Amid mounting crises, Chinese Communist Party to reappoint Xi Jinping as leader

Peter Symonds

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress, due to start on October 16, takes place as China confronts mounting crises on all fronts. Internally, the economy has been slowing drastically, leading to rising unemployment, particularly among young people, and sharp social tensions. Externally, the US is intensifying its aggressive confrontation with China on all fronts—diplomatic, economic and military.

Soldiers wearing masks march down the steps of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Monday, Sept. 26, 2022. China's long-ruling Communist Party has set October 16 for its 20th party congress, at which leader Xi Jinping is expected to be given a third five-year term. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The CCP congress, which occurs every five years, will be one of crisis. It is expected to break from past practice and install Xi Jinping for a third term as the party’s general secretary and thus the country’s president. Xi foreshadowed the change when in 2018 the National People’s Congress amended the country’s constitution to remove the previous two-term limit on the presidency and vice-presidency that had been in place for three decades.

The US and Western media is rife with speculation about the CCP’s internal machinations and whether or not Xi will be reinstalled. In an article last week entitled, “China becomes ‘hothouse’ of intrigue ahead of crucial Communist party congress,” the Guardian referred to rumours of a military coup that were trending on social media, before all but dismissing them as unfounded. It appears that the rumour was based on nothing more than large numbers of flight cancellations and unsourced videos of military vehicles.

The Guardian, along with other media, noted the convictions last month of top-level Chinese officials on corruption charges, describing it as “one of the biggest Chinese political purges in years.” Among those jailed were former vice-minister of public security Sun Lijun, ex-justice minister Fu Zhenghua, and former provincial police chiefs of Shanghai, Chongqing and Shanxi. Those convicted were accused of being part of a clique that was disloyal to Xi.

The Indian-based Observer Research Foundation pointed out that Sun and Fu were significant figures in China’s highly-sensitive security establishment. Fu had been closely involved in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, which Xi had used to bring down key political rivals. Fu was instrumental in the investigation into Zhou Yongkang, formerly the country’s security chief and member of the party’s top Politburo Standing Committee, who was convicted of corruption in 2015.

From top to bottom, the CCP apparatus is riddled with corruption, which has massively expanded as the regime presided over the restoration of capitalism from 1978, the plunder of state-owned enterprises and the dominance of the market over every aspect of the economy. But corruption charges against top officials are invariably the means by which factional disputes are settled behind closed doors. Prior to Xi’s installation as general secretary in 2012, Bo Xilai, Chongqing party secretary and potential rival for the post, was detained and convicted of corruption charges.

The media focus on the CCP’s internal party tensions clearly reflects Washington’s ambitions to exploit any divisions within the Chinese regime to weaken and fracture China, which it regards as the chief threat to US global dominance.

The CCP congress is being held amid the mounting danger of world war. Even as the Biden administration has recklessly ramped up the US-NATO war against Russia, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war, it also has dramatically escalated tensions with China over Taiwan.

Beijing is acutely aware that China could be embroiled in the expanding US-led war in Ukraine and that Washington’s war aims involve not only the weakening and subordination of Russia, but China as well. Despite intense international pressure, Beijing has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Xi’s only international travel since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was to attend last month’s two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbekistan. He met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he called an “old friend,” and declared that China would work with Russia “to inject stability and positive energy into a world rocked by chaos.”

Putin indirectly acknowledged Beijing’s fears of an escalating war. “We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends when it comes to the Ukraine crisis,” Putin said. “We understand your questions and concern about this.”

The Biden administration has not only intensified the US military build-up and provocations against China in the Indo-Pacific region, but maintained the extensive trade sanctions and bans imposed on China by the Trump White House. Amid deepening global financial and economic instability, the punitive trade measures have been a contributing factor to the dramatic slowing of the Chinese economy.

The latest World Bank forecast said the Chinese economy would grow by just 2.8 percent in 2022, well below China’s official target of 5.5 percent. Amid mounting debt, the economy is also plagued by financial instability, particularly in the property sector where huge corporations such as Evergrande face bankruptcy.

The CCP’s restoration of capitalism was accompanied by the claim that it would bring prosperity that would ensure the well-being of all. A growth rate of 8 percent was held up as the benchmark for achieving low levels of unemployment and social stability. The official unemployment rate, which only covers urban areas, was down marginally to 5.4 percent in July, but the youth jobless rate hit a record of 19.9 percent.

The domestic and geopolitical crises facing China are undoubtedly fueling tensions within the CCP apparatus. Some have criticised Xi, saying he should have been more conciliatory toward the US and further opened up the Chinese economy to foreign investment. On social media, however, stridently nationalist voices have argued for militarist responses.

The government is also under mounting pressure internationally and from sections of business and the middle classes, on which the CCP has increasingly rested, to ease COVID restrictions that have successfully prevented millions of deaths.

However, amid the escalating tensions, Xi has apparently strengthened his grip on power and taken over the oversight of all areas of government policy. This includes the economy, which was in the past largely the province of the premier. Li Keqiang, who was installed as premier along with Xi and was identified with World Bank plans for further pro-market restructuring, has been largely sidelined. He is expected to be dropped from the top leadership at the upcoming congress.

Xi, however, is now routinely referred to as “the core” of the government and the party. He may well be accorded new accolades and titles at the congress. However, Xi’s seemingly unchallengeable position stems not from any inherent strength of Xi as an individual or of the CCP as a whole. Rather, in conditions of acute class tensions, he has been elevated to preside over the competing factions, mediate disputes and prevent the divisions from blowing the party and government apart.

In a perspective in 2018 entitled “Xi Jinping’s power grab: Bonapartism with Chinese characteristics,” the WSWS explained:

“Xi’s emergence as China’s political strongman is not a function of his personal characteristics, but rather is a reflection above all of the extreme social tensions wracking the country. Confronting a deteriorating economy and the prospect of social upheaval, the Chinese bureaucracy is desperately seeking to consolidate its forces around the figure of Xi—a form of rule that Marxists have classically designated as Bonapartist.”

In cave-in to the banks, Biden changes student loan forgiveness rules to make 800,000 people ineligible

Alex Findijs

The Biden administration’s Department of Education quietly changed its criteria for federal student loan forgiveness on Thursday. Without any previous or public announcement, the department’s website posted a new guidance on whether some four million borrowers whose loans are guaranteed by the federal government but held by private lenders are eligible for the $10,000 in student loan forgiveness announced by President Biden in August.

President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt forgiveness in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]

Until Thursday, the guidance said that these borrowers, who received loans under the now defunct Perkins and Federal Family Education Loans programs, would be eligible for the debt write-off if they consolidated their loans into federal Direct Loans.

But the new guidance said the opposite. It stated that as of that day (September 29, 2022), borrowers with federal loans not held by the government “cannot obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans.” In other words, all those with such loans who had not already consolidated into federal Direct Loans were ineligible for the debt write-off.

The change came the same day that a lawsuit was filed in federal court by six Republican-led states (Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and South Carolina) arguing that Biden’s executive order providing limited debt relief to some of the 41 million student loan borrowers was an abuse of executive power. The suit also argued that provisions encouraging borrowers with loans held by private banks to turn them into federally owned loans, so as to receive a debt write-off, illegally deprived private lenders of income from loan payments.

Additional lawsuits against the student loan forgiveness program have been filed or are being prepared.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson argued: “In addition to being economically unwise and inherently unfair, the Biden administration’s Mass Debt Cancellation is another example in a long line of unlawful regulatory actions. No statute permits President Biden to unilaterally relieve millions of individuals from their obligation to pay loans they voluntarily assumed.”

Plaintiffs further argued that forgiveness would constitute “depriving them [private loan holders] of the ongoing revenue” earned from “servicing those loans.”

One lawsuit by the Pacific Legal Foundation has already been struck down by a judge, but other lawsuits may progress further.

Biden’s decision to immediately cave to these lawsuits demonstrates the Democratic Party’s unwavering loyalty to Wall Street.

Privately held federal student loans are a relatively small portion of the immense $1.7 trillion dollars in student debt. Private loans stand at roughly $108 billion among four million borrowers. While this is a small portion, the financial impact is significant.

Roughly $159 billion worth of student loans are held in Student Loan Asset Backed Securities (SLABS). SLABS package loans into securities that can be traded on an open market to investors.

These securities are incredibly profitable, due to the reliability of the loans. Students who take out loans are fully responsible for the payments and cannot file for bankruptcy. Additionally, much of the value of these securities are federally insured, meaning that investors bear none of the consequences of non-payment and can even profit from debt default.

As of 2019, a total of $600 billion worth of student loans had been traded through SLABS, and there are untold billions in financial instruments connected to these securities.

SLABS are so foundational to financial markets that the Nebraska state pension fund is invested in these securities. The state’s lawsuit against the Biden administration references potential losses to its pension fund as a result of the student loan write-off.

Student loans held by the federal government are not traded as SLABS, but with interest rates ranging around 5-8 percent, many people may be forced into refinancing to privately held loans, which often promise lower interest rates. Average monthly student loan payments are $234 for those with undergraduate degrees and $570 for those with master’s degrees. As inflation erodes real wages and interest rates rise, the burden on workers to pay off their debts becomes increasingly unbearable.

Even if Biden’s plan were to go through in full effect, it would make only a small dent in the total student debt crisis. With $1.7 trillion in student debt, Biden’s plan to forgive $10,000 for those making under $125,000 a year will erase less than $400 billion over the next 10 years.

This would somewhat ease the financial burden on many people, but still leaves intact the vast bulk of student debt. Additionally, the annual cost in lost government revenue will be offset by additional cuts to social programs, as the capitalist class moves to direct ever greater resources towards war with Russia and China.

Critics claim this paltry aid is too expensive, and they include Democrats as well as the entire Republican Party. Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, generally aligned with the Democratic Party, published an editorial on Thursday citing various bipartisan, right-wing think tanks claiming the debt forgiveness program will cost hundreds of billions more than the $300 billion over 10 years estimated by the Education Department.

Calling the program unconstitutional, the Post wrote, “If there is any abuse the Constitution was designed to prevent, it would be the distribution of vast sums of public money, based on little more than executive say-so.” This, according to Bezos’ newspaper, is the heart of the Constitution, not the ban on hereditary orders, the Bill of Rights’ guarantees of freedom of the press, assembly and expression, and protection from arbitrary search and seizure, or the post-Civil War amendments abolishing slavery and enshrining due process and equal protection of the law, as well as the right of former slaves to citizenship and access to the ballot box.

Even the inflated annual cost estimates of right-wing think tanks, moreover, are less than what the United States government has shipped in weapons to Ukraine so far this year alone.

Prominent Democrats have joined with the Republicans in opposing Biden’s proposal. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are opposed to serious student debt relief. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who is running for the Senate and previously supported student debt relief, responded to Biden’s announcement in August by saying, “while there’s no doubt that a college education should be about opening opportunities, waiving debt for those already on a trajectory to financial security sends the wrong message to the millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.”

This demagogic language serves only to divide the working class and obscure the underlying problems of exorbitant college expenses and oppressively high interest rates. A student paying off a typical student loan may never actually complete the payments, as the interest on the loan outstrips his or her ability to pay each month. Moreover, millions of college graduates are unable to find a secure and decent-paying job.

Another Democrat, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, has also spoken out against student debt forgiveness. His brother, James Bennet, is the senior editor of the Economist and former editorial page editor of the New York Times. He notoriously allowed the publication of an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton calling for the use of military violence to suppress protests against police violence in 2020. He was forced to resign as a result of backlash against the article.

Opposition to student loan forgiveness runs deep in the ruling class and in both major political parties. Despite Biden’s promise to forgive $10,000 worth of debt, legal challenges may result in a reversal of the plan in its entirety. It is also entirely possible that the Biden administration will acquiesce to demands from opponents of debt aid and further slash the amount of debt that will be forgiven after the midterm elections, having used it as a false promise to garner votes.

Regardless of how the current legal battles over student debt proceed, it is clear that the ruling class has no intention of adequately addressing the crisis of high college costs and crushing debt.

US pediatric hospitals face massive crisis due to COVID and other respiratory viruses

Emma Arceneaux

An emergency situation is unfolding across the United States, as pediatric hospitals throughout the country have filled to capacity over the last two months due to a surge of multiple respiratory viruses. In response, virtually no alarm has been raised by the corporate media or political establishment.

This crisis is unfolding as K-12 schools have reopened with all COVID-19 mitigation measures dropped following the latest anti-scientific guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including ending universal masking in hospitals, and as President Joe Biden declares the pandemic “over.”

Major cities including Chicago, New Orleans, Seattle, and Austin have reported bed and staff shortages, while anecdotal reports on social media from healthcare workers and patients have come from every region of the country.

A mother and daughter at University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle on June 21, 2022 [AP Photo/Ted S. Warren]

Physician-in-chief of University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children's Hospital, Dr. John Cunningham, told the Chicago Tribune that hospitalizations have “skyrocketed since school started. This is the most challenging period we’ve experienced since March 2020.” Earlier in September, Illinois health officials warned that “Most (pediatric intensive care units) in our state are already at, or near full capacity, making inter-facility transfers more difficult.”

Last week, local news reported that only 11 staffed pediatric ICU beds were available for the entire Austin, Texas, region, which includes 11 different counties.

Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans, stated this week, “We've got a full house. We stay at capacity.” He noted that children's hospitals across the south, including in Birmingham and Atlanta, were also full.

While ABC News reported on this crisis Friday, as of this writing, other major papers including the New York Times and Washington Post have yet to do so, in line with their record throughout the COVID-19 pandemic of downplaying the dangers of viral transmission posed to children and the broader public.

The hospitalizations are currently driven by a number of respiratory viral infections, including rhinovirus and enterovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and COVID-19. The surge, which is the direct result of the abandonment of all COVID-19 mitigation measures in schools and other public places, threatens to worsen over the coming weeks and months as cool weather sets in and people spend more time indoors in poorly ventilated spaces.

On September 9, the CDC issued an advisory to health care providers about rising hospitalizations for severe respiratory illnesses in children, particularly warning about an increase in the percentage of children testing positive for enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), a type of non-polio enterovirus that can lead to a neurological condition in children called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM).

AFM, a paralytic condition similar to polio, affects the spinal cord and causes symptoms such as sudden arm and leg weakness, loss of reflexes and muscle tone, facial drooping, and difficulty swallowing and speaking. There is no specific treatment for AFM, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia notes that while most patients “regain some strength over time, many do not recover fully.”

A study published by the CDC on September 27 documented a months-long increase in acute respiratory illness in children associated with rhinovirus and enterovirus, including EV-D68, as well as asthma/reactive airway disease (RAD). The report noted that the last outbreak of EV-D68 was in 2018, with viral circulation remaining at low levels during the pandemic while mitigation measures were in place.

The report shows an alarming surge in EV-D68 positive tests among children who received medical care for acute respiratory illness since July, reaching nearly 60 percent of those who had a confirmed rhinovirus/enterovirus infection in mid-August. During this same period, pediatric hospital visits among ages 0-4 for asthma/RAD also surged, surpassing all years from 2018-2021.

While the CDC states that AFM is rare, during an outbreak of EV-D68 in the US in 2014, about 10 percent of reported cases developed the condition. As of September 28, the CDC has confirmed 19 cases of AFM since the start of 2022.

The surge in viral illness among children leading to hospitalization is an emergency that requires immediate and far-reaching resources. Not only is a dangerous assortment of viruses spreading at once among the pediatric population, but pediatric hospital capacity has been slashed over the course of two decades.

A damning article in Health Affairs from June 2022 by Drs. Scott D. Krugman and Daniel Rauch, former directors of pediatric departments which have since closed at Sinai (Baltimore) and Tufts (Boston), noted that between 2002 to 2011, more than 2,300 pediatric beds were eliminated across the US, because pediatric medicine is not “profitable” for hospital systems.

A 2021 study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that between 2008-2018, pediatric inpatient units decreased by 19.1 percent, and pediatric inpatient beds decreased by 11.8 percent. Over this time, one-quarter of US children experienced an increase in distance to the nearest inpatient unit. In 2022 alone, hospitals in Boston, Richmond, Tulsa and Baltimore have closed entire inpatient pediatric units.

This has created the conditions where during a surge of viral transmission, parents across the US are struggling to find care for their sick children. Hundreds of parents and healthcare workers have commented in response to a Twitter post by pediatrician Dr. Maya Maxym noting that “CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS ARE OVERFLOWING.”

One parent responded, “I’m a parent of a kid with cancer who just spent two nights sleeping on the floor of a windowless exam room because all the inpatient rooms were full, so yes, I have noticed!”

A nurse in Washington D.C. stated, “UM YES!! Our Emergency Department has been packed every day and night with usually 5+ hour wait times or more on average. What the hell is going on??? I can't even imagine what respiratory season is going to look like if it's already this bad now!”

Though the recent surge in pediatric hospitalizations has been attributed mainly to viruses other than SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, the virus remains a serious and ongoing threat. The current 7-day average for daily pediatric COVID-19 hospital admissions stands at 168, according to the CDC. In total, nearly 160,000 children have officially been admitted for the virus, 38,000 of which have occurred just since May of this year. Likely over 2,000 children have died from COVID-19, though there has been widespread data manipulation coming from the White House and CDC, including by reducing testing, reporting and by cynically differentiating between hospitalizations and deaths “with COVID-19” versus “from COVID-19.”

Despite an effort to downplay the role of COVID-19 in the current crisis, the rapid rise in hospitalizations cannot be understood as separate from the ongoing pandemic. Officials have acknowledged that the dropping of mitigation measures, including mask mandates, social distancing and remote learning, have created conditions that allow for the transmission of other respiratory viruses. Further, the impact of prior COVID-19 infections upon the pediatric population cannot be overlooked as contributing to children's susceptibility to illness from other viral infections.

In a recent Twitter thread on this subject, Dr. Lisa Iannattone pointed to the known damage that COVID-19 can cause to the immune system and to known persistent lung damage in children caused by even “mild” infections, both of which could contribute to the rise in pediatric hospitalizations for common viruses. Back in May, researchers estimated that 70 percent of US children had been infected with COVID-19 at least once, a figure which has certainly increased over the past four months.

Dr. Iannattone also noted that in the case of of the 2002 SARS1 outbreak, “mild” acute illnesses in children were associated with persistent lung perfusion (circulation) issues, which recovered slowly over 3 years and not to full capacity. Regarding the ongoing mass and repeated infection of the population, she asked, “With SARS2, how will kids’ lungs recover if the plan is to let them catch it again and again?”

The full impact of a single COVID-19 infection remains unknown, and it is understood that recurring infections have a cumulatively damaging effect. At the same time, new studies are published regularly on the far-reaching impact of long-COVID on children including brain damage and increased risk of heart disorders, blood clots, kidney failure and Type-1 diabetes. The repeated infections of children has been rightly described by workers and parents as a criminal mass experiment on an entire generation.

There is widespread opposition to the homicidal pandemic response dictated by the ruling class and its representatives in the political establishment. The hashtag #BringBackMasks was trending this week on Twitter, indicative of the ongoing support for public health measures despite Biden's criminal claim that the pandemic is over and that “everyone seems to be in pretty good shape.”

However, masks alone will not prevent a surge in COVID-19 or other illnesses. All available public health measures, including high quality masks and respirators, the renovation of all public spaces and schools to have proper ventilation and filtration, mass testing, rigorous contact tracing, as well as targeted lockdowns with financial assistance provided to all workers, must be implemented to prevent another deadly wave of COVID-19 and other airborne viruses this winter, which include many respiratory viruses such as RSV, influenza, enterovirus and rhinovirus.

The urgent resources needed for these measures are instead being funneled to the limitless military budget and the war against Russia in Ukraine, while public schools, public health and critical infrastructure are crumbling. On Thursday, as Florida was being pummeled by Hurricane Ian, senators approved a stopgap spending package that allocated another $12 billion for the war in Ukraine and only $2 billion for natural disaster relief.

There can be no illusions placed in any section of the American political establishment to address this crisis in a meaningful way. For two and a half years, both the Democrats and Republicans have demonstrated their total indifference to human life by refusing to bring the pandemic under control, with 1.1 million American dead as a result.

Fall surge of COVID-19 begins across Northern Europe

Benjamin Mateus

Based on early reports from northern European countries, including Belgium and Denmark, which continue to maintain some semblance of COVID-19 monitoring and reporting, the next wave of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths has begun across the European Union.

“We are clearly at the start of a winter [COVID-19] wave!” said Karl Lauterbach, Germany’s Federal Minister of Health, during a press briefing yesterday. In the last 24 hours, Germany has reported over 96,000 new COVID-19 cases, up from 58,000 on September 29 and a more than three-fold jump in cases from three weeks ago. New COVID-19 infections are also up two-fold in France, Denmark and Belgium over a similar period.

Meanwhile, hospital admissions for COVID-19 have suddenly accelerated in the UK, up 48 percent from the preceding week. Mary Ramsay, director of public health programs at the UK Health Security Agency, told Politico, “It is clear now that we are seeing an increase which could signal the start of the anticipated winter wave of COVID-19. Cases have started to climb, and hospitalizations are increasing in the oldest age groups.”

These concerns are compounded by the threat posed by the H3N2 flu strain expected to spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere this winter. These parallel surges of infectious disease will be exacerbated by the economic crisis that has seen fuel and food prices skyrocket, driving people indoors in an attempt to stave off the cold, bitter temperatures.

Susan Hopkins, the chief medical advisor at the UK Health Security Agency, noted that “the H3N2 flu strain can cause particularly severe illness… Flu and COVID-19 are unpredictable, but there are strong indications we could be facing the threat of widely circulating flu, lower levels of natural immunity due to less exposure over the last three winters and an increase in COVID-19 circulating with lots of variants that can evade the immune response.”

Across the globe, new COVID-19 infections have turned upwards once again after the Omicron BA.5 surge steadily declined since the end of July. The official global seven-day average of daily new infections now stands at 446,625, up slightly from a low point reached on Wednesday. Due to a severe lack of testing globally, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimates that the real number of daily new cases globally now stands at roughly 17,236,000, and that by New Year’s Day this will increase nearly three-fold to 45 million daily new cases globally. Their projections forecast that the real number of daily new deaths from COVID-19 will reach 5,000 by then.

Given the recent declarations by US President Joe Biden that “the pandemic is over,” a purely political slogan that attempts to chloroform the population and appease the financial oligarchy that no future interventions will disrupt the economy again, it bears giving an accounting of the devastation wrought by ruling elites’ murderous policies.

In the last nine months of 2020, there were officially 83 million COVID-19 infections and 1.9 million deaths globally (or 210,000 per month). In 2021, amid the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, 206 million more people were officially infected and another 3.6 million officially died (at a rate of 300,000 per month). In 2022, the third year of the pandemic, there have been 411 million more reported COVID-19 infections and another 1.1 million deaths, a rate of 120,000 deaths per month.

Meanwhile, as the Biden administration and other world governments halfheartedly attempt to distribute bivalent vaccines that offer some additional protection against the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, even more infectious and immune-evading variants are emerging, with BQ.1, BA.2.75.2 and BA.2.3.20 among the most concerning to experts. It is clear that in 2023, COVID-19 will remain a formidable public health challenge to which capitalism not only has no response, but willfully sacrifices masses of workers throughout the world.

Viral evolution expert Dr. Cornelius Roemer of the University of Basel, Switzerland, recently told the journal Science, “We can say with certainty that something is coming. Probably multiple things are coming.” Molecular epidemiologist Dr. Emma Hodcroft of the University of Bern added, “It’s not surprising that we’re seeing changes that yet again help the virus to evade immune responses.”

Pandemic expert Dr. Michael Osterholm recently made similar remarks, stating, “this is not the same virus we dealt with back in January of 2020. It’s evolved every time we put pressure on it. We get more immunity in people, and it finds a way to get around immunity. Then it gets more infectious.”

While official deaths from COVID-19 stand at 6.54 million globally, the central estimate for excess deaths by The Economist has reached 22.4 million, or 3.4 times the official tally.

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a nephrologist and researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, recently stated at a webinar on Long COVID hosted by the World Health Network that the disparity between official and excess deaths will only grow because Long COVID is killing more people as a result of complications from their infections, which are not reported as COVID-19 deaths. The difficulty of tracking such deaths and making relevant associations to COVID-19 infections means that accurate figures will only emerge in the next few years as researchers pore over the data.

According to a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe, an estimated 17 million people across the European Union may already be suffering from Long COVID. Across the globe, that figure reaches nearly 145 million. The report also noted that Long COVID cases grew by more than 300 percent between 2020 and 2021, underscoring the criminality of the policies put forward by the US and European governments, which claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines were sufficient to allow the “return to normalcy.” The risk appears to increase considerably among those with severe disease requiring hospitalization, although even “mild” infections can lead to Long COVID and other long-term damage to one’s body.

WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, said, “While there is much we still need to learn about Long COVID, especially how it presents in vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations and how it impacts reinfections, this data highlights the urgent need for more analysis, more investments, more support, and more solidarity with those who experience this condition.” Kluge added that employers should make special accommodations to those facing such limitations, while knowing that such considerations will fall on deaf ears.

Lack of funding for these chronic and debilitating illnesses will further undermine and erode the entire health care edifice. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature of post-acute viral syndromes and their social impact on the population were known in the scientific community. Despite hundreds of warnings by scientists in the decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, nothing was done to prepare, and even today capitalist society stands totally unprepared for the next horrific pandemic that will inevitably emerge.

Dr. Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, recently told the New York Times, “I’m very familiar with outbreak response and pandemic preparedness, and none of it looks like this. We’re worse prepared now than we were early in the pandemic.” Meanwhile, the WHO noted in July 2022 that zoonotic outbreaks like monkeypox in Nigeria and Ebola in Uganda had increased 63 percent in the last decade compared to the preceding decade.

Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told the New York Times about the United States’ complete lack of preparedness for future pandemics, stating, “In people’s minds, perhaps, is the idea that this COVID thing was such a freak of nature, was a once-in-a-century crisis, and we’re good for the next 99 years. [But] This is the new normal…”

It is well known that public health has been chronically underfunded, especially in the United States. The paradox is that the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the implosion of the public health infrastructure. Like their counterparts in schools and health care settings, epidemiologists and public health experts are leaving their profession due to chronic fatigue and mental hardships they have faced over the intervening months and years.

Four men linked to neo-Nazi terror plot arrested in Iceland

E.P. Milligan

Four right-wing extremists were arrested in Iceland last week on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks targeting public and government institutions. The men, aged in their 30s, had accumulated dozens of firearms, including several semi-automatic weapons, and thousands of rounds of ammunition at the time of their capture.

This development, the first of its kind in the small North Atlantic island nation with a population of just 360,000, is yet another explosive manifestation of the re-emergence of fascist tendencies throughout Europe and internationally. The men are under suspicion of having connections with other Nordic far-right extremist groups. Police found “fanatical propaganda” during their investigation, some of which glorified the neo-Nazi terrorist and child murderer Anders Breivik along with other like-minded extremists. Astonishingly, only two of the men remain in police custody at this time.

The investigation was launched regarding a serious weapons violation involving the “intended production and sale of firearms,” leading investigators to suspect the individuals were plotting a terrorist action against “various institutions of society” and “citizens of the state.” State Police Superintendent Karl Steinar Valsson stated to the press that there is suspicion the group had plans to target the Parliament or police, although investigators have yet to confirm the fascist operatives’ exact targets.

The arrests took place in Kópavogur and Mosfellsbær, nearby suburbs of the nation’s capital of Reykjavík. Investigators conducted searches at nine locations, confiscating firearms, ammunition, computers and cell phones. The weapons caches appear to have been domestically obtained, some of them manufactured with 3D printing technology.

While police managed to confiscate most of the weapons, it is unclear if the entire stockpile has been seized. It is also unknown whether or not these individuals had ties to far-right organizations internationally and if other co-plotters remain at large. For its part, the state appears reluctant to probe the serious questions raised by the discovery of the terror plot and the police have declared it to be an open-and-shut case.

“The Icelandic Police has averted possible acts of terror,” stated National Police Communications Director Gunnar Hörður Garðarsson. “The police do not consider the Icelandic public to be at risk and the current level of threat of acts of terrorism in Iceland is not higher as the situation has been secured.”

The Icelandic ruling class responded to the arrests with renewed calls for anti-democratic legislation granting the police sweeping powers under the guise of “pre-emptive investigations.” Such a law would, were it put into practice, allow police to begin investigations of individuals who are not currently under suspicion of committing or conspiring to commit crimes. It also would lead to the militarization of the Icelandic police force, with the introduction of “experts” and high-grade equipment as well as the organization of a special counterterrorism unit. The law, which has proven controversial within the country, was previously voted down in Parliament.

Minister of Justice Jón Gunnarsson made the case for passing such legislation in a recent television interview, describing it as “exactly what is called for.” Gunnarsson is a member of the right-wing, pro-big business Independence Party, the traditional party of the Icelandic financial elite, which has spearheaded the push for the introduction of the “pre-emptive investigation” law since it was first drafted in 2015.

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir of the Left-Green Movement echoed these sentiments but stopped short of explicitly endorsing such legislation. “I want to emphasise that it makes a tremendous difference that the police have the means to confront this,” she said. “They certainly showed that they are capable.” She used the opportunity to stress what she saw as the importance of continuing to “strengthen the police.”

That a violent neo-Nazi cell could materialize in Iceland, a country which has topped the Global Peace Index since 2008, is an indictment of the so-called “Nordic model,” which has paved the way for the rise of the far right across Scandinavia under conditions of a deepening global capitalist crisis. Jakobsdóttir’s Left-Greens played a decisive role in diffusing the social protests that erupted in the country over the past decade in opposition to the deeply rooted financial parasitism of the Icelandic ruling class. 

The Left-Greens first came to power in a “left” government led by the Social Democrats in 2009 following protests that brought down the previous coalition government of the Independence Party and Social Democrats. Independence was deeply unpopular after leading the government prior to and during the 2008 economic crisis, which triggered the collapse of the country’s three main banks Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki.

While in power, the Left-Greens played a role foreshadowing that of the pseudo-left Syriza in Greece. The Social Democrat/Left-Green coalition government loyally implemented a devastating programme of austerity dictated by the IMF, slashing funding for public services. Steingrimur Sigfusson, former leader of the Left Greens, was finance minister for three years during this period and was therefore directly responsible for imposing these attacks.

The government was so unpopular that after one term it lost half of its support and was thrown out of office—paving the way for the right-wing populist and nationalist Progressive Party to take the mantle in 2013.

The Progressive Party-led government collapsed in 2016 following the publication of the Panama Papers, which implicated then-Prime Minister Sigmundur Davið Gunnlaugsson and other high-ranking government officials in a widespread tax avoidance scandal. Fresh elections brought the Left-Greens back into power with Jakobsdóttir as prime minister in 2017. The current government has continued the previous cabinet’s policy of austerity, and neither the Left-Greens nor the pseudo-left Pirate Party enjoy any meaningful popular support. As in other countries across Europe and internationally, the political void created by the absence of any genuine left-wing party has emboldened far-right, fascistic elements.

Right-wing populism has become a notable force in the Icelandic political establishment as of late. Following his ouster from government, Gunnlaugsson and his followers split from the Progressive Party in 2017 and founded the Centre Party. While the move undoubtedly was in part intended as an attempt by the tarnished Gunnlaugsson to re-brand himself, the Centre Party had definite programmatic motivations—taking a more hard-line opposition to EU membership and espousing openly xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric. While still a minority party, its influence has moved official Icelandic political discourse even further to the right.

While the development of neo-Nazi groups is far more advanced in mainland Europe and North America, Iceland is by no means immune from this global phenomenon. Norðurvígi, Iceland’s chapter of the white supremacist Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), has been active in the country’s capital since its founding in 2016.

The NRM was founded in Sweden in 1997 and has active chapters in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark. It advocates the dissolution of parliamentary institutions and the establishment of an ethnically pure fascist state along Nazi lines. The organization maintains close ties with neo-Nazi groups across Europe, including Ukraine’s notorious Azov Battalion. The escalation of the NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine, which has seen the funneling of arms, money and materiel into the hands of the Azov Battalion and other far-right forces, has fueled the growth of fascist paramilitary and terror groups internationally.

Norðurvígi members have organized demonstrations in downtown Reykjavík and are active on the University of Iceland’s campus, where they engage in racist agitation and distribute hate literature. Norðurvígi has taken measures to distance itself from the terror plot, claiming the organization does not advocate violence and that it had no knowledge of any such plans. 

A hard-line faction of the NRM has emerged, however, which disavows parliamentarism in favor of preparation for an armed fascist insurrection. This faction has begun to organize separate clandestine paramilitary groups throughout Scandinavia, the most visible of which is Nordisk Styrka (Nordic Strength) in Sweden. The group describes itself as a “fighting organization” with strict standards of physical and military discipline demanded of its membership.

The organization is associated with a litany of criminal charges, with group members convicted of over 100 violent crimes and weapons offenses. Police seized illegal submachine guns and automatic rifles from an NRM hard-liner in Norway in 2014, and another member was arrested in 2019 after hijacking an ambulance, trying to ram a police car and driving into a crowd. Police discovered a shotgun, as well as an Uzi submachine gun, in the stolen ambulance upon inspection.

New UNHRC resolution aimed at pressuring Sri Lanka to end ties with China

Saman Gunadasa

A new resolution on Sri Lanka has been presented to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) 51st session that began in mid-September. Voting on the resolution, titled “Promoting reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka,” is scheduled for October 6.

The resolution, which was sponsored by the US, UK, Canada and Germany, as well as Malawi, Montenegro and North Macedonia, is based on a UNHRC resolution passed in March 2021, with some additional points. These include an investigation into the impact of “corruption” on Sri Lanka’s economic crisis and the “repression of the protest movement.”

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabri addresses UN General Assembly, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022. [AP Photo//Jason DeCrow]

The resolution has nothing do with investigating war crimes or defending human rights in Sri Lanka. It cynically opposes the anti-democratic measures of Colombo governments, but only in order to increase pressure on the cash-strapped Colombo government and block its relations with Beijing. The US wants Sri Lanka to fully back its escalating geo-strategic confrontation with China.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe is a longtime stooge of US imperialism. However, Washington is concerned that he was elevated into this position by former president Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna MPs who have maintained ties with China.

New Delhi, a key strategic ally of Washington, provided considerable financial assistance to Sri Lanka when the economy plunged into crisis this year in a bid to strengthen relations with Colombo and marginalise Chinese influence. Several senior Biden administration officials, including USAID chief Samantha Power, have also visited Sri Lanka, following Wickremesinghe’s appointment as president for the same reason.

Last year’s 16-point UNHRC resolution called for the devolution of power, protection of human rights and human rights defenders, a “review” of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, accountability and respect for religious freedoms. It also expressed concerns about the militarisation of the civilian administration.

US interventions at the UNHRC on Sri Lanka go back to its support for a June 2009 resolution, following Colombo’s bloody defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The term “accountability” in the resolution refers to crimes committed by the Sri Lankan military during the final months of the communalist war. These included the killing of at least 40,000 Tamil civilians and the cold-blooded murder of surrendering LTTE leaders.

The US and other major powers backed Colombo’s war and are responsible for supporting these crimes. The Obama administration, however, opposed then President Mahinda Rajapakse’s turn to China, which became a major arms provider and supplier of financial assistance. Washington’s concerns were bound up with its “pivot to Asia”—the diplomatic isolation and military encirclement of China in preparation for war.

After failing to pressure Colombo to distance itself from China, Washington orchestrated a regime-change operation in 2015 to oust Mahinda Rajapakse as president, replacing him with Maithripala Sirisena. Wickremesinghe, who was later installed as his prime minister, and former president Chandrika Kumaratunga supported the back-room operation.

The incoming Sirisena and Wickremesinghe administration shifted Sri Lankan foreign policy sharply in favour of the US, which then diluted its “human rights” campaign against Colombo. Washington, however, resumed its diplomatic pressure after President Gotabhaya Rajapakse came to power in 2019 and his brother Mahinda won the general election in August 2020 to become prime minister.

In line with the latest UNHRC resolution, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Menendez and Senators Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Cory Booker have moved a resolution in the Senate. It calls for a “comprehensive international approach to address Sri Lanka’s current political and economic crisis, including challenges related to poor governance and economic policy under the Rajapakse family’s rule.” The Foreign Relations Committee resolution claims that the Sri Lankan economic crisis was “exacerbated by predatory loans” from China “as part of its debt trap diplomacy.”

The latest UNHRC resolution notes that “the severe economic crisis” in Sri Lanka has aggravated food insecurity, caused severe shortages of medicines and fuel, and reduced household income. “Corruption can have a serious negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights,” it states, and calls for the investigation and prosecution of corruption by “public and former public officials.”

The corruption allegations, which are mainly directed at the Rajapakse family and its cronies, are aimed at preventing them from returning to power.

By contrast, the resolution “recognises” Wickremesinghe’s efforts “to address the ongoing economic crisis” and “welcomes” Colombo’s recently concluded bail-out loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Notwithstanding their cynical concerns about the suffering Sri Lankan masses, the major powers sponsoring the UNHRC resolution know that the IMF austerity measures will involve even more savage economic attacks on workers and the poor.

While corruption by successive governments, including those led by the Rajapakse family, is well-known, Sri Lanka’s economic collapse is part of the global crisis of capitalism, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the US-NATO war against Russia.

The UNHRC resolution also voices its concern over the “repression of the protest movement” and the mass arrest of demonstrators. Since April, the government has arrested around 4,000 people and detained over 1,500 in prisons, alleging they damaged state property and the homes of ruling party MPs.

“[P]articipation in peaceful protests can be an important form of exercising the rights to freedoms of peaceful assembly, of expression, and of association and to participation in the conduct of public affairs,” the resolution states.

The concerns of the US and other imperialist powers are not about democratic rights but Wickremesinghe’s ability to contain widespread opposition among working people to the country’s immense social crisis. Facing rising social tensions in their own countries, ruling elites everywhere are acutely nervous about the mass protests and strikes in Sri Lanka that forced President Rajapakse to flee the country and his government to collapse in July.

The resolution notes the “lack of progress in addressing the longstanding grievances and demands of Tamil and Muslim populations,” and voices concern about the ongoing “surveillance, intimidation and harassment of journalists, human rights defenders, families of the disappeared.” It proposes to “re-energise” the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations, toothless bodies established by the pro-US Sirisena regime, which did nothing and were used to hoodwink the families of war victims.

Addressing the UNHRC, Sri Lanka Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Sabry opposed the resolution, saying that the government policy was for a “domestic mechanism” to address any human rights violations. Successive Colombo governments have rejected all war crimes allegations and strenuously defended the military and political leaders responsible.

Seeking to advance its own influence in Colombo, Beijing opposed the UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka. Chen Xu, its representative to the UN body said, “China opposes any country taking advantage of the current difficult situation in Sri Lanka to seek self-interest” and urged the UN to “respect the human rights development path that Sri Lanka has independently chosen.”

The opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party is backing the resolution, calling for an investigation into corruption in Sri Lanka and blaming Rajapakse governments. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has said nothing about the resolution but is developing close relations with US diplomats and other major powers as part of its back-room efforts to come to power.

The SJB and the pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) sent representatives to the UNHRC, claiming it could be used to defend democratic rights in Sri Lanka. In fact, the SJB, JVP and FSP all maintain a guilty silence about the anti-China geo-strategic agenda behind the US and other imperialist “concerns” about human rights in Sri Lanka.

Munich Oktoberfest emerges as COVID superspreader event in Germany

Tamino Dreisam

While on average almost 80 people lose their lives to the pandemic every day in Germany  and a new COVID wave is gathering pace, the federal and state governments are dismantling the last remaining measures and promoting a “live with the virus” strategy. The Oktoberfest—a super-spreading event par excellence—is only the most disturbing example of this policy.

Since September 17, the Oktoberfest has been taking place in Munich, where millions of people from countries around the world meet in tents without any COVID protection measures. The fact that this would lead to a mass spread of the virus was beyond question from the outset. 

Young people reach out for free beer in one of the beer tents on the opening day of the 187th Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

For example, Florian Geyer, head of the Miesbach health office in Upper Bavaria, where Munich is located, told the Münchner Merkur newspaper, “One thing is clear: a beer tent cannot be adequately ventilated. And it is an international meeting place—the best conditions for the virus to spread, mutate and change. Whether and how it will do that, we cannot predict.”

“Of course, this will lead to an increase in the number of cases,” said Johannes Bogner, senior consultant at the LMU Clinic at the University of Munich. And Munich virologist Oliver Keppler told regional public broadcaster BR, “On a scale of one to 10, the probability of SARS-CoV-2 exposure after several hours in the tent is, in my estimation, nine to 10.”

This coincides with the catastrophic consequences of similar festivals, which were celebrated in various parts of Bavaria without COVID restrictions. In Rosenheim, for example, the seven-day infection rate rose there to over 1,000 infections per 100,000 inhabitants approximately one-and-a-half weeks after the start of the Oktoberfest.

In Munich itself, the seven-day incidence has risen from 225 per 100,000 inhabitants to over 695 within 10 days. In the last week, more than 10,000 new COVID cases were reported, which is about 6,500 more than in Hamburg, where the second highest number of cases were registered in the last seven days. PCR test samples have shown that 2 percent of Oktoberfest visitors are already infected at the event.

The federal and state governments are not only aware of this development, but are consciously promoting it. Numerous politicians of all parties have published pictures of themselves without a mask at the festival. According to the new Infection Protection Act, even minor requirements, such as access restrictions, mandatory hygiene and mask mandates, are no longer permitted. Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (Christian Social Union, CSU) stated before the start of the Oktoberfest, “The number of infections will probably increase, that is the experience of previous festivals.”

The organisation of huge festivals without any protection serves above all one goal: “living” or rather “dying with the virus” is to be normalised. While in the US, President Biden recently described the pandemic as “over,” an increasing number of politicians in Germany are calling for the last remaining measures to be lifted.

For example, the spokesman for health policy of the Christian Democratic Union/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Tino Sorge, told Der Spiegel, “It is time to leave the tunnel of fear. More countries are returning to normality. With all due caution, the state of emergency must not become a permanent state. Our federal government will also have to explain to people how long we will be in pandemic mode.”

Andrew Ullmann, spokesman for health policy for the Free Democratic Party group, commented similarly, “I can absolutely understand what Joe Biden means. As a scientist and clinician, I would argue that the pandemic is not over yet, but it is in its final stages.”

Baden-Württemberg’s Green Party Minister President Winfried Kretschmann sees Germany in the “transition from the pandemic to endemic disease” and declared that he does not consider any further protective measures necessary.

In addition, a few days ago, the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein demanded in a joint letter that the obligation to isolate people infected with COVID be abandoned.

Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Health Manne Lucha (Greens) said, “We should gradually come into the mode of treating a coronavirus infection like another infectious disease in which the rule is: If you are ill, you stay at home.”

These plans are already being implemented. On Wednesday, the Baden-Württemberg state government abolished compulsory isolation for children and young people after a coronavirus infection. Students can therefore return to school infected, without the need for a mask, and spread the virus among their classmates.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was infected with the coronavirus a few days ago, has concentrated on sending the message that infected people can work. Scholz “isolated himself” in the Chancellery because he could “do a good job from here.” In order to recover quickly, he took Paxlovid on the advice of his doctors. For the vast majority of the population, this coronavirus treatment is virtually unavailable. 

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrats) is busy downplaying the situation and agitating against serious measures. He only reckons with a 'medium-sized wave in autumn,” he explained in an interview with the Rheinische Post. Lockdowns were “no longer justifiable” and “closures of schools or the hospitality industry” would no longer be considered.

In fact, the situation is more serious than at the same time in recent years. After a slight decline in infections in recent weeks, cases are starting to rise again. The official 7-day incidence was 410 infections per 100,000 inhabitants on Thursday. A week ago it was 281.1. This means that the 7-day incidence has increased by 46 percent within a week. The number of current new infections is about four times as high as a year ago at the same time.

However, the true number of infections is much higher, as a large part of the test infrastructure has been dismantled and only PCR tests are included in the statistics. The enormous test positivity rate of 33.9 percent also illustrates the high number of unreported cases.

A growing number of infections occur in hospitals and nursing homes. Last week there were 51 outbreaks in medical treatment facilities (49 in the previous week) and 178 in retirement and nursing homes (120 in the previous week). Due to the outbreaks in recent weeks, at least 24 people have died in medical treatment facilities and 99 in retirement and nursing homes.

Overall, the number of severe outcomes following a COVID infection is increasing sharply again. Around 6,000 people are hospitalized every week, while 705 people are currently in intensive care units and around 80 people die every day. This is almost twice as high as a year ago at the same time.

Particularly concerning is the spread of the Omicron subvariant BA 2.75.2, which exhibits an unprecedented ability to evade immunity. According to assistant professor Ben Murell at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, both the Evusheld and sotrovimab COVID drug treatments show no significant effect on isolated samples of the mutation.

According to a study by a research group at the University of Beijing, the subvariant also easily prevails against the drug bebtelovimab. All three drugs consist of isolated antibodies, which are intended to trigger an immediate effect in the infected patient.

The emergence of new mutations illustrates the total bankruptcy of the official pandemic policy. As is becoming increasingly apparent, the mass infection of the population does not lead to more harmless mutations, but to the emergence of more infectious and resistant variants.