Seventh COVID-19 wave sweeps across Canada

Malcolm Fiedler

Little more than three months after provincial governments across Canada followed the demand of the far-right “Freedom Convoy” and dismantled all remaining public health protections, another wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths is raging. Despite drastically scaled back screening measures, data from British Columbia to the Atlantic provinces makes clear that Canada confronts a rapidly escalating summer wave, fueled by the more immune-resistant and transmissible BA.5 variant.

Victoria Hospital in Ontario, Canada. (Wikimedia Commons)

In BC, where testing is limited to only a tiny fraction of the population, cases are steadily rising. Hospitalizations and critical care patients have shot up by over a third in the past fortnight. The independent BC COVID-19 Modelling Group estimates that the BA.5 variant now makes up roughly 80 percent of all cases in the province.

In Quebec, hospitalizations, ICU patients and deaths are rising sharply. On July 8, the province reported 17 deaths, the highest single daily death toll in almost two months. Ontario is witnessing similar trends, with the province reporting sharp rises in hospitalization rates at the beginning of July. The PCR test positivity rate rose to 14 percent, a two month high, with the BA.5 variant making up two-thirds of all genomic sequencing. Most ominously, case rates are rising fastest among people in their 80s, which suggests that the virus has found its way into long-term care facilities once again.

On the Atlantic coast, similar trends are being observed. In New Brunswick, hospitalizations doubled in the second week of July, with the BA.5 variant making up almost half of all sequenced cases.

The reaction of governments has been to double down on their profits before life, vaccine-only strategy. Every level of government from Trudeau’s federal Liberals on down has made clear from their total indifference to the rampant spread of new variants that they will do nothing to stop mass infection and death, and the widespread devastation to the health of the population that will ensue from cases of Long COVID, which can occur in anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of all infections.

Attempts to roll out the second COVID-19 booster vaccine, which offers additional protection against severe acute illness, have fallen flat. In BC, Provincial Health Minister Adrian Dix and Penny Ballem, executive lead of BC’s immunization program, held a press conference on July 8 in which they refused to authorize a fourth vaccine dose to the general public. They then bizarrely granted that anybody who wanted a fourth dose was, indeed, eligible to get one.

In Ontario, while fourth doses were initially limited to the elderly and the immuno-compromised, Chief Public Health Officer Kieran Moore did an about face on July 13 and authorized second boosters for the general population aged 18 to 59. Medical professionals such as Colin Furness and Tara Moriarty were quick to note on Twitter that the province’s failure to offer another dose to anyone under the age of 18 showed a reckless disregard for the danger the virus poses to children.

All three prairie provinces are refusing to expand fourth-dose access to the general population. Alberta’s hard-right government led by Jason Kenney is the most restrictive, limiting fourth doses to people aged over 70.

The homicidal policies pursued by governments from coast to coast have produced a situation in which the number of deaths recorded in 2022, with life-saving vaccines widely available, will far surpass the number recorded in 2021. In early July, Montreal daily La Presse noted that Quebec recorded more deaths from COVID in the first six months of 2022 than the entirety of 2021.

Canada surpassed 30,000 COVID-19 deaths in mid-December 2021, as the omicron wave surged across the country. Since then, more than 13,000 official deaths have been recorded, approaching the approximately 15,000 fatalities registered during 2021. With more than five months of the year to go, including the colder fall and winter months when the virus spreads even faster due to people spending more time indoors, 2022 is on course to be the deadliest year of the pandemic in Canada by far.

This scenario is all the more likely given the obstinate refusal of all public health officials to countenance the revival of any serious public health protections. BC Health Minister Dix, as he has done throughout the pandemic, insisted that avoiding infection was a personal responsibility that had nothing to do with public health. Moore also emphasized that Ontario would not institute any new public health measures to combat the current wave, blatantly lying that most Toronto residents are wearing masks in public settings voluntarily. Quebec’s Public Health Officer, Luc Boileau, similarly claimed that “basic rules” still apply, without specifying what those actually were, and refused to implement new measures.

The current wave is unfolding under conditions in which the national health care system is by all accounts on the brink of collapse. Massive staff shortages, and overcrowded and closed emergency rooms are being reported across the country. Quebec announced that over 7,000 health care workers are currently absent from work due to COVID-19-related reasons. Authorities in Quebec City urged residents to avoid five emergency rooms at hospitals due to staff shortages.

Data released by Ontario Public Health showed that even before the current summer wave, wait times for hospital beds in the province reached an all-time record high in April. Cathryn Hoy, president of the Ontario Nurses Association, told CBC News on June 16, “I don’t think the people of Ontario really know what is going on in the emergency rooms.” In British Columbia, rural communities appear to be bearing the brunt of the health care crisis, as small towns across the province, including Port Alberni, Clearwater, Port McNeil, and Merritt, all reported unexpected ward closures in the past few months due to staff shortages.

As the health care system becomes overwhelmed, demands on nurses and doctors are increasing. The burnout has become increasingly unbearable for many in the profession. One out of every two nurses is seriously considering quitting their jobs because of fatigue and overwork, according to the Canadian Federation of Nurses.

Against the backdrop of a seventh wave of the pandemic, the meeting of Canada’s premiers held July 11 and 12 in Victoria, BC, descended into political theatre. The heads of Canada’s provincial governments issued a call on the federal government to increase funding for the health care system they acknowledged was on the point of collapse. Trudeau’s Liberals, following the example of the hard-right, pro-austerity Harper Conservatives, have ruthlessly enforced real-terms cuts to health care transfers to the provinces since coming to power in 2015. Despite a growing aging population, not to mention inflation, the Trudeau government has restricted annual “increases” to the health care transfers to a meager 3 percent, while making available unlimited funds for Canada’s military, and bailouts to the banks and big business.

However, the criticism made by the premiers of the federal Liberals rings hollow. These are the very same premiers who, for the past two and a half years, have prioritized the health of the economy, the big banks and investors over the health of the general public. It is their ruinous pandemic policies that have helped push the health care system into an unprecedented crisis by sickening wide swathes of the public and overworking health care workers to the point of collapse.

Chinese officials raise “military” response to planned visit by US House speaker

Andre Damon

In yet another move by the United States to end the one-China policy that has governed its relations with China for decades, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel to Taiwan next month, the Financial Times reported.

As part of the one-China policy, the US has had no formal diplomatic ties to Taiwan, and high-level US officials have not traveled to the territory. The Trump administration set about systematically dismantling the policy, sending Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to Taiwan in 2020. At the time, Azar was the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in decades.

Pelosi, however, is second in the presidential line of succession, and would be far and away the highest-profile US official to visit Taiwan in over two decades.

China’s foreign ministry pledged to respond to Pelosi’s trip with “resolute and strong measures.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, “If the United States insists on going ahead, China will have to take firm and forceful measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

China’s Global Times newspaper, speaking for significant factions within the Chinese state and military, responded to the planned visit by declaring that the response from China would be “military but also strategic.”

The newspaper quoted Hu Xijin, its former editor-in-chief, as proposing that China “should send military aircraft to accompany Pelosi’s plane to enter the island of Taiwan and fly over the airport where Pelosi lands, and fly back to the mainland from the island.”

He added, 'When sending PLA aircraft to fly across the island, we [China] must be fully prepared for an all-out military confrontation.'

He continued: “If the Taiwan military dares to open fire against PLA aircraft, then Taiwan military aircraft would be shot down and Taiwan military bases will be destroyed. So if the US and Taiwan authorities want all-out war, then the time for Taiwan liberation will come.”

Were such a conflict to erupt, US President Joe Biden has indicated that the United States would go to war with China.

Asked in May whether the United States would use force to defend Taiwan, Biden replied, “Yes… That’s the commitment we made.” Asked the same question last October, Biden replied, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”

The Chinese side has likewise expressed willingness to go to war over Taiwan. Last month, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told US officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, “If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight, and we will fight at all costs.”

But Pelosi’s planned visit is only the most provocative in a series of moves meant to massively escalate the US conflict with China.

On Friday, the Pentagon said the State Department had approved over $100 million in US arms sales to Taiwan, and China has demanded that the US cancel the sale.

On Monday, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Benfold carried out a freedom of navigation exercise through the Taiwan Strait, triggering condemnation from Beijing.

Major US and global corporations have already begun pricing in the odds of a full-scale war between the two nuclear-armed powers. In an article in the Financial Times headlined, “Corporate jitters over Taiwan and China on the rise,” the newspaper cites corporate risk analysis that put the odds of war in the near term at one in five.

The FT writes, “Consultants and China experts in the US have seen a wave of requests for briefings since the war in Ukraine began, as the Financial Times reported last week. Demand for political risk insurance over potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait is also rising sharply, according to reports.”

The FT quoted an “executive at a western technology company” as saying, “The main lesson from Ukraine is that the west will hit an aggressor with very significant sanctions. Apply what we have seen in Russia to China, and you have Armageddon for the Chinese economy and for the global economy.”

The Biden administration’s reckless effort to stoke the US-China conflict has prompted warnings from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who told Bloomberg in an interview, “Biden and previous administrations have been too much influenced by the domestic aspects of the view of China,” adding that preventing “Chinese… hegemony” is not  “something that can be achieved by endless confrontations.”

Previously, Kissinger warned that the US-China conflict risked triggering a  global “catastrophe comparable to World War I.”

The massive escalation of tensions with China comes against the backdrop of the continued escalation of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. During a visit to the UK, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Vladimir Gavrilov, pledged to use US-supplied heavy weapons to destroy the Russian Black Sea fleet and retake Crimea.

“We are receiving anti-ship capabilities and sooner or later we will target the fleet. It is inevitable because we have to guarantee the security of our people,” he said. “Russia will have to leave Crimea if they wish to exist as a country,” Gavrilov insisted.

Even as the Biden administration is flooding weapons to Ukraine in the US’s proxy war with Russia, it is threatening to open up a new front in what is increasingly a globe-spanning conflict.

The Gates Scholarship 2022

Application Deadline:

15th September 2022

Tell Me About Award:

The Gates Scholarship (TGS) is a highly selective, last-dollar scholarship for outstanding, minority, high school seniors from low-income households. Each year, the scholarship is awarded to exceptional student leaders, with the intent of helping them realize their maximum potential.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Undergad

Who can apply?

To apply, students must be:

• A high school senior
• From at least one of the following ethnicities: African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native*, Asian & Pacific Islander American, and/or Hispanic American
• Pell-eligible
• A US citizen, national, or permanent resident
• In good academic standing with a minimum cumulative weighted GPA of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale (or equivalent) 

 Additionally, a student must plan to enroll full-time, in a four-year degree program, at a US accredited, not-for-profit, private or public college or university.

*For American Indian/Alaska Native, proof of tribal enrollment will be required.

How are Applicants Selected?

An ideal candidate will have:

• An outstanding academic record in high school (in the top 10% of his/her graduating class)
• Demonstrated leadership ability (e.g., as shown through participation in community service, extracurricular, or other activities)
• Exceptional personal success skills (e.g., emotional maturity, motivation, perseverance, etc.)

Where will Award be Taken?

USA

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Scholarship?

Scholars will receive funding for the full cost of attendance* that is not already covered by other financial aid and the expected family contribution, as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), or the methodology used by a Scholar’s college or university.

*Cost of attendance includes tuition, fees, room, board, books, and transportation, and may include other personal costs.

How to Apply for Scholarship?

Apply below

Visit Award Webpage for Details

U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) Africa Grants 2022

Application Deadline?

31st July 2022

Tell Me About Award:

The U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) invites proposals from African cooperatives, producer groups, and enterprises for grant financing and local support for innovative solutions that extend their own capabilities to increase revenues, create jobs, improve farmer incomes, and achieve sustainable market-based growth.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Grants

Who can apply?

• The organization must demonstrate that it has successfully worked together for a minimum of 1 year, have a minimum of 100 active members or suppliers, and has the capability to effectively use grant funds.
• The ownership and management must be in agreement on the problem to be addressed and have a commitment to benefit their community.
• The organization must have basic functional management and financial controls for a minimum of 2 years to demonstrate the capability to account for USADF funds.
• Organizations must be 100% African-owned and led.

Successful Proposals Must 

• Have a clearly defined market opportunity to grow revenues that can increase incomes.
• Have a clearly defined plan of how they can increase revenues and incomes in 2- 4 years.
• Be able to make significant cash or in-kind contributions to the project.
• Be able to directly impact hundreds of people and community members.
• Be able to identify a path for growth after the USADF grant ends.
• Special consideration will be given to applications that incorporate innovative strategies to make use of new approaches and technologies, including complementary finance and information technology. 
• Special consideration will also be given to women-owned organizations and applications that promote youth.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Uganda, Congo DRC, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Numerous

What is the Benefit of Scholarship?

US$50,000-US$250,000

How to Apply for Scholarship?

Apply via the application forms in the Link below!

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The Rise of BRICS: The Economic Giant that is Taking on the West

Ramzy Baroud

Image by m.

The G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, June 26-28, and the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, two days later, were practically useless in terms of providing actual solutions to ongoing global crises – the war in Ukraine, the looming famines, climate change and more. But the two events were important, nonetheless, as they provide a stark example of the impotence of the West, amid the rapidly changing global dynamics.

As was the case since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the West attempted to display unity, though it has become repeatedly obvious that no such unity exists. While France, Germany and Italy are paying a heavy price for the energy crisis resulting from the war, Britain’s Boris Johnson is adding fuel to the fire in the hope of making his country relevant on the global stage following the humiliation of Brexit. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is exploiting the war to restore Washington’s credibility and leadership over NATO – especially following the disastrous term of Donald Trump, which nearly broke up the historic alliance.

Even the fact that several African countries are becoming vulnerable to famines  – as a result of the disruption of food supplies originating from the Black Sea and the subsequent rising prices – did not seem to perturb the leaders of some of the richest countries in the world. They still insist on not interfering in the global food market, though the skyrocketing prices have already pushed tens of millions of people below the poverty line.

Though the West had little reserve of credibility to begin with, Western leaders’ current obsession with maintaining thousands of sanctions on Russia, further NATO expansion, dumping yet more ‘lethal weapons’ in Ukraine and sustaining their global hegemony at any cost, have all pushed their credibility standing to a new low.

From the start of the Ukraine war, the West championed the same ‘moral’ dilemma as that raised by George W. Bush at the start of his so-called ‘war on terror’. “You are either with us or with the terrorist,” he declared in October 2009. But the ongoing Russia-NATO conflict cannot be reduced to simple and self-serving cliches. One can, indeed, want an end to the war, and still oppose US-western unilateralism. The reason that American diktats worked in the past, however, is that, unlike the current geopolitical atmosphere, a few dared oppose Washington’s policies.

Times have changed. Russia, China, India, along with many other countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America are navigating all available spaces to counter the suffocating western dominance. These countries have made it clear that they will not take part in isolating Russia in the service of NATO’s expansionist agenda. To the contrary, they have taken many steps to develop alternatives to the west-dominated global economy, and particularly to the US dollar which, for five decades, has served the role of a commodity, not a currency, per se. The latter has been Washington’s most effective weapon, associated with many US-orchestrated crises, sanctions and, as in the case of Iraq and Venezuela, among others, mass hunger.

China and others understand that the current conflict is not about Ukraine vs Russia, but about something far more consequential. If Washington and Europe emerge victorious, and if Moscow is pushed back behind the proverbial ‘iron curtain’, Beijing would have no other options but to make painful concessions to the re-emerging west. This, in turn, would place a cap on China’s global economic growth, and would weaken its case regarding the One China policy.

China is not wrong. Almost immediately following NATO’s limitless military support of Ukraine and the subsequent economic war on Russia, Washington and its allies began threatening China over Taiwan. Many provocative statements, along with military maneuvers and high-level visits by US politicians to Taipei, were meant to underscore US dominance in the Pacific.

Two main reasons drove the West to further invest in the current confrontational approach against China, at a time where, arguably, it would have been more beneficial to exercise a degree of diplomacy and compromise. First, the West’s fear that Beijing could misinterpret its action as weakness and a form of appeasement; and, second, because the West’s historic relationship with China has always been predicated on intimidation, if not outright humiliation. From the Portuguese occupation of Macau in the 16th century, to the British Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, to Trump’s trade war on China, the West has always viewed China as a subject, not a partner.

This is precisely why Beijing did not join the chorus of western condemnations of Russia. Though the actual war in Ukraine is of no direct benefit to China, the geopolitical outcomes of the war could be critical to the future of China as a global power.

While NATO remains insistent on expansion so as to illustrate its durability and unity, it is the alternative world order led by Russia and China that is worthy of serious attention. According to the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Beijing and Moscow are working to further develop the BRICS club of major emerging economies to serve as a counterweight to the G7. The German paper is correct. BRICS’ latest summit on June 23 was designed as a message to the G7 that the West is no longer in the driving seat, and that Russia, China and the Global South are preparing for a long fight against Western dominance.

In his speech at the BRICS summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the creation of an “international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries”. The fact that the ruble alone has managed to survive, in fact flourish, under recent Western sanctions, gives hope that BRICS currencies combined can manage to eventually sideline the US dollar as the world dominant currency.

Reportedly, it was Chinese President Xi Jinping who requested that the date of the BRICS summit be changed from July 4 to June 23, so that it would not appear to be a response to the G7 summit in Germany. This further underscores how the BRICS are beginning to see themselves as a direct competitor to the G7. The fact that Argentina and Iran are applying for BRICS membership also illustrates that the economic alliance is morphing into a political, in fact geopolitical, entity.

The global fight ahead is perhaps the most consequential since World War II. While NATO will continue to fight for relevance, Russia, China, and others will invest in various economic, political and even military infrastructures, in the hope of creating a permanent and sustainable counterbalance to Western dominance. The outcome of this conflict is likely to shape the future of humanity.

Political crisis in Italy deepens

Peter Schwarz

Seventeen months after the formation of a government of “national unity” under former European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi, Italy is once again in a deep governmental crisis. Draghi announced his resignation on Thursday, but President Sergio Mattarella refused to accept it. 

Draghi will explain his reasons for tendering his resignation to the House of Representatives next Wednesday. The result of this remains unclear. Possibilities range from the continuation of the current government to the formation of another government under Draghi, the appointment of a technocratic cabinet to run government affairs until the regular elections in the spring of 2023, to the dissolution of the parliament and new elections in October.

Draghi addresses the Chamber of Deputies [Photo by governo.it / CC BY 4.0]

The immediate reason for Draghi’s resignation was the vote on a €26 billion package to alleviate the effects of inflation, which Draghi declared a vote of confidence. The Five Star Movement (5SM), the largest faction in Draghi’s all-party coalition, boycotted the vote in the Senate, the second parliamentary chamber. It is asking for more aid than provided for in the legislative package and is also opposed to the construction of a waste incineration plant, which is part of the package.

Despite the boycott of the Five Stars, Draghi won the vote—and thus also the vote of confidence—by 172 to 39 votes. In the Chamber of Deputies, where the confidence vote and the vote on the aid package were held separately, the 5SM also expressed its confidence in Draghi. Nevertheless, Draghi declared his resignation. He justified this on the grounds of a lack of confidence in his government’s work.

The conflict over the aid package is only the trigger, not the cause, of the government crisis. Italian society is deeply divided socially. All the major parties are discredited and hated, which produces tensions and conflicts. With the exception of the fascist Fratelli d’Italia they are all part of the government.

Draghi’s election as head of government in February 2021 was already due to fear of social upheaval. Prior to that, the Five Star Movement’s Giuseppe Conte served as head of government for almost three years. The 5SM emerged as an anti-establishment party after the global financial crisis of 2008, the social consequences of which hit Italy particularly hard. In 2018, they formed a coalition government with the far-right Lega, led by Matteo Salvini.

The following year, Salvini tried to force new elections to become head of government himself but failed. The Five Star Movement and the Democrats (the Italian Social Democrats), who previously fought each other bitterly, then formed a coalition government.

At the time, we provided three reasons why the hostile parties had persisted in working together: the fear of new elections, because they were concerned about a massive loss of votes and considered any interference by the masses in politics to be a political threat; the adoption of an EU-compliant budget with billions of euros in savings at the expense of the working class; and the attempt to “convince the EU and NATO that they can also rely on Italy militarily.” At that time, Salvini maintained close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The coronavirus pandemic eventually brought down the government of the Five Star Movement and Democrats. The horrific images from northern Italy, where hospitals overflowed and military trucks carried away coffins at night after the local crematoria could no longer keep up, alerted the whole world to the danger of the pandemic and government irresponsibility.

All parties then gathered behind Draghi. In his long career, the 74-year-old had worked for the World Bank, the Italian Ministry of Finance and the US bank Goldman Sachs, as well as head of the Italian and European Central Banks. As head of the ECB, he flooded the financial markets with billions of euros and lowered the living standards of the working class through austerity dictates.

Draghi formed a government that included all the parties represented in parliament, from the far-right Lega to the Five Star Movement and the Democrats. He awarded some ministries to non-party experts. We commented at the time that what brings the divided parties together is their hostility to the working class. Italy is in a deep economic crisis and on the brink of a social explosion. Under these conditions, all parties joined together behind a head of government who “embodies European finance capital like no other.”

Only the Fratelli D’Italia, a fascist party in the tradition of Mussolini, refused to join the all-party government. It has benefited as a result. If new elections were held now, Fratelli would be the strongest party with 23 percent, according to polls. At the last parliamentary election in 2018, they only received 4.4 percent. Party leader Giorgia Meloni has long been in discussion as a possible Italian head of government.

Under Draghi, Italy’s social and economic crisis has intensified.

The official unemployment rate is 8.4 percent, which is about 2 percent higher than the EU average, and the youth unemployment rate is 24 percent. However, the actual figures are much higher. According to official statistics, more than 3.4 million people are precariously employed.

Italy is the only European country where real wages have fallen since 1990, by 2.9 percent, according to official OECD figures. But the reality is far worse. The number of those living in absolute poverty has risen to 5.6 million during the coronavirus pandemic. Official inflation is 8 percent and the price increase for energy is just under 50 percent.

Draghi has integrated Italy, which has always maintained close relations with Russia, into NATO’s war policy, with corresponding economic consequences. Like Germany, Italy is heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, and around 40 percent of natural gas has so far come from there. Some gas deliveries have stopped, while prices are exploding.

Resistance to social attacks is growing in the working class. Spontaneous or official strikes against job losses, low wages and unsustainable working conditions occur on a regular basis. In the first half of 2022 alone, 506 people died at work. Strikes mainly affect rail and air transport, but also telecommunications, the car industry and other sectors. In April and May, grassroots unions called one-day general strikes.

Draghi’s resignation has caused great concern in the European Union. The former head of the ECB was seen by the European ruling class as a guarantor of a “stable monetary policy,” i.e., of the consequences of the economic crisis being passed on to the working class. 

It is now feared that the euro crisis, which almost brought about the collapse of the single currency a decade ago, will break out again. The spread, the interest rate differential between Italian and German government bonds, which contributed significantly to the crisis in 2010, has once again risen sharply.

In addition, the euro’s exchange rate against the dollar is at an all-time low, further fueling inflation, particularly in the energy sector, which is traded in dollars. If the ECB reacts with higher interest rates, this could drag the Italian economy further into the abyss. 

The deep economic crisis and the increasing determination of the working class not to accept the attacks any longer make the ruling elite nervous. That is the reason for the current government crisis. If it is resolved in the interests of the ruling class, this will inevitably mean further attacks on the working class, which can only be enforced by dictatorial methods. This danger is very serious, as shown by the rise of the fascist Meloni, who is portrayed by both the Italian and the European press as a sympathetic figure. A continuation of the Draghi government would also exacerbate the warfare both at home and abroad. 

In Italy, as almost everywhere in Europe, it is the Social Democrats and the trade unions who are doing everything in their power to enable the ruling class to find such a solution. Since the beginning of the 1990s, when the old Italian party system collapsed, the predecessors of the Democrats and their pseudo-left supporters have always been on hand to save bourgeois rule. Even now, they are Draghi’s most reliable supporters. The trade unions, for their part, suppress the struggles of the workers or, if this is not possible, try to restrict and isolate them.

Protests in Hungary against tax hike for small businesses amid skyrocketing inflation

Markus Salzmann

Several thousand people demonstrated in the Hungarian capital last week against a planned government increase in income tax for small business owners and the self-employed, the KATA. The tax hike coincides with rapidly rising inflation, which now stands at nearly 14 percent.

Protesters in Hungary’s capital Budapest on July 13, 2022 (AP Photo/Anna Szilagyi)

On Friday, several thousand protesters marched through downtown Budapest for the third day in a row. Thousands of people had already taken to the streets on Tuesday evening, blocking two major bridges over the Danube for hours.

Those affected by the tax increase are small business owners or the self-employed, who usually earn little more than employees. Actors, artists, journalists, bicycle couriers and others took part in the protests. About three-quarters of those hit are expecting drastic increases in their tax bills and thus a reduction in their net income. The Association of Tax Consultants predicted a reduction in net income of 20 to 40 percent. About 450,000 freelancers will be affected by the increase starting in September.

KATA was introduced in 2013; the flat tax was intended to relieve small business owners who earned no more than €30,000 a year. They deducted about €120 per month to cover taxes and did not need a tax adviser or accountant when declaring their income tax, which also saved costs.

The protests enjoyed great support, as it is clear the tax increase is only the beginning of widespread attacks on the entire population of the country.

Under the current emergency laws proclaimed by the far-right Fidesz government of Victor Orban, a legislative package was able to pass in a very short time without any parliamentary interference. Less than 24 hours passed between the submission of the draft law on Monday and its passage in parliament on Tuesday.

The legislation includes a ban on energy exports and an increase in the production output of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant.

Most dramatic, however, is the government’s departure from the brake on housing costs introduced more than eight years ago. At the time, Orban responded to the growing discontent of poorer sections of the population by subsidizing gas and electricity and has since used it in election campaigns to portray himself as a social benefactor.

As of August 1, every household with an annual gas consumption of more than 1,729 cubic meters and an annual electricity consumption of more than 2,523 kilowatt hours must pay the difference to the market price. This is currently nine times the tariff for gas and 6.5 times for electricity. This will mainly affect poorer households with many children, who have been spending more time at home during the pandemic and thus have higher electricity consumption.

The attacks on workers and their families underscore the class nature of the right-wing government. This is a “government of tax reductions,” Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó dubs the Fidesz regime, but only for the super-rich and large corporations. For example, the government recently vetoed an increase in taxes for large companies to a global minimum.

Already, many households can barely pay for the extreme increases in the cost of food and other essentials. Core inflation, which does not include price increases for food and energy, is 13.8 percent, according to ING, a global financial institution. Food price rises were 22.1 percent in June, with some food items increasing by 40 percent year-on-year. The last time Hungary saw such price rises was in 1998, 24 years ago. Experts believe it will be months before prices peak.

A report by broadcaster Euronews makes clear how hard inflation is hitting those who were already struggling to make ends meet before the drastic price increases. Szabina, who is raising six young children on her own and is unemployed, said, “The children haven’t been getting much fruit or sweets for a long time. It’s more important to get anything cooked at all that’s enough for six. And me.”

Without the support of aid organizations, many families would no longer get by. A newborn child can be an almost impossible challenge because of the increased cost of clothing and diapers. Andrea Vörösné Deák, reporting the rise in absolute poverty cases, said, “There are many crisis pregnancies nowadays, where it’s not sure if the mother can take the child home.”

According to the news report, people are turning to aid organizations for assistance with electricity, gas or rent much sooner than in the past. The extent of the problem caused by inflation was also shown by the fact that many more people were now turning to them for food as well.

The attacks on the population will inevitably continue to increase as the Orban government itself comes under increasing international pressure. For weeks, the Hungarian currency, the forint, has been falling against the euro, reaching ever new lows. In addition to the war in Ukraine, another reason for this is the conflict with Brussels over the disbursement of EU funds after Hungary was threatened with a cut in payments following a ruling by the European Court of Justice on the so-called rule of law mechanism. It is expected Hungary’s new debt this year will be 6 percent—one of the highest deficits in the EU.

Against this backdrop, the recent protests were only the beginning of explosive class struggles in Hungary. Across the globe, conflicts and protests are becoming more acute because of galloping inflation. The political crisis in Sri Lanka, which forced the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, was preceded by mass protests throughout the country.

Most recently, there were mass protests in Albania. Thousands of demonstrators in the capital Tirana demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama and his government. In the small Balkan state, too, massively rising prices are causing poverty to explode, with inflation rising last month at the fastest rate in 20 years.

UK government ignores US and European concerns over Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Steve James

The British government is pressing on with its Northern Ireland Protocol Bill despite opposition from the imperialist powers on both sides of the Atlantic. None of the prospective candidates to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and prime minister have distanced themselves from legislation denounced repeatedly as breaking international law.

The bill removes all restrictions on trade between Northern Ireland and Britain, apart from checks on goods destined for the Republic of Ireland. It authorises the British government to alter state aid, tax rules and standards regardless of the European Union and ends the authority of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in disputes between the EU and the UK. Designed to appeal to the most hardline Brexiteers within the Tory Party and to Northern Ireland’s unionist parties, the bill calls into question key components of the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, reached only three years ago, and threatens to undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement setting up power-sharing after decades of “The Troubles”.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss visits local businesses in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to discuss Northern Ireland Protocol, May 25, 2022 [Photo by Simon Worth / FCDO / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

Brexit was an attempt to undercut British imperialism’s rivals by ripping up such restrictions on profitability that were bound up with EU membership, seeking global trade deals instead and an intensified assault on the working class.

The “hard” Brexit negotiated by the Johnson government placed the UK outside of the EU’s single market and, at a stroke, transformed the partition line brutally imposed on Ireland by British imperialism in 1921 into an external EU border. The protocol component of the Brexit agreement, seeking to avoid a border on Ireland itself, which would breach the Good Friday Agreement, allowed Northern Ireland to remain in the EU single market but, in doing so, imposed customs checks on the Irish Sea border with the UK.

The government undoubtedly negotiated this with the intention of reneging on it as soon as possible, relying on the outrage from its close allies in the hard right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and their paramilitary loyalist extensions to force the issue. The DUP is currently refusing to allow the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly to be revived, pending abolition of the protocol, while inflaming sectarian tensions. The recent July 12 “celebrations” saw Irish nationalist politicians burnt in effigy on loyalist bonfires.

The bill has infuriated the UK’s allies and rivals in the US and EU. Shortly after its publication, the European Commission (EC) launched “infringement proceedings” against the UK for its failure to comply with significant parts of the protocol. EC Vice President Maroš Šefčovič said, “Let there be no doubt: there is no legal, nor political justification whatsoever for unilaterally changing an international agreement.” The EC cited a series of infringements—legal proceedings on which were either being launched, re-launched, or prepared—including cases to the ECJ over border post staffing and trade data.

The Biden administration has repeatedly made clear that it opposes unilateral moves against the protocol as destabilising. US corporations have trillions of dollars invested and headquartered in the Republic. Moreover, Washington views tensions between major allies in NATO’s war against Russia as dangerous.

These issues have provoked factional infighting within the Tory party, exposed when the bill was introduced to the House of Commons, June 27, by Foreign Secretary and hard-right Tory leadership contender Liz Truss.

Former prime minister Theresa May, forced out of office in 2019 by the Brexiteers and replaced by Johnson, complained that the bill is “not legal under international law, won’t achieve its aims and diminishes the standing of the UK in the eyes of the world.” She questioned whether Truss would achieve her stated aim of encouraging the DUP back into power-sharing.

Tory MP Simon Hoare, chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in Westminster also opposed it, as did former Northern Ireland Secretary, Julian Smith.

Labour’s David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, attacked the bill because it threatened to undermine NATO’s war against Russia. “The precedent that it sets is dangerous and the timing could hardly be worse,” he warned. “It divides the United Kingdom and the European Union at a time when we should be pulling together against Putin’s war on the continent, and it risks causing new trade barriers during a cost-of-living crisis.”

Citing his own dealings with US imperialism, Lammy complained, “I have been to Washington on three occasions in the past six months, and I can say that across the political divide, Republicans and Democrats have raised the issue. On my most recent visit, they were aghast; they had not seen the content of the Bill at that stage, but they were aghast at the proposition.”

Despite the alarms, the bill’s second reading was passed by a majority of 74. The bill is currently going through its committee stages.

On July 3, the German government weighed in with an unprecedented joint statement by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens and her Irish counterpart, Simon Coveney, warning that the bill would deepen divisions with Europe.

According to the pair, “There is no legal or political justification for unilaterally breaking an international agreement entered into only two years ago. The tabling of legislation will not fix the challenges around the protocol. Instead, it will create a new set of uncertainties and make it more challenging to find durable solutions.”

Baerbock and Coveney noted that 52 of the 90 members of the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly, from Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party, support the protocol.

Baerbock and Coveney’s primary concern too was that the British position was undermining war against Russia. “In these difficult times, as Russia is leading a ruthless war in Ukraine, breaking with our European peace order, the EU and UK must stand together as partners with shared values and a commitment to uphold and strengthen the rules-based international order.”

Baerbock’s concern for “peace” in Europe and rules in international relations is such that the German government is currently embarking on the largest rearmament since the Nazi period with a €100 billion Special Fund for the Bundeswehr, to be spent on the most modern weaponry, while older weapons systems are poured into Ukraine. The Irish government, for its part, is moving ever closer to NATO membership, recently announcing an increase in military spending to at least €1.9 billion annually and preparing to recruit 6,000 more troops.

The protocol dispute confirms that Brexit was only one expression of deepening tensions between the imperialist powers. Although the UK, EU and US are currently allied against Russia, tensions between British imperialism and its rivals over Ireland stretch back hundreds of years. The island has historically been the back door through which the European powers have sought to exert their influence against Britain and is now economically dominated by the US, while British imperialism has hung on to its last colonial outpost in the six counties of Northern Ireland to retain influence over and prevent revolutionary threats emerging from the entire island.