As inflation surges, France’s TotalEnergies posts €18 billion super-profits

Samuel Tissot

On July 28, French energy giant TotalEnergies announced more than €17.7 billion in profit ($18.8 billion) in the first half of 2022, a three-fold increase over the same period last year. The corporation has invoked increased oil and gas prices driven by the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine to justify a huge spike in fuel prices. In reality, it is using the Ukraine crisis to extract billions from the pockets of workers in France and internationally.

A TotalEnergies filling station in Paris, France [Photo by Chabe01 / CC BY-SA 4.0]

This phenomena is not limited to just Total or France. Multiple oil and energy corporations posted record profits in the second quarter of 2022. In just three months, ExxonMobil made profits of $17.9 billion, Chevron $11.6 billion, and Shell Oil $11.6 billion.

The 6.1 percent inflation rate recorded in France at the end of July is the highest ever. Fuel prices have been one of the principal drivers of rising costs. National averages for petrol prices peaked at €2.12 per liter in early June before reaching €1.85 per liter at the beginning of August, an increase of €0.30 from a year ago.

Although French president Emmanuel Macron demagogically denounced “war profiteers” who would seek to use the war in Ukraine to increase profits at June’s G7 meeting, his government is giving its full support to Total’s war profiteering.

In a Senate debate, as a motion to place a pitiful “exceptional solidarity contribution” on Total’s record profits was rejected, Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire defended Total. He said that businesses also “bear the burden of inflation,” claiming that the “best way for a company to [aid society] is not to be taxed, but to increase the salaries of its employees.”

Both claims are preposterous. Total’s year-on-year profit increase of over 300 percent in the first six months of 2022 is 50 times larger than France’s 6.1 percent inflation rate. Meanwhile, Total Energy has not increased workers’ salaries by a cent despite inflation; since 2020, the corporation has cut 6,500 jobs internationally, including 1,100 in France.

Analyzing Total’s “super profits” and tax evasion practices, economist Maxime Combes explains how its “profits are increasing at all stages of its production process, without the corporation having to change anything in its production process.” That is, Total’s record profits are driven automatically by the rise of oil on global financial markets. Besides the increased exploitation of its workforce by refusing to grant them raises as prices surge, it has not taken any action to obtain these windfall profits.

Total’s record 2022 profits follow its “tax optimization” policy, popular with most multinational corporations operating in France, where they declare engineered losses in France while enjoying billions in profit in countries with lower tax rates. As a result, Total has not paid a single euro in French corporation tax in the last 24 months due to losses in 2020 (although it still paid out €7.6 billion to its shareholders in that year).

To placate rising popular anger over blatant price-gouging of the population, Total executives promised an insulting 20-centime reduction in fuel prices from September 1 to November 1. With their pockets already stuffed with ill-gotten billions, Total’s executives and shareholders will walk away massively enriched despite this pitiful measure.

There is no indication that consumer fuel and energy prices or Total’s record profits will decline anytime soon. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), energy multinationals could see “excess profits of up to €200 billion in the European Union in 2022.” According to Combes, this could see Total’s own profits reaching €35 billion for the year.

Total is not the only corporation funneling billions in profits to shareholders whilst the great mass of the population suffers amid the pandemic, runaway inflation, and the economic fallout of the war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine.

Last week, corporations listed on the CAC-40 Paris stock market announced a record €174 billion in profits in 2021, over double the €80 billion recorded in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. This is almost double the record profits of €100 billion recorded in 2007, on the eve of the 2008 financial meltdown.

Alongside Total, the most profitable corporations were the Vivendi media group, which made over €24.6 billion; and luxury group LVMH, owned by France’s richest man Bernard Arnault, which made €12.7 billion.

Despite the automotive industry being plagued with a semi-conductor shortage for over three years, automaker Stellantis, which operates multiple factories in France, posted profits of €18 billion in 2021, a 34 percent increase on the previous year.

Alongside Total, corporate profits are continuing to surge in 2022 despite record inflation, the economic impacts of the war in Ukraine, and warnings of an impending recession in France and throughout the eurozone. In the first quarter, LVMH announced a profit of €6.5 billion in the first quarter of 2022, a 23 percent increase on 2021. Stellantis reported profits of €8 billion for the first six months of the year.

Across the globe, the ruling class is acting on the motto “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Following the first, and to date only proper lockdown against COVID-19, in May 2020 European corporations were bailed out for hundreds of billions of dollars with the approval of the CGT and other Franco-German unions.

Alongside the implementation of a back-to-work policy, which has led to millions of deaths and multiple waves of the virus, this created the conditions for a massive surge in the stock market, record corporate profits, and an unprecedented increase in the wealth of the super-rich. Amid rising inflation, the war in Ukraine, and an impending recession, this process is only accelerating.

Both internationally and in France, the ruling class has never had it so good. In just one telling example, during the pandemic and accompanying economic crisis, France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, has seen his wealth more than double from $76 billion in 2020, to $166 billion on August 1, 2022, according to Forbes wealth tracker.

On the other hand, the working class is facing rising costs, alongside cuts to already grossly inadequate social support. In response to inflation, the Macron government passed a 4 percent increase in retirement pensions and family allowances, an effective cut given the 6.1 percent inflation rate.

Though Total’s profits are widely viewed with outrage and disgust, no major party has proposed any measure that questions, let alone threatens, the ability of corporate executives to horde billions. Had the political theatre of the dead-on-arrival “solidarity contribution” passed the National Assembly and Senate, it would have been no more than a drop in the bucket of the hundreds of billions funneled to the super-rich every year.

Spain signs military agreement with US amid US-NATO war in Ukraine

Alice Summers

Last month, Spain’s PSOE (Socialist Party) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez issued a joint statement with US President Joe Biden pledging to increase the number of US warships and soldiers stationed on Spanish territory. The declaration outlining the military plans was adopted at an hour-long meeting between the two leaders on June 28, during the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of that month.

Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez speaks to Spanish troops during his visit to Adazi Military base in Kadaga, Latvia, Tuesday, March. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Roman Koksarov)

The agreement will increase the number of US destroyers stationed at the southern Spanish naval base of Rota in Cádiz by 50 percent, from four to six destroyers. It also provides for the garrisoning of an additional 600 American Marines at this base, taking the total number up to 1,800. The four destroyers currently stationed at Rota are part of NATO’s “antimissile shield,” as well as taking part in unilateral US missions, and regularly patrol the Black Sea.

The meeting between Biden and Sánchez comes amid the US-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Having goaded Russia into an invasion of its Eastern European neighbour, the NATO powers seek to use the conflict to escalate tensions with Moscow and to push for regime change and the dismemberment of Russia’s vast landmass.

Sánchez’s coalition government of the PSOE and the pseudo-left Podemos has fully signed up to the warmongering of the NATO alliance in Ukraine, sending warships, jet fighters and soldiers to Eastern Europe and funnelling tanks, ammunition and rocket launchers to NATO’s Ukrainian proxies for use against Russia. The Biden–Sánchez pact signals the Spanish government’s intention to continue and escalate its imperialist aggression in conjunction with the US.

Speaking to the press after his meeting with Biden, Sánchez declared: “Spain and the United States are allies, we share the will to promote democracy, freedom, human rights.” Biden, for his part, told Sánchez: “I want to thank you for your leadership, Pedro.”

He continued: “We are together with Ukraine giving it everything it needs to defend itself. … This makes us strong allies. The United States and Spain are also working in Latin America to strengthen democracies and strengthen our immigration policies. The joint statement reflects the great breadth of our cooperation.”

The document also lays out plans to escalate the campaign of violence and intimidation against migrants and refugees seeking to enter the European Union through Spain and the US from Latin America by “promoting safe, ordered and regular migration.

“Both countries intend to collaborate in a comprehensive approach to manage the flow of irregular migration that guarantees a fair and humane treatment of migrants,” the document dishonestly claims. “Both countries plan to coordinate efforts to tackle the root causes of irregular migration and work to strengthen the legal routes, with particular emphasis on the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Spain and the United States also recognise the importance of a permanent cooperation with respect to the challenges of irregular migration in the region of North Africa,” it adds.

This comes in response to the PSOE-Podemos government’s demand at the end of June that NATO consider migration as well as food insecurity and terrorism to be “hybrid threats,” a reference to NATO denunciations of Russian “hybrid warfare” before the war in Ukraine. NATO must strengthen its “southern flank”—i.e., the Sahel and Maghreb—PSOE Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares had also told Reuters.

Not coincidentally, the PSOE-Podemos government’s demands came just days after at least 37 migrants were killed and 150 more injured on the border between Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla and Morocco. Spanish and Moroccan police collaborated to systematically entrap, beat and tear gas refugees as they tried to climb the border fence, causing many to be suffocated or crushed to death.

On June 30, Spain’s Congress also voted in favour of doubling its military spending to 2 percent of GDP, reaffirming a pledge made by the PSOE-Podemos government to this effect in February. The motion on military spending, brought by the conservative People’s Party (PP), was passed in parliament with the votes of the PSOE, PP, the right-wing Citizens and a number of other deputies. Podemos, the pseudo-left junior partner in the Spanish government, voted against the bill, knowing full well that it would win a majority regardless of its support.

In an interview with TV talk show “La Hora de La 1,” Prime Minister Sánchez defended plans to increase the defense budget, stating, “NATO is an alliance of democracies in defence of democracy, and we must defend democracy by increasing our dissuasive capabilities.”

He continued, “We have to be very conscious of the fact that, beyond Europe and NATO, the world is very complicated, very difficult, it’s getting cold and it is important to defend our way of life and situate ourselves on the basis of an internal order.”

Podemos tried to distance itself from the warmongering of the Biden administration and the Spanish government, issuing mild criticisms of the Spain-US military agreement.

“We don’t like this pact,” Jaume Asens, president of Podemos’ parliamentary group, told the media inside Spain’s Congress building. “It means more soldiers, more North American destroyers and, therefore, a greater dependence on or submission to the USA when at times our interests are not the same.

“We defend European autonomy in terms of security, and this [the pact] goes in the opposite direction,” Asens added. But asked explicitly whether Podemos would vote against the military agreement when it reaches the Spanish Congress, Asens refused to commit his party to opposing it.

“We still have to decide about the vote, but it is evident that our position is different,” Asens declared. “We have always insisted that the solution is not greater military investment.”

Podemos’ criticisms of the policies of a government of which it is itself a part of have nothing to do with principled opposition to imperialist war. Podemos is aligning itself with a faction of the European bourgeoisie that wishes to develop greater military autonomy under the aegis of the EU. These calls aim to arm and prepare the European powers to pursue their own imperialist interests around the world, independently of or even in opposition to the military policies of the United States.

As the war in Ukraine progresses, the tensions between the countries that make up the NATO bloc will only increase, as each imperialist power seeks to pursue its own aggressive interests in dividing up the world’s resources and territories.

Oil giants reap record profits from war, pandemic and skyrocketing prices

Jacob Crosse

As working class families the world over struggle to afford basic necessities amid historic inflation, driven by the pandemic and the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the world’s largest multinational oil corporations are announcing record profits.

High gas prices are shown as a pedestrian waits to cross the street in Los Angeles, June 16, 2022. Oil companies were swimming in record profits the last few months. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Over the past week, the six major multinational oil giants—ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies and Eni—reported combined profits of over $64 billion in the second quarter alone. The orgy of profiteering is not limited to the six major oil companies. The smaller US companies Valero, Phillips 66 and Hess posted a massive combined quarterly profit of $8.62 billion.

In total, these nine companies reported over $72 billion in profits over three months. The oil companies, by and large, have refused to increase production, driving gas prices in the United States earlier this summer to an average of $5 a gallon and siphoning billions from working class families into their coffers. While the price of a gallon of gas has dipped somewhat in the last month to a nationwide average of $4.19 a gallon, this is still over a dollar more than the $3.17 recorded at this same time last year.

Every day during this period, the oil companies made $800 million in profit, or about $33.3 million an hour.

An analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental lobbying group that tracks the profits of the 15 largest oil and gas companies in the United States, found that compared to the same period in 2021, oil company profits grew “a staggering 242 percent.”

The largest private oil company in the United States, ExxonMobil, reported a second-quarter profit of nearly $17.9 billion, which represents a year-to-year increase of 226 percent, according to the NRDC. Overall, ExxonMobil has reported over $23.3 billion in profits this year alone.

Chevron reported a second-quarter profit of $11.62 billion, a 277 percent year increase from a year ago. The United Steelworkers union played a key role in the company’s massive profit increase through its isolation and betrayal of Chevron workers’ struggles for improved wages and working conditions, including its sellout in June of a strike by 500 oil workers in Richmond, California.

UK-based Shell reported a second-quarter profit of $17.85 billion, a 107 percent increase from last year, bringing this year’s total profits to date to over $20 billion.

Italian-based oil giant Eni reported a second-quarter adjusted net profit of $3.88 billion, a year-to-year improvement of nearly $1 billion.

French-based TotalEnergies likewise posted an all-time-high second-quarter profit of $9.8 billion, nearly a three-fold increase from last year. This figure topped the company’s previous high set in 2008, when the price of a barrel of oil (Brent Crude) was $147, roughly $47 more than current prices.

The profit figures exceeded Wall Street expectations and left investors and oil billionaires salivating at the prospect of stock buybacks and increased dividend payments. Instead of using their ill-gotten profits to hire more workers, increase wages or invest in new technologies to improve safety and combat the impact of climate change, all of the oil companies announced a new round of stock buybacks.

Industry publication RigZone.com notes that TotalEnergies already “bought back $2 billion of its shares” in the second quarter, and “will do so again in the third quarter.” The publication continued: “The board of directors of the company also approved the distribution of the second dividend in 2022, 5 percent higher year-on-year.”

Similarly, BP has spent $3.9 billion on stock buybacks in the first half of the year and announced another $3.5 billion buyback for the third quarter. The New York Times reported that the company would “devote 60 percent of its ‘surplus cash flow’ this year to share buybacks,” and raise the stock dividend by 10 percent.

ExxonMobil has already spent $7.6 billion on dividends and share purchases through the second quarter.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies have collectively spent some $25 billion in the first half of the year buying back their own shares.

While the portfolios of major oil company shareholders are booming, American families are falling deeper into debt, unable to keep up with record cost-of-living increases and soaring interest payments fueled by the Federal Reserve’s rate-hiking program. At the same time, the Fed is deliberately engineering a slowdown in economic activity in order to drive up unemployment and undermine workers’ struggles for higher wages and better working conditions.

On Tuesday, the New York Federal Reserve reported that US household debt exceeded $16 trillion for the first time ever. It noted that credit card balances increased by $46 billion last year.

According to CNN, in the past year overall credit card debt has “jumped by $100 billion, or 13 percent, the biggest percentage increased in more than 20 years.”

The oil companies’ price-gouging and profiteering in the midst of mass death from the pandemic and the escalating US-NATO war against Russia underscores the necessity for the working class to take possession not only of fuel, but also of food, medicine and all the other essentials of modern life to use for the betterment of all of humanity, not the enrichment of privileged idle few.

Biden orders drone assassination of al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan

Kevin Reed

On Monday evening, President Biden announced that, under his direction, a US drone strike was launched on Saturday that killed “the emir of al Qaeda,” Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden being briefed on July 1 about the plan to assassinate Ayman al-Zawahiri

Biden said that al-Zawahiri was the “number-two man” and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He also said the assassination of the 71-year-old Egyptian-born physician was necessary because he was “deeply involved in the planning of 9/11” and was a “mastermind” behind the bombings of the USS Cole in 2000 and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

As has been the case in every CIA targeted drone strike, no details or proof of the allegations made by the president were presented. According to news reports, US intelligence tracked al-Zawahiri down and found him living in a safe house in a densely populated section of Kabul.

The reports said that Biden approved the attack a week ago and that the CIA fired two Hellfire missiles and killed al-Zawahiri on a balcony of the house. The press cited intelligence officials as saying no one else was killed, including members of al-Zawahiri’s family or any nearby civilians.

Speaking from the White House Blue Room balcony, the President justified the act of US imperialist military violence, saying, “Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more.” He added, “People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.”

Biden also made it clear the assassination of al-Zawahiri was a warning to anyone deemed an enemy by the US government. He said: “You know, we—we make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

Coming in the midst of the escalating US-led war against Russia in Ukraine, and on the eve of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to Taiwan, Biden’s thuggish words could only be taken as an implicit threat against Russian President Putin and Chinese leader Xi.

A statement from the Taliban, the Islamist political organization that took control of Afghanistan after the US withdrawal last summer, condemned the drone attack in somewhat muted language, declaring: “It is an act against the interests of Afghanistan and the region. Repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities.”

The New York Times reported, “The CIA missiles hit a house in Kabul’s Sherpur area, a wealthy downtown enclave within what is considered the city’s diplomatic quarters, which once housed dozens of Western embassies and now is home to some high-ranking Taliban officials. The strike took place at 9:48 p.m. on Saturday East Coast time, or 6:18 a.m. on Sunday in Kabul time, officials said.”

Yahoo News reported, “A senior administration official said that the president was first briefed on intelligence relating to al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts on July 1. The official described Biden as ‘immersed in intelligence,’ wanting to know about the layout of the safe house, the impact of a strike on other residents and on civilians living nearby.”

The Times also reported, “Two top aides to Mr. Biden—Jonathan Finer, his deputy national security adviser, and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, his homeland security adviser—were first briefed on the intelligence in April. Later other officials were brought in, including Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, who briefed the president.”

The weapon used to kill al-Zawahiri, the AGM-114R9X (air to ground missile), is a modified Hellfire missile. It does not employ explosives, and instead uses kinetic energy and six blades to eviscerate the target.

It is a highly secretive weapon that has been employed by the US Air Force and the CIA against “high value targets,” not all of whom have been identified. It has been used in at least five countries, including Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan, to supposedly combat terrorism by dicing up enemies of US imperialism.

The Times called the grisly strike a “major victory” for Biden “at a time of domestic political trouble.”

Among the concerns of the Democratic administration is the likelihood that the party will lose its majority in one or both houses of Congress in the November midterm elections. It is significant that the strike took place on the eve of significant primary elections in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington.

Biden said that the action was proof that the administration would “continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan” after the US military withdrawal from the country one year ago.

However, while the Republicans did not challenge the decision to assassinate al-Zawahiri, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma said the strike on al-Zawahiri “reflects the total failure of the Biden administration’s policy towards that country.” Republican Representative Michael McCaul of Texas said the strike “serves as a reminder the American people were lied to by President Biden. Al Qaeda is not ‘gone’ from Afghanistan as Biden falsely claimed a year ago.”

Drone assassinations became standard military practice during the first term of the Obama administration and were continued by the Trump White House. As with his predecessors, Biden’s targeted assassination was carried out in violation of international law.

Assurances from the CIA that no one else was killed cannot be uncritically accepted. According to research by Airwars, over the last 20 years and after more the 91,000 strikes in seven war zones, “at least 22,679, and potentially as many as 48,308 civilians, have been likely killed by US strikes.”

Tense military standoff as US House Speaker Pelosi lands in Taiwan

Peter Symonds

In a reckless provocation that deliberately heightens war tensions with China, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan late last night aboard a military aircraft accompanied by her congressional delegation.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center, walks with Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, left, as she arrives in Taipei, Taiwan, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022 [AP Photo/Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP]

Despite concerns over the potential for a military clash or conflict with China, the Biden administration came together with the entire US political and military establishment in backing Pelosi’s trip. As Pelosi landed in Taipei, an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Ronald Reagan, with its full complement of fighter aircraft, attack helicopters and other weapons systems, was positioned in waters off Taiwan’s east coast.

The USS Ronald Reagan was accompanied by a guided missile cruiser USS Antietam and a destroyer USS Higgins. The US Navy also reported that the amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli, was also operating in the area. Two US Air Force planes were reportedly sent to Malaysia, where Pelosi held talks yesterday as part of the military preparations for her trip to Taiwan.

US officials, the American media and Pelosi herself promoted the lie that her trip and the accompanying military operation was “routine,” and her presence in Taipei did not deviate from decades of American policy and diplomacy.

Pelosi’s trip is anything but routine. She is the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in more than a quarter century. Her visit is just the latest in calculated steps taken by the Trump and Biden administrations to undermine the One China policy that has been the foundation of political relations between the US and China since formal diplomatic ties were established in 1979.

Under the One China policy, Washington de facto recognised that Beijing as the legitimate government of all China, including the island of Taiwan. It broke off diplomatic relations with the military dictatorship in Taipei and withdrew its military forces from the island. At the same time, the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act to allow unofficial, low-level contact with Taipei and the sale of so-called defensive weapons to Taiwan.

Over the past six years, all that has dramatically changed. Top-level talks and visits have been openly resumed; the US has for the first time publicly acknowledged the presence of American troops on the island; and arms sales, including of manifestly offensive weaponry, has escalated along with the frequency of US warships passing through the narrow Taiwan Strait.

Biden has deliberately ignored repeated Chinese warnings that US actions were jeopardising the relations between the world’s two largest economies and profoundly destabilising the Indo-Pacific region. In a phone conversation with Biden last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned that the US was “playing with fire,” if it allowed the Pelosi’s trip to take place.

Shortly after Pelosi landed in Taipei, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi again warned that the actions of American politicians were incendiary over the issue of Taiwan. “This will definitely not have a good outcome. The exposure of America’s bullying face again shows it as the world's biggest saboteur of peace,” he said.

China’s Defence Ministry told the media that its military was now on high alert and would launch “targeted military operations” in response to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Chinese military drills, including live-fire exercises, have already taken place in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait separating Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. Chinese warplanes reportedly flew close to the median line in the Taiwan Strait.

“The Chinese side has stated on many occasions the serious consequences of visiting Taiwan, but Pelosi knowingly made a malicious provocation to create a crisis,” the Defence Ministry said.

In response to Pelosi’s visit, China has retaliated economically with the announcement yesterday of a ban on imports from more than 100 Taiwanese food companies.

Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the escalating confrontation with China take place as the US and NATO accelerate their proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Driven by an unprecedented economic and political crisis at home, US imperialism is recklessly risking nuclear war in its drive to undermine, destabilise and break up what it regards as the two chief threats to its global hegemony—Russia and China.

Just as the US through the encroachment of NATO goaded Russia into invading Ukraine, so Washington calculates that it can provoke China into a debilitating war over Taiwan by ending the ambiguous status of the island and drawing it into the US camp. Taiwan is not only critical strategically immediately adjacent to the Chinese mainland, but is pivotal in the international production of semi-conductors. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips used broadly in commercial and military applications.

As US imperialism prepares for conflict against China, it is winding up the same cynical and hypocritical “human rights” propaganda used as the pretext for all its criminal interventions and wars of the past three decades. Pelosi, who has a long record as an anti-China hawk, tweeted on her arrival in Taipei that her visit was to honour “unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.”

In an op-ed comment for the Washington Post, Pelosi declared that the Taiwan Relations Act was one of the most important pillars of US policy in the Asia Pacific that “set out America’s commitment to a democratic Taiwan … [and] fostered a deep friendship rooted in shared interests and values.”

In reality, the US had not the slightest interest in democratic values in Taiwan in 1979, nor does it today. Even as it forged a de facto alliance with Beijing against the Soviet Union, Washington sought to protect the brutal military dictatorship on Taiwan that it had helped create when Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang (KMT) fled the mainland in the wake of the 1949 Chinese Revolution. Taiwan in 1979 was under martial law and remained so until 1987. While Taiwan today has the trappings of elections, its police state apparatus remains in place.

The Taiwanese administration has rolled out the red carpet for Pelosi. She was met at Taipei airport by Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and the US representative in Taiwan, Sandra Oudkirk. She has addressed Taiwan’s National Assembly and has met with President Tsai Ing-wen today.

However, outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel where Pelosi stayed last night, according to a Guardian report, she was greeted not only by supporters but opponents of her visit. “Hundreds of people gathered outside the hotel and across the road, with supporters and protesters separated by a wide cordon and dozens of police officers. Protesters shouted ‘Yankee, go home’ and carried signs calling the speaker a warmonger,” the reported stated.

Separated by the Chinese mainland by a narrow strip of water, there are widespread fears among the Taiwanese population of the dangers of conflict. As is the case in Ukraine, US imperialism is willing to plunge the island into a disastrous war and sacrifice countless lives as it pursues its criminal ambitions for global domination.

COVID predicted to surge to new heights in the UK this autumn

Thomas Scripps

Amid the wreckage of the UK’s third wave of COVID-19 this year, scientists speaking with the i newspaper have forecast new, even larger waves this autumn and early 2023.

University College London virus modeller Professor Karl Friston predicts the current fall in infections and hospitalisations will reverse in early October after schools have reopened and the weather has cooled. Cases of COVID-19 will then surge to an unprecedented high, peaking in late November with 8 percent of the UK population infected—the highest rate to date is 5.5 percent.

Families leave the National COVID Memorial Wall on their way to Downing Street [Photo: WSWS]

Friston forecasts another wave in March 2023, with the UK infection rate reaching 6.5 percent. His predictions are based on data from the Office for National Statistics and the ZOE COVID Study.

Other scientists have made similar warnings. Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, explained, “The autumn/winter period will be challenging with the mix of respiratory infections—new COVID variants, flu and other viruses.” Swansea University’s Simon Williams agreed, “It is very possible that we will experience a significant wave in the autumn which is likely going to be more challenging than that we just experienced.”

Daily symptomatic infections fell 31 percent between July 10 and July 23, according to the ZOE study. ONS figures published Friday confirm the decline, showing one in 20 people infected in the week ending July 20, down from one in 17 the week before. The number of COVID patients in hospital has also fallen, down 11 percent in the week to July 24; the ICU admission rate has dropped from 0.7 to 0.5 per 100,000 people.

The end of the school term is a significant factor, noted Young, “children being an important factor in the spread of the virus.”

But the main reason for the fall is that so many people have been recently infected that the UK population has reached “saturation point” in the words of Williams. Young refers to “the protective immunity induced by so many people having been infected.”

Friston notes that the “fluctuating course” of the pandemic in the UK is the product of changing “balance between the prevalence of infection and the pool of people susceptible to infection. This reservoir of susceptible people slowly increases with waning immunity and viral mutation—and is then reduced, with each successive wave of infections.”

This enormous wave of infection has occurred during a summer wave which was never supposed to take place. Professor Tim Spector who leads the ZOE study, commented last month, “Everyone is predicting an autumn wave but I don’t think anyone predicted this summer wave… None of the modelling allowed for this, it didn’t take into account the effect of BA.5 variant which is dominant now.”

The brutal logic of the ruling class’s “herd immunity” policy was that allowing unmitigated waves of infection, illness and death to sweep through the population would cause the pandemic to essentially burn itself out. This has proved a catastrophe. Waning immunity and new variants have produced surge after surge of an increasingly infectious virus. Young warns, “COVID is unpredictable, and we don’t know where and when the next variant will arrive”.

In the case of the Delta variant, SARS-CoV-2 became significantly more deadly. This may also be the case with the rapidly spreading BA.5 variant. Dr. Stephen Griffin, from the University of Leeds, told the i, “it is troubling that data from Portugal suggests that BA5 is not only more likely to reinfect people than BA2, but is also about 3 times more likely to cause hospitalisation.”

He added, “The complete lack of preventative action is unsustainable. There will be further waves this year, there will be more NHS pressure. Sickness, and long COVID are all being ignored by Government policy.”

As the pandemic continues, its devastating long-term consequences are becoming clearer. The ratio of deaths to infections remains significantly reduced in the UK compared to earlier years thanks to vaccination, but still serious. Since COVID deaths began to climb in the latest wave on June 12, more than 4,700 people have been killed according to Our World in Data, over 100 a day.

Clinical staff care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, May 5, 2020 [AP Photo/Neil Hall Pool via AP]

Crippling illness is taking its toll on much larger numbers of people, with far-reaching social and economic implications. The ONS reports more than 300,000 workers, more than one in every hundred, were forced to take time off work in June due to a COVID infection. The highest rates of COVID absence were among education, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and “other services” workers.

As well as the immediate symptoms of an infection, Long COVID is preventing large numbers from being able to work for months at a time. Of the 2 million people currently affected, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates some 110,000 are signed off work sick.

The IFS report also found that the burden of Long COVID falls hardest on the most deprived sections of the working class, noting that “those with long COVID in 2021 were more likely to be on benefits, and more likely to live in social housing, than those without”.

Tom Wernham who co-authored the report commented, “The rising rate of long COVID could therefore put additional strain on families during the cost-of-living crisis.”

COVID infections and illness are having a particularly severe impact on the already understaffed National Health Service (NHS), now forced to deal with continuous periodic waves of coronavirus patients on top of a huge backlog of appointments and procedures.

Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, told the Guardian, “The rise in cases of COVID-19 highlights the pandemic isn’t over, and it is still putting direct pressure on general practice and other healthcare services across the NHS.

Director of policy at the NHS Confederation Dr. Layla McCay added that there was “a clear link between high COVID rates in the population and more staff falling sick”, meaning “ongoing disruption to services and delays in the health service’s ability to make significant inroads into the waiting list backlog”.

Figures released by NHS Digital on Thursday showed that the number of sick days taken by nurses due to COVID jumped a massive 43 percent between February and March this year, up to 192,122.

The health service is creaking at the seams and in some places breaking apart entirely. In the last two weeks, the NHS in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have declared “critical incidents” in the face of “unprecedented pressures”.

In a letter to staff, NHS leaders in Nottingham explained, “Across the system we care continuing to see significant levels of COVID-19 in hospitals, high numbers of patients needing care for other conditions, alongside extended waiting times for patients for hospital beds.

“This paired with difficulties in discharging patients due to a lack of capacity across the care sector as well as staff absence due to COVID-19, is causing significant strain on the system.”

The NHS’s collapse has left the UK’s workforce the “sickest in the developed world,” wrote John Burn-Murdoch for the Financial Times earlier this month. “The UK is the only developed country in the world where the share of working-age people outside the labour force has kept rising after the initial pandemic shock.” Two-thirds of the half a million people missing from the workforce cite long term sickness as the reason.

Burn-Murdoch concludes, “we may be witnessing the collapse of the NHS, as hundreds of thousands of patients, unable to access timely care, see their condition worsen to the point of being unable to work.”

The UK has been recording 500-1,000 excess deaths a week for the last 11 weeks. Looking at ONS and Public Health England data, epidemiologist Dr. Deepti Gurdasani explained, “COVID accounts for about half of these” but “the main causes are ischemic heart disease, heart failure, respiratory illness, circulatory disease, diabetes and liver disease.” She adds, “we’re seeing excess deaths now across all age groups including children and young people—which isn’t normal.”

Gurdasani suggests as possible reasons, the “impact of [the] NHS crisis”, “direct impact of COVID-19” underestimated due to a lack of testing, and the consequences of “post-acute COVID complications (heart, vascular, resp[iratory], liver disease & strokes)”.

German government drives up heating costs by imposing gas surcharge

Ela Maartens & Peter Schwarz

Last week, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) announced the introduction of a heating gas surcharge, dealing another financial blow to working families, low-income households, students and pensioners.

A home heating radiator

In addition to the high gas bills that many municipal utility companies will be sending out in the autumn, the government will be imposing a gas surcharge starting October 1. According to Habeck, the surcharge will amount to 1.5 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour and will be levied on all gas customers. Since about half of German households heat with gas, it will affect millions of people.

The annual additional costs incurred by households as a result of the surcharge range from several hundred to well over a thousand euros, depending on its final level and the amount of gas consumed. If the surcharge is 5 cents, an average four-person household with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours would have to pay up to €1,000 more.

Even before the surcharge is imposed, experts predicted that the price of gas would triple. Now, the price will increase even further due to the gas surcharge.

The surcharge will be passed on to the energy suppliers, who are thus being compensated for massively increased import prices. This affects both municipal utility companies that supply only a few tens of thousands of customers, as well as large corporations like Uniper, which do not produce gas and oil themselves but buy, distribute, and supply it to end users. They are being compensated for 90 percent of the price increase in procurement costs.

In the end, the gas surcharge ends up in the coffers of the large energy companies, which profit from the high world market prices and are already reporting record profits.

German energy giant RWE expects a profit of €5.5 billion for 2022, €1.5 billion more than previously thought. Betraying no scruples, the company said the good result was also based on “strong operating performance” in energy trading. The group’s stock price rose sharply after the profit forecast was announced.

British oil company Shell, global leader in liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading, posted a record profit of $9.13 billion in the first quarter of 2022. BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and TotalEnergies also reported strong profit increases. BP more than doubled its adjusted profit—to $6.25 billion from $2.6 billion in the first three months of last year, its highest quarterly profit in more than ten years.

Hardly a day goes by without Economics Minister Habeck letting out a sigh and giving a promise of providing economic relief for people on medium or low incomes. But in reality, the government is doing exactly the opposite. With the gas surcharge, it is driving up heating costs even further, so that working-class families, low-income households, students, and pensioners will soon simply no longer be able to afford the enormous costs.

Habeck remains silent about when any relief might materialise and what it will look like. The coalition government is currently still arguing about how it will allow workers and their families to jump off a cliff.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner, as always, is arguing for tax cuts. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) politician never misses an opportunity to advocate the interests of his rich clientele. Top earners could save four-digit sums, normal earners a few hundred euros and low earners nothing at all.

In the meantime, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Bundestag (federal parliament) have gone on vacation without taking a decision on providing relief. Habeck himself has made it clear that he wants to keep the relief—if it comes at all—to a minimum. The Süddeutsche Zeitung quotes him saying, “Targeted relief means we can’t bear all the costs as a state.” Only people “who are really driven into poverty by higher energy prices must be protected.”

What exactly does the Green politician mean when he talks about “real poverty”? Are families who are only forced to the brink of the subsistence level by rising energy prices exempt from state aid? Even if every unforeseen additional burden means the financial abyss for them?

Habeck is promising relief only because he fears social uprisings. On a summer trip through the German provinces, he was repeatedly booed and called a “warmonger.”

After a public appearance by Habeck in Bayreuth, the Tagesschau news broadcast commented: “Troubled times await Habeck and the entire government. A majority of Germans are still prepared to accept personal disadvantages because of the sanctions against Russia. But most have also not yet seen their gas bill.”

The energy crisis is the price for the proxy war that Germany, the US and NATO are waging against Russia in Ukraine. The attempt to bring Russia to its knees by means of economic sanctions and billions of dollars in arms deliveries has driven oil and gas prices to astronomical levels. The government is using the war to make Germany the leading military power once again in Europe. The price for this is to be paid by the working class.

But the fact many households are simply no longer able to pay their gas bills is not an inconvenience for the government. The population is to be forced to reduce gas usage. Otherwise, there is a risk that gas storage facilities will not be sufficiently full by the winter to prevent a possible collapse of German industry. Habeck has already made it unmistakably clear that in case of doubt, private households will be pushed to the back of the energy queue.

This is much easier to achieve via high prices than via government regulations, which are almost impossible to monitor and enforce in practice. Professor Klaus Schmidt, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Economics, defended the gas surcharge on the Morgenmagazin programme with this justification: “The most important instrument for getting gas savings on track is the price mechanism.” Schmidt spoke of a “price signal” that was now reaching consumers so that they understand “gas will become more expensive.”

He also threatened that gas prices would remain high for a long time: “It won’t just stay at this surcharge that has now been decided. Rather, it will slowly eat through the system.”

Currently, higher gas imports from the Netherlands and Norway are offsetting some of the curtailed production from Russia. Since July, Russian gas has been flowing again through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline to Germany following completion of annual maintenance work, but Moscow limited output to 40 percent in June and to 20 percent last week.

The German government is trying to become completely independent of Russian gas imports as quickly as possible so it can continue the war against Russia even more aggressively. It is working hard to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to meet demand, but building the necessary infrastructure takes time and prices for it are extremely high.

Australian COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths reach record levels

Clare Bruderlin

COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths continue to surge across Australia, reaching record highs over the past week. 157 deaths were reported on Friday, the highest number on any single day of the pandemic. In the week ending Sunday, 674 Australians died from the virus, an average of 96 per day, more than double the rate at the end of June.

It took 547 days for Australia to reach the grim milestone of 1,000 total COVID-19 fatalities. The last 1,000 deaths were recorded in just 12 days.

COVID-19 deaths in Australia in 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

In the early stages of the pandemic, Australian governments were forced by the demands of workers to implement public health measures including border closures, partial lockdowns, free PCR testing and mask mandates. As a result, by December 31, 2021, the country had recorded only 2,239 COVID-19 deaths. The more than 9,700 deaths that have occurred in the past seven months are the direct result of the dismantling of virtually all such mitigations by every Australian government, state, territory and federal, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

Despite multiple claims throughout the year by government health officials and in the media that cases and deaths have “peaked,” the weekly death toll has remained above 100 since January. The reality is, the homicidal “let it rip” agenda has created the conditions for an unending series of COVID-19 “waves,” each potentially more infectious and deadly than the last.

Prior to the December reopening, the highest number of new infections recorded in a seven-day period was just over 16,000. By contrast, every week this year more than 130,000 new cases have been recorded, despite the tearing down of mass testing facilities and the removal of requirements for regular surveillance testing of workers and school students. Over the past two weeks, an average of more than 45,000 new infections have been reported each day.

The latest surge in Australia and worldwide is being driven by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants, which are extremely immune-evasive and almost as infectious as measles. Despite this, the ruling class, with recently elected Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the helm, has made clear it will do nothing to address the soaring rates of infection and death.

In line with the demands of big business, and in open defiance of the advice of disease experts and health authorities, governments are refusing to reinstate mask mandates or other basic public health measures and are continuing to remove the few remaining protections.

There have now been more than 9.4 million infections recorded across Australia, 96 percent of which have occurred since January 1. Under conditions where testing and contact tracing has been dismantled, even these figures are likely vast undercounts.

Based on a recent serological survey of blood donor samples, researchers at the Kirby Institute estimate that at least 46 percent of Australian adults had been infected with COVID-19 by early June, almost three times the level of infection found in February.

The continual emergence of new variants as a result of capitalist governments worldwide, with the exception of China, allowing COVID-19 to spread unchecked means that reinfection is increasingly common. The extremely limited reinfection data published by Australian health authorities show that tens of thousands of people across the country have already been infected with COVID-19 multiple times.

Growing sections of the population are developing lingering symptoms known as Long COVID, which can affect nearly every organ in the body. An estimated 10-30 percent of those who contract COVID-19 will be hit by Long COVID.

Hospitalisation is at record levels, surpassing the January peak, with 5,571 COVID-19 patients in Australian hospitals on July 26, more than twice the number reported on June 1.

Several major hospitals, in particular in Victoria and Queensland, have again been forced to postpone elective surgery due to the COVID-19 surge. Dr Patrick Lo, a neurosurgeon, told the Age that the mental toll of repeated delays is akin to psychological torture for the more than 80,000 Victorians on the surgical waitlist.

The hospital system was in crisis even before the pandemic, but the surge of COVID-19 infection has both increased demand for patient care and exacerbated staff shortages. In New South Wales alone, more than 2,600 health care workers are currently unable to work due to COVID-19 infection or exposure.

In an anonymous interview with the Canberra Times, one nurse from the Canberra Hospital emergency department described patients lining the walls of corridors and said: “It’s very, very, very common for nurses to be going to afternoon tea, lunch, a break… and you’ll walk past someone and they’re barely conscious. They’re grey, they’re blue, they’re having a fit and no one is there looking after that person. Every time I walk down a corridor, I’m terrified I’m going to find someone dead in a bed.”

Similar reports have emerged across every state and territory, with continued ambulance ramping and life-threatening delays of care.

Rebecca Thompson, a nurse from Western Australia who resigned last month, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that both junior and senior nurses are leaving the profession in droves due to the intolerable conditions.

She said: “One of the biggest things that hit me most was some dear friends of mine who are senior nurses came away crying from their shift because they had three palliative care patients and we’re not a palliative care ward… You don’t have time to safely see your patients anymore, the patients are in the corridor, you can’t give them any dignity.”

The virus is being allowed to tear through aged care facilities, with more than 1,000 active outbreaks in facilities across the country. Since the beginning of the year, 2,477 COVID-19 deaths have been recorded in aged care, out of a total of 3,394 since the start of the pandemic.

The surging death toll and refusal to reinstate public health measures to stop the spread of the virus demonstrates the commitment of the federal Labor government, like its predecessor, to implement the demands of big business and profit over the lives of the population. The lies of Labor’s election campaign, including that Labor would “bring back dignity to aged care,” have been thoroughly exposed.

With the stench of eugenics, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly last week described the thousands of coronavirus deaths of elderly people as a delayed “reaping” after the first eighteen months of the pandemic, during which COVID-19 rates were relatively low and influenza virtually non-existent.

This declaration, by the country’s highest-ranking health official, that those killed by the pandemic are too old and frail to be worth protecting, is a sharp expression of the callous and homicidal attitude of the entire ruling class, in Australia and around the world.

It is also bound up with the lie that young people are not seriously affected by COVID-19. On July 24, a girl died of COVID-19 two weeks before her second birthday and there have been at least 15 COVID-19 deaths recorded in children less than nine years old. New infections are predominantly among young people and are rampant throughout schools.

In line with the role of the unions throughout the pandemic in enforcing the “let it rip” policies of governments, at the cost of workers’ health and lives, Health Services Union president Gerard Hayes recently rejected any suggestion of a nominal right to work from home clause in enterprise agreements. Hayes declared on July 22: “It may prevent the spread of COVID, it may go some way to prevent the spread of flu, but it may well go to spread more mental health issues.”

The relentless campaign by governments, health officials, unions and the corporate media to downplay the severity of COVID-19 underscores their motivation to silence principled health professionals and scientists such as Dr David Berger, who are not only warning about the dangers of the pandemic, but advocating for the reintroduction of measures to protect health and lives.