Water, Water, No Longer Everywhere

Mel Gurtov

Image by Md. Hasanuzzaman Himel.

Drought and Scarcity

“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is only halfway descriptive of the planet’s current water situation. Water is drying up everywhere; oceans and rivers are becoming more polluted and poisoned; watersheds are being drained at a phenomenal rate to meet the needs of industry, sports, and agriculture. Quality drinking water, especially in developing countries, is becoming a major challenge. And everywhere, good water, access to which should be a human right, is becoming expensive and privately owned.

First, the basic facts on the global water crisis, as provided by UNICEF:

* Four billion people — almost two thirds of the world’s population —  experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year.

* Over two billion people live in countries where water supply is inadequate.

* Half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025.

* Some 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030.

* By 2040, roughly 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress.

Reports from around the world bring home these trends.

Italy is experiencing an intense, protracted heatwave. A water emergency is about to be declared in the Lombardy region. The drought has hit northern regions particularly hard, where a parched Po River, Italy’s longest waterway, is 80 percent lower than usual, wreaking havoc on everything from farming and hydroelectric power to supplies of drinking water.

In Australia, a report by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group describes Australia and the Asia-Pacific as a “disaster alley” for climate change, but says governments in Canberra have not properly planned for the impact of “cascading and compound events.” The report cites predictions that 2℃ of warming may see southeast Asia’s crop production decline by one-third per capita by 2040. It says small island developing states in the Pacific are especially vulnerable to the effects of drought and flooding on food production.”

China faces a water crisis in which as many as half the population does not have access to clean water. Nearly all groundwater is contaminated. Agricultural runoff and industrial toxic waste dumping are among the major causes of the crisis. Weak enforcement of environmental regulations, and sheer disregard of sound environmental practices by domestic and multinational corporations alike, contribute to the crisis.

The South African city of Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), home to nearly a million people, is on the verge of “Day Zero,” when water runs out. Climate change—long-term drought—is certainly a factor, though a corrupt city government has failed to fix thousands of leaks in water pipes. Black working-class people suffer most from intermittent water supplies.

Here at home, a Utah newspaper reports:

“The Colorado River Basin is experiencing a 22-year drought and low runoff conditions, and reservoirs within the basin are at historic low levels. There are extensive impacts throughout the Colorado River Basin, including water for homes and crops to the generation of electricity in the seven basin states, 30 tribes and Mexico.”

Lake Powell and Lake Mead are below one-third of normal levels. Water for seven states will probably have to be restricted. Meantime, California’s two largest reservoirs—Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville—are at critically low levels, and the Great Salt Lake in Utah set a new record low level on July 4.

Threats from Ocean Dumping

The world’s oceans have been especially hard hit, leading the UN secretary-general to declare an “ocean emergency.” As reported by the Guardian: “Sea level rise, ocean heating, ocean acidification and greenhouse gas concentrations all reached record levels last year, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s state of the global climate report in 2021. . . . pollution is creating vast coastal dead zones.” Fish stocks are being rapidly depleted by overfishing. “Nearly 80% of the world’s wastewater is discharged into the sea without treatment.”

Among the many toxic substances that are regularly dumped into national and international waterways, plastics and oil rank among the most constant and dangerous. China, India, and the US are the top producers of disposable plastics which, according to a UN estimate, by 2050 will account for about 12 billion tons of plastic waste worldwide. As we’re all aware, plastic bottle and other items choke waterways, clog drainpipes, and, if burned, pollute the air. Banning plastics is catching on, but very slowly and with plenty of pushback from manufacturers. Policing plastics use is difficult, though in India—which now bans certain plastic packaging but not plastic bags—some states have found that fining people is effective. China is supposed to phase out plastic bags nationwide by the end of this year, while Canada will ban all single-use plastics in December. Only a few US states, including Oregon, have limited the use of plastic items.

I cannot leave that last topic without noting the companies and investors that stand behind the major plastics producing countries. The top plastics manufacturers are ExxonMobil, Dow, Sinopec (China’s state oil company), Indorama Ventures (a global petrochemical company based in Singapore and Bangkok), and Saudi Aramco. The leading investors, aside from governments themselves, are Vanguard and BlackRock, outfits that crow about their commitment to sustainability.

Oil rig accidents are always large-scale threats to the ocean environment, the fishing industry, and public health. Recall the Deepwater Horizon spill: 134 million gallons dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Now, a liberal president is caught between oil industry and Republican pressure to open more leases to drilling, supposedly to help reduce gas prices, and pressure from environmental organizations and some state governments to dramatically reduce if not reject any more drilling. Fact is, the industry has millions of acres already approved for drilling. Biden will be forced to act soon, and if the past is any guide, he’ll take the middle road, approving some new leases—Alaska’s Tongas looks most likely to be chosen—but not all, making for unhappy lobbyists all around.

Politicians Hold (Nearly) All the Cards

As numerous scientific reports have made plain, we’re headed toward environmental catastrophe, and in the US it’s equally plain why: the political power of right-wing politicians, the fossil fuel companies that fund them, and a malicious Supreme Court majority that takes its cue from them. Paul Krugman puts the issue succinctly:

“What’s important right now is that the United States is the only major nation in which an authoritarian right-wing party—which lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections yet controls the Supreme Court—has the ability to block actions that might prevent climate catastrophe.”

The ballot box therefore might not be the most effective path to changing national environmental policy. But at the local level, people are fighting in a novel way: demanding that water be accorded legal standing, in the same way corporations, estates, and universities are represented in court. In Florida, for example, a constitutional ballot initiative is before voters that would grant a “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters.” Legislators can be held accountable in court for failing to protect water supplies. Elizabeth Kolbert reports in The New Yorker on the history of efforts to give nature “rights.” In Oregon, my home state, protecting wetlands, which are a major carbon sink, is now undergoing review to strengthen regulations. In the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, protection of rivers, forests, and fisheries is expanding.

We’ll need a lot more action like that, right now, to save waterways.

Graduate Unemployment and Skill Mismatch in Bangladesh: A Broader Context

Omar Raad Chowdhury

unemployment

The staggering rate of unemployment among university graduates in Bangladesh, and the difficulty faced by employers in securing a skilled workforce, pose a conundrum for the country’s development journey, with implications regarding productivity, growth, social welfare and integration in the global value chain. A World Bank study found that, more than a third of university graduates remain unemployed for one or two years after graduation. The unemployment situation is all the more dire for graduates of National University (colleges offering degrees in tertiary education), as 66% of these graduates are unemployed, according to a BIDS study. On the other hand, higher education can be the key to a “decent” job, as found in a SANEM study on labour and employment, which may be a key reason behind youth’s pursuit of higher education.

Notably, the skill level of the graduates seeking employment has been found to be unsatisfactory by employers. According to a study conducted by CPD in 2021, a shortage of skilled applicants for professional positions had been reported by 46% of employers. The study also identified lack of work experience and required qualifications as two other major issues. In 2019, the World Bank found 69% of employers reporting a shortage of applicants for highly-skilled positions such as professionals, technicians and managers.

While it can be argued that there is ample evidence to ascribe skill mismatch to unemployment among graduates, the issue, however, demands to be examined in the broader context of institutional deficiency, private sector’s engagement with public initiatives, and inter-generational inequality. The agency of the young students enrolled in universities and colleges also becomes an issue of interest in this regard, as they themselves are the primary and perhaps the most prominent stakeholders in this matter.

The graduates’ skill level is but a reflection of the educational training they received from the academic establishments they were enrolled in. The quality of the training therefore becomes a major, if not the prime, determinant of the graduates’ employability. If the employers do not find candidates to be skilled enough, then the responsibility, to a large extent, lies with the academic status-quo, which is more or less configured by state institutions, in terms of resource distribution and policy design. Since, without a reconfiguration of the academia, which may involve large scale shift in curriculum and insistence on best practices on the part of administration, it would not be possible to upskill the graduates, the logical deduction is that the capacity and political will of the state institutions have to be reoriented as well.

However, it would be unreasonable to acknowledge the role of state institutions without recognizing the obligation of the private sector in ensuring a skilled workforce. Much discussion have been dedicated to the issue of industry-academia collaboration, a lacking that can be argued to be one of the driving forces behind skill mismatch. So far, the record of industry-academia collaboration is poor. A tracer study in 2018, found “serious” lack of collaboration between university and industry, with only 40% of the surveyed employers and 65% of the surveyed departments maintaining some kind of collaboration. The areas of collaboration were found to be reviewing and updating curriculum, arrangement of internships, opportunity to visit the workplace, professional network with teachers and recruitment of new employees. Thus, the scope of these collaborations is quite limited, as there is little to no investment in capacity building or academic research on the part of the private sector. The private sector, being the other primary stakeholder in the matter, needs to engage with the academia on its own initiative, for its own sake. Notably, private sector led initiatives to upskill young employees are also lacking. Rather, there is a tendency to recruit candidates with experience, which indicates a tendency of free-riding and ultimately lead to market failure in terms of skill gap.

The extent to which inter-generational inequality influence the skill level of an individual, might be a matter of further research. However, the tracer study mentioned above, found strong correlation between parents’ education and graduate employability: more than 40% of the graduates, whose parents have at least a master’s degree, got a job after graduation, whereas in the case of the graduates whose parents have no formal education, employment rate is only 21.9%. Moreover, the study found, in case of graduates whose father have no formal education, unemployment rate is 56%. There is thus room for argument that parents’ level of education is a significant factor behind skill level. Graduates whose parents did not have access to tertiary education are therefore, more likely to be unemployed. In this connection, inter-generational inequality needs to be taken into account as a possible factor behind graduate unemployment.

The demands and targets of the young graduates need to be weighted in any policy action as well. The youth have their own perceptions of job opportunities in private sectors, which in many way shape their interests and aspirations. The “Youth Survey 2018”, conducted by BIGD, had found that around 57% females and 42% males preferred government jobs, for better salaries, facilities and job security. The survey also found a significant portion of the youth, about 20%, aspire to go abroad in search for better living and career opportunity. In the 2020-21 academic year, 8,598 Bangladeshis were granted study permit by the United States alone, according to the 2021 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. According to the Foreign Admission and Career Development Consultations Association of Bangladesh (FACD-CAB), US scholarships for Bangladeshi students may double in number in 2022. Other top destinations include Canada, UK, Australia, and Japan. Many of these students may not return and participate in the domestic labour force.

Evidently, perceptions of scope for better salary, job security, and better living are shaping the career preference of the graduates. It might be so that, just as employers do not find enough skilled candidates, many of the new graduates, and especially skilled ones, also do not find job opportunities in the private sector to be good enough, and opt for government jobs or, study or work opportunities abroad. Policymakers, as well as private sector stakeholders therefore need to come to terms with the agency of young graduates, otherwise, the domestic industry will not be able to accommodate even a skilled workforce.

Global monkeypox outbreak surpasses 10,000 infections

Benjamin Mateus

The number of confirmed and suspected cases of monkeypox infections globally has passed the 10,000 mark, according to official figures. As of July 14, there have been 11,042 total cases, of which 11,006 have been confirmed.

The daily figure has risen to over 500 cases on a seven-day rolling average. Europe continues to remain the epicenter of the global outbreak. Seventy-four non-endemic countries and territories (outside the central African region where monkeypox has existed for decades) have reported such cases, including eight on the African continent.

Spain has the highest case count, with 2,447 monkeypox infections. Germany and the UK are neck and neck with 1,790 and 1,789 cases, respectively. Case counts in France and Italy continue to climb, and Russia was the latest country across the Eurasian landmass that reported its first confirmed case.

North America, followed by Latin America, are other regions where monkeypox cases are soaring. The United States has reported 1,049 monkeypox infections, with approximately 76 cases per day on a moving average. Compared to last week, cases are up nearly 40 percent.

California, New York, Illinois and the District of Columbia have the highest infection rates. In New York City and San Francisco, the public health departments have said that their stock of monkeypox vaccines, made from the attenuated strain of the vaccinia virus, is exhausted.

The daily rise in monkeypox cases in the United States

With 484 monkeypox infections, Canada has seen a 60 percent jump in cases since July 4. Quebec has seen the lion’s share of cases, with 284. Ontario and British Columbia are also seeing a growing number of infections.

Brazil reported its first case back on June 8. Low single-digit daily infection numbers were being confirmed until the end of June when a sudden spike in cases was observed. The highest single-day count was on July 6, with 36 confirmed cases. In all, the country now has tallied 227 cases. Additionally, almost every country neighboring Brazil has also seen such cases reported to their respective public health departments. Mexico has also seen a sudden surge in cases recently.

The Director-General for the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, affirmed at last Tuesday’s press briefing that the emergency committee for monkeypox would reconvene to examine the recent trends in infections and response by countries in deploying countermeasures against the virus.

On June 24, the emergency committee, in what amounted to be a split decision, favored not declaring the outbreak a pandemic and allowing more time to accrue while the WHO gathered further evidence on trends in cases and newly affected geographic regions. They noted that reconvening the committee would depend on several criteria, including case and death rates, spread outside affected LGBT communities, changes in the virulence of the virus and the establishment of the virus in animal populations.

They insisted that the WHO and national public health institutions work with the high-risk communities where cases remain predominately among men who have sex with men and workers at clubs and spas where such sexual activities occur. The emergency committee also recommended that health institutes work with vaccine developers and consult experts in the field to raise awareness about the disease and initiate the infrastructure for tracing, testing and treating infected and close contacts.

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

Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute and co-founder of the World Health Network (WHN), has been rightly critical of the WHO for its delay in declaring the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. The WHN had preemptively declared monkeypox a pandemic on June 22, ahead of the initial emergency committee meeting, to bring pressure on the global health organization.

Bar-Yam, who had in late January 2020 raised concerns about the WHO’s slowness in alerting the world of the threat posed by the rapidly growing global transmission of COVID-19, said recently, during an online webinar to discuss the monkeypox pandemic, “The reason to declare monkeypox a pandemic is to alert everyone to take action to prevent more cases from happening. That is the essential motivation. If you [WHO] tell everyone everything is ok, then everyone will go about their usual business.”

He added, “The countries where cases are occurring are limiting the testing and interventions with a focus on men who have sex with men and that community and known exposures. As we know from other pandemics, there is an undercounting and lack of clarity of what transmission is taking place, and we have a challenge of knowing the true magnitude.”

Guest speaker Dr. Kavita Patel, a family medicine physician in Washington D.C. and former Obama administration director of policy for the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, spoke about the lack of familiarity among physicians and health institutes about monkeypox infections.

“Unless a patient raises concerns directly about a rash and monkeypox, most won’t entertain the diagnosis,” she said. “There are so many gaps in education now,” both in health care and at the community level. She added there was a significant need to implement testing and vaccine clinics immediately.

Dr. Patel also told listeners that with LabCorp signing on, there are now five US commercial laboratories, Aegis Science, LabCorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Quest Diagnostic and Sonic Healthcare, that can run PCR tests for monkeypox. Yet, she noted, “US capacity is about 60,000 tests per week which are not enough.” Also, the testing and turnaround on these specimens can be laborious, and may take up to three days, further delaying the diagnosis and enabling the continued spread of the virus.

Dr. Patel added, “This has been what we have needed quickly to keep it contained and use a ring vaccination strategy—a post-prophylaxis strategy [where the vaccines are given after exposure to the pathogen to decrease the severity of the disease]. If we had better, more widely available testing, we would have had a better ability. Now, in New York City, D.C. and San Francisco, we have run out of Jynneos [monkeypox vaccine manufactured by Bavarian Nordic]. We are turning to the smallpox vaccine, but it is very difficult to use because of its terrible side effects.”

The manufacturer of the monkeypox vaccine is presently undergoing system modifications at its plants, and production of the vaccines will be limited for the next several quarters. Modeling the monkeypox virus cases leads to estimates that the UK could expect 60,000 cases per day by the end of 2022 and, conceivably, a half-million cases or more by the end of September.

Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, a co-founder of the WHN, warned that though the number of cases remains small, it is growing at about 40 to 50 percent per week, or 10-fold growth over six weeks. He said, “Case counts are increasing from 300 to 400 daily cases a week on seven-day averages. The US broke the 1,000 barrier and cases are accelerating.”

He criticized the CDC’s arbitrary and mechanical risk categorization that labeled intermediate risk as anyone in close contact with an infected person for more than six hours without a mask. The panel urged listeners to understand that all transmission routes were viable and to be aware that smallpox, which is in the same family of viruses as monkeypox, can be passed on through airborne transmission.

Bar-Yam added, “Masking is a good idea, but there is no guidance for it. Masks are important, and these need to be acknowledged. There seem to be competing factions at the CDC on what they recommend. The confusion is dangerous, and clear guidance is required.” The WHN-sponsored panel strongly urged everyone to mask and noted that the CDC had previously endorsed their use for monkeypox.

In concluding his initial remarks, Feigl-Ding warned that as cases of monkeypox in communities accelerated, with schools set to open this fall, the likelihood of these infections spreading among children was a major problem as the virus is most dangerous to the youngest. They also have never previously received the smallpox vaccine, meaning they are immunologically naïve to the virus and lack any previous protection.

Bar-Yam explained the evidence for disease severity in children comes from clinical experience in Africa, where the virus is endemic. In population-based studies on monkeypox, pediatric patients made the bulk of those admitted to hospitals and ICUs. He also warned that the consequences of monkeypox infection in immunocompromised patients and pregnant women could be catastrophic.

The panelists also raised the following caveats about the Jynneos vaccine. Though it is safe in the immunocompromised, it hasn’t been evaluated in pregnant or breastfeeding women and is also not authorized in those under 18, the most vulnerable population.

On a question from the audience about health systems becoming vectors of transmission for the monkeypox virus, Dr. Patel said she was very concerned about this issue. Considering the lack of awareness at most health institutions on the signs and symptoms of monkeypox and the slow turnaround in test results, she said this was a genuine possibility. Hospitals should take precautions against airborne transmission of monkeypox. Dr. Patel said, “If patients test negative for COVID, health care providers will let routine procedures slide.” She urged that those on the frontline of health care settings should receive the monkeypox vaccines to protect them and their patients.

Bar-Yam summarized, “A WHO declaration of a pandemic would be significant. But there remains a vacuum of leadership.” He reflected, “I sat at a recent WHO meeting. They didn’t go into using masks or travel testing. Though they did say it isn’t just sexual transmission and anyone can get infected, they did not convey the message of urgency. The need to identify cases quickly was not well communicated. There is a desire to maintain calm. However, this is interpreted as the sense that there is no urgency. To solve this problem, we must first communicate the urgency [to act].”

Joshua Schulte convicted on all counts in second trial over 2017 leak of Vault 7 cyberwarfare trove published by WikiLeaks

Kevin Reed

Former CIA software engineer Joshua Schulte, 33, was convicted by a jury in a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday of hacking top-secret US intelligence malware tools known as “Vault 7” and leaking them to WikiLeaks in 2017.

Joshua Schulte

The jury found Schulte, who defended himself in court, guilty on eight espionage charges and one obstruction charge after deliberating for three days. He faces a possible sentence of 80 years in prison.

Schulte has been the target of a malicious campaign by the US intelligence community, which initially could find no evidence against him directly related to the Vault 7 leak and instead brought possession of child pornography charges against him and locked him up. Meanwhile, a first trial in against Schulte ended in 2020 with a hung jury on the espionage charges and only found him guilty of contempt of court and lying to the FBI.

Schulte argued that he was being made a scapegoat for the CIA’s staggering inability to protect its Vault 7 arsenal and “wildly insecure” intelligence servers that hosted it. Meanwhile, Schulte has been held in jail since 2018 without bail. He has complained that he was the victim of cruel and unusual punishment, awaiting the two trials in solitary confinement inside a vermin-infested cell of a jail unit where inmates are treated like “caged animals.”

The vicious pursuit of Schulte by the CIA, FBI and US Justice Department is part of the ongoing campaign to extradite WikiLeaks publisher and founder Julian Assange from the UK to the US to face numerous charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917.

The effort to silence and prosecute Assange has been a bipartisan affair overseen by three successive Presidents—initiated under Obama, continued by Trump and now being waged by Biden. The aim of the US political and intelligence establishment is to make an example of anyone who dares to tell the truth about the US imperialism, especially the war crimes committed over the past 30 years.

The Vault 7 breach of 9,000 documents, the largest theft of classified US intelligence information in history, exposed the CIA’s criminal violation of basic democratic rights by hacking Apple and Android smartphones and turning internet-connected televisions into listening devices, along with many other cyberespionage and malware tools.

At the time of the leak in 2017, Assange noted that the Vault 7 breach marked a massive security blunder by the CIA, which lost control of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation.

A statement about the Vault 7 leak published by WikiLeaks says, “This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.”

In exposing Vault 7, WikiLeaks brought to the attention of the entire world the fact that the US government had developed and deployed electronic malicious surveillance tools that violate both the US Constitution and international law. At the same time, WikiLeaks chose to publish only the CIA documentation that proves the existence of such tools and not the code of the tools themselves.

As Assange explained, “Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such ‘weapons,’ which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade.” WikiLeaks then collaborated with technology firms such as Microsoft, Apple and Google to assist them in plugging the vulnerabilities in their systems that were being exploited by the CIA.

The WikiLeaks statement also explains that the source who shared the Vault 7 material did so because they wished “to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons. Once a single cyber ‘weapon’ is ‘loose’ it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.”

What this means is this: whoever it was that leaked the Vault 7 CIA trove to WikiLeaks—whether it was Schulte or not—should be recognized as a whistleblower on a par with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning for their courage and willingness to tell the truth about the criminal policies of US imperialism, instead of being prosecuted and sent to jail.

In his closing argument to the jury, Schulte said that he was singled out by the US government even though “hundreds of people had access to (the information). … Hundreds of people could have stolen it.” He added, “The government’s case is riddled with reasonable doubt. There’s simply no motive here.”

The Associated Press reported that Attorney Sabrina Shroff, who was Schulte’s adviser during the trial, told his mother that the verdict was a “kick to the gut, the brain and heart.”

The prosecution argued that Schulte, who was a developer of the cyberwarfare tools, was motivated to leak the documents to WikiLeaks because he believed the CIA had disrespected him by dismissing his workplace concerns. They said he tried “to burn to the ground” the very work he had helped the agency to create.

Assistant US Attorney David Denton claimed that Schulte attempted to cover up his crime because he had a list of chores that included an entry that said, “Delete suspicious emails.” US Attorney Damian Williams issued a press release which said, “Schulte has been convicted for one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history.”

As in the case of Assange and the outrageous violation of his rights by the US and UK governments, the mistreatment of Schulte and the dubious character of his conviction has been justified and greeted with enthusiasm by the corporate media. One can search through pages and pages of news reports about Wednesday’s jury verdict and not find a single word of criticism, much less a political analysis, of the purpose and implications of the Vault 7 cyberwarfare tools developed by the CIA.

In typical fashion, the New York Times report said that Schulte was arrested after WikiLeaks disclosed the “trove of confidential documents detailing the agency’s secret methods for penetrating the computer networks of foreign governments and terrorists.” As everyone knows by now, especially since the 2013 revelations by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, the spying techniques developed by the CIA and NSA are being used against everyone, US citizens and non-citizens alike.

Australia: COVID-19 leave payments scrapped amid cost-of-living crisis and rising infections

John Harris & Martin Scott

Last week, pandemic leave payments were officially ended by the federal Labor government. The payments provided up to $750 per week for people who missed work after testing positive for COVID-19, while isolating as a close contact or caring for an infected person.

The payments have been scrapped amid a mounting wave of Omicron cases, with re-infections increasingly likely due to the prevalence of the highly infectious and vaccine resistant BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.

Across Australia, official reports indicate there are more than 325,000 active cases of COVID-19, although health experts estimate the real figure is at least twice as high. On average, almost 40,000 new infections are recorded each day.

Since the pandemic began, more than 10,500 people have died from COVID-19, including over 8,300 this year alone.

The federal Labor government’s decision to axe pandemic leave payments will leave many workers with no choice but to work while infectious, endangering the health and lives of themselves and their co-workers and further accelerating the spread of the virus.

This pressure will be most sharply felt by those whose work does not provide them with paid sick leave. This includes over 2.4 million casual workers, almost a quarter of all employees in Australia, as well as more than 1 million independent contractors.

Workers without sick leave entitlements also tend to be those least able to afford an unexpected absence from work. While 90 percent of workers earning more than the median income have access to paid sick leave, just 43 percent of those earning incomes in the bottom 25 percent, and 24 percent of those in the lowest 10 percent of earners have paid sick leave.

Labor’s ending of pandemic leave has drawn the ire of state governments, forcing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to call a “snap” meeting of the “National Cabinet” on Monday. The same state governments are also refusing to reinstate mask mandates, against the advice of health authorities and medical experts.

Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus criticised the move for the negative impact it would have on the continued operation and profitability of business. She said: “When everyone in a workplace gets COVID, it takes that workplace out. We know what effect that has on the whole economy.”

McManus’ statement is entirely hypocritical. At every stage, the union bureaucracy has supported the lifting of restrictions and has forced workers back to work in every sector and industry.

Health Minister Mark Butler insisted on Channel 9’s “Today Show” on Monday: “with a trillion of dollars in debt and eye watering deficits as far as the eye can see, we can’t continue to borrow money to fund emergency payments forever.”

The claim that there is no money for workers struck down with COVID-19 makes clear the priorities of the Labor government, coming just one week after Albanese’s announcement of a further $100 million in military aid to Ukraine for the US-NATO proxy war against Russia.

Workers queuing outside an inner-western Sydney Centrelink office in early 2020 [Credit: WSWS Media]

The clawing back of payments occurs at the same time as the imposition of new requirements on the unemployed, forcing them to satisfy a monthly “points target” in order to receive the below poverty-level “JobSeeker” payment. The onerous new scheme is designed to force people into low-paid, insecure, casual work under whatever conditions the employer demands.

As is the case globally, runaway price rises for food, fuel, housing, education and other essential services are pushing millions of Australians to the brink of financial ruin.

Many have been forced to take up additional work to keep their heads above water. According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 867,000 Australians now work two jobs, more than at any other time since 1994, when the ABS started collecting these figures.

Over the 12 months to March 31, prices for many regular goods rose more rapidly than the overall inflation rate of 5.1 percent. According to the ABS, the cost of vegetables increased by 12.7 percent, beef and veal 12.1 percent, oils and fats 8.6 percent and cereal products 7.3 percent.

Frugl, an online service that tracks grocery prices, provides an even starker indication of the massive increases in the prices of regular pantry items. From the start of the pandemic to May this year, the price of instant coffee increased 47 percent, olive oil 30–50 percent, pasta 30 percent, baked beans and canned tomatoes 20 percent, porridge 17 percent and white bread 4–10 percent.

The ABS figures show that fuel prices reached record levels, with the cost of automotive fuel rising by 11 percent in the March quarter, due in part to the oil price shocks caused by the ongoing US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. In the year ending March 31, the price of automotive fuel increased by 35.1 percent.

In June 2020, the average price of unleaded petrol in Australia was 92.3 cents per litre. By March 2022, this had increased to 213.22 cents per litre. Petrol prices are set to rise again in September when a 50 percent cut to the fuel excise ends.

Millions will also be hit by an increase in electricity prices this month. In one indication of broader industry trends, Joel Gibson, campaign manager for the One Big Switch consumer group, said that Discover Energy had advised customers of a 285 percent increase.

This comes after the federal Labor government authorised compensation payments of an estimated $1.5 billion to electricity generators to avoid blackouts caused by the companies’ refusal to supply power due to soaring coal and gas prices. The costs of these payments will be imposed on regular people via more costly energy bills.

Adding to the financial stress, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) last week increased interest rates a further 50 basis points to 1.35 percent, following a 50 point rise in June and a 25 point increase in May.

This will take the total increase in mortgage repayments since May to about $500 a month on a $750,000 mortgage. The impact of this will be most sharply felt in working-class areas, where there are already high levels of mortgage stress and record levels of household debt.

The chief aim in raising interest rates is not to rein in inflation but to trigger a recession, drive up unemployment and attempt to force back workers’ demands for higher wages.

Once again, the working class is being made to pay for the escalating crises of global capitalism. The inflationary spiral gripping the world is primarily the result of the pouring of trillions of dollars into financial markets and corporate bailouts since the 2008–09 global financial crisis, a process that was vastly accelerated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The second major factor is the profit-driven refusal of governments to take the necessary measures to contain and eliminate COVID-19, leading to mass infections and breakdowns in worldwide supply chains.

In Australia, the impact on food prices has been intensified by the impact on crops and agriculture of this year’s catastrophic floods in New South Wales and Queensland, connected to the refusal of capitalist governments to address climate change.

The social crisis has triggered a movement in the working class against the mounting assault on their living and working conditions and wages. Workers are beginning to fight back against the claims of corporations and governments, backed up by the trade unions, that there is no money to provide workers a decent standard of living. In Australia, this has found initial expression in recent months in mass strikes by teachers, healthcare workers and other public sector workers, and growing levels of industrial action among transport workers and the broader working class.

This upsurge must form the basis of a broader political struggle against the austerity agenda and “let it rip” COVID-19 policies of Labor, the Liberal-Nationals and the corporate elite.

New Zealand government refuses to stop mass COVID infection, as doctors warn of catastrophe

Tom Peters

On Thursday, New Zealand’s COVID-19 response minister Ayesha Verrall and director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield held a press conference in a desperate attempt to appear to be doing something to address the surging toll of hospitalisations and deaths from the coronavirus.

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)

According to the New York Times, of countries with more than a million people, New Zealand’s seven-day average COVID death rate is now second highest, following Taiwan. On July 13, there were 29 deaths reported, the highest daily total since May 18; the following day another 23 people died with the virus including a child under 10 years old.

Hospitals across the country are overwhelmed, as the highly infectious Omicron BA.5 variant takes off, alongside a flu epidemic. In the past three weeks, the number of people hospitalised with COVID has more than doubled from 300 on June 24 to 765 on July 14.

New Zealand’s total number of deaths from the pandemic is now 1,760, about 96 percent of which occurred this year, after all schools and businesses were allowed to reopen and the virus was allowed to spread largely unimpeded.

Verrall declared yesterday: “To get through this stage of the pandemic we’re going to have to use the most effective measures we have to reduce the spread of both COVID-19 and influenza.”

This is simply a lie. The Labour Party-led government refuses to reintroduce public health measures that would immediately save lives—namely, a return to the Zero-COVID policy, including the immediate closure of schools and nonessential businesses. This elimination policy kept New Zealand largely free from the deadly virus during the first two years of the pandemic, until it was scrapped last October on the instructions of big business, which views lockdowns as an intolerable obstacle to profit-making.

The main thrust of Verrall and Bloomfield’s presentation was to urge ordinary people to follow the minimal rules and recommendations that exist around masking. Bloomfield outlined the surge of the pandemic internationally, driven by the new BA.4 and BA.5 variants. In New Zealand there have been nearly 10,000 new COVID cases per day reported over the last seven days, and an increasing proportion of those are reinfections.

Bloomfield said that according to the government’s modelling, “if we do nothing,” then COVID hospitalisations will soon reach a peak of more than 1,200, and daily reported cases will double to around 21,000.

In response to these stark predictions, the government is not taking any measures to seriously reduce the rate of infection. Bloomfield merely stated that “if we all take steps to limit our exposure to the virus and to protect ourselves,” then the peak for hospitalisations could be lowered by 20 percent to 950 people.

In other words, the Ministry of Health’s best case scenario is for thousands more hospitalisations and hundreds more deaths over the winter. Beyond that, ongoing infections and reinfections will certainly kill thousands more people by the end of the year and leave tens of thousands with debilitating Long COVID.

The only concrete changes announced yesterday were to make ineffectual medical masks and rapid antigen tests (RATs) freely available, and to widen the criteria for antiviral drugs. N95 and P2 masks, which are much more effective against COVID, will only be distributed for free to “medically vulnerable” people. The Green Party, which is part of the government, applauded these measures and took credit on social media for pressuring the government to provide free masks—even though, by the government’s own admission, this won’t prevent thousands more deaths.

Asked by Radio NZ (RNZ) why the government does not “make it mandatory to wear a mask in all indoor settings outside of your home,” instead of just some, Verrall replied that this cannot be done because it “impacts the running of many businesses.”

The government also refuses to reintroduce mask mandates in schools, despite pleas from public health experts to do so, or to take any other steps such as limiting gathering sizes. Epidemiologist Michael Baker told the New Zealand Herald: “It’s almost like we’re denying transmission happens at schools which is bizarre. I think people will look back in horror at our laissez-faire approach to this.”

On Saturday, the All Blacks national rugby team is scheduled to play Ireland at Sky Stadium in Wellington in front of a sold out crowd of 37,500 people—the biggest event in the city since the pandemic began. Inevitably, many of these people will get COVID and become severely ill. This sort of super-spreading event is becoming common, as the government seeks to normalise mass infection.

Meanwhile, a survey of 923 doctors by the New Zealand Women in Medicine trust, released this week, found that 93.5 percent said there was definitely a crisis in the public health workforce, and 6.3 percent said there was probably a crisis. The trust penned an open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, saying the system was at risk of a “catastrophic collapse.”

According to Stuff, one emergency doctor wrote in the survey that so many nurses were getting sick or burnt out “that we have to close areas of the department or work there on our own with no nursing support… Our triage nurses are so afraid that someone will die in the waiting room—so they are all resigning as well.”

Hospitals are so overrun that tens of thousands of operations are being repeatedly postponed. On July 11, RNZ reported that across much of the country—in Northland, South Auckland, Auckland Central, Waikato, Wellington and Canterbury—surgery was being performed “only on cases considered life-threatening or unable to be delayed.”

Newshub reported that at Christchurch Hospital, 1,200 elective surgeries have been postponed over the past two years, including 450 cancer operations. Such delays can have life-threatening consequences.

This morning, Association of General Surgeons president Rowan French told RNZ the government’s new measures would not be enough to alleviate the enormous pressure on hospitals. He warned that if hospitalisations hit 1,200, not everyone who needs urgent care will be able to get it.

The opposition National Party, meanwhile, is calling on the government to remove vaccine mandates for healthcare workers, in order to bring a small number of unvaccinated workers back into hospitals. National leader Christopher Luxon, who recently visited Singapore, Ireland and the UK, has declared in a number of media interviews that “the rest of the world’s moving on” from COVID.

In fact, while corporations and governments increasingly act as though the pandemic is over, the BA.5 variant is fueling a resurgence worldwide. The UK has just passed 200,000 deaths from COVID, with 294 deaths in the week to July 13. Across the European Union, daily deaths have risen by 60 percent in the past three weeks.

Major crypto lender files for bankruptcy

Nick Beams

The filing for bankruptcy by the major crypto currency lender Celsius Network in New York on Wednesday has been characterised as crypto’s “Lehman Brothers moment.”

The demise of the US investment bank in September 2008 was the trigger for the global financial crisis which required massive intervention by the US government and the Federal Reserve, as well as international action, to prevent a complete meltdown.

Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky at Web Summit 2021 in Lisbon, Portugal (Photo: Wikipedia/Web Summit)

The company had liabilities of $5.5 billion, most of them to Celsius users, and assets of $4.3 billion.

While the crisis in the crypto market is not on the scale of the 2008 breakdown, neither is it an isolated event without broader financial significance.

This is because, while the crypto market has been rightly regarded as a kind of Ponzi scheme, the collapse of Celsius and other crypto firms is the result of the tightening monetary policies of the Fed affecting all areas of the financial system.

In order to lure depositors, Celsius offered large rates of return on their money which it then lent to other crypto firms, using the rhetoric of the entire crypto world to present itself as a kind of rebellion against the banking system.

Back in 2020, as the crypto boom was taking off, Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky issued video addresses in which he railed against the rigged financial system and greedy bankers, claiming to offer an alternative.

In a major article this week, the Financial Times (FT) recalled remarks he made during an interview last year. “There is a continuing squeeze of the 99 percent by the 1 percent to extract more profit,” he said. In a 2020 interview he claimed that Celsius was “actually safer than most banks.”

The bankruptcy filing told a very different story.

A press release by the Celsius board of directors said the bankruptcy followed the difficult but necessary decision last month to halt withdrawals, swaps and transfers to stabilise its business and to protect its customers.

Had it not done so then there would have been a run on deposits and customers who got in first would have been paid in full leaving others with illiquid and uncertain claims. In other words, Celsius would have been subject to what amounted to a bank run.

The advocates of crypto have claimed it is a new system not dependent on central banks. But the history of this market shows that it has been highly dependent on the outflow of trillions of dollars into the financial system by the Fed and other central banks. The provision of ultra-cheap money was the fuel which drove the crypto boom in 2020 and 2021, such that the market value of crypto assets reached $3 trillion in November last year.

Since then, monetary policy tightening by the Fed in response to rising inflation has seen the market value of crypto fall by around two thirds, with the value of bitcoin down by 70 percent.

The signs of an emerging crisis appeared earlier this year when a so-called stable coin TerraUSD that was supposed to be pegged one-to-one to the US dollar fell below parity, accompanied by the collapse of sister token Luna.

Then came the collapse of the Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital which suffered major losses because of its exposure to Terra and Luna. Another crypto firm Voyager Capital has also filed for bankruptcy.

Since the Terra implosion in May, according to the FT, “at least a dozen hedge funds, exchanges and lenders such as Celsius have crumbled, blocking customer withdrawals, raising money at fire-sale prices, or collapsing into bankruptcy.”

In its analysis of the Celsius demise, the FT noted that it relied on “a stream of deposits from retail investors that it lent to large crypto companies and used for risky bets on untested ventures.” But last year, as the demand for loans from institutional investors declined, it began to take greater risks.

Small investors were drawn in by the promise of rates of return as much as 18 percent. But the top return was only provided to those who agreed to receive their payments in the form of the company’s CEL token.

According to the FT report, even as the value of the CEL token was falling from the 2021 high of $8 to the level of $1 today, the company was urging investors to hold on to their investments and not sell.

But while these statements were being issued, internal company documents reveal that Daniel Leon, one of the Celsius co-founders, as well as others “had already sold millions of dollars’ worth of their own CEL holdings back to the company.”

Last December, as the crypto slide was beginning, Mashinsky tweeted that all Celsius Network founders had made purchases of CEL and were not sellers of the token.

But the crypto analysis firm Arkham Intelligence has estimated he had sold $44 million worth of CEL tokens through exchanges. So much for the claims by the company in its bankruptcy filing statement that its actions were aimed at protecting customers.

The FT report cited an internal document of the company produced in February last year warning that employees were able to move assets from one fund to another in order to disguise losses and obscure the true value of assets under management (AUM).

“The company may be inflating its representations of AUM and driving up stock price/token price using false financial information,” it said.

The amounts involved have not been small. According to one former trader: “We were clicking in with billions of dollars like any small trader would with $10.”

Back in 2011 in its report on the 2008 crash a US Senate sub-committee found, in the words of its chairman Carl Levin, basing himself on work carried out by investigators, a “financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.”

The significance of the ongoing revelations of the operations of the crypto market is not only that nothing has changed but that it is certain to have worsened in the decade since, given the further massive amounts of money pumped into financial markets by the Fed used to finance speculation.

Much as attempts may be made to characterise the crypto market as some kind of outlier, its rise and rise has been made possible by the same conditions—the provision of ultra-cheap money—that produced a boom in the stock market and all other financial assets.

While the crypto crisis may not be a “Lehman moment” for the broader financial market—at least not yet—it can certainly be characterised as a “canary in the coal mine.”