs.

Formally, the court justified its ruling in favour of the AfD on the grounds that Merkel had made her statements “in an official capacity” and not as a CDU politician or private individual. State organs—and thus also ministers and chancellors—were obliged to observe “neutrality in the political battle of opinions” and may not use “the means and opportunities associated with the office of government” for political purposes.

“Accordingly, a statement by a federal minister taking sides in the political battle of opinions violates the principle of equal opportunity of the parties and violates the integrity of the free and open process of the formation of political objectives from the people to the organs of the state,” reads the official press release explaining the ruling.

But this is legal hair-splitting, as is evident from a minority opinion by Judge Astrid Wallrabenstein. Wallrabenstein is one of three members of the eight-member Second Senate of the Supreme Court who did not support the ruling—a conflict of opinion that is rather unusual in the history of the court.

Wallrabenstein points out that government work in a party democracy is always shaped by party politics. The danger that the process of forming political objectives could be undermined is “justified precisely by the appearance of neutrality of government action.” A duty of neutrality existed only in the use of state resources, but not “in the self-representation of government activity.”

If one reads the reasoning of the judgement more closely, it becomes clear that the majority of the court meant to give carte blanche to the AfD. The ruling explicitly accuses Merkel of ruling out government alliances with the far-right party—at least for the time being.

Thus, the official press release on the ruling states that Merkel’s statement contains “negative qualifications” of the AfD. It was “not limited to an assessment of the election of the Thuringia state premier and the behaviour of the CDU members of the state parliament in this regard,” but also contained “a fundamental statement on how to deal with the applicant [the AfD] and on its position in the democratic spectrum.”

“The statement that the prime ministerial election broke with the ‘basic conviction’ that no majorities could be formed with ‘the AfD,’” the court said, “qualifies the applicant overall as a party with which any (parliamentary) cooperation is ruled out from the outset.” This assessment is reinforced by the fact that Merkel “described the process as ‘unforgivable’ and demanded that its outcome be reversed.”

And further: “By finally stating that the prime ministerial election in Thuringia was ‘a bad day for democracy,’ she made it clear that she considers the applicant’s [the AfD’s] participation in the formation of parliamentary majorities to be generally detrimental to democracy, and implicitly made an overall negative value judgement about the applicant’s ability to form coalitions and cooperate in the democratic polity.”

This was an “encroachment on the right to equal participation in the process of political decision-making.” Merkel had thus “exceeded the substantive limits of her authority to express herself, as stipulated by the neutrality requirement.” She had “taken sides against the AfD by excluding it from the circle of parties capable of forming coalitions and cooperating in the democratic spectrum.”

These words leave nothing to be desired in terms of clarity. A politician who, in an official capacity, speaks out against cooperation with a party that trivialises the Nazi dictatorship, stirs up xenophobia and is linked to a dense network of violent neo-Nazis is violating the constitution!

The Supreme Court goes even further. It concedes that in certain cases—if the “ability to act and stability of the federal government” or the “reputation of and confidence in the Federal Republic of Germany in the community of states” were threatened—the neutrality requirement does not apply. The Court added, this was not the case when Kemmerich was elected with the votes of the AfD.

The stability of the federal government, at that time a grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD, had not been threatened because the Thuringian CDU’s closing of ranks with the right-wing extremists had already been condemned by other CDU politicians, such as the then party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the ruling found. And “that the election of the Minister President in Thuringia was capable of shaking the reputation of or confidence in the Federal Republic of Germany to a relevant extent, limiting its ability to act in foreign policy, was not evident,” the court states succinctly.

The WSWS has shown for years that the AfD owed its rise primarily to the policies of the other establishment parties and support from the state apparatus. It was the policy of social cuts and anti-immigration clamp-downs, pursued by all parties from the FDP to the Left Party, that made the AfD strong in the first place. The then head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (as Germany’s secret service is called), Hans-Georg Maassen, advised the AfD in private talks on how to avoid coming under surveillance by the agency.

When the AfD entered the Bundestag (federal parliament) in autumn 2017 with 92 deputies, all the other parties worked with it. By joining the grand coalition, the SPD made the AfD leader of the opposition for a legislative period. It was represented in all parliamentary committees and in this way was systematically integrated into the work of government.

After Kemmerich’s election as Minister President of Thuringia, the WSWS wrote, “The decision of the two parties [CDU and FDP] to form a ruling majority with the aid of the AfD is a historic turning point. It confirms that the ruling class in Germany is once again resorting to fascistic and authoritarian methods to implement its policies of social inequality and militarism in the face of broad popular opposition.”

Meanwhile, the AfD is in deep crisis. It has massively lost votes in the last three state elections. In Schleswig-Holstein, it has even been kicked out of a state parliament for the first time. Thousands of members have left, including long-time co-chair Jörg Meuthen. The fascist wing around Björn Höcke increasingly dominates the party.

Against this background, the ruling by the Supreme Court is an attempt to give the neo-Nazi party a new boost. AfD leader Tino Chrupalla, himself a representative of its far-right wing, cheered, “It’s a good day for democracy.” Merkel, he said, had blatantly violated the AfD’s rights and the constitution with her remarks.

The AfD is needed by the ruling class to counter the growing radicalisation of workers and young people against militarism, war and the consequences of inflation and social cuts, and to intimidate the working class.

Heat wave affecting 100 million people as extreme weather extends across United States

Bryan Dyne

One million people in the US Midwest, South and Southwest are currently suffering under a sweltering heat wave, one of the many extreme weather events that have happened across the country in the past few days. The National Weather Service has issued various heat advisories for cities and regions across the country, warning of sustained temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 degrees Celsius).

In cities including Chicago and Detroit, the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning, noting that the heat index would rise to 105 degrees. In Denver, the temperature reached 100 degrees, a record for the city at this time of year, and the heat index reached 107 degrees in North Carolina. In Tucson, Arizona, temperatures reached as high as 111 degrees after warnings that the temperature could rise as high as 115 degrees.

At these temperatures, it is dangerous for anybody to be outside for any amount of time as the temperature and humidity can produce rapid heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Heat waves kill more people than any other extreme weather event every year and killed 1,577 people in the US last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 56 percent increase from 2018. There have been as of this writing no reported deaths from the ongoing heat wave.

The current extreme temperatures are up to 30 degrees above normal for this time of year, caused by a shift in the jet stream that brought an immense amount of warm air over a majority of the country. The “heat dome” began in the western part of the country at the end of last week and has since moved and expanded east and north. High temperatures are expected to persist in parts of the country for at least the rest of the week, particularly in the Southwest.

High heat and winds have also produced numerous early-season wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico and Alaska. There are currently 38 active large fires, according to the National Interagency Fire Center: six in Arizona, six in New Mexico, three in California and 23 in Alaska. Fires in the US to date have burned 2.8 million acres, nearly three times as much as they had to this date in 2021 and more than twice the average. The amount of fires and the acres burned so far this year exceed any amount in the past 10 years, including the explosive fire seasons in 2017 and 2018.

At the same time, numerous storms have ripped through many of the same areas now experiencing the heat wave. In Chicago, for example, 85 mph winds, tornado-like conditions and hail left at least 44,000 people without power on Monday. Similarly powerful storms knocked out power in Western Michigan and Ohio, leaving tens of thousands without power to cool and protect themselves from the stifling temperatures.

The storm systems also struck elsewhere in the country. One of the worst tragedies caused by these events was the death of 10-year-old Muhammad Arman bin Rashidula in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. First responders have confirmed that the child died after being swept into a drainage ditch during a flash flood on Monday. Witness reports indicate that he slipped into a drainage ditch leading into the Kinnickinnic River.

Two adults that attempted to rescue him are missing and presumed dead. According to the city’s fire department, they are the child’s father and a neighbor, who entered the river in an attempt to rescue him. All three were reportedly taken by the currents caused by the day’s heavy rains and dragged at least two miles. Search efforts by first responders and local residents are ongoing to locate the father and neighbor as water levels and strong currents have receded.

A section of Yellowstone National Park's northeast entrance road was completely washed out. (Credit: National Parks Service/Jacob W. Frank)

Record flooding has also occurred in Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming and southern Montana. Helicopter footage taken by the National Parks Service shows that high water levels eroded and collapsed many parts of the road that makes up the park’s northern entrance. Numerous bridges in the park, as well as lodging for some of the park’s hundreds of workers, were also swept away in the current.

Other roads also suffered significant damage, some from erosion and others from mud and rock slides caused by the heavy rainfall. The entire park was closed on Tuesday, and its visitors—from those visiting the main attractions, such as the Old Faithful geyser to those camping in Yellowstone’s back country—were evacuated. The park remains closed, and over the next few weeks, visitors have been warned to check updates and possibly modify their travel plans. In addition, the northern entrance will remain closed for repairs for at least the remainder of the year.

At the same time, numerous towns in southern Montana suffered massive flood damage. The unincorporated community of Gardiner, just outside Yellowstone’s northern entrance, was isolated after flooding destroyed bridges and washed out every road leading into and out of the town. While a road was cleared by crews Tuesday for local traffic and rescue crews, steady power and potable water remain a critical issue. Damage to other highways in the area also left people stranded in similar situations in Mammoth and Cooke City.

In other parts of Montana, residents were forced to evacuate as flash floods caused by warm rainfall falling on late season snowpack destroyed significant parts of Red Lodge and Livingston. And in Billings, a 500-year flooding event forced the city’s water plant to shut down, leaving the city with “between a day to a day-and-a-half of water supply,” according to the city government. It is estimated that it will be weeks, possibly months, before the areas affected will be fully restored.

There is also a possibility of further flooding. “Plan on highs in the 60s to 70s in the higher elevations [Friday and Saturday], which should melt much of the remaining snowpack and lead to additional river rises,” the National Weather Service warned Tuesday.

That so many dangerous extreme weather events have happened at the same time is a direct result of man-made climate change. The dynamics of the jet stream have been linked to global warming, which in turn creates heat domes in the summer and “polar vortexes” in the winter. The sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated that extreme weather—from wildfires, to more intense storms, flash floods and harsh winter storms—are caused by rising global average temperatures induced by capitalist industrial and agricultural activity.

As losses mount in war with Russia, US floods Ukraine with weapons

Andre Damon

With the Ukrainian military losing territory and taking hundreds of casualties every day, the United States has made clear that it will only intensify its involvement in the war.

In a press briefing Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley said the United States would provide another $1 billion in weapons to Ukraine, including additional long-range missile systems.

The two officials explained that not only are high-end US weapons systems being funneled into Ukraine, but hundreds of Ukrainian forces are being directly trained by the US.

Milley made clear that the US military is training long-range missile crews by the platoon in Germany and added, “By the end of this month, we will transfer HIMARs systems, ammunition and trained crews for operational use in the defense of Ukraine.”

U.S. Secretary for Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, left, and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley participate in a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

Explaining the significant scale of US training of Ukrainian forces, Milley said, “To date, we have trained 420 Ukrainians on the M777 howitzer, 300 Ukrainians on the self-propelled M109 [howitzer], 129 on the M113 armored personnel carrier, 100 on unmanned aerial systems, and 60 most recently graduated today on the [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System].”

Milley and Austin were speaking at a joint meeting of over 50 countries participating in the US-led war against Russia known as the Defense Contact Group.

At the news conference after the meeting, Austin said the latest weapons package would include “multiple launch rocket system munitions, 18 more 155 mm M777 towed howitzers and the tactical vehicles to tow them, and 36,000 rounds of 155 mm ammunition.”

He added, “This package also includes $650 million in Ukraine security assistance initiative funds that will help Ukraine defend itself with two additional Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems and thousands of secure radios, night vision devices, thermal sights and other optics.”

Austin said Germany would provide three multiple-launch rocket systems and guided MLRS munitions to Ukraine and that “Slovakia announced a significant donation of MI-series helicopters and urgently needed rocket ammunition.”

In the face of questions by reporters on whether US weapons shipments were sufficient to turn the tide of the war, Milley boasted that the US and its allies had delivered nearly 100,000 anti-tank systems, “That’s more than there are tanks in the world.

“They asked for 200 tanks; they got 237 tanks,” he continued. “They asked for 100 infantry fighting vehicles; they got over 300. We’ve delivered, roughly speaking, 1,600 or so air defense systems and about 60,000 air defense rounds.”

He added, “We have also provided over 1,500 Stingers, more than 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems, 20 Mi-17 and thousands of small arms and hundreds of thousands of small arms ammunition.”

But while talking up the US weapons shipments into Ukraine, the generals could not deny the objective military setbacks the US proxy conflict was experiencing. Asked by a reporter to comment on media reports that “Ukraine is taking 100 killed and 100 or 200 or 300 wounded per day,” Milley replied, “I would say those are in the ballpark of our assessments.”

Milley admitted, “In terms of artillery, they do outnumber, they out-gun and out-range.” He added, “[t]he Russians do outnumber—in terms of artillery, they outnumber the Ukrainians. The estimate varies, some say four, five, six to one, others say 10, 15 to one, others say 20 to one.”

He further acknowledged the disastrous impact of the war on the Ukrainian population, noting that, “according to public estimates, some 20,000 Ukrainians civilians have been killed,” and that 7 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced with 6 million made refugees.

The US announcement of more weapon deliveries and military training for Ukraine came after a series of warnings of the setbacks facing the war effort. 

In a front-page article entitled “A Link to Besieged Ukrainians Is Cut, as Allies Question Strategy” by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt, the New York Times wrote, “Ukraine has been largely reduced to harrying the better-equipped invader, making each patch of ground as bloody for it to win as possible, but failing in recent weeks to secure any decisive victories, and losing many of its own soldiers and citizens in the process.

“Some Western officials say Mr. Zelensky may not have a viable strategy to win the war. The Ukrainians have had some success fighting at relatively close ranges, and the Russians have countered by relying on their immense advantage in longer-range artillery and missiles, pounding cities and towns to rubble before sending in troops.

“But a war of attrition—Ukraine has been losing as many as 200 soldiers a day in the fighting—favors Russia for the simple reason that it has more soldiers to lose. … [t]he remarkable initial unity in response to Russia’s invasion seems to be fraying among the Western allies who have shipped weapons to Ukraine and imposed a broad array of financial sanctions on Russia.”

Despite such warnings, the United States is stepping up its involvement in the war, with no end in sight, at a massive cost to the American population and Ukrainian and Russian lives.

And media pundits continue to demand further escalation. In a column entitled “Five Blunt Truths About the War in Ukraine,” Times columnist Bret Stephens demanded that the United States take “calculated risks,” including, “to challenge the Russian maritime blockade of Odesa by escorting cargo ships to and from the port,” despite the fact that this “could result in close encounters between NATO and Russian warships,” i.e., a naval battle.

In all of these discussions among media and foreign policy pundists, US involvement in the war in Ukraine is placed within the framework of a looming US war with China. Stephens concludes, “But if the war ends with Putin comfortably in power and Russia in possession of a fifth of Ukraine, then Beijing will draw the lesson that aggression works. And we will have a fight over Taiwan—with its overwhelming human and economic toll—much sooner than we think.”

A column in the Wall Street Journal made exactly the same point: “If Ukraine is ultimately defeated, the lesson for America’s adversaries, China most important, will be clear: If you stick with it over the long term, the U.S. won’t take the tough, costly measures required to win.”

In other words, the United States has massively invested not only money and weapons but also its political and military credibility against other adversaries in the outcome of the proxy war in Ukraine with Russia. Every military setback by Ukraine’s army and paramilitary forces on the battlefield only intensifies pressure for greater and more direct US military involvement, making the situation all the more dangerous.

Fed hikes interest rate to crush wage demands

Nick Beams

The US Federal Reserve has raised its base interest rate by 0.75 percentage points (75 basis points) with the aim of hitting wage demands by workers battling against the highest inflation in four decades.

The increase was in line with market expectations following an article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, based on a leak, that the large hike was under consideration after it had been specifically ruled out at the Fed’s previous meeting of its policy-making committee in May.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Thursday, March 3, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Tom Williams, Pool via AP)

In his opening remarks to the press conference at the conclusion of the two-day Fed meeting yesterday, chair Jerome Powell sought to give the impression the central bank was in control despite the about turn.

He said the Fed understood the hardship high inflation was causing and was moving expeditiously to bring it back down. “We have both the tools we need and the resolve it will take to restore price stability on behalf of American families and businesses.”

But this assertion was contradicted in the statement of the Federal Open Market Committee announcing the monetary policy. It removed a sentence in the May statement which said officials expected inflation to return to 2 percent and the labour market would remain strong as it increased interest rates.

Asked about the excision, Powell said it reflected the sense that the Fed could not reduce inflation to 2 percent by itself and was not accurate.

This admission served to highlight that the Fed’s latest decision is not about reducing inflation—the result of supply side constrictions flowing from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pumping of trillions of dollars into the financial system over the past decade and a half and the NATO proxy war against Russia—but is aimed at suppressing wage demands.

Powell repeated remarks, made on many previous occasions, that the labour market was “very tight.”

He indicated that the impetus for the decision to lift rates by 75 basis points—the biggest single hike since 1994—resulted from two reports at the end of last week.

The confidence survey compiled by the University of Michigan indicated consumer sentiment had fallen to its lowest level on record on the back of concerns inflation was becoming anchored and the report last Friday it had jumped to 8.6 percent in May.

The decision, comments by Powell, and projections by Fed officials on growth rates make it clear the central bank intends to try to crush this movement by slowing economic growth and pushing the economy into a recession if that proves necessary.

When inflation began to rise in 2021, Powell and other Fed officials maintained it was “transitory.” Now this fiction is being replaced by one equally as bogus, that there is the possibility of a so-called “soft landing.”

But, as former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has insisted, interest rates are a blunt instrument, and incapable producing a smooth glide path.

Even Powell was forced to backtrack somewhat, saying the path to a soft landing without a recession “is not getting any easier” as it was becoming clear that “many factors that we don’t control are going to play a very significant role in deciding whether it’s possible or not.”

But the use of the blunt instrument of interest rate hikes had to continue regardless.

“The worst mistake we can make would be to fail, which is not an option. We have to restore price stability,” he said.

That is, wages are the key target and, as Powell put in his opening statement, “supply and demand conditions in the labour market” need to “come into better balance.”

He noted that at present there were two job vacancies for every person seeking employment and the goal was to restore the conditions prior to the pandemic. This was a situation in which real wages were in continual decline.

There are already indications of lower growth. Powell noted that growth in fixed business investment is slowing and “activity in the housing sector looks to be softening.” He maintained that consumer spending remained strong, but the latest reports indicate that retail sales are starting to move down because consumers have less disposable income to spend in the face of the rising costs of gasoline and other essential items.

In their projections on the economy, Fed officials forecast lower growth. Their median prediction was for growth to slow to 1.7 percent by the end of this year and to stay at that level in 2023. This compares with their previous forecast in March of 2 percent growth over the next two years.

Projections by officials on interest rates—the so-called “dot plot”—reveal a sharp rise in the Fed rate.

The median projection would lift the Fed’s base rate to around 3.38 percent by the end of year, meaning there will be further increases totaling 1.75 percentage points over the next four meetings. Back in March, the projection for the end of the year was for a base rate of around 1.88 percent. Officials also expect the unemployment rate to rise from its present level of 3.6 percent to 4.1 percent by 2024.

Announcing the decision, Powell said he did not expect moves of this size to be common and added that the decision at the Fed’s July meeting “could well be about a decision between 50 and 75” basis points.

This was intended as a reassurance to the markets that rises as high as a full 1 percentage point, which have been mooted in some quarters, were not under consideration. Wall Street duly responded with all three major indexes—the Dow, S&P 500, and the NASDAQ—finishing up for the day.

But there was a similar response in May when Powell said a 75-basis point rise was “not something the committee was actively considering” only to fall sharply the following day.

Besides its impact in the US, the latest Fed decision will have far-reaching international ramifications, putting additional pressure on all central banks to continue and even accelerate the interest rate hikes they have already begun in response to the global inflationary upsurge.

This week, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philp Lowe, warned that more interest rate hikes were in the pipeline, following a rise of 0.5 percentage points earlier this month. It was “unclear at the moment” how much further they would need to rise to reach the target of 2 percent inflation, with Lowe forecasting that inflation could rise from its present level of 5.1 percent to 7 percent.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is also facing a series of problems. As the Fed delivered its rate hike, it held an emergency meeting seeking to counter fears that it is on the verge of another debt crisis as it begins to lift interest rates in July and stops buying more bonds.

The decision to call the meeting came only a week after the ECB’s governing council had met to set its monetary policy and was the first such gathering since the March 2020 financial crisis at the start of the pandemic.

The central concern is so-called “fragmentation” in which the interest rates on the sovereign bonds of the more indebted southern members of the euro zone move sharply above rates on German bonds.

The difference between the interest rates on Italian and Spanish bonds and German debt has risen to levels not seen since the start of the pandemic. The fear is that if this continues it will lead to a crisis for the single currency as occurred in 2012.

Announcing the meeting, the ECB said the pandemic had left “lasting vulnerabilities in the euro area economy.” It said it would speed up work on developing a new instrument to deal with the surging borrowing costs for the weaker economies but provided no detail of what that would involve.

Governments across Canada massively undercount COVID-19 deaths

Dylan Lubao

As governments of all political stripes across Canada double down on their lying claim that the pandemic is all but over, new data shows that during the first two years of the pandemic thousands of COVID-19 deaths went unrecorded.

According to official federal government figures, as of June 10, COVID-19 had killed 41,470 people in Canada, a horrific loss of life. However, data compiled by infectious disease researcher Dr. Tara Moriarty of the University of Toronto shows that from February 2020 to April 2022 Canada’s total excess deaths—that is the number of fatalities above the historic norm—reached 48,463 or some 15 percent higher than the current official pandemic death count.

Some of these excess deaths can be attributed to other factors, such as the spate of deaths due to last summer’s heat dome in BC or the resurgence of the opioid epidemic. But even once these disasters are factored in, thousands of deaths are left unaccounted for.

Dr. Moriarty stresses that her figures for excess deaths are likely an underestimate, and that in many jurisdictions it will take upwards of two years for the true extent of death to be revealed.

Every province except for Quebec—which perhaps not uncoincidentally has far and away the highest per capita number of COVID deaths—has posted widely inaccurate COVID-19 death counts. This is due to a combination of delays in reporting deaths and their causes and deliberate undercounting, with people who had an underlying condition or died of a heart attack not being tested for COVID.

For several provinces the difference between the number of excess deaths and the number of official COVID-19 deaths is several orders of magnitude.

British Columbia, for example, reported 9,913 excess deaths to the Public Health Agency of Canada during the Feb. 2020-April 2022 period , but tallied only 3,004 deaths due to COVID-19, a 60 percent discrepancy. New Brunswick had 807 excess deaths but recorded just 358 COVID deaths, a discrepancy of 55 percent. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta, and Saskatchewan total excess deaths were more than double official COVID deaths.

Dr. Moriarty’s excess death figures provide yet further evidence of the ruinous outcome of the ruling elite’s “profits-before-life” policy. Last June, a Royal Society of Canada study in which Dr. Moriarty was involved revealed that the true number of COVID-19 deaths between February 1 and November 28, 2020, was underreported by a staggering two-thirds.

The reality is that governments across the country—whether headed by the supposedly “progressive” federal Liberals in Ottawa and the New Democratic Party in BC, or the hard-right Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, the UCP in Alberta and the Coalition Avenir Quebec—have done everything they could to conceal and downplay the severity of the pandemic.

They have done this in order to create the best conditions for implementing their homicidal “herd immunity” policies, designed to infect the entire population and guarantee that workers remain on the job to generate profits for Canada’s banks and corporations.

When the Omicron variant supplanted the Delta variant last December, these capitalist governments, with the corporate media in tow, declared it to be “mild” without a shred of evidence. A faction of the ruling elite, led by the Conservative Party, then incited and built up the far-right Freedom Convoy so as to intimidate the population into accepting the dismantling of the remaining mitigation measures. The Liberals and NDP, after invoking the never-before-used Emergencies Act to clear the far-right Convoy from Ottawa, proceeded to oversee the implementation of its far-right pandemic program in the weeks that followed.

On Tuesday, the federal Liberal government scrapped almost all remaining vaccine mandates, including for all federal employees, and air and rail travelers.

While COVID-19 has ravaged workplaces and working class communities across the country, it has been a financial bonanza for the wealthy. Fifteen new billionaires have been minted since March 2020. The country’s 59 billionaires have increased their wealth by $111 billion over the same period, as tens of thousands died, hundreds of thousands fell ill, and millions continue to suffer from runaway inflation caused in no small part by the pandemic.

The almost 50,000 deaths directly or indirectly caused by COVID-19 are only the tip of the iceberg. With over 3 million Canadians having contracted COVID-19 according to official figures, the emerging long-term impact of Long Covid is beginning to make itself known.

Long Covid, which encompasses many different symptoms and can affect any organ of the body for months or years after initial COVID-19 infection, is estimated to affect 10 to 30 percent of all those who contract the disease. This translates into at least 300,000 Canadians living with a potentially debilitating health condition, but in all likelihood hundreds of thousands more. It is becoming increasingly common for people to know someone who displays post-infection effects of COVID-19.

According to Dr. Moriarty’s estimates, 57 percent of all Canadians were infected with Omicron beginning in the winter of 2021, equaling 21.6 million people. Using the most conservative estimate, this means 2.1 million people will develop Long Covid in the months and years to come.

Common symptoms include brain fog, decreased lung function, fatigue, and digestive problems, though this is far from an exhaustive list and there may be potentially dozens of unexplained symptoms. A recent study of 94 working adults conducted at the University of Waterloo found that those who had contracted COVID-19 exhibited “significantly more” cognitive failures at work following infection.

At a recent webinar organized by COVID-19 Resources Canada, presenters spoke about the debilitating burden of Long Covid and the substantial impact it will have on the population for years to come.

Carrie Ann McGinn, a health researcher, was struck with Long Covid in December 2020. She was subsequently diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, two increasingly common byproducts of COVID-19 infection. These had a devastating effect on her professional and personal life, leaving her with a lifelong disability.

McGinn related that simple acts of daily living now use up all her energy, to the point that she is often “so exhausted [she] can only shower once a week.” She described herself as a professional and world traveler who formerly had “wind in my sails and a life full of promise,” before becoming bound to a wheelchair and her bed.

She further commented that the community of Long Covid sufferers has heard nothing but “crickets” from governments. McGinn described the failure of all levels of government to take action to warn the public about Long Covid and provide medical care to those stricken by it as “nothing short of an ignored public health crisis.”

Far from addressing this pandemic within a pandemic, not a single government in the country has dedicated adequate funding to even doing basic research on a condition whose ever growing prevalence they are responsible for via their policies of mass infection.

Rather, they are focused on imposing ruthless austerity on workers to pay for the $650 billion in public funds funneled to the banks and big business at the start of the pandemic, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry they are now sending to the far-right Ukrainian military. No government at any level has even attempted to provide workers with protection against the new SARS-CoV-2 variants and pandemic surges just over the horizon.

The Tory government in Ontario has just removed mask mandates on public transport and in hospitals under conditions where they know that even more transmissible Omircon variants are now circulating. This all but guarantees that in the coming months there will be a resurgence of the pandemic, including within the very hospitals that are supposed to be the first line of defence against serious disease and death.

During the recent Ontario election campaign none of the parties even bothered to address the pandemic, the single greatest health crisis in over a century.

Opposition to these herd immunity policies is strong among broad sections of the working population. However, the trade unions’ systematic suppression of all workers’ struggles aimed at securing improved protections against infection and better working conditions has left opponents of the ruling elite’s policy of mass infection increasingly isolated.

Legal challenges to the dropping of all public health measures have been filed by individuals across the country. In New Brunswick, concerned parent and disability advocate Jessica Bleasdale has filed legal complaints against the province’s Progressive Conservative government, arguing that their herd immunity policies discriminate against her immunocompromised child, who cannot learn safely at school without mask mandates and other protections in place. Although her challenges were endorsed by the province’s Child and Youth Advocate, the provincial government has dismissed them out of hand.

In British Columbia, Lena Patsa, an engineer and university instructor, has filed a class action complaint with the province’s Human Rights Tribunal over Fraser Health’s refusal to allow hospital patients and visitors to use N95 respirators. In response, the health authority, taking its cue from the NDP government, resorted to the threadbare argument that “poorly-fitted” respirators would be a medical and legal liability.

An ongoing case in Alberta filed by the Alberta Federation of Labour and the parents of five immunocompromised children to overturn the dismantling of public health measures has forced the province’s United Conservative Party government to disclose data showing that school boards without mask mandates at the start of the 2021 school year suffered on average three times more outbreaks than those with mandates.

Ukrainian official admits to at least 100 to 200 military deaths a day

Jason Melanovski

In a bid to acquire even more military equipment from NATO member countries, an advisor to the Office of President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that Ukrainian Forces are losing approximately between 100 and 200 soldiers per day.

Senior Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak made the revelation while speaking with BBC last week. At the same time, Podolyak admitted Ukraine was completely outgunned by Russian artillery in the Donbass region and urged the West to send between 150 and 300 rocket launchers.

“Our demands for artillery are not just some kind of whim... but an objective need when it comes to the situation on the battlefield,” Podolyak stated, revealing the disadvantageous position of Kiev are in now that Russian Forces have concentrated on taking the entire Donbass region in Eastern Ukraine.

Podolyak’s estimations of Ukrainian casualties are even higher than those of Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov who admitted last Thursday that Ukraine was losing up to 100 soldiers a day, along with 500 more injured.

In the same week, Oleksiy Arestovych, another adviser to President Zelensky known for making revelatory statements, also told the Guardian that “up to 150 troops a day were being killed and 800 wounded.”

On Saturday, the Washington Post cited Arestovych as stating that 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the start of the war.

Previously, Ukrainian casualty figures were a highly-guarded secret with officials refusing to disclose the full extent of Ukrainian losses. In contrast, Ukraine has continued to publish nearly daily totals of estimated Russian casualties, which are most certainly overestimations made for propaganda purposes.

Extrapolating from even the minimum numbers given by Podolyak, Reznikov and Arestovych, at least 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers are killed each month, with over 15,000 injured. And even these are likely underestimations, aimed at concealing the full scope of the devastation in Ukraine.

Ukraine currently claims that Russia has lost 32,500 soldiers in the war. In March, Russia admitted to just 1,300 killed, while several current Western reports are much higher, though below Ukrainian estimates.

Whatever the true number, it is clear that tens of thousands of soldiers have already died on both sides along with tens of thousands more suffering life-long injuries that will affect both countries for decades to come.

Such numbers are the totally predictable disastrous consequences of Russia’s invasion on February 24 after months and years of deliberate provocations by NATO and its proxy, Kiev.

Testifying to the criminal nature of the Kiev government, the revelations of the staggering death toll of the conflict were made only as part of a PR campaign to obtain even more military aid and continue a war with nuclear-armed Russia.

In addition to massive casualties in the course of the war, there are currently 5,600 Ukrainian soldiers in Russian captivity, 2,500 of them from the recently captured city of Mariupol.

The revelations came as the momentum in the war over the Donbass has swung against Kiev, with Ukrainian forces continuing to lose territory over the past week.

Fighting has centered around the industrial city of Sieverodonetsk, with the city changing hands  already several times. Ukrainian forces have been attempting to hold onto the strategically important city at the urging of President Zelensky despite the risk of encirclement.

With the bridges out of the city destroyed, the remaining Ukrainian soldiers are effectively stranded in Russian territory. As they had previously done in Mariupol, Ukrainian forces have retreated to an industrial plant, the Azot Chemical Plant, along with civilians. Russian forces are calling for the remaining Ukrainian soldiers to surrender by Wednesday this week.

With control of Sieverodonetsk, Russian forces will be able to attempt to cross the Siverskyi Donets river and then from there move towards establishing control over the entire Lugansk province, one of two provinces making up the Donbass region along with Donetsk.

A “senior U.S. defense official” told the Washington Post on Saturday that Russia was likely to seize control of the entire Lugansk province in the coming weeks.

Russia has already claimed that it is close to establishing control over all of Lugansk province, which it recognized as an independent republic just prior to the invasion of Ukraine. 

The losses by Ukrainian forces prompted a snap meeting by NATO defense ministers on Wednesday. In addition to the NATO member defense ministers, Ukrainian officials and those of partners, like the European Union, Sweden, Finland, Georgia and Moldova were also present, and the US announced further weapons deliveries to the Ukrainian army.

In a systematic attempt to weaken Russia and drag out the war, the United States has already provided $4.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, including 108 howitzers, 26,500 Javelin missiles and 1,400 Stinger missiles. In May, US Congress approved $40 billion in assistance, including $20 billion more in military aid.

Despite the mounting losses, Ukrainian officials have shown no interest whatsoever in continuing negotiations to end the war with Russia that is not only devastating Ukraine but also spurring worldwide inflation and food shortages.

Podolyak and the head of Zelensky’s office, Andriy Yermak, have said in recent weeks that despite overtures from Moscow and anxiety within NATO, no negotiations will take place until Russia withdraws its forces to pre-invasion borders. 

Ukrainian officials are well aware that such a scenario would signify an effective surrender by Moscow and will never take place without substantial concessions by Kiev, or after a regime change in Moscow.

Despite their pledges to keep fighting until the last Ukrainian, soldiers themselves have demonstrated in recent weeks they are not so eager to sacrifice their own lives in the war. 

According to a recent report in the Independent, “cases of desertion are growing every week” among Ukrainian forces. The report also stated that Ukrainian forces are outmanned “20 to 1 in artillery and 40 to 1 in ammunition.” The report, furthermore, indicated that Russian artillery is capable of attacking from 12 times the distance of its Ukrainian counterparts, putting Ukrainian artillery troops at a much higher risk of death.

In the past month, several Ukrainian units have taken to Telegram to complain about poor supplies and command, warning the Ukrainian government they are fed up with the conditions they continue to face under obviously superior Russian artillery.

On May 24, volunteers from the 115th Brigade 3rd Battalion posted a video to Telegram which stated, “We are being sent to certain death,” and cited similar videos posted by members of the 115th Brigade 1st Battalion. “We are not alone like this, we are many,” the Ukrainian volunteer added. 

Russia likewise has faced opposition to the war among its forces, according to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal.

Mikhail Benyash, a Russian lawyer representing soldiers looking to avoid the war, told the Journal he had received requests for legal assistance from more than 1,000 Russian service members. “So many people don't want to fight,”  Benyash said.

While reports of Russian desertions are regularly published in the Western and Ukrainian media, reports of Ukrainian deserters are highly censored to avoid anti-war sentiment spreading among soldiers.

As Serhi Lapko, a Ukrainian company commander stationed in Donbass, recently told the Washington Post, “On Ukrainian TV we see that there are no losses,” Lapko said. “There’s no truth.”