Iran imprisons film directors amid escalating crackdown on dissent and protests

Jean Shaoul

In the largest crackdown on its film industry since 2010, Iran ordered internationally acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi, 62, to serve a six-year jail sentence after he criticised the government.

Panahi was arrested on July 11 when he went to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on the arrest of Mohammad Rasoulof, another well-known filmmaker, and Mostafa Aleahmad. The two were detained on July 8 after criticising the authorities’ response to the collapse of a multi-story building in Abadan, in the oil-rich, southwestern province of Khuzestan, on May 23, that killed 43 people. The Iranian authorities accused the filmmakers of having links to opposition groups outside the country and plotting to undermine state security.

Jafar Panahii, 2007

Their imprisonment is part of a broader attempt by the clergy-led bourgeois nationalist regime of President Ebrahim Raisi to silence the filmmakers and politically threaten other critics of the regime. It takes place amid a government campaign of intimidation and repression against any opposition to the soaring cost of living that is making it impossible for workers and rural toilers, not just in Iran but across the globe, to feed their families.

This attack on democratic rights and free speech must be opposed and a campaign mounted by filmmakers, writers, artists, workers and youth everywhere to demand that the sentence be overturned immediately, and all filmmakers, artists and labour activists be released from Iran’s jails.

Following the Abadan building collapse in May, local officials, instead of sending in relief teams to help in the search, deployed anti-riot squads to disperse the crowds of volunteers and mourners and sent in security forces to demolish the building before the search for any survivors was complete. Angry crowds took to the streets to protest at the rampant corruption and breach of regulations that had led to the collapse, demanding the prosecution and punishment of officials.

Protests spread to other cities across the country that soon morphed into anti-government rallies. The authorities responded by shutting down access to the internet, ordering shops to close and sending in riot police to disperse the protests with teargas, warning shots, mass arrests and intimidation. Rasoulof wrote an open letter, signed by other filmmakers and artists, over the “corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” relating to the building collapse and called on security forces to “lay down their arms.”

Panahi and Rasoulof were previously arrested in 2010 for “propaganda against the system,” critiquing the government in their films and at protests. Panahi was given a six-year suspended jail sentence after being imprisoned for two months before his trial. For the last 12 years he was subject to a travel ban and barred from making films, although his subsequent films, including his 2015 film Taxi, sought to evade these restrictions. He is now in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

Rasoulof was given a one-year sentence in 2011. Just months after his film There Is No Evil, which related four stories touching on the death penalty in Iran and personal freedoms won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear prize in 2020, Rasoulof was sentenced to a year in prison for three films that authorities claimed were “propaganda against the system.” While he won on appeal, he was banned from making films and travelling abroad.

Firouzeh Khosrovani

Panahi’s imprisonment comes two months after security forces arrested Firouzeh Khosrovani (director of Radiography of a Family and interviewed by the WSWS in 2021) and Mina Keshavarz, two internationally renowned documentary filmmakers, and Reihane Taravati, a well-known photographer, and raided the homes of at least 10 other documentary filmmakers and producers, seizing their mobile phones, laptops and hard drives. The three women were released on bail after their families surrendered their property deeds as guarantees, although none of the three have been formally charged.

This crackdown on filmmakers comes as Iran’s kleptocracy sits atop a social volcano as poverty soars to encompass 80 percent of Iran’s 85 million population and the middle class has all but disappeared.

Iran’s economy has been devastated under the impact of years of harsh economic sanctions imposed by Washington. After the Trump administration unilaterally abandoned the 2015 nuclear accords with the major powers aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear programme, it reimposed sanctions and piled on additional measures targeting Iran’s economy, including its oil and gas exports and banking system, to exert “maximum pressure” on Iran.

As a result, Iran’s oil and gas exports, a key revenue source, have plummeted. Iran’s increasingly beleaguered government responded by incrementally rolling back some of its commitments made under the nuclear accord, including increasing its uranium enrichment up to 60 percent purity, some way off from the weapons-grade level of 90 percent, and turning off the cameras at some of its sites, in a bid to demonstrate its refusal to submit to US pressure and strengthen its bargaining position in the talks with the Biden administration over returning to the accords.

Tehran had hoped that a renewed agreement would rescue its economy, particularly as oil and gas prices soared following the US/NATO-provoked war against Russia in Ukraine. But now, as Washington seeks to cement an anti-Iran alliance as part of its broader preparations for war with Russia and China—with whom Tehran has forged increasingly close relations—such an agreement is looking increasingly unlikely.

The US’s ever tighter economic blockade has deepened the poverty of the Iranian masses and strangled the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic which, according to official figures, has claimed the lives of more than 142,000 people. The currency, whose official exchange rate is 42,000 rials to the US dollar, is now trading in the bazaars at about 320,000 rials to the dollar, meaning that Iran’s currency is now worth one tenth of its value at the time of the 2015 nuclear deal—making it hugely expensive to source external goods and services and increasing the cost of locally produced goods.

The government has resorted to printing money to compensate for the loss of oil and other revenues and economic activities and to solve its budget deficit. It has dropped the official exchange rate of 42,000 rials for setting the price of necessities and food items in favour of the bazaar rate or “market approach” which is eight times higher, sending the cost of food sky high.

Iran’s official inflation rate has soared, with the monthly inflation rate reaching 12 percent in June, a 50 percent increase on a year ago, with no signs of slowing down. Food shortages and high prices, the drought that has affected the entire region, the decades-long mismanagement of the water system and agricultural production and the chronic shortage of electricity that has led to some factories operating at 50 percent capacity and others at 20-30 percent capacity, have combined to make living conditions intolerable.

The last few months have seen mass anti-government protests across the country, sparked by the government’s cuts to subsidies and the now worthless pensions. A major factor in the increasing poverty has been the ninefold increase in housing prices in the last five years that has priced the young middle class out of the housing market. Whereas 40 years ago, only one in five households rented their home, now one in three do so. The number of families renting is even higher in Tehran, where rents have risen by 50 percent this year alone, meaning that up to 60-70 percent of income goes on rent, under conditions where wages are low and often paid months in arrears. A shocking 19 million people are forced to live in slums.

With no respite from its imperialist foes, Iran’s ruling elite has responded to the protests with arrests, intimidation, violence and repression as it seeks to preserve its economic wealth and political power. The families of the trade unionists and labour activists imprisoned since May for leading or participating in the recent teachers’ protests in support of higher wages say that security agents have threatened them if they persist in publicising the arrests and detention of their relatives, while visits have been banned.

Coronavirus outbreak at children’s summer camp in Germany

Tamino Dreisam

Last week, a children’s summer camp of the youth association “Roter Baum” near Dresden was cancelled after a counselor and several children infected with the coronavirus were hospitalized. The case is symbolic of the federal and state government’s policy of mass infection and their propagation of “living with the virus.”

The summer camp in Karl May Village near Dresden, in which around 50 children from Berlin took part—most of them from socially poorer backgrounds—was originally scheduled to last 10 days. However, as early as Monday, July 11, a counselor had to be hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms.

Child with COVID-19 in hospital bed (Medical University of South Carolina)

The following day, July 12, a child likewise had to be hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms and three other children tested positive for the virus. The health department was informed about the outbreak and paid a visit to the camp the same day. Despite this visit, it decided to let the camp continue and only ordered a few basic hygienic regulations, such as regular testing and a mask requirement for camp counselors.

After yet another child had to be hospitalized the following day, July 13, the health department paid a second visit and again decided to let the camp continue. This time, too, only a few additional hygienic requirements were issued, “the implementation of which was to be monitored in a timely manner.”

It was not until the night of July 13-14 that a doctor acting on behalf of the health department called the camp director, telling him to close the camp. As of Friday afternoon the camp director had not received a written order, according to media reports.

Reports about the case have mainly focused on the question of the culpability of the camp management and the health department. Their complicity is indisputable: While the health department did not shut down the camp even after learning of the outbreak, the camp management is trying to downplay the situation.

For example, the managing director of the youth association, Tilo Kießling, a member of parliament for the Left Party in the Dresden City Council, spoke after the fact of only four or five positive cases, whereas counselors spoke of as many as 20 infected. Two counselors told the Sächsische Zeitung that the organizers initially refused to close the camp and only intervened after an emergency medical doctor advised to do so: “It is clear that the situation here is to be swept under the rug.”

This outbreak casts a spotlight on the criminal coronavirus policies of the federal and state governments, which are deliberately designed to allow the population to be infected. “Living with the virus” is the mantra in politics and the media, which is now being implemented with all its consequences so as not to diminish the profits of banks and large corporations.

When the Infection Protection Act expired in mid-March, the German government decided that in the future only “basic protection” would be required, essentially limited to wearing a mask in public transport, in clinics and old people’s homes. At the time, this was hailed by leading politicians as an “important step towards normality.”

In the following months, all parties in the Bundestag (federal government) and the state parliaments worked to abolish even the last measures. In April, for example, mandatory vaccination was rejected in the Bundestag; in May, quarantine was reduced to five days; and at the end of June, free testing for the coronavirus was ended.

The federal government is doing nothing about the rising summer wave of infections, which is already putting clinics under pressure with increasing infection and death rates. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrats, SPD) only called for a recommendation to wear masks indoors and a fourth vaccination. Faced with a harsher wave in the fall, the federal government’s current plans do not include any measures beyond mandatory masks, social distancing recommendations and contact restrictions for those infected.

The fact that 50 children can come together in a camp for 10 days without having been tested even once beforehand is an expression of the new reality of “living with the virus.” The outbreak in the summer camp and its consequences are not only an indictment of the capitalist policy of mass infection, they also disprove the myth that the Omicron variant is “mild,” especially for children.

In reality, new infectious vaccine-resistant and deadly variants will continue to emerge if the virus is given free rein and is not eliminated. Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, recently stated, “Omicron subvariant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus yet. The already pronounced immune escape has increased even more.”

In Germany, BA.5 is now dominant, with increasingly dramatic consequences. Every week, around 10,000 people are hospitalized, including an increasing number of young people. About 6 percent of those hospitalized are under 14 years old, and another 9 percent are between 15 and 34 years old. Deaths from coronavirus are likewise on the rise, most recently reaching more than 600 deaths per week. Every week at least one of them was still shy of adulthood.

White House confirms plans to send US-NATO jets to fight Russia

Andre Damon

In what may be the most provocative escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia to date, the White House has confirmed that the US is planning to send NATO-made fighter jets to Ukraine.

John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, confirmed that the Pentagon is discussing “providing fighter aircraft to the Ukrainians.”

Kirby’s statement marks a rejection of the Biden administration’s previous refusal to send fighter aircraft to Ukraine because, in Biden’s words, such a move would lead to “World War III.”

Friday’s announcement confirms the earlier statement by Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.,  that “discussions are ongoing” to send US-NATO fighters to Ukraine.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Conference, Brown was asked, “[i]s it possible the U.S could sell or provide Ukraine more U.S fighter platforms?” To this, Brown replied, “[i]t'll be something non-Russian, I could probably tell you that.”

In May, the Pentagon rejected an earlier proposal by Poland to send Soviet-made MiG fighters to Ukraine, calling it “high risk.”

At the time, Biden declared that the move could start “World War III,” saying, “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III.”

In announcing the Pentagon plan, Kirby said the Pentagon is looking to solve logistical issues including training, maintenance, and spare parts.

The Wall Street Journal reported: “A former Pentagon official said F-15 and F-16 fighter jets have been discussed as options for Ukraine, though both aircraft require significant training and maintenance. The former official, now in private industry, says a separate contingent is pushing to get Ukraine A-10s.”

Also on Friday, the White House announced a further $270 million in weapons deliveries to Ukraine, in the 16th weapons package since the start of the war. The new package includes four additional HIMARS missile weapons systems, as well as hundreds of phoenix ghost “kamikaze” drones.

A clear strategy of the US in the proxy war against Russia is emerging. Washington apparently believes that by abandoning all restraints on the type of weapons systems being deployed to Ukraine, Kiev will be enabled to regain territories lost since the start of the war and achieve their aim, first stated in March 2021 as the official military doctrine, of retaking the entire Donbass (East Ukraine) and the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea.

“Our assistance is making a real difference on the ground,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week. “Russia thinks that it can outlast Ukraine — and outlast us. But that’s just the latest in Russia’s string of miscalculations.”

Under these conditions, Ukraine officials have categorically rejected peace talks. “All the territories must be liberated first, and then we can negotiate about what to do and how we could live in the centuries ahead,” Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. “Our people are convinced we can do it. And the faster we do it, the fewer will die.”

In the process of building a fighting force they hope will be able to defeat the Russian military, the United States is supplying Ukraine with the exact same weapons systems used by the US military, and training Ukrainian forces to operate them just like the US military does.

To date, the United States has given Ukraine sixteen of its most advanced ground-based guided missile systems, the HIMARS, as well as its standard anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, and the anti-aircraft system used to guard the White House, the NASAMS, as well as over 100 top-of-the-line long-range artillery pieces, as well as hundreds of armored personnel carriers, and over a thousand lethal aerial drones.

In addition, the United States has provided hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition, and millions of rounds of small-arms ammunition.

Since the start of the war, the US has committed $7.6 billions in military aid to Ukraine. The flow of US weapons to Ukraine has been so enormous that military officials have expressed whether this would deplete the United States’ own military stockpiles.

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly placed limits on the level of US involvement in the war, only to then overstep those limits.

After claiming the US would not provide Ukraine with weapons capable of striking within Russian territory, Biden announced that the US would provide long-range missiles to Ukraine. Now, the White House is moving rapidly to send fighter jets in a massive escalation of the conflict.

Even as the US is recklessly escalating the war with Russia, US officials told the media that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would travel to Taiwan, prompting Chinese officials to demand a “military response.” After Biden said Thursday that the trip is “not a good idea right now,” broad sections of the Republican party demanded that the trip go forward.

In its second editorial on the proposed trip this week, the Wall Street Journal demanded to know whether “The Pentagon fears China might shoot down a U.S. aircraft carrying the person third (sic) line to the Presidency,” and declares, “If China can stop a senior U.S. official from visiting Taiwan, how resolute is America going to be in a shooting war?

Under these super-charged conditions, Foreign Affairs ran an article this week entitled, “What If the War in Ukraine Spins Out of Control,” declaring, “a nuclear attack is still in the realm of possibility.”

China’s youth unemployment rate climbs to record high

Jerry Zhang

Young people are facing an unprecedented jobs crisis in China, amid a sharp economic contraction driven by the global slump and COVID crisis.

People wearing masks, walk in a subway station, in Hong Kong [Credit: AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

Last week the government reported that the world’s second largest economy, grew by only 0.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter. In fact, on a quarter-by-quarter basis, the economy contracted by 2.6 percent in the three months to the end of June.

According to the statistics, in June, the unemployment rate of urban youth aged 16 to 24 was as high as 19.3 percent.

Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, attributed this to “the young people entering the labour market for the first time, generally facing the predicament of frictional unemployment, and under the influence of the pandemic, the ability of enterprises to create jobs has declined.”

This explanation angered many young people who are deeply affected by their predicament. The bureau’s statement did not respond to their concerns at all.

According to the statistics, the urban youth unemployment is mainly affecting high school, vocational high school, college and undergraduate graduates. The situation may be worse than officially acknowledged because the bureau’s jobless estimate only measures those who have sought employment in a short period of time.

Since 2018, when the bureau began regularly announcing the youth unemployment rate, it has generally shown an upward trend year-by-year. It has now nearly doubled from the 10 percent recorded just four years ago.

The peak rate generally occurs in July and August with the arrival of the graduation season. But this year the rate jumped to 18.2 percent in April and is still rising.

According to the Ministry of Education, there will be 10.76 million university graduates this year, 1.67 million more than in 2021, and a record high in both scale and growth. This will undoubtedly make the unemployment situation even more severe.

Under the heading of “graduates breaking 10 million for the first time,” a mocking Weibo post received thousands of likes and comments. “Employment is always better last year, unemployment is always worse next year,” it said. “People are becoming more and more ‘Involutionised.’”

The word “involution” is mentioned in many other posts and comments. The term has become a buzzword among Chinese youth over the past few years to describe increasingly fierce competition and meagre returns that are disproportionate to the level of competition.

According to a report published by the Chinese recruitment website Qiancheng Wuyou, more than half of undergraduate graduates intend to pursue a master’s degree, and of those who are pursuing a master’s degree, about 30 percent are considering a doctorate. Such a choice is on the one hand a desire to temporarily escape the pressure of entering the labour market, and on the other hand a response to increasingly fierce competition.

Due to the deteriorating employment environment, more and more young people want to enter more stable large companies and civil service institutions, which leads to higher qualification requirements and discrimination. In May, a piece of news became a hot topic. It reported that “a doctor of nuclear physics who graduated from Peking University successfully obtained a position in a grassroots administrative unit.” This at once caused discussion about “involution” on social media.

In this deteriorating economic environment, young employees above a certain age are also more likely to be laid off. Under the topic “Autumn Recruitment,” a Weibo user asked for help. “Unfortunate things happened. I originally received an offer from a company, but the company HR notified me some time ago that my job offer was temporarily dismissed. Now I only receive a small amount of damages.”

In the comments below the post, many young people shared similar experiences. One wrote: “The company terminated the contract a month ago. The most annoying thing is that the company even refused compensation on the grounds that I didn’t officially join. I can’t get rid of my depression now. Trying to contact the tutor to find a way to postpone my graduation.”

At the same time, widespread distrust of manufacturing industries is affecting the employment situation. Despite much official propaganda urging youth to enter industrial jobs, the chronic and pervasive lack of labour rights protection is driving them away.

One comment voiced the distrust of the propaganda machine and the lack of workers’ rights. “If manufacturing jobs are so attractive, ask the children of economic experts to work in factories first,” it suggested.

According to reports, in the past few years, the service industry has been the main source of youth employment, adding to a large “flexible employment” population. By the end of 2021, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, this “flexible” workforce will reach a staggering 200 million people. This data includes “de-organised, part-time” jobs such as courier riders, dispatching/outsourcing workers and self-employed drivers.

This growth was interpreted by state media as “the active choice of young people” and “a brand new employment situation.” Such reports have been met with widespread outrage, that are depicted as “singing at funerals” and intended to glorify grim unemployment and insecure jobs.

While official spokesmen are still trying to paint a brighter picture, the high unemployment, especially among youth, shows the impact of the global crisis on China’s economy. Previously, the government pinned hopes of economic and employment recovery on a rebound of consumption after the pandemic was contained.

Before COVID-19, the growth of China’s tertiary industry was inseparable from the contribution of private consumption to GDP. However, household consumption has not shown the expected “rebound.”

In addition to the impact of the ongoing pandemic, higher unemployment is reducing overall spending power. Wang Jingwen, a macro researcher at China Minsheng Bank, warned: “If the youth unemployment rate rises further, it may lead to an increase in household precautionary savings, which will put pressure on the entire social consumption and the real estate market. This may lead to social stability problems.”

Dissatisfaction about the economy and jobs is sparking discussions on social media and more broadly at breakneck speed.

Czech Government Scholarships 2023/2024

Application Deadline: 30th September 2022

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries. See list below

To be taken at (country): Public Universities in Czech Republic

Eligible Fields of Study: Students who are applying for study in Economics, Agriculture, Informatics, Environment and Energetics at public universities in the Czech Republic.

About the Award: Thanks to a generous contribution from the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, the Faculty of Social Sciences is able to offer a limited number of partial scholarships for students of all fee based programs.. A total of __scholarships are available, ear-marked for students from developing countries and/or countries going through a process of political and economic transition.

Upon a Decision of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, scholarships of the Government of the Czech Republic are granted to promote specific Bachelor’s, Master’s, follow-up Master’s and/or Doctoral study programmes in the full-time mode of study of a specific study programme pursued by a university (or its Faculty) for a period that equals the regular duration of studies. Scholarships are not transferable to other persons or other academic years. Once a scholarship is granted, neither the university nor the study programme and/or field of study may be changed.

Type: Doctoral, Undergraduate and Masters

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• The scholarships are intended solely to promote the studies of adults who are foreign nationals from developing third countries in need. Neither a citizen of the Czech Republic, nor a citizen of a member state of the European Union, nor any other foreign national with a permit to permanent residence on the territory of the Czech Republic may, therefore, be granted this type of scholarship. Furthermore, the scholarships may not be granted to persons under 18 years of age. (The applicants have to turn 18 as of 1 September of the year when they commence studies in the Czech Republic at the latest.)
• In Bachelor/ Master/ Doctoral Study Programmes plus one-year Preparatory Course of the English language (Which is combined with other field-specific training): Government scholarships of this category are awarded to graduates from upper secondary schools, or Bachelor’s / Master’s degree courses, as applicable, Who can Enroll only in Study Programmes in which instruction is given in the English language. Depending on the subject area, Applicants are normally required to sit entrance Examinations at the higher education institution Concerned. Successful passing of Entrance examination constitutes a precondition for the scholarship award; or
• In follow-up study Programmes Master or Doctoral Study Programmes: Government scholarships of this category are awarded to graduates of Bachelor or Master Study Programmes, respectively, Enroll in the WHO study Programmes with instruction in the English language.

In addition, the Scholarship Review Board will take into consideration applicants’ results from their earlier studies. Priority will be given to students who have not previously had the opportunity to study abroad.

Number of Scholarships: TBC

Duration of Scholarships: These Government Scholarships are designed to cover the standard length of study plus one-year preparatory course of the Czech language(which is combined with other field-specific training).

Value of Scholarships: 

• The scholarship covers the necessary costs related to staying and studying in the Czech Republic. The scholarship amount is regularly amended.
• Currently the amount paid to students on a Bachelor’s, Master’s or follow-up Master’s study programme stands at CZK 14,000 per month
• Whereas the amount paid to students of a Doctoral study programme stands at CZK 15,000 per month.

The above scholarship amounts include an amount designated for the payment of accommodation costs. Costs of accommodation, food and public transport are covered by scholarship holders from the scholarship under the same conditions that apply to students who are citizens of the Czech Republic. Should health services exceeding standard care be required by the student, s/he shall cover them at his/her own cost.

Eligible Countries:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina,
• Cambodia,
• Ethiopia,
• Georgia,
• Moldova,
• Ukraine,
• and Zambia.

How to Apply: Each applicant is obliged to fill in an electronic application form at the latest by 30 September 2022. The successful applicant starts studying in the academic year 2023/2024.

Detailed information on the terms and conditions of scholarship awards is provided in the binding “Guidelines for Granting Scholarships of the Government of the Czech Republic”, issued in Czech and English.

Prospective applicants are advised to read carefully the guidelines before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

US unemployment claims and job cuts mount as interest rate hikes begin to hit economy

Shannon Jones

New US claims for unemployment benefits rose again last week for the third week in a row, as Ford, Stellantis and other auto companies announced job cuts. The interest rate hikes by the US central bank. which are aimed at driving up unemployment to undercut workers’ wage demands, increasingly appear to be having the intended effect as the US economy heads towards a possible recession.

Ford world headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan (WSWS Media)

Initial jobless claims rose to 251,000 for the week ending July 16, up from 244,000 the previous week and well above the pre-pandemic weekly average of 218,000. The four-week moving average rose to 240,000, up 4,500 from the week before. Hiring in June was down 5.4 percent from May, according to data from Linkedin.

Other signs of impending recession abound. The price of copper, a key material used in manufacturing, has fallen 20 percent since January, hitting a 17-month low on July 1. Consumer confidence is at its lowest level since 1952 due to the erosion of incomes by inflation, and the construction of new homes is slowing.

The higher layoff numbers follow rate hikes of a half percent in May and three-quarters of a percent in June. Another one-half to three-quarter rise is expected when the US Federal Reserve meets later this month. The rise in interest rates impacts borrowing and increases the cost of car loans, home mortgages, student loans and credit card debt.

The impact of the looming economic slowdown is evident in the auto industry, which is particularly sensitive to the rise in interest rates, with Ford and several EV makers announcing significant job cuts.

This week Ford said it is cutting 8,000 jobs, mainly from its “Ford Blue” internal combustion engine operations. The layoffs will largely involve salaried staff and are aimed at slashing costs to provide cash for investment in electric vehicles. Most of the cuts will take place in the US.

Ford CEO Bob Farley said the company must cut $3 billion in costs by 2026, the savings coming from the company’s gas engine operations, which he said needs to become the “profit and cash engine” as the global automaker seeks to expand its EV operations.

The meaning of this was spelled out at an automotive conference last February where Farley complained, “We have too many people.” This would come as a surprise to workers who are being forced to work 12-hour shifts and six-day weeks because of COVID-related labor shortages. What Farley meant, however, is that Ford wants to slash costs by squeezing more production out of a smaller, superexploited workforce.

US electric truck maker Rivian Automotive Inc. is also planning to implement layoffs. According to a report in Bloomberg, the cuts could impact 5 percent of the company’s 14,000-strong workforce. Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe said in a letter to employees, “Rivian is not immune to the current economic circumstances, and we need to make sure we can grow sustainably.”

Meanwhile, electric car maker Tesla is closing its offices in San Mateo, California, impacting 229 jobs. Tesla CEO Elon Musk floated possible job cuts totaling 10 percent of the company’s salaried workforce, declaring he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.

Stellantis also announced the indefinite layoff of 40 workers at its Warren Stamping Plant located north of Detroit. This follows the layoff of workers at the nearby Sterling Stamping plant in June. Another 98 were laid off in March. Management issued a boilerplate statement saying the layoffs were required to “operate the plant in a more sustainable manner.”

The layoffs come as Stellantis is in the process of slashing the workforce at its assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, from 1,800 to about 800 workers. While the workers are being offered transfers to other Stellantis plants, the layoffs put a question mark over that.

A number of tech companies have also indicated plans for staff reductions, including Google, Twitter and Netflix.

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, which are being presented by the Biden administration as a means to fight inflation, is in fact directed against workers’ attempts to raise wages to meet the soaring cost of living. In the past few months a series of militant strikes and contract struggles have taken place as workers resist the attempt by management and the unions to impose wage settlements far below the current 9.1 percent annual inflation rate.

However, the efforts by the Federal Reserve to increase unemployment to dampen militancy may produce the opposite reaction, serving to further inflame workers’ anger as reflected in posts filling Facebook pages in response to recent job cut announcements.

“Ford’s net profit was $18B in 2021, its executive compensation $22M, for a ratio to the median of all employees’ total compensation of 356 to 1. The productivity of its workers, a loyal bunch, is totally not appreciated. They know where to cut costs, but those making decisions in the boardroom instead choose to fuel inflation to feed their greed,” one worker posted.

“Inexcusable. They made the money off those employees backs and put it in the pocket of the top 1%?? Ford made profits, this is greed and nothing else,” said another.

While announcing cuts, on the one hand, automakers have been imposing forced overtime and recruiting hundreds of temporary and contingent workers, who make a fraction of the pay and benefits of senior workers, to churn out more vehicles.

The Stellantis layoffs are also evoking strong opposition, especially the miserable treatment of contingent workers. A young Stellantis worker in Detroit told the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, “The company has been hiring workers off the streets, and they make them work 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. They hardly get time to sleep, let alone do anything else, like trying to go to school. Every waking moment they’re at work.

“But the factories have been constantly going down because of shortages of microchips, instrument panels and other parts. One week, they’re working 60-70 hours, the next week they are only working 30 hours. The TPTs (temporary part-time workers) can’t collect unemployment benefits and don’t get short workweek pay like full-timers.

“I can sympathize with them because I was a TPT for years before I rolled over to full-time. Their paychecks are like Burger King’s. They make $15, they have some health benefits but no profit-sharing, and if they are laid off, they don’t get (SUB) pay like full-time workers. I was bringing home $572 a week as a TPT when I first started.

“They’re bringing home maybe $700 a week after taxes now. If the plant is down one or two days or a week, they’re losing $100 a day. How can a TPT, especially with a kid or two, live on $400 or $500 a week? It’s impossible.”

To defend jobs and living standards requires workers adopt a global strategy. Ford and other automakers are slashing costs worldwide while they seek to whipsaw workers in different countries in a fratricidal competition over jobs.

In Europe, Ford confirmed this month that it will close its Saarlouis, Germany plant by 2025 at the cost of 4,600 at the plant and another 1,500 workers in related supplier companies. Ford management, with the critical assistance of the unions, pit German Ford workers against workers in Valencia, Spain over who could offer the deepest cuts.

Meanwhile, Ford in India is closing its Chennai manufacturing plant in the state of Tamil Nadu this month at the cost of 4,000 jobs and potentially tens of thousands more in supplier industries. The closure announcement sparked a militant strike by younger workers at the plant, who were betrayed by their union.

New Zealand workers hit by surging living costs

Tom Peters

While New Zealand experiences its worst surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than a hundred deaths per week and hospitals inundated, the working class is simultaneously being hit by soaring living costs.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addresses a post-Cabinet press conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand on October 4, 2021. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP)

Statistics NZ reported this week that consumer prices increased 7.3 percent in the 12 months to June, the highest annual increase in 32 years. Wages rose on average by less than half this rate, just 3 percent in the year to March, meaning the vast majority of workers experienced a substantial real wage cut.

In the last year alone, the cost of petrol increased by 32 percent and diesel by 74 percent. The cost of building a house rose 18 percent, driven by the shortage of labour and building materials. Food prices increased 6.6 percent. Rents went up 4.3 percent in the past year, and roughly 30 percent since 2017, when the Labour Party entered government.

Last year, according to economics consultancy firm Infometrics, households’ basic costs increased on average by “around $70-$100 per week,” or $3,640 to $5,200 annually.

Around the world, workers are being driven into struggle as inflation forces them to bear the full burden of the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prices for fuel, food and other basic items are being forced up by global supply chain disruptions, caused by the refusal of almost all governments to eliminate COVID, and especially by the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

The most significant contributors to inflation are the pro-business policies implemented by governments and central banks, particularly over the past two years. The New Zealand Labour Party-led government used the pandemic to funnel tens of billions of dollars to the rich, through subsidies, tax concessions and bailout packages for large corporations.

The Reserve Bank’s quantitative easing measures—it printed $53 billion in 2020–2021 to purchase bonds from the commercial banks—also boosted inflation, especially in the housing market. House prices went up 45 percent during the pandemic, and have only come down about 5.5 percent since the November 2021 peak.

New Zealand’s major banks posted record profits totalling $1.74 billion for the March 2022 quarter, up 8.08 percent on the previous quarter. The four biggest electricity companies increased their combined profits by nearly 60 percent in the second half of last year. Fletcher Building, NZ’s biggest construction company, is forecasting a $750 million profit this financial year.

While the corporate elite enjoys ever greater wealth, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson told Radio NZ on July 19 that most workers should not expect pay increases matching the 7.3 percent inflation rate. He said “there is going to be a period of time when it’s tough,” adding that the Treasury expects wages to increase above inflation after 2022.

There is no reason to believe this will happen. Real wages have stagnated for decades and are now being driven backwards. The government has led the charge, with a public sector wage freeze imposed last year.

A widening layer of the population is being forced into poverty and many are cutting back on food and other essentials. According to a KANTAR survey of about 1,500 people conducted in April, 40 percent of households are spending more than $200 a week on food—up from 35 percent last year. Just 57 percent of respondents are eating five or more servings of fruit and vegetables per day, down from 60 percent last year.

Foodbanks did not exist in New Zealand until the 1980s, when the then-Labour government launched a program of privatisations and pro-market restructuring, triggering tens of thousands of layoffs. Today, hundreds of thousands of people regularly rely on charity to feed themselves and their families.

In Christchurch, Foodbank Aotearoa New Zealand, which supplies food to 106 charities across the city, told Stuff that demand has increased 30.2 percent in the last year. Auckland City Mission says demand for its food parcels has tripled over the past three years.

KidsCan, which provides food in schools for 44,000 children, last month revealed it had a waiting list of 2,000 more children. Its chief executive Julie Chapman says child poverty is the worst it has been since she founded the charity in 2005.

According to official statistics for the year to June 2021, 16.3 percent of children (187,300) live in poverty, after housing costs were accounted for. The reality is undoubtedly much worse. Stats NZ defines poverty as being below 50 percent of the median disposable household income, an extremely low threshold.

Homelessness and housing insecurity are deeply entrenched and continuing to rise. There are currently more than 27,000 people on the waiting list for public housing—five times the number since Labour came to power in 2017. Roughly 4,000 homeless people are in “emergency” accommodation, which typically means motel rooms.

A survey of 4,593 students released this week found that about two-thirds regularly could not afford basic necessities, including food, healthcare costs, clothing and other bills. Students, on average, are paying 56 percent of their income on rent, or $234 a week. One in six reported living in a flat which did not meet their needs, most commonly due to overcrowding, mould, dampness, poor insulation or lack of maintenance.

The survey, dubbed a “people’s inquiry into student wellbeing,” was conducted by the Green Party and the country’s student unions. The final report noted that living allowances, which are only available to a small number of students, have not kept pace with inflation, meaning that “students in 2021 were about $1600 worse off than their counterparts in 1999.”

The report also pointed out that Labour had promised in the 2017 election to restore the student allowance for postgraduate students and to phase in three years of free tertiary study (only the first year is currently free). The government, however, reneged on these pledges.

The Greens, which have been part of the Labour-led coalition government since 2017, are seeking to distance themselves from its austerity measures. Their aim is to capture growing left-wing opposition, especially among young people, and to channel it back into the parliamentary system.

Labour is only able to impose its pro-business agenda because of the support of the Green Party, as well as the trade union bureaucracy, and the pseudo-left backers of these organisations.

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) responded to the latest inflation announcement with a statement vaguely calling for “continued support for low- and middle-income New Zealanders.” It did not demand immediate pay increases above 7.3 percent for all workers, but instead called for “supporting employers to pay the Living Wage”—which the unions have designated as $22.75 an hour, just above the legal minimum wage of $21.20 an hour.

The unions’ Living Wage Movement Aotearoa previously announced that in September the “living wage” will rise to $23.65, an increase of 90 cents an hour or 3.95 percent, which is well below the soaring cost of living. This underscores the fraud of the “living wage” campaign: it is simply a mechanism to assist businesses and the state in keeping wages down.

This is a continuation of the role the unions have played for decades, in enforcing one sell-out agreement after another, mandating either stagnant pay or real cuts to wages.

Biden’s infection exposes “living with COVID” propaganda

Evan Blake

On Thursday morning, news broke that US President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19. Biden’s infection takes place amid a massive global surge of the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, which nearly every world government has sought to cover up through the dismantling of testing, data manipulation and corporate media propaganda.

The fact that Biden, who is surrounded by a level of security unknown to all but a handful of Americans, has contracted COVID-19 exposes the recklessness of his administration’s “living with COVID” policy. In recent weeks, Biden was made into the poster boy for this propaganda campaign, taking numerous maskless photo ops throughout the world.

Historically, an announcement that the president is ill, especially with a virus responsible for widespread death, would be taken with great seriousness, if for no other reason than it creates a political crisis. Instead, Biden’s bout with COVID-19 has been presented almost as a cause for celebration.

Typical of this trend is an op-ed in the Washington Post by Leana Wen, one of the chief minimizers of the Omicron variant who has supported all of the Biden administration’s unscientific policies. Wen writes, “President Biden’s covid-19 diagnosis is an opportunity for his administration to demonstrate the success of his leadership on the pandemic and what living with the coronavirus looks like.” She adds, “Biden should use his illness as an opportunity to inform the public that covid-19 is a manageable disease for almost everyone, so long as they use the tools available to them.”

Instead of reflecting on their disastrous mishandling of the pandemic—which has now killed over 600,000 Americans in just the first 18 months of his administration—the Biden White House is promoting this same line and stressing that he will continue working while sick with COVID-19, with the implication that all Americans should do the same when infected.

In this image provided by the White House, President Joe Biden speaks with Sen. Bob Casey (Democrat-Pennsylvania) on the phone from the Treaty Room in the residence of the White House on July 21, 2022. (Adam Schultz/The White House via AP)

In a photo op posted Thursday afternoon, which clearly exposed the photographer to the airborne virus, instead of recuperating Biden is shown maskless and working at his desk, with the caption, “Keeping busy!” In a follow-up video, Biden states, “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. Going to continue to get it done.”

In a press release, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stressed that Biden “will isolate at the White House and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time… and will participate in his planned meetings at the White House this morning via phone and Zoom from the residence.” She added, “he will continue to work in isolation until he tests negative. Once he tests negative, he will return to in-person work.”

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, co-hosted with media charlatan-turned-White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, Jean-Pierre stated, “With the photo, he took off his mask so that the American people can see him, and see directly, see the work that he’s doing and sitting at his desk, continuing to do his work.” Later in the press conference, she said bluntly, “We knew this was going to happen. As Dr. Jha said when he joined me in the briefing room not too long ago, he said, ‘At some point, everyone’s going to get COVID.’”

Underneath the almost celebratory statements from the White House and the media is a deeply disturbing reality.

The Post commentary concludes that becoming repeatedly infected with COVID-19 will be “the new normal going forward,” even for the president. “Indeed, this is almost certainly not the only time Biden will get the coronavirus. He, like the rest of us, could contract the virus once a year or more.”

An article by Apoorva Mandavilli in the New York Times states, “President Biden’s coronavirus infection is a stark illustration that the Covid vaccines, powerful as they are, are far from the bulletproof shields that scientists once hoped for.” She adds, “even booster doses offer little defense against infection, particularly with the most recent versions of the virus. What protection they do offer wanes sharply and quickly, several studies have shown. In the president’s case, the booster shot he received nearly four months ago is likely to have lost most of its potency at preventing infection.”

Mandavilli notes, “Earlier in the pandemic, experts believed that the vaccines would be enough to forestall not just severe disease, but also the vast majority of infections... But the Omicron variant upended those hopes. As more of the population gained some immunity, whether from infection or vaccines, the virus evolved to dodge those defenses... Each subsequent avatar of the virus has become still better at sidestepping immunity.”

What is described here is a public health and personal health catastrophe.

Numerous studies show that infection with COVID-19 can damage nearly every organ in the body, and reinfections increase the odds of this damage. If the media and politicians were honest, they would tell the American public, “You may be infected and severely ill for days or weeks at a time, once or multiple times per year, and with each reinfection your chances of dying or developing long-term complications will deepen.”

The implication of this “new normal” is that more immune-resistant variants will continue to evolve, spurring repeated waves of mass infection, debilitation and death, potentially for years or decades to come.

A biological ticking time bomb has been set off, and at any point a new variant could evolve that is more transmissible, immune-evading and lethal than any previous variant. With each new variant, the death toll will continue to mount, life expectancy will sink even further, and quality of life will diminish for millions more people suffering from Long COVID.

Despite the happy talk in the media, the US is presently mired in a protracted, steadily worsening surge of Omicron subvariants, with the most infectious and immune-resistant BA.5 subvariant now dominant. While Biden is the most public figure now infected, virtually everyone in the country knows multiple family members, friends or coworkers currently or recently infected with COVID-19.

After a two-month lull in infections, since late March cases have gradually risen across the country, with the official seven-day average of daily new cases rising nearly five-fold to 128,933 on July 20, according to News Nodes. COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen more than three-fold since their April 17 trough, reaching 42,612 on July 20. In the past month, the seven-day average of daily new deaths has surged by 57 percent, reaching 413 on July 20. Each week, as many Americans are now dying from COVID-19 as were killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Since the winter surge of the Omicron BA.1 subvariant, testing has been drastically curtailed across the US, causing a total decoupling of official figures from the actual level of disease in society. The real scale of viral transmission can be seen in nationwide wastewater sampling, which shows that the current surge has surpassed the peak of the Delta variant one year ago.

From the very beginning, the entire American political establishment has held onto the concept that the virus will be stopped partly through vaccination and partly through mass infection, or what was termed “herd immunity” under Donald Trump.

The highly infectious and immune-resistant Omicron BA.1 subvariant, which unleashed the most devastating wave of infections last winter, was treated with thinly-veiled enthusiasm. In January, Dr. Anthony Fauci declared that it could be “the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for.” Dr. Jha said he was “hoping that this really is the transition variant that gets us into a different footing.”

The vaccine-only strategy, based on these unscientific conceptions of viral evolution, which numerous principled scientists have cautioned against, has been shattered by the experience of the past eight months. The emergence of the Omicron variant and each of its subvariants proves the most fundamental argument of the Zero-COVID global elimination strategy, that in the absence of proven and essential public health policies the pandemic will not stop.

Alongside the deepening COVID-19 crisis, monkeypox has been allowed to spread through the country almost entirely unchecked. US infections have surged to 2,425, the second highest figure in the world.

The abandonment of all efforts to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, instead demanding that society “live with the virus,” set the stage for the disastrous response to monkeypox and all future infectious diseases. Likewise, nothing is done to stop the ever-growing existential threat of climate change.

American individualism, increasingly promoted for the past four decades, has assumed a socially pathological and criminal character. Public health and all social needs are now entirely subordinated to the profit interests of the corporate-financial oligarchy.

To varying degrees, the same policies have been implemented worldwide with the same recklessness and stupidity of the Biden administration. Every capitalist government outside of China has surrendered to SARS-CoV-2, giving the virus free rein to infect billions of people, mutate into more dangerous variants and wreak havoc on global society for years to come.