A new wave of strikes erupts in Turkey as inflation surges

Hasan Yıldırım

Surging inflation, poor working conditions and deepening poverty are pushing workers in Turkey into struggle amid a rising wave of strikes internationally.

On August 5, workers at two factories of auto parts manufacturer Standart Profil in Düzce and Manisa went on wildcat strikes and occupied their workplaces, demanding an additional raise and safe working conditions. After the strike, Düzce Mayor Faruk Özlü of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) threatened the workers, declaring: “[T]his illegal action is so bad that you are in danger of losing all your legal rights before the law.”

Over 2,000 workers joined the walkouts, which ended on August 9 after the company accepted workers’ demands. Accordingly, management will give workers a further 28 percent wage increase, a 1,500 Turkish lira (TL) shopping voucher, and take occupational health and safety measures.

The wildcat strikes at Standard Profil took place amid growing working class anger and struggles in Turkey and internationally against the steadily rising cost of living and falling real wages. Official annual inflation in Turkey rose to 79.6 percent as of July. The Inflation Research Group (ENAG), an independent research organization, calculated annual inflation at 176 percent.

Auto workers on strike in Turkey earlier this year

Management is slashing real wages for workers, who make up the overwhelming majority of Turkey’s population, by granting them raises far below the level of inflation.

According to a report by the pro-government Türk-İş confederation, the poverty line for a family of four rose to 22,280 TL ($1,240) and the hunger line to 6,840 liras ($380) in July. The minimum wage is only 5,500 liras. According to a survey by the Consumer Rights Association, 90 percent of the population now lives below the poverty line.

This unprecedented impoverishment actually means a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to finance capital. According to Prof. Dr. Şenol Babuşcu’s calculations, while the country’s banking sector’s profits in the first six months of 2021 was 34 billion liras, the profit in the first six months of 2022 skyrocketed 401 percent to 169 billion liras.

In the face of the ruling class’ social counterrevolution, escalated after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, workers are increasingly fighting for better wages and living conditions. These workers struggles include:

 At the Salcomp Xiaomi electronics factory in Istanbul, 400 workers were laid off with the collaboration of the Türk-Metal union affiliated to Türk-İş when the union rejected their demand for a strike. When workers were not given the promised compensation, they occupied the factory on August 3 and then staged a protest in front of the Turkish Metal union.

 Workers at the Techomix electronics factory in Bursa who are members of Türk Metal went on strike on August 5.

 Amid a wave of wildcat strikes by Amazon workers in the UK, Turkish Amazon workers who were fired for being members of DGD-SEN, a union independent of the big confederations, began a protest on August 8 in front of Ceva Lojistik, Amazon’s Turkish warehouse in Dilovası, Kocaeli. The warehouse employs around 3,000 workers, who earn only 100 lira more than the minimum wage of 5,500 TL. Around 600 workers gathered signatures to demand an improvement in wages and working conditions. In addition to salaries, the workers demanded steps be taken against oppression and the lack of rules, and to defend workers’ health and safety, services and meals. The company responded by sending workers to other warehouses.

 ETF Textile workers in Istanbul were attacked by the police on August 9, the 19th day of their protest. On July 6, 330 workers were “downsized” at the factory. On July 21, workers began a protest inside the factory. On July 31, management announced the closure of the factory but did not give the workers their receivables. On August 9, management, accompanied by police, brought trucks to the factory and smuggled the goods. Police attacked the workers who protested this operation.

 On August 10, the YDA Group workers at the construction site of a financial center in Ataşehir, Istanbul, began a protest at company headquarters to demand their severance, notice pay and unpaid wages. The workers organized a march the following day, and a journalist covering the protest was detained by the police.

 At Er Prefabrik in Manisa, 80 workers went on a walkout on Thursday after the company gave them a 30 percent pay raise in response to their demand for a 45 raise.

 “Home Health and Care Workers” from the Republican People’s Party (CHP)-run Izmir Metropolitan Municipality have been protesting for two weeks in front of city hall, demanding to be reinstated. On August 8, protesting workers were attacked by police and security personnel.

 Sanitation workers at the CHP-run Beylikdüzü Municipality in Istanbul staged a two-hour warning wildcat strike on Saturday after their demands for an additional raise were not met.

 In Kartal Municipality under the CHP administration in Istanbul, workers were offered a 40 percent raise over the old minimum wage of 4,250 liras. Workers rejected this miserable offer, and later they rejected another proposal of a 50 percent increase.

 While municipal workers in Kartal are preparing to strike, workers in Istanbul’s Kadıköy Municipality have also rejected a miserable 40 percent raise. They are set to strike after a one-month mediation process.

Speaking to the press, workers criticized both the CHP and DİSK-affiliated Genel-İş union, which is run by pseudo-left groups together with the CHP. One worker said of the CHP: “Are the so-called social-democratic CHP municipalities, which say they are marching to power, going to march to power by leaving their workers below the starvation line?” He stated that two months ago, a Kartal Municipality worker committed suicide due to economic difficulties.

The fact that a worker emphasized that the union “has no strike fund,” meaning that workers who go on strike are not paid, underscores the need for workers to establish rank-and-file committees and take control of the strike fund that belongs to them.

Genel-İş has betrayed municipal workers several times recently. In 2021, strikes in the Kadıköy and Maltepe municipalities in Istanbul were sold out by DİSK and Genel-Iş. This March, the same union refused to implement the strike decision taken by workers in the Seyhan Municipality in Adana and signed a contract shortly afterwards. In the Çukurova Municipality, the strike decision was canceled the day it was taken.

Spanish scientists call to contain pandemic amid “eighth wave” of COVID-19

Danny Knightley

Hundreds are dying of COVID-19 every week in Spain as the country suffers through the “eight wave” of the pandemic. Almost 1,000 people have lost their lives to the virus in Spain in the last fortnight alone, with 573 fatalities in the week beginning August 8 and 381 the previous week.

Infections soared over the summer, reaching a peak of 22,000 daily cases at the start of July, and maintaining averages of 3,000 to 6,000 a day throughout August. This has pushed the total number of cases in Spain over the course of the pandemic to more than 13 million; according to The Lancet, Spain’s excess mortality is now 162,000. Each week, several thousand people are hospitalised with the virus in Spain.

These figures are likely a significant underestimate due to Spain’s woefully inadequate testing regime. Since the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government ended all coronavirus restrictions on April 20, tests have become increasingly difficult to access, and those infected with COVID-19 are identifying themselves less and less to local and national health services. At the end of March, the requirement to self-isolate if testing positive was also scrapped.

Spain faces wave after wave of unending contagion due to the criminal mismanagement of the pandemic by the PSOE-Podemos government. While the media promotes it as “left” or “progressive,” it has followed the same policy of mass infection pursued by capitalist governments in Europe and internationally throughout the pandemic—notably by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and US Presidents Donald Trump and then Joe Biden.

The new wave of infection in Spain has largely been driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which have been the dominant strains in this country since mid-June. According to Angel Gil, a professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, the arrival of BA.4 and BA.5 have pushed Spain from a seventh to an eighth wave, particularly as “these subvariants are resistant to vaccine immunity.”

Medical staff members attend to a COVID-19 patient in the ICU department of the Hospital Universitario, in Pamplona, northern Spain, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

As the virus continues to spread rapidly throughout Spain, numerous health experts have warned of the disastrous consequences of COVID-19 and called on the government to take action to contain it.

“We are underestimating [the virus], because we can’t talk of normality when we are seeing this dramatic number of deaths,” declared Lorenzo Armenteros, spokesperson for the Spanish Society of General Practitioners, in mid-July. “More deaths, more hospital admissions and more people in the ICU [Intensive Care Unit] is always a risk. We are minimising the problem, we are absolutely minimising it.”

Spain’s leading COVID-19 expert Luis Enjuanes denounced PSOE-Podemos government’s campaign to declare an end of the pandemic and lift restrictions as “madness.” He urged an immediate return to mask mandates in enclosed areas as “essential,” and a return to social distancing.

Denouncing the government’s vaccine-only approach, Enjuanes stated: “not only can those who are triple vaccinated be infected with the virus, they can also strengthen the virus and spread it further. The vaccines have already lost 50 percent of their effectiveness against Omicron.”

As Enjuanes explains, current vaccines are administered intramuscularly, have a very low effectiveness in mucus and provide only short-term immunity. If the mucus layer that the virus infects is not immunised locally, the vaccine loses 98 percent of its effectiveness.

Despite the spike in deaths, hospitalisations and numerous warnings from experts, the PSOE-Podemos government refuses to take any action to combat the virus. In early July, PSOE Health Minister Carolina Darias politely suggested that the public exercise “caution” and return to wearing masks—although even this minimal measure was not made compulsory.

In the same breath, Darias praised Spain’s vaccination programme, stating, “we have delivered 95 million doses and have given a complete set of vaccines to 92.7 percent of the population over 12, and with 50 percent vaccinated with a booster jab.” Yet as scientists and the World Socialist Web Site have consistently warned, even the most widespread vaccination campaign will prove ineffective unless accompanied by stringent public health measures, including mask mandates, lockdowns and social distancing.

The PSOE-Podemos government has no intention of pursuing a scientific policy against the pandemic, as to do so would impinge on the profits of big business in Spain. Laying out plans to end all measures this April, Fernando Simón, the government’s chief scientist, made clear that Madrid would allow mass infection and continued waves of the pandemic in order to keep workers at work, producing profits.

“We cannot eliminate the circulation of the virus unless we get slightly better vaccines,” Simón stated. For this reason, he admitted, “we must assume that there will be a new [wave].” COVID-19, he insisted, cannot be an “excuse” for not returning to normal health care activity: “We must take a step forward and recover assistance because there are many people who have suffered a lot.” To add insult to injury, Simón claimed that Spanish people must be prepared to take more risk to ensure that society returns to normal.

PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, for his part, cynically claimed, “Spain is moving towards a horizon … of overcoming the pandemic.” It is now becoming clear what the PSOE-Podemos government’s idea of “overcoming the pandemic” looks like.

For several months, Spain has also been contending with a major outbreak of acute childhood hepatitis, with 46 cases reported in this country as of August 8. At the start of August, two children died from hepatitis, one six-year-old boy and one baby of only 15 months.

Spain has also been particularly badly impacted by the monkeypox epidemic now sweeping the world, recording nearly 6,000 cases so far—the second-highest total in the world after the United States. At the end of July, Spain reported two deaths from the disease, the only fatalities in Europe up to this point.

German government’s “Inflation Compensation Act:” More money for the rich

Peter Schwarz

Record inflation and skyrocketing energy prices are plunging hundreds of thousands of working families in Germany into a desperate struggle to survive. But the response of the German government is to shower the super-rich with more cash gifts.

That is the core message of the so-called “Inflation Compensation Act,” which Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (Free Democratic Party-FDP) presented this week, to be approved by the cabinet in September.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner in the Finance Committee of the Bundestag [Photo by Deutscher Bundestag / Janine Schmitz / photothek] [Photo by Deutscher Bundestag / Janine Schmitz / photothek]

Even economists close to the government admit that Lindner’s proposal accelerates wealth redistribution from the bottom to the top. “A reform in which higher earners nominally gain more simply comes at the wrong time,” Veronika Grimm, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, told the Rheinische Post.

Jens Südekum, an economics professor in Düsseldorf and advisor to the German government, told Der Spiegel: “This package will provide relief for all income brackets, and there is simply no time for that at the moment. People with high earnings actually benefit the most from the measures in absolute terms. Those who earn very little money are not helped by the tax measures. In view of rising inflation, we would need redistribution from top to bottom, not the other way around.”

There were also isolated critical voices from the ranks of the other “traffic light” government coalition members, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens. But this means nothing. Rather, it shows in an “almost ideal-typical” way “how the traffic light system works,” as the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cynically commented. “Everyone loudly raises his claim... but the goal of reaching an agreement is kept in sight.”

When individual government advisors and politicians publicly criticize Lindner, it is out of fear of a “hot autumn.” Professor Südekum states this openly in his interview with Der Spiegel. He fears that there will be protests not only against high prices and poverty, but also against the Ukraine war.

In response to Der Spiegel’s question, “Do you expect political radicalization and a hot autumn?” he replies: “Of course, radical parties will cannibalize the situation. But if the price of gas goes through the roof in the winter and the state leaves poorer people to fend for themselves, solidarity with Ukraine will also crumble... So we have to find a social solution so as not to play into the Kremlin’s hands.”

The government will not be swayed from its course by such objections. SPD Chairman Lars Klingbeil told broadcaster ZDF’s morning show that while he had “different ideas in detail,” Lindner had sent the “right signal” with his plans.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), who was himself finance minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel, immediately backed Lindner and expressed his “fundamental goodwill.” Speaking to broadcaster ARD, Scholz said Lindner’s proposal was “very helpful.” Since he himself had compensated for tax bracket creep when he was finance minister, this “could not be an obviously wrong idea,” he said.

Tax bracket creep means that middle-income groups automatically move up to a higher tax rate when their wages are increased, leaving nothing of the increase. Lindner uses this as an excuse to cater to his rich clientele.

He wants to provide a total of €10 billion in relief for 48 million taxpayers by increasing the entry and top tax rates. This corresponds to an average of €192 a year, but it is distributed highly unevenly. Top earners with an annual income of over €62,000 will save just under €500 euros, while high-earning married couples will save up to €2,000. A family with two children and an income of €30,000, on the other hand, will save at most €300 euros. Those earning under €10,350, the threshold for paying income taxes, go away completely empty-handed.

Lindner’s tax reform is only the tip of the iceberg. The present inflation rate, officially 7.5 percent, is melting incomes like glaciers facing global warming. The trade unions, which are in cahoots with the government, are doing everything they can to keep wage settlements far below the inflation rate.

Especially with rising gas prices—a direct result of sanctions and the war against Russia—working class households are facing devastating burdens while the big energy companies are raking in billions in profits.

A typical family will have to pay several thousand euros extra for its home gas bill. Energy suppliers have already started to send out higher bills. Cologne energy supplier Rheinenergie will start jacking up prices by 116 percent beginning October 1. An average bill of €2,800 a year for gas will leap to over €6,000, corresponding to a monthly increase of €270.

The government had promised to remedy the situation. But so far it has only decided on a one-off lump sum subsidy of €300, which will be paid out in September and is subject to taxation. It is intended as compensation for high gasoline prices and does not even cover one month’s worth of higher energy prices.

At the same time, the government itself has driven up the price of gas for home heating and cooking even further by passing a gas levy that will be charged to all gas consumers. The levy is being used to offset the losses suffered by municipal utilities and intermediaries such as Uniper, which cannot immediately pass on increased purchase prices to their customers. Thus, the money flows into the coffers of the big energy companies, which are making super profits thanks to high world market prices.

Worst-ever drought devastates Europe amid climate crisis

Samuel Tissot

From Britain to the Balkans, a record-breaking drought is devastating Europe. Over 60 percent of the European Union and Great Britain face drought conditions, according to the European Drought Observatory, in what one EU Commission scientist called Europe’s worst drought in 500 years. Major rivers and lakes are drying up, farmers are facing unprecedented crop failures, and energy supplies are collapsing amid unprecedented heat and lack of rainfall.

The summer of 2022, which broke records for heat, wildfires and now drought in Europe, has made clear the urgent necessity of dealing with global climate change. It has now reached such a vast extent that, without prompt and large-scale action, it will threaten basic functions of society critical to human life—such as the ability to provide water, food, electricity, and safe housing.

This summer’s extreme drought was caused by record-low precipitation in Europe this year and successive heatwaves, including the July heatwave that shattered temperature records. Extreme heat and drought also led to record wildfires, with 615,341 hectares burned this year across Europe—the highest-ever figure for mid-August. The drought is disrupting key food and energy supplies, already undermined by the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, driving prices for essential goods even higher amid the ongoing inflation crisis.

On the Rhine River, barges are carrying goods at 25 percent capacity due to low water levels. Water levels are now at 40 centimeters but are forecast to fall to around 30cm, which may completely halt transport on the river. Such stoppages in 2018 cost the German economy an estimated €5 billion.

Last week, France forced its nuclear power plants, which produce 70 percent of its electricity, to operate at reduced capacity: releasing high-temperature coolant water into rivers that are at record low levels is an ecological hazard. Amid the ongoing energy crisis, however, the French energy agency now has ordered the plants to return to full capacity, whatever the resulting damage to the environment, including plant and animal life. Of France’s 96 mainland departments, 86 are on drought alert. The Loire River, France’s second-largest, can be crossed on foot along much of its length.

The water level on the Danube River, Europe’s longest, is currently 43 centimeters, the lowest since records began. In Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, dredging efforts are underway to keep the river navigable for barges, which are crucial for Balkan food and energy supplies. In southern Germany, the river’s water temperature exceeded 25°C and is expected to reach 27°C by the end of the month, the same temperature as the Caribbean Sea.

Across Europe, fish are threatened by record high water temperatures and low oxygen content. The entire fish stock of Conopljankso reservoir in Serbia died after it completely dried up.

The surface of the Oder River, running between Poland and Germany, is now all but covered in dead fish. While Polish officials have contested reports of heavy industrial contamination of the river, it is clear that as the river’s water volume plummeted to record lows, concentrations of industrial pollutants have skyrocketed.

European farmers are facing massive crop failures, with production of key grains down 30 to 40 percent in Italy and nearly 20 percent in France. Spain’s olive oil crop, which counts for nearly half of world exports, is expected to be one-quarter of the average produced over the last five years.

In northern Italy’s Po Valley, 60 percent of this year’s crop has been lost as farmers have been unable to use local rivers for crop irrigation. This has already caused at least €6.2 billion in damage. The region, which produces 30 to 40 percent of Italy’s food supply, has seen virtually no rain this year. Near the Po estuary, water levels are so low that salt water from the Adriatic Sea flowed 30 kilometers upstream, killing crops near the river’s banks that had so far survived the drought.

Drinking water supplies are critically low in every city along the Po Valley, including Milan and Turin. Water levels in lakes in the region are also at historical lows, including the popular tourist destination of Lake Garda in northern Italy, which has almost completely dried up.

Even Europe’s northernmost and wettest regions are suffering. Low water levels in Norway’s reservoirs are reducing its ability to produce hydroelectric power. This has led to warnings that it may have to cut energy exports, further exacerbating the energy crisis caused by NATO threats to refuse to pay for Russian gas and Russian threats to cut off supplies. Eight UK regions face drought conditions, including the capital, London.

These events point to the urgent necessity of an internationally-coordinated campaign to halt and address the consequences of global warming. Trillions of euros must be invested in high technology, key infrastructure, irrigation technology, clean energy generation, food security programs, and other initiatives to ensure that the globe remains habitable for humanity.

Carrying this out requires a direct assault on the capitalist system, and the wealth and privileges of its corrupt financial aristocracy. Trillions of euros were found overnight amid the stock market crash that followed the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet this wealth went not to eliminate the virus, which has since then claimed over 1.6 million lives in Europe alone, or to fund critical infrastructure investments, but to bail out a tiny elite of wealthy investors who answer to no one.

As with the pandemic, the measures needed to combat global warming are well-known to scientists and government officials alike, but the international institutions of the capitalist nation-state system have failed to organize a coordinated response. Instead, they are plunging deeper into war. EU governments are pledging hundreds of billions of euros in military spending increases, preparing to escalate the war NATO is waging on Russia in Ukraine.

FDA authorizes rationing of the vaccine against monkeypox

Benjamin Mateus

Given the rising rates of monkeypox infections across the US and the limited available doses of the Jynneos vaccine (Imvanex in Europe) made by Bavarian Nordic, the only authorized vaccine against the orthopoxvirus, last week the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to ration the vaccine through the use of intradermal injections.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf said, “In recent weeks, the monkeypox virus has continued to spread at a rate that has made it clear our current vaccine supply will not meet the current demand. The FDA quickly explored other scientifically appropriate options to facilitate access to the vaccine for all impacted individuals. By increasing the number of available doses, more individuals who want to be vaccinated against monkeypox will now have the opportunity to do so.”

A registered nurse prepares a dose of a Monkeypox vaccine at the Salt Lake County Health Department Thursday, July 28, 2022, in Salt Lake City. U.S. health officials on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022, authorized a new monkeypox vaccination strategy designed to stretch limited supplies by allowing health professionals to vaccinate up to five people — instead of one — with each vial. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

What the commissioner is explaining is called fractional monkeypox vaccine dosing, or a dose-sparing measure. Instead of giving the vaccine deep into the muscle, one-fifth of the standard dose is injected between the layers of skin. Evidence for the intradermal route was obtained based on a 2015 clinical study conducted by the government which demonstrated it could provide a similar immune response to intramuscular injection. As a result, the total number of available doses has been expanded by five-fold or five doses per vial.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, speaking during the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seminar to inform clinicians of the change in the interim guidance on the new practice, estimated that approximately 1.7 million Americans were at risk of contracting monkeypox. At least 3 million doses would be needed, although only half that amount would be available by year’s end.

The fractional dosing offered the only viable alternative as the ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine, which is available in abundance, carries a significant risk of myocarditis and rare but known complications of death. Specifically, ACAM2000 is contraindicated in immunocompromised individuals.

Yet even as an intradermal injection, the Jynneos vaccine (a smallpox vaccine) still requires two doses to be given 28 days apart to complete the series. It has also not been approved for children under the age of 18. Jynneos has also never been verified to be effective against monkeypox, and little is known about its role as postexposure prophylaxis.

In a letter dated August 9, 2022 sent to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf, with copies to White House National Monkeypox Response Coordinator Robert Fenton and his deputy Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin wrote: “Bavarian Nordic is dedicated to assisting governments around the globe to control the monkeypox outbreak and is fully supportive of dose-sparing approached, such as delaying the second vaccination. However, we do have some reservations on the intradermal (ID) approach due to the very limited safety data available (less than 200 people), the higher reactogenicity [adverse reaction] compared to the Jynneos standard dose … and the fact that there was a relatively high percentage of subjects (20 percent) that failed to receive the second vaccination during a controlled clinical study.”

These raise serious concerns about the impact that the intradermal injection approach will have on vaccine uptake and coverage. Additionally, Chaplin criticized the FDA’s EUA for not including an implementation protocol to track and gather safety data on the route of administration that would be essential for safe practices. Other questions raised included the duration of the vials remaining open, whether remaining doses could be refrigerated again, the sizes of needles and dosing for pre-and post-exposure prophylaxis.

As of August 12, 2022, global monkeypox cases have reached almost 35,500. The global seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has reached close to 1,400 cases per day. Ninety-four non-endemic countries and territories have reported monkeypox cases, of which nearly one-third have been reported in the United States (11,130). The seven-day rolling average in the US is around 650 cases per day. Only Wyoming remains monkeypox-free thus far.

However, Spain, with 5,719 cases, leads globally per capita. Two of the five deaths related to monkeypox outside non-endemic regions occurred in two previously healthy men in their 30s and 40s, each developing encephalitis, the swelling and inflammation of the brain, which led to their demise. The other three deaths have happened in Brazil, India and most recently, Ecuador. Europe, however, continues to be the epicenter of the monkeypox pandemic.

Figure 2: Map of Monkeypox cases in North and South America. Source from @antonio_caramia https://www.ilpandacentrostudio.it/uk.html.

Little is mentioned by the mainstream press of monkeypox’s impact on Africa. The African CDC noted in the last week of July that since the beginning of 2022, more than 2,000 confirmed and suspected cases had been reported among nine endemic and two non-endemic African Union (AU) Member States. At least 75 deaths have been documented for a case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.7 percent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 12,500 monkeypox infections and 365 deaths have been reported, for a CFR of 2.9 percent, underscoring the infection’s deadliness and the need to access the vaccines that have been hoarded for more than a decade by the US and EU.

The African CDC noted in its recent press release: “For the last three years (2020-2022), the monkeypox outbreak in Africa continued to grow from one country to another with little international attention. To date, the critical tools required in outbreak preparedness and response, including diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, have not yet been made readily available to AU Member States … the inequity and delayed access to COVID-19 tools in Africa should not be repeated with monkeypox, which has been a public health emergency since 2020.”

In 2013, the US had more than 20 million doses of Jynneos vaccines in its strategic national stockpiles, with another 8 million doses added in 2015. Yet, these vaccines were allowed to expire because of the preferred investment in bulk freeze-dried quantities of the vaccines. These could have been made available to the African CDC at the time to combat the evolving monkeypox outbreak there.

Prior to a major outbreak in 2017, the Nigerian CDC had reported only one monkeypox case in the country dating back to 1971, in a four-year-old child in the southeastern part of the country. On October 13, 2017, the Nigerian CDC received confirmation of a human monkeypox case, and by November 17, 2017, there were 146 suspected cases reported from 22 of the 36 states. Women made up a third of cases, and one immunocompromised person died from complications. Many of the cases were in urban centers, implying the likelihood that the disease would spread internationally. In 2018, Nigerian scientists led by Adesola Yinka-Ogunleye warned of a growing outbreak of monkeypox infections spreading among people in the country.

Madhukar Pai, director of McGill University’s global health programs in Montreal, told Quartz, “I don’t expect rich nations to do anything different with monkeypox. They will do exactly what they did with COVID: corner the vaccine supplies, hoard them, and block vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries. And just like we are seeing no end to COVID, monkeypox will be kept alive and well because of the myopia and greed of rich nations.”

In his estimates of the number of people at risk, Marks’ projections fail to account for the inevitability that monkeypox will spread to other communities, upending the false narrative that the virus is a sexually transmitted disease that only affects men who have sex with men.

Though the number of children that have contracted monkeypox remains comparatively small, on August 9, 2022, the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s leading health authority, reported a case of monkeypox in a four-year-old girl living with two infected adults in Pforzheim, according to Deutsche Welle. Other countries include the US, France, the Netherlands and Spain. Of the 98 documented infections globally in children, 25 cases have been in children four years and younger, who also happen to be the most susceptible to severe disease and death.

Meanwhile, five US colleges have already reported monkeypox cases this summer, even with most students away. Recently, Clark County School District identified a case at Palo Verde High School, and last week a daycare worker in Champaign County, Illinois, was diagnosed with the infection. These raise the specter of a growing outbreak as K-12 schools and colleges reopen across the US and internationally in the coming weeks.

With nearly 2,000 cases, California is seeing hundreds waiting in lines for vaccines only later to be turned away. Meanwhile, there is too little testing and treatment despite the recent declaration of a public health emergency. Despite the claims of increased testing capacity, on August 2, the California health department received only 6,682 monkeypox test results, with a positivity rate of around 19 percent, highlighting that there is nowhere near enough testing being performed.

Street protests erupt across Bangladesh over fuel price hikes

Wimal Perera

Unprecedented fuel price increases announced on August 5—the highest in Bangladeshi history—have triggered nationwide protests by workers, students and the poor against the Awami League-led government. The price of petrol was increased by nearly 52 percent per litre, from 86 taka ($US 91 cents) to 130 taka ($US1.37), with diesel and kerosene prices rising by 42.5 percent.

The price hikes, like those in many other countries, are a direct result of the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine and the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as workers and the poor are already struggling to deal with declining living conditions.

Bangladeshi garment workers block a road demanding their unpaid wages during a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, April 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Al-emrun Garjon)

According to media reports, protests erupted in Dhaka, the national capital, and other major cities, beginning the day after the price rises. Motorbike users and transport workers staged street demonstrations, chanting slogans against Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and demanding her government lower the prices.       

Mohammad Nurul Islam, a truck driver who transports vegetables, spoke to the BBC while queuing for petrol. “When I go to the market, I can’t buy enough food for my family. If the price of fuel keeps increasing like this, I won’t be able to look after my parents or send my children to school. If I lose my job, I might have to start begging in the street,” he said.

One protester, Homammed Shajahan, who hires vans for a living, told Al Jazeera: “No one is renting our vans now because it costs more. It is really hard on us. See all the drivers are sitting idle. We cannot understand what the government is doing,” he said.

The fuel price increases have driven up the cost of other essentials as well as bus and other transport fares.

The New Indian Express reported on August 13 spiraling prices for 25 out of 26 basic items. Over the past month, the cost of rice has risen by 22 percent, farm-grown chickens 45 percent, onions 43 percent, eggs 20 percent and fish by 10 percent.

Mamunur Rashid, an office janitor in Dhaka and with a family of six, told the newspaper that he was previously able to eat fish three times a week, but “now I only eat it once.”

Fearful of the rising mass opposition, the Workers Party of Bangladesh, a member of the ruling 14-party alliance, warned that the government’s decision to drive up fuel prices was suicidal.

Student organisations and various Stalinist parties have called protests against the price hikes.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh and the Left Democratic Alliance—an alliance of eight political parties (including various Stalinist cliques)—demonstrated in Dhaka on August 6 to demand withdrawal of the fuel price increases.

On August 7, the police baton-charged student demonstrators at the Shahbagh intersection, a major neighbourhood in Dhaka, then filed charges against dozens of student leaders and activists. Four days later on August 11, students protested to demanding their release.

Seeking to exploit the mass anger, the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the country’s main opposition party, demonstrated on August 11 in Naya Paltan, a Dhaka neighborhood, over the price increases. The BNP, like Hasina’s Awami League-led government, attacked the social rights of the working class and the poor when it was in power.

This month’s fuel price increases follow previous rises in the price of essential food items and natural gas. Mass protests erupted throughout Dhaka, bringing parts of the city to a halt for hours on June 4, following a 23 percent rise in the cost of natural gas price. Natural gas provides over 60 percent of the country’s energy needs.

Thousands of apparel workers from Snowtex Apparels, MBM Garment, Vision Garment, IDS Group, Kolka Garment and Dmox staged a four-day strike at Mirpur, in Dhaka, to demand price reductions or for compensation through increases in their salaries. Striking Snowtex Apparels worker Mamunur Rahman told the media that garment workers had no other option. “Our salaries have not been increased for a long time while the prices of essential commodities are soaring,” he said.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics the overall annual inflation rate in June was 7.56 percent, the highest in nine years. Food inflation was even higher at 8.37 percent.

The rising cost of commodities on the world market is impacting on Bangladesh, bdnews24.com reports, leading to the worst balance of payment deficit crisis in the country’s history and a sharp reduction in its foreign exchange reserves.

As of July 27, Bangladeshi foreign exchange reserves stood at $39.48 billion, down from $45.7 billion a year ago. While this is reportedly sufficient to pay for five months of imports, the government fears that further increases in the price of oil and other basic commodities will lead to a more rapid decline of reserves.

To offset this, the government has sought a $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and another $2 billion from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The IMF reports that Bangladesh had total foreign debts of $62 billion in 2021 while the Centre for Policy Dialogue has warned that the grace period for the servicing of several foreign loans will expire in 2024–25 fiscal year. In the past ten years, however, from May 2012 to May 2022, the Bangladeshi taka has devalued by 63 percent against the US dollar.

Foreign and domestic political commentators are raising concerns about whether Bangladesh will spiral into the same sort of acute political crisis as in Sri Lanka.

Protests beginning in April in Sri Lanka over rampant inflation, power cuts and widespread shortages of fuel, food and medicines, developed into a popular uprising and general strikes against the Rajapakse government, forcing it to resign and President Gotabaya Rajapakse to flee the country on July 13.

A recent article in the Dhaka-based Daily Star by UN Development Program economist Nazeen Ahmed warned that “Bangladesh may be on its way to facing a similar eventuality [as Sri Lanka.]”

The Hasina government and the World Bank, citing growth rates of 7 percent and 8.15 percent in 2015-16 and 2018-19 respectively, previously claimed that Bangladesh would become an upper middle-income country by 2031. This myth has been shattered by rising commodity prices and the global economic crisis.

The wave of mass protests that have erupted in Bangladesh are part of class struggles sweeping across the world against rising inflation and job and wage cuts. The Hasina government’s response to this crisis has been to further drive up the cost of fuel and other essentials while mobilising the police and unleash state repression, measures that will further increase mass opposition.

Public health specialists demand action as COVID-19 surges in Turkey

Harun Akın

In Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government recently declared that “the pandemic is over,” the grossly underestimated official numbers of cases and deaths are rapidly rising. The complicity of the bourgeois opposition and trade unions with the government’s policy of mass infection and death underlines the need for working people to take matters into their own hands to save lives and end the pandemic.

The official number of cases in the week of July 25 to August 1 reached 406,332, while 337 people died of COVID-19. According to the World Health Organization, Turkey ranked first in Europe and fifth in the world in terms of COVID-19 infections that week.

Tevfik Özlü, a member of the official Coronavirus Scientific Committee, spoke to the İhlas News Agency (İHA). In a devastating comment on the policies of his own committee, Özlü said: “The saddest part is that the number of deaths, the number of cases, is not very important to me anymore. Since most people do not get tested, they do not reflect the real numbers.”

In February, despite warnings from public health specialists, Özlü had said that COVID-19 “will eventually turn into a common respiratory infection, like the flu or the common cold.”

Healthcare workers go on strike nationwide to protest working conditions and low pay. The banner reads: "We are on strike, we will struggle until we get our rights." Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. [AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici]

“We are experiencing the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic,” Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ceyhan, Head of the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine in Ankara, said on Thursday. He added: “We had to reopen the COVID-19 pediatric ward due to the increasing number of cases.”

Speaking to Cumhuriyet on July 25, Prof. Dr. Bekir Kocazeybek, a member of the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty in Istanbul, explained why the number of cases is increasing: “Cases are increasing due to the Health Ministry’s abolition of masks in indoor areas, and the fact that tests are almost never performed—infected people are sent back without being tested. The government is driven by economic concerns.”

Kocazeybek noted that Omicron is the dominant variant in Turkey, with 70-80 percent of cases, warning that vaccines are losing effectiveness and calling for public health measures: “Turkey should act with an approach that prioritizes human health instead of tourism and economic concerns. Otherwise, we may spend the fall and winter more seriously with a 6th wave … My biggest concern is that we will encounter more resistant and more contagious mutations. We must reduce the infection chain by disciplining human movements.”

Health care workers’ organizations in Ankara recently issued a statement on the pandemic, calling for various precautions against the spread of the virus. They demanded that “COVID services and polyclinics should be reopened in hospitals. The use of masks should continue in indoor places and crowded open areas. … Effective contact tracing and isolation should be implemented.”

They added, “Vaccination should be accelerated through campaigns and booster doses should be administered with effective vaccines. The 5-11 age group should be included in the vaccination program. Urgent precaution plans should be put into practice.”

Continuing, they warned: “While a new variant in the COVID-19 pandemic spreads very rapidly, every six months, faster and more easily transmitted than the previous one, all measures have been lifted in our country since May. The Health Ministry started releasing daily data on a weekly basis after May 30, and although the number of tests is currently very low, the number of weekly deaths is very high.”

It concluded with a call for public health measures against the government’s “profits before health” policy: “We once again state that the government, which determines the criteria in the fight against the pandemic according to the hospital occupancy rate, the production level of factories and tourism revenues, should give priority to public health.”

As a result of this policy of death, hospitals’ intensive care units are filling up again. Prof. Dr. Oktay Demirkıran, President of the Turkish Intensive Care Association, told NTV television: “80-90 percent occupancy rates have been reached in some places” and that there is no more room at Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Hospital, one of the major hospitals in Istanbul.

Demirkıran also stated Tuesday that “The case density in Istanbul continues. Last week, some of our patients had to stay in the emergency service for a week due to the intensity and could not be admitted to intensive care units.”

In an interview with Mesopatamia Agency on August 7, Güçlü Yaman, a member of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Pandemic Working Group, summarized the horrifying situation in the pandemic: “Last year, during the Delta surge, excess deaths were around twice the official COVID-19 deaths, while this rate has increased up to ten times this year.”

He continued: “There is also an increase in official deaths, but this is far below the actual deaths. In a sense, we are back to the summer of 2020. … If you remember, the Minister of Health declared in his statement after the summer of 2020 that he hid data in order to ‘protect national interests.’” According to Yaman’s calculations, as of August 2, the number of excess deaths in Turkey has risen to 294,000, though the official death toll is still below 100,000.

Under these conditions, threats against scientists by pandemic deniers and anti-vaxxers are on the rise. Indeed, the suicide of Dr. Lisa-Maria Kellermayr in Austria, after she was targeted by anti-vaxxers and the Austrian government ignored the threats, reveals that this is an international campaign backed by the ruling class.

In Turkey, Prof. Dr. Esin Davutoglu Şenol and other scientists who have criticized the government’s unscientific policies and called for public health measures since the beginning of the pandemic are increasingly targeted by anti-vaxxers. The government’s indifference to these threats reflects the fact that in Turkey, as in Austria and in most countries, authorities have adopted the far-right policies of pandemic deniers and anti-vaxxers.

Wildfire in France’s Gironde region reignites amidst record drought, heat wave

Samuel Tissot

After wildfires devastated France’s Gironde region and much of Europe last month, they are again engulfing southwestern France. According to Gironde police prefect Fabienne Buccio, the fire is a continuation of July’s fire in Landiras, which “didn’t go out” but “went underground.” The fire has reportedly rekindled due to “heat, dry air, record drought and the fact that there is a lot of peat in the ground.”

Since August 9, the fire has burned an additional 7,400 hectares of vegetation. It is fueled by extremely dry vegetation amid a record-breaking drought and another heat wave with successive days of temperatures above 35°C (95 degrees F). Around 10,000 people, mostly in the municipalities of Hostens and Belin-Beliet, have been evacuated. Over 1,100 French firefighters are currently tackling the blaze. On Friday, Gironde’s deputy prefect, Ronan Leaustic, said that although the fire had not expanded on that day, “the weather conditions are pushing us towards extreme vigilance.”

A burnt out car is seen at Les Flots Bleus camping site in Pyla sur Mer, near Arcachon, southwest France, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. [AP Photo/Bob Edme]

Emergency measures against the fire included the arrival of around 300 firefighters from Romania, Germany, Poland, and Austria, and 6 additional Canadair water bombers from Greece, Italy and Sweden. On Friday evening, French president Macron tweeted that firefighters had even been flown in from French Polynesia—16,000 kilometres away—to tackle the blaze.

The government has also requested that companies give employees with volunteer firefighter training time off to help battle the blaze. Volunteers brought in at short notice are being thrown into the fight against the Gironde blaze alongside better-trained professionals.

However, these measures fall short of those requested by Gregory Allione, president of National Federation of French Fire Fighters, who after July’s fires in Gironde told Le Monde that the government “must cover the wages of the volunteers so companies can deploy them more easily to fight fires.” He also added that the measures taken by the government after July’s fires “just aren’t enough.”

In July, wildfires in the Gironde region led to the loss of 19,000 hectares (46,950 acres) of vegetation in the Landiras forest area and 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) at La Teste-de-Buch, as well as the evacuation of around 40,000 residents and tourists in the region. Francis Cros, vice-president National Federation of Forest Communities, told Le Monde that the high toll in La Teste-de-Buch was due to the failure to implement standard forest fire safety protocols.

Due to the fire, the A63 motorway, which runs from Bordeaux to the western most point of the French-Spanish border, was closed in both directions on Thursday, before partially reopening on Friday. Dozens of trucks from Spain were blocked from entering France on Thursday.

Le Jura, a commune bordering Germany in France’s Burgundy region, has also been hit by significant wildfires in the previous two days, with 660 hectares (1,630 acres) lost to two fires. Several smaller fires are still burning elsewhere in France, including in Brittany, Anjou, and in the Ile-de-France region, and have impacted transportation services there.

The expansion of the fire comes amid another heatwave, the fourth of 2022, with temperatures in the high 30s in the South and West of France from Thursday to Saturday. Wave after wave of extreme heat with little precipitation in-between has caused a record-breaking drought in France and across Europe that is driving a record European wildfire season.

At least 17 homes in Belin-Béliet had been destroyed by Tuesday night. This is the second time in less than three weeks that the village had to be evacuated. A local resident, Karine Monjeau, said: “The nightmare is starting again. When are we going to get out of this?”

Since the beginning of the year, 60,901 hectares (150,490 acres) in France have been lost to wildfires—three times the national average for an entire year and a new record. Recent years with very dry temperatures have seen major wildfires throughout August and into September and October.

The entirety of the Europe has experienced record wildfires in 2022. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), on August 6, 615,341 hectares (1,520,541 acres) had been burned across Europe; the previous maximum for this date was 380,742 hectares (940,834 acres) burned. As of writing, the EFFIS estimates that 740,583 hectares (1,830,020 acres) have been lost, an increase of 125,000 hectares (308,882 acres) in just one week.

According to a Reuters tracker, 7 people have been killed, 211 injured, and at least 65,000 displaced by wildfires in Europe in 2022 so far. Over the summer months, thousands in Europe have died from successive waves of extreme heat that drove fires across the continent.

These totals are likely to grow further in coming weeks. In Portugal, the Serra da Estrela national park has also been engulfed by a wildfire this week. The fire has destroyed 10,000 hectares (24,711 acres) of woodland so far and is currently being fought by 1,500 firefighters and 12 planes. Britain, which also saw a record wave of fires in July, is facing a new round of extreme heat, with temperatures predicted to reach 36°C (97 degrees F) in coming days.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne visited Gironde on Thursday. Speaking near Landiras, she claimed that the government’s mobilization on wildfires was “total” and that the government had never before made available “so many resources.” She pointed to the government’s purchase of seven water-bombing helicopters since July’s fire as evidence of this fact.

However, the current situation in Gironde shows that the Macron government has failed to protect the population from wildfires. Well before the peak of wildfire season, events in July showed that drastic measures were needed instantly to protect the population of Gironde from fires in the proceeding weeks.

It is well-known what measures are necessary. Leading firefighters and ecology experts have made clear that improved systems of firewalls, fire surveillance, more professional firefighters, and development of transportation infrastructure in high-risk areas can prevent wildfires spreading out of control. Amid record drought and yet another heatwave, more wildfires were clearly inevitable before the end of the summer, yet no adequate action was taken by the Macron government.

The renewal of the deadly fire in Gironde once again, shows that the ruling class in France and across the world are unable to tackle global warming and its effects. Record wildfires are ripping through Europe and Alaska, and significant fires continue to burn in California and North Africa. Since 2020, wildfires have destroyed large parts of Australia, Russia, North Africa and California.

The consequences of the current 1.2°C (2.2 degrees F) of global warming since the pre-industrial age has already claimed uncountable lives in myriad extreme weather events, as well as causing the exodus of millions of climate refugees.