Cabinet resignations seek ouster of Boris Johnson

Chris Marsden

Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid quit their ministerial roles today to force out Boris Johnson as prime minister.

The move comes from two senior cabinet members at various times advanced as leadership challengers. The immediate reason cited is Johnson’s appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip in February this year, despite Johnson knowing of sexual misconduct allegations against him. But it brings to a new pitch the civil war within the Conservative party after months of scandal over drinks parties during lockdowns that have led to the Tories haemorrhaging support even in their heartlands.

Sajid Javid said in his statement that the British people “rightly expect integrity from their government,” declaring that the electorate no longer viewed the government as either “popular” or “competent in acting in the national interest… The vote of confidence last month showed that a large number of our colleagues agree.”

Sunak announced his resignation within half an hour on Twitter, in almost identical terms, writing, “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.”

These resignations alone--and half a dozen more have followed though not yet at ministerial level--make it difficult for Johnson to continue in office. More cabinet ministers will resign and Johnson “will be shown the door”, said Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson pauses during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, in London, Monday April 5, 2021. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP)

The Pincher scandal has been made worse by proving once again that Johnson is a compulsive and serial liar.

On 5 November 2017, Pincher resigned as an Assistant Whip and referred himself to the party’s complaints procedure and the police, after being accused of sexual assault by former Olympic rower and Conservative candidate Alex Story. He was also accused of “touching up” former Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop but was found to have not breached the code of conduct.

Pincher was finally forced to resign as Deputy Chief Whip on June 30 after admitting to groping two men while drunk at the Carlton private members’ club, a Tory haunt. Other allegations have since emerged.

Johnson was reportedly so aware of Pincher’s behaviour that he called him “handsy”, with the prime minister’s arch enemy Dominic Cummings saying that he joked, “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” in 2020.

But Johnson once again tried to brazen things out at the expense of his MPs. On July 1, Number 10 said Johnson had not been aware of any “specific allegations” against Pincher before appointing him. Pincher was suspended two days later. Leading allies continued to claim until July 4 that Johnson was ignorant of the specific allegations, but that day his official spokesperson said he knew of previous “allegations… that were either resolved or did not progress to a formal complaint” but “it was deemed not appropriate to stop an appointment simply because of unsubstantiated allegations”.

Johnson, through Paymaster General Michael Ellis, was finally forced to admit yesterday to being briefed on previous allegations, while claiming he could not “recall this” after the latest allegations emerged and “bitterly regrets” not acting on the information. He admitted, “About three years ago there was a complaint made against Chris Pincher in the Foreign Office… I was briefed on what had happened and if I had my time again I’d think back on it and I’d realise he wasn't going to learn a lesson and he wasn’t going to change.” In hindsight, he said, giving Pincher a government role as deputy chief whip “was the wrong thing to do”. In a BBC interview, Johnson blamed his own team for “saying things on my behalf or trying to say things about what I did or didn’t know.”

It is highly likely that this latest scandal could tip the balance of forces against Johnson, although that could still take time. During a cabinet meeting earlier, photographers and reporters were let in. Sebastian Payne, Whitehall editor of the Financial Times, said “You could see the faces of [Johnson allies] Jacob Rees Mogg, Nadine Dorries... they were looking stony. Their personal reputations have taken the hit, as well as the prime minister and as well as the rest of the government.” Warning of a domino effect of any prominent resignation before Javid and Sunak acted, he added, “I think eventually the rules of political gravity do kick in.”

The former head of the Civil Service Lord Kerslake said it was “inconceivable” that those around the PM were also unaware of the sexual misconduct claims. He endorsed a letter sent to Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone from former Foreign Office official and bitter enemy of Johnson, Sir Simon [Lord] McDonald, saying, “The original No 10 line is not true and the modification is still not accurate.”

Leading backbencher Sir Roger Gale used the same letter to insist that the Conservatives need to change their rules to allow a fresh vote of confidence in Johnson to go ahead. Under the existing rules of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, Johnson’s surviving a no-confidence vote last month should give him a year’s grace before another can be called. But moves are already underway to change the composition of the committee’s executive in upcoming elections.

The latest scandal has prompted Sir Keir Starmer to call variously for a change in government and for Tory MPs to act in the national interest and remove him, and a call for a general election from Blairite chair of the Commons Standards Committee Chris Bryant.

This raises essential issues for workers.

Johnson’s opponents are demanding even tougher measures against the working class under conditions of the deepest crisis facing British and world capitalism since the 1930s. In his own resignation letter, Sunak indicated his latest disagreement with Johnson was over how far to go in imposing austerity against the working class. “[O]ur country is facing immense challenges. I publicly believe the public are ready to hear that truth,” he wrote. “Our people know that if something is too good to be true then it’s not true. They need to know that whilst there is a path to a better future, it is not an easy one. In preparation for our proposed joint speech on the economy next week, it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different.”

Likewise, the Labour Party is most concerned with proving to the ruling elite that it will do nothing to endanger the “national interest”—a code word for supporting savage attacks on workers and the looting of the economy by the major corporations, suppressing strikes, eviscerating democratic rights and waging war against Russia and China.

German government funds its war spending by increasing health insurance contributions

Marianne Arens

Germany’s Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD), plans to recoup a health insurance deficit of at least €17 billion next year by increasing contributions from ordinary insurers and plundering health insurance reserves. In announcing his plans the minister explicitly referred to the Ukraine war.

Two months ago, the WSWS described the federal budget as a “declaration of war on the people” after the government decided to triple overall military spending and award the German army (Bundeswehr) a “special fund” of €100 billion. We wrote: “The cost of the rearmament will be borne by the working class in every respect.”

This analysis has now been confirmed. Lauterbach is no longer prepared to fill the health insurance deficit via state subsidies as has been done in the past. Instead, he is demanding increased contributions from the large majority of the population who are unable to afford private insurance. In doing so, the health minister directly affirmed the intent of the ruling “traffic light” (SPD, Greens, Free Democratic Party) coalition to comply with the debt brake mechanism (i.e., no new loans) in the 2023 federal budget.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) during a press conference on 14 January 2022 (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

When Lauterbach appeared before the press on Tuesday, June 28, he repeatedly thanked Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) for “the good cooperation and consensual result.” He reported that the finance minister had taken care “we do not end up with proposals that violate the debt brake, that would necessitate tax increases or would require a supplementary budget ... I expressly share all three objectives of the Federal Finance Minister.'

The anticipated €17 billion health insurance deficit for 2023 is probably an underestimate. Other forecasts assume a sum of €25 billion. The BILD newspaper published this figure from the Institute for Health Economics (IfG) in Munich together with its explanation that the estimate of €17 billion “does not yet include the war in Ukraine and its consequences.” Additional deficits amounting to billions of euros are also expected for unemployment insurance and care for the elderly insurance.

In order to plug the financial hole in the health insurance funds, contribution increases from blue- and white-collar workers are expected to raise €5 billion. In addition, insurance reserves will also be plundered. Lauterbach explained that the various health insurance companies and their joint health fund have a combined €6.4 billion in reserve that could be used to help cover the deficit. “We are in the middle of the Ukraine war,” the minister stressed. “All the reserves in the funds must be called upon.”

Up until now the deficit has been absorbed by federal subsidies, which amounted most recently to €14 billion—but “this would not apply next year!” the minister said. According to Lauterbach, there will be a tax subsidy of just €2 billion and a federal loan of €1 billion. The minister plans to raise another €3 billion from “efficiency improvements,” without giving any further information.

According to Lauterbach: “It will be a difficult autumn. Pandemic-related. We will have to fight the Ukraine war. We will have difficulties providing the tax-based funding we need in other areas.” In response to a journalist’s question as to whether the increase in contributions was the end of the story or whether there would be more cuts, Lauterbach replied: “A lot will depend on how the Ukraine war continues.”

The increased contribution rates will raise health insurance contributions to a record high. Public insurance companies have about 57 million members and insure 73 million people: blue- and white-collar workers, family members, pensioners and the unemployed. The planned additional contribution is currently 1.3 percent but will be increased by 0.3 percent to 1.6 percent. As the name suggests, the new increase is levied in addition to the general health insurance contribution, which stands at a maximum of 14.6 percent.

At 16.2 percent in future, this amount will be higher than ever before. It is true that the respective employer contributes to the insurance on a pro-rata basis. Nevertheless, depending on the tax bracket, total tax and insurance contributions can now amount to 40 percent of gross wages. This means that from a gross wage of €2,000 net, a sum of just €1,200 is left to live on.

On Tuesday, Lauterbach announced he would levy a one-time “solidarity levy” on the pharmaceutical industry, “which has earned a great deal in the pandemic,” and thereby raise another billion euros. The minister also claimed there would be “no cuts in benefits in health care” but his attempts to create an appearance of social equity are risible and completely implausible.

In reality, the country has long since been plagued by a major nursing emergency. In Germany, along with the rest of the world, nurses and other health workers are struggling with overbearing workloads, exhausting working conditions, the threat of coronavirus infection, and a drop in living standards due to inflation. An indefinite strike at university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia has been going on for more than two months. In this situation, the ministerial promise that services will not worsen amounts to a slap in the face of all nursing staff.

Less than a week earlier, on June 22, Lauterbach promised health care workers protesting at the Health Ministers Conference that a new Care Relief Act would come “before the summer break.” The law will “put an end to financial shortages in hospitals” through minimum requirements in departments, declared Petra Grimm-Benne (also SPD), health minister in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and the chair of the conference of health ministers. Sylvia Bühler, a member of the Verdi service trade union executive, praised “a big step forward.”

The opposite is the case. Lauterbach is simply acting according to the motto: “Who cares about what I said yesterday.” As the WSWS noted when he took office, Lauterbach “always gives the profit interests of capital the benefit of the doubt over his scientific findings” and/or his hypocritical social commitment.

On the coronavirus issue, it is significant that the first decision of the government when Lauterbach joined was to abolish the “national epidemic emergency.” Lauterbach voted in favour of this decision, which decreed the end of pandemic-related lockdowns and led to a mass resurgence of infections.

During the period in power of the last SPD-Green government and afterwards, Lauterbach played a key role in the dismantling of social systems and the privatisation of hospitals. He was involved in the development of the fee-per-case system, which nurses oppose so vehemently today. For 12 years he sat on the supervisory board of Rhön-Klinikum AG, which made the headlines due to its abysmal treatment of nursing staff. When the Bertelsmann Foundation called for mass hospital closures, Lauterbach tweeted in June 2019: “Everyone knows we should close at least every third, in fact every second clinic, in Germany.”

Just a few days ago, Lauterbach ordered the existing system of free coronavirus tests be abolished—while at the same time admitting to journalist Eckart von Hirschhausen that Long COVID causes organic damage and is equivalent to an “untreated widespread disease.”

With his announcement that the government will no longer pay the deficit of the health insurance funds due to the Ukraine war, the health minister has confirmed the necessity on the part of health workers struggling for decent working conditions to withdraw Verdi’s negotiating mandate and join forces internationally in independent action committees.

Verdi, like all other unions, is fully on the side of the government. Its officials are members of the ruling parties and support government policy, which basically gives priority to profits over health. That is why conditions in nursing were unbearable even before the pandemic. And as the Action Committee for Nursing writes in its call for the strike in NRW, “The private and public hospital operators are also benefiting from this intolerable situation! Every understaffed shift, every mental and physical breakdown of colleagues due to overwork and every under-resourced patient helps their coffers grow!”

German government, employers and unions join in a “Concerted Action”

Peter Schwarz

On Monday afternoon, the participants of “Concerted Action” met for the first time in the German Chancellery. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) had invited eight representatives of the trade unions, eight from the business associations, the president of the Bundesbank and a member of the Economic Experts Council to discuss reactions to the galloping inflation. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (Liberal Democrats, FDP) also attended the meeting.

Yasmin Fahimi (German Trade Union Confederation, DGB), Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Employers' President Rainer Dulger after the Concerted Action meeting [Photo by Mediathek Bundesregierung, Screenshot] [Photo by Mediathek Bundesregierung, Screenshot]

Officially, according to the Chancellery, the aim was to “prevent or mitigate real income losses and at the same time avert the risk of a price spiral.” Scholz spoke of a “social round table of reason”: difficult problems could be solved better by working together than by working against each other.

In fact, Concerted Action is a conspiracy against the working class. Its real aim is to make working people pay for the horrendous costs of military rearmament and the consequences of the NATO offensive and the economic war against Russia, while preventing any resistance to it.

The trade unions play a key role in this. They are making their extensive apparatus of functionaries available to push through the most extensive wage and social cuts since the 1930s, in close collaboration with the government and corporations.

The official inflation rate is already close to eight percent, and experts say it could rise above ten percent by the end of the year. Food prices have increased by 12.7 percent and energy prices by 38 percent in one year. There is no end in sight to the increases. If there is a complete cut-off of Russian gas supplies this year—which is increasingly likely given the systematic escalation of the war on the part of NATO—economists expect a severe recession.

Under these circumstances, the most important task of Concerted Action is to prevent workers from clawing back the massive real wage losses by taking industrial action for higher wages. This is what the Chancellor's Office understands by talk about preventing at all a costs a “wage-price spiral.”

Chancellor Scholz and Employers’ President Rainer Dulger had laid down the line before the meeting.

In his “summer interview” with broadcaster ARD, Scholz described the exploding prices as “social dynamite.” ‘If suddenly the heating bill goes up by a few hundred euros, then that is a sum that many cannot really cope with,” he said.

Dulger made clear that the employers would not be satisfied with just the federal government’s relief packages, which are nothing more than a drop in the ocean anyway. He openly threatened to suppress industrial action. He told journalists in Berlin last Wednesday evening that he was very displeased with the warning strikes by dockworkers at a time when companies urgently needed materials. He called for a “national state of emergency” that would also make strikes illegal—in other words, a kind of martial law against strikers.

He justified his demand saying, “The fat years are over for now.” Germany had been tumbling through a “prosperity and feel-good oasis” for many years, but that was now over. “We must now talk together more and more often about this: What are we doing to keep our economy going?”

After the Concerted Action meeting, Scholz, Dulger and German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) leader Yasmin Fahimi provided brief statements at a press conference, without answering any questions. All three praised the close collaboration and confirmed they would meet regularly in this format in future. Initially, the aim was to gain a “common understanding” of the situation; later, they would decide on concrete measures.

Scholz told the audience to for a long-term crisis over high prices. “The current crisis will not pass in a few months,” he said. “We have to prepare ourselves for the fact that this situation will not change in the foreseeable future.” He cited the war in Ukraine and supply chains disrupted by the pandemic as reasons. “We will only get through this crisis well as a country if we get our act together, if we agree on solutions together,” he said to approving nods from Dulger and Fahimi.

Employers’ President Dulger spoke of hard times. “This country is facing the toughest economic and socio-political crisis since [German] reunification,” he declared. “Difficult years lie ahead of us.” Steady economic growth, as before the pandemic and the Ukraine war, could no longer be taken for granted, he said, and great challenges lay ahead for companies and their workforces. The meeting had helped to maintain “social peace,” he said, adding, “We can only overcome this crisis together.”

“DGB leader Fahimi thanked Scholz for the invitation and emphasised that a “joint effort” was now needed. She praised the federal government's relief packages, which lightened average household budgets by an “appreciable sum” and were “definitely helpful.” It was now urgent to talk about “how energy costs can actually be managed for private households as well as for businesses.” It was a matter of “doing everything now to prevent a recession, to stabilise production locations, to maintain value creation chains and to secure employment.”

This is the language of a co-manager who views economic life from the same perspective as a shareholder or corporate CEO. Fahimi did not even hint at the possibility that the unions would fight for inflation compensation on the wages front. There was agreement, she stressed, that there was no danger of a “wage-price spiral” happening—which Dulger also confirmed.

Fahimi embodies the out-of-touch trade union apparatus that has fully integrated itself into the government and business camp and sees itself as a force for order vis-à-vis the workers. Before she was elected head of the DGB, she was SPD General Secretary and State Secretary in the Ministry of Labour. Her life partner is Michael Vassiliadis, president of the IG BCE chemical union.

The notoriously right-wing IG BCE agreed in February on a lump-sum payment of €1,400 for the 580,000 workers in the chemicals industry instead of an increase in basic wages—a model that Chancellor Scholz also supports and even wants to make tax-free. Although such lump-sum payments reduce the immediate financial pressures, they lead to a massive reduction in real wages, since in the long run they do not increase the basic wage level.

The Concerted Action, which Scholz has now revived, follows a model from 1967. At that time, SPD Economics Minister Karl Schiller had reacted to the first recession in post-war West Germany, in which 500,000 workers lost their jobs, by convening a Concerted Action, which agreed on low wage settlements. Over the following two years average real wages fell by 1.6 and 1 percent respectively.

Workers did not put up with this. In September 1969, workers staged nationwide wildcat strikes, in defiance of the unions, and won massive wage increases. The unions were forced to raise their own demands in order to regain control.

Today the unions are no longer able to adapt to worker anger. They have completely degenerated into bureaucratic appendages of management and the government. While they still have a powerful apparatus, which they use to intimidate workers, their influence has greatly diminished. The membership of all the DGB unions has shrunk from 11.8 million in 1990, the year of German reunification, to 5.73 million. According to a recent survey, only 26 percent of companies and 51 percent of workers in Germany are still covered by a sector or in-house collective agreement.

COVID surges in New Zealand, fueled by new variants

Tom Peters

Cases of COVID-19 have risen sharply in New Zealand, as experts warn that a new wave of infections has begun, driven by the much more contagious BA.5 Omicron variant.

On July 5, the country recorded 9,629 new cases, the highest daily figure in nearly a month, and an increase of more than 3,000 on the previous day. The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 reached 493, up by 110 in the space of just one week.

Medical staff test shoppers who volunteered at a pop-up community COVID-19 testing station at a supermarket carpark in Christchurch, New Zealand. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Another 24 COVID-related deaths were announced, bringing the country’s seven-day average to 15 daily deaths, compared with 12 in the previous week. In the past week, New Zealand recorded 18 COVID deaths per million people (a total of 91 deaths), according to Worldometers. 

New Zealand has the seventh-highest rate in the world, surpassed only by Iceland, Taiwan, and a few small island nations. These include the tiny Pacific country of Nauru (population 10,800), which recorded its first COVID death last week.

The total COVID-19 death toll in New Zealand remains lower than similar sized countries because of the zero COVID policy adopted in March 2020. Last October, however, in response to pressure from big business and the corporate media, the Labour Party-led government abandoned this policy. Since then, the death toll has soared from around 30 to 1,592 as of yesterday.

The vast majority of these deaths could have been avoided had the elimination approach been maintained. Instead, the government ended all lockdowns, the border quarantine system was dismantled, schools and businesses reopened, mask requirements were significantly weakened, and vaccine mandates removed for the vast majority of workers. 

COVID-19 modeler professor Michael Plank predicts that case numbers could soon reach more than 20,000 per day, the level in March, which led to more than 1,000 people hospitalised with the virus (twice the current figure). This will be even more devastating in winter, with hospitals already overrun by COVID, influenza and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.

Internationally, the BA.4 and BA.5 variants are fueling a renewed surge of COVID-19, demolishing the lie peddled by governments that the pandemic is over. The new variants can more easily infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID. Almost all governments, except China’s, have abandoned public health measures to stamp out the virus or even mitigate its catastrophic spread.

Speaking to Newshub on July 3, epidemiologist Michael Baker noted that around half of New Zealand’s population has been infected with COVID. He warned that this does not provide any lasting immunity. Studies suggest people can be reinfected multiple times, with no reduction in the risk of severe symptoms or death. Reinfection can occur within just weeks of recovering from COVID.

Hundreds of thousands of those infected will suffer from Long COVID, which can include damage to the heart, lungs, brain, and other organs; COVID survivors have a heightened risk of stroke and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

In the Guardian yesterday, Baker said: “We need to think quite clearly about [the] scenarios. If we carry on with this rate of transmission and mortality—in the order of 12-14 deaths a day—we’re hitting as many as 5000 deaths a year from the pandemic. That would add 15% to our annual mortality rate. It’s 15 times the road toll. It’s 10 times the mortality from influenza.”

Every day brings more reports of the worsening crisis in public hospitals fueled by chronic understaffing, overcrowding, and thousands of staff getting COVID. In the 11 months to June 26, hospitals have been forced to defer or cancel 13,410 surgeries.

On July 4, the Association of General Surgeons sent an open letter to Health Minister Andrew Little expressing “grave concerns” about the staffing crisis. “Most hospitals are already close to, or at over 100% occupancy. This cannot be dismissed as ‘just a winter problem’, as a number of hospitals were at 100% occupancy in January,” association president Dr Rowan French told Stuff.

The association called for the cancellation of student debt, fee-free nursing training, and the removal of barriers for healthcare workers to immigrate from other countries.

The stark warnings from public health experts and healthcare professionals have not prompted any reversal of what can only be described as a criminal policy of mass infection. 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday flatly rejected calls from some experts for the government to increase restrictions in its so-called COVID-19 Protection Framework from the current “orange” setting to “red.” 

This minimal change would entail masking requirements in most indoor locations, and limiting indoor gatherings to 200 people, but would not close down any businesses or schools. Currently, masks are not mandatory in schools, which are a major source of infection. Ardern justified her position by asserting that New Zealand had retained more public health measures than European countries.

The statements by government ministers reveal indifference and outright denial of the crisis. 

In a media conference on June 30, a reporter pointed out to COVID-19 response minister Ayesha Verrall: “People are dying because hospitals are so overwhelmed. Have you really been planning properly for this?” Verrall replied: “This is a challenging winter for the sector. The health system is under pressure. But yes, indeed, there have been numerous ways of reallocating workflow in our health system to make sure that we are able to care for everyone who needs care.”

Health Minister Andrew Little provoked an angry response from healthcare workers after he similarly told Newshub last week that “the wait times in the EDs [emergency departments] are starting to fall away” and the pressure on hospitals was “dissipating.”

One worker at Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland said: “Our staff are exhausted and now our patients are dying because we can’t get to them all.” On June 15, a 51-year-old woman died of a brain bleed after leaving Middlemore’s emergency department when she was told she would have to wait several hours to be seen.

Another Auckland hospital worker told Newshub that the minister’s claims were “an absolute lie… Corridors are full, wait times are crazy, elective operating lists have been cancelled because of bed shortages. Staff shortages are an issue, but so is the simple fact that our health system is way under-resourced and nothing changed in the two years the borders were closed and the government was preparing for the health system to have increased capacity.”

Japan stepping up war planning following G7, NATO summits

Ben McGrath

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s attendance at the G7 and NATO summits last week provided Tokyo with the opportunity to intensify remilitarization and cooperation with allies in preparation for war with China. Kishida reiterated pledges to drastically increase military spending while denouncing China and North Korea in order to justify future Japanese aggression in the Asia-Pacific.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses a media conference during the G7 summit in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday, June 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

At both summits, Kishida referenced Ukraine then accused Beijing of attempting to unilaterally alter the status quo in Asia by force. He told the NATO meeting in Madrid on June 29, “Attempts to unilaterally change the status quo with force in the background are ongoing in the East China Sea and South China Sea. I feel a strong sense of crisis that Ukraine may be East Asia tomorrow. The international community must unite in demonstrating that unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force will never succeed.”

Washington and its allies have claimed that Beijing, without any evidence, is preparing to invade Taiwan within the next few years. Tokyo has taken a leading role in goading Beijing over the island, and thereby challenging the “One China” policy, which states that Taiwan is a part of China. Both Washington and Tokyo formally acknowledge this policy.

The Japanese prime minister stated last week that Tokyo would also develop a new National Security Strategy (NSS) by the end of 2022. Japan’s first strategy document was developed in 2013 and served to ratchet up pressure on Beijing at a time when territorial conflicts in the East China Sea were rapidly developing. The new NSS will take this even further and make even more explicit Tokyo’s militarist agenda. This includes doubling military spending, which would make Japan the third-largest spender on its armed forces in the world.

Kishida, who was the first Japanese leader to attend a NATO summit, stated that he would work in cooperation with the military alliance in “establishing the international order based on the rule of law and realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Washington and its allies regularly denounce China as a threat to the “rules-based order”, that is, the post-World War II order in which Washington set the so-called “rules.” In its Strategic Concept adopted at the summit, NATO labelled China a “challenge”, making clear it intends to target both China and Russia.

More broadly, the territorial disputes that Washington claims are proof of Beijing’s disregard for the “rules” are a direct result of US machinations. In a 2013 article for The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Kimie Hara, currently a history professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, wrote that the Treaty of San Francisco, which ended the war between the US and Japan, was written by the US at the expense of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, amid the US war in Korea.

Hara wrote, “Accordingly, the peace treaty became ‘generous’ and its wording ‘simple’ [towards Japan]—but thereby ambiguous, leaving the potential for conflicts to erupt among East Asian states. The peace treaty was the result of careful deliberations and several revisions; issues were deliberately left unresolved.”

A spokesperson for China’s mission to the European Union responded to NATO’s new Strategic Concept by saying, “We urge NATO to stop provoking confrontation by drawing ideological lines, abandon the Cold War mentality and zero-sum game approach, and stop spreading disinformation and provocative statements against China.”

In addition, Kishida held a trilateral summit on the sidelines of the NATO meeting with US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on June 29. The meeting, while brief, was used to facilitate further military cooperation. Yoon has pledged to normalize relations with Tokyo after years of tense relations under his predecessors Moon Jae-in and Park Geun-hye.

The drive to deepen military involvement overseas is supported by the entire political establishment in Japan. A July 2 editorial by the supposedly left-leaning Asahi Shimbun, for example, criticized Kishida for not doing more during the NATO summit to repair Tokyo’s relationship with Seoul, claiming, “The security threat posed by North Korea is an urgent issue that the two countries should be working on together.”

In reality, North Korea has long been the target of US imperialism, which has carried out numerous regime-change operations around the world. The editorial complained that Kishida was more concerned about the July 10 upper house election in the National Diet than in preparing for war.

In campaigning for the election, all the establishment parties have embraced some version of support for remilitarization. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the leading proponent of remilitarization, and its coalition partner Komeito are expected to win the election, in large part due to working class dissatisfaction with the opposition parties.

Among all candidates running in the election, 63 percent openly support increasing Japan’s military capabilities while 55 percent support constitutional revision, according to recent surveys. Any changes to the constitution undoubtedly would include altering Article 9, known as the pacifist clause, to better allow Tokyo to take part in imperialist wars overseas. This is in addition to other anti-democratic changes that have been proposed in recent years.

In line with the LDP, the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) has also pledged to boost military capabilities while backing the US/NATO-led war against Russia in Ukraine. However, the CDP is attempting to differentiate itself from the LDP by empty calls for international “dialogue”.

The Stalinist Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and CDP ally, similarly calls for “dialogue.” These calls however, are based on support for the positions of Japanese imperialism. The JCP’s purpose in running in elections is not to create any sort of anti-war or working-class movement, but to drive workers and youth back behind the capitalist CDP, keeping them within the framework of capitalist politics.

All of these parties deliberately obscure the fact that US and Japanese imperialism are turning to war in an attempt to offset growing economic and social crises at home. In a drive to eliminate economic competitors and seize resources, Washington is now waging war against Russia in the hopes of carving up the world’s largest country into semi-colonies, with the intention of doing the same in China.

Recession storm clouds gathering

Nick Beams

There is a rising tide of warnings that the US, Europe and other areas of the world are rapidly moving towards a recession as significant data point in that direction.

Under the underline “No more whispers,” Politico reported on Monday: “From Wall Street to Washington, whispers about a coming economic slump have risen to nearly a roar as the Federal Reserve ramps up its battle against the highest inflation in four decades.”

As the Federal Reserve announces a rate change, traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

The article cited price spikes—inflation in the US is 8.6 percent—aggressive interest rate hikes which have led to the worst performance by Wall Street’s S&P for the first half year since 1970 and a fall in consumer confidence to a record low.

Economists, it continued, were not only worried that a downturn will happen, but that it will happen soon.

With so much economic activity in the US economy, both on the business and consumer side, dependent on credit, the interest rate hikes carried out so far are having a significant effect.

The Commerce Department has reported that GDP contracted at an annualised rate for the first quarter by 1.6 percent, with estimates for second quarter growth being continually revised down. The estimate of growth calculated by the Atlanta Fed is indicating GDP will shrink at an annualised rate of 2.1 percent for the three months to the end of June.

The downward prediction came as the closely watched Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers’ index showed the US manufacturing sector expanding at the slowest pace for two years. Employment in the sector fell for the second consecutive month after expanding for eight months in a row.

An indication of the effect of monetary policy tightening on consumer spending came with the announcement by carmaker General Motors of a 15 percent fall in quarterly sales.

The marked slowdown in manufacturing is also evident in Europe. According to S&P Global, manufacturing in the eurozone is at its weakest since August 2020, with new orders falling at the fastest pace since May 2020.

Commodities markets are showing the same trend. The price of copper, a key industrial metal, sometimes referred to as Dr Copper because of the way it reflects broader trends, has been falling for the past month. Last week it dropped below $8,000 a tonne for the first time in 18 months after reaching a record high of more than $10,600 earlier in the year.

Yesterday, the price of oil fell with West Texas Intermediate, the US standard, below $100 a barrel, dropping by 8.2 percent. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 9.5 percent to $102.77 after futures were trading at $120 per barrel a month ago.

The fall in the oil price and other industrial commodities is not a sign of economic health but of the deepening recessionary forces in the global economy.

As the president of an oil advisory firm, Jim Ritterbusch, told the Wall Street Journal: “The acceleration of recession expectations in the second half of the year has weighed on a slew of commodities, and oil has gotten swept up in that to a large extent.”

The US bond market, which forms one of the key foundations of the global financial system, is also flashing red on recession.

Yesterday the yield curve inverted for the third time this year when the interest rate on the two-year Treasury bond rose above that on the 10-year. Normally, the situation is the reverse.

An inversion takes place when investors believe interest rates will rise in the short-term but over the longer term the economy will slow down. This leads them to invest in the longer end of the market as a haven, pushing up the price of bonds and leading to a fall in their yield or interest rate.

Yield curve inversion does not mean an immediate recession, but this event has taken place in every US recession over the past 50 years.

Last week, the Japanese finance house, Nomura, issued a forecast that many major economies would enter recession over the next 12 months. It warned that tightening monetary policy by central banks would push down growth.

“Increasing signs that the world economy is entering a synchronised growth slowdown, meaning countries can no longer rely on a rebound on exports for growth, has also prompted us to forecast multiple recessions,” it said.

Nomura said it expected that the US and euro area economies would contract by 1 percent in 2023. The contraction for mid-sized economies, including Australia, Canada and South Korea, could be greater if interest rate rises triggered a burst in inflated housing markets. It forecast a 2.2 percent contraction in the highly industrialised South Korean economy in the third quarter of this year.

The worsening global economic situation is also expressed in another highly industrialised country, Germany, as business leaders warn of the biggest economic crisis in decades. The export-dependent German economy recorded a trade deficit in goods of $1 billion in May, the first such result since 1991.

Following a meeting with German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had warned Germany faces an “historic challenge,” Rainer Dulger, the head of an employers’ confederation, spoke of “difficult years ahead.”

In an indication of the broader forces at work in the global economy, he said: “We can no longer take for granted the continuous economic growth that we experienced before the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.”

Carsten Brzeski, the head of macro research at the financial firm ING, said that in the past Germany could always rely on strong exports to revive the economy, but that would not be the case for at least the next two years.

“There is a high probability that Germany and the rest of the euro area will enter a recession this year,” he said.

The gathering storm clouds of recession point to the need for the international working class to draw a balance sheet of the economic events of the past decade and a half.

Following the 2008 financial crash, set off by financial speculation, central banks pumped out ultra-cheap money, leading to the escalation of stock markets to record highs as social inequality widened.

This meant that when the pandemic struck in early 2020, capitalist governments around the world refused to undertake the necessary public health measures to eliminate it lest this collapsed the financial bubble. Instead, they handed out hundreds of billions to the corporations as central banks pumped in still further trillions of dollars into the financial system.

Combined with the refusal to act on COVID-19, leading to a supply chain crisis, these measures set off the most rapid inflationary spiral in four decades, compounded by the US-led NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

Today, as workers press forward with wage demands to preserve their social position, central banks are lifting rates to try and crush this movement through a recession.

Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship 2023/2024

Application Deadline:

• For Students: Consult nominating institution for submission deadline.
• For nominating institutions: Deadline: 1st November, 2022 (20:00 EDT).

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (country): Canada

About the Award: The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS) was created to attract and retain world-class doctoral students and to brand Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. VCS supports students who demonstrate both leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health. The scholarship is worth $50,000 per year for three years and is available to both Canadian and international PhD students studying at Canadian universities.

Information for nominating institutions: Nominating institutions are encouraged to consider diversity in discipline, gender, official language, and citizenship when considering which applicants to nominate for the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS) program.

Areas of research:

• Health research
• Natural sciences and/or engineering research
• Social sciences and humanities research

Type: Doctoral (PhD)

Eligibility: Open to Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada and foreign students pursuing a doctoral degree at eligible Canadian universities

To be considered for a Vanier CGS, candidate must:

• be nominated by only one Canadian institution, which must have received a Vanier CGS quota;
• be pursuing your first doctoral degree (including joint undergraduate/graduate research program such as: MD/PhD, DVM/PhD, JD/PhD – if it has a demonstrated and significant research component). Note that only the PhD portion of a combined degree is eligible for funding;
• intend to pursue, in the summer semester or the academic year following the announcement of results, full-time doctoral (or a joint graduate program such as: MD/PhD, DVM/PhD, JD/PhD) studies and research at the nominating institution; Note that only the PhD portion of a combined degree is eligible for funding;
• not have completed more than 20 months of doctoral studies as of May 1, 2023;
• have achieved a first-class average, as determined by your institution, in each of the last two years of full-time study or equivalent. Candidates are encouraged to contact the institution for its definition of a first-class average; and
• must not hold, or have held, a doctoral-level scholarship or fellowship from CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC to undertake or complete a doctoral degree.

Eligibility of Degree Programs

• Doctoral awards are tenable only in degree programs that have a significant research component. The research component must be a requirement for completion of the program, and is considered to be significant original, autonomous research that leads to the completion of a dissertation, major scholarly publication, performance, recital and/or exhibit that is merit reviewed at the institutional level. Clinically-oriented programs of study, including clinical psychology, are also eligible programs if they have a significant research component, as described above.

Selection Criteria:

• Academic excellence, as demonstrated by past academic results and by transcripts, awards and distinctions.
• Research potential, as demonstrated by the candidates research history, his/her interest in discovery, the proposed research and its potential contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the field, the potential benefit to Canadians, and any anticipated outcomes.
• Leadership (potential and demonstrated ability), as defined by the following qualities:
• Personal Achievement:
• Involvement in Academic Life:
• Volunteerism/community outreach:
• Civic engagement:
• Other

Value and Duration of Scholarship: $50,000 annually for three years.

Number of  Scholarship: Up to 166 scholarships are awarded annually.

How to Apply: Candidates must be nominated by the university at which they want to study. Candidates cannot apply directly to the Vanier CGS program.

It is important to go through the Application requirements in the Scholarship Webpage below before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details 

Award Providers: The Vanier’s scholarships are administered by Canada’s three federal funding agencies:
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

ACI Foundation International Scholarships/Fellowships in USA & Canada 2023/2024

Application Deadline: 1st November, 2022.

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (Country): ACI Foundation Fellowships can be awarded to anyone in the world; however, you must attend a U.S. or Canadian university during the award year.

About the Award: The ACI Foundation offers several Fellowship and undergraduate Scholarship opportunities for students and E-Members. ACI Foundation Fellowships and Scholarships are awarded annually to help students with an interest in concrete achieve their educational and career goals. The student must be considered a full-time undergraduate or graduate student as defined by the college or university during the award year. Applications will be accepted from anywhere in the world but study must take place in the United States or Canada during the award year.

Fields of Study: Structural Design, Materials, Construction

Type: Undergraduate, Graduate (Masters, PhD)

Eligibility: Each student is limited for the duration of their studies to receiving no more than one fellowship and one scholarship from the ACI Foundation.

A single online application form will be used for all the fellowships and scholarships. After answering some qualifying questions, the form will automatically display the fellowships and scholarships for which you may be eligible. Before beginning the application, have the answers ready for these questions:

• Have you ever received a fellowship or scholarship award from the ACI Foundation?
• When submitting the application, what is your current academic status (Undergraduate/Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD)?
• When the award cycle begins in Fall 2023, what will your academic status be (Undergraduate/Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD)?
• (Fellowship applicants only) If chosen as a finalist, can you attend an interview in person at the spring ACI Concrete Convention on March 27, 2023? Travel, registration, and hotel arrangements will be made through and paid for by the ACI Foundation. All travel will be contingent upon country and state restrictions at that time. If in-person interviews can not occur, the process will be virtual.
• (Fellowships with Mandatory Internships) Can you fulfill a 10- to 12-week internship during the summer of 2023?

To be eligible for an award, you must be a full-time student for the entire award/school term (fall semester 2023 through spring semester 2024).

Selection Criteria: Based on essays, submitted data and endorsements, the Scholarship Council of the ACI Foundation will select scholarship and fellowship recipients who appear to have the strongest combination of interest and potential for professional success in the concrete industry.

How to Apply: The application for the 2023-2024 season is now open! You can get started by reviewing the requirements in the links below. Once you have read the requirements, click one of the buttons below to start your application.

Apply Now!

FELLOWSHIPS & SCHOLARSHIPS APPLICATION

MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION

It is important to go through the Application instructions on the Scholarship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for more details

Award Provider: American Concrete Institute

Bavarian Government Scholarships 2022/2023 for International Students at Hochschule Hof

Application Deadlines: 

• Summer semester 2022 – 29th April 2022
• Winter semester  2022/23 – 31st October 2022 (Application period starts 1st October )

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Germany

Type: Undergraduate, Postgraduate

Eligibility: Applicants must fulfil the following requirements:

• international students must be enrolled as full-time students or double-degree students (not possible for exchange students) at the Hochschule Hof for the respective semester (summer semester 2022 or winter semester 2022/2023).
• international students must be academically (previous examination performance) and personally qualified. Foreign students enrolled in Bachelor courses must have achieved a minimum of 90 ECTS to be eligible. Please attach proof.
• international students in financial need. Hochschule Hof may at any time ask for proof of given information.

Students receiving any additional public funding (e.g. BAföG, DAAD, Erasmus, any kind of governmental scholarship) for the same period of time cannot be considered and are exempted from this scholarship!

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Program: 

• The scholarships shall provide financial support for foreign students to cover extra costs for living and study materials during their studies at Hochschule Hof.
•  The scholarship depends on the financial means provided available for the respective semester. It lies between 100,00 € – 659,00 € per month.

How to Apply: 

• Online application form (don’t use your windows login, you have to register)
• proof of enrolment
• latest transcript of records (Master students add a copy of their final transcript of their Bachelor degree in either German or English language) with average rating
• Cover letter with short CV
• proof of nationality (e.g. copy of passport)

Visit Program Webpage for details