Washington bullies Mexico into supporting war against Russia

Andrea Lobo

During recent weeks, as the US and NATO war against Russia in Ukraine spirals toward a nuclear “Armageddon,” as acknowledged by US President Biden himself, and drives inflation to historic highs, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has increased his administration’s appeals for a negotiated settlement, while condemning Russia, Ukraine, the US, the European powers and the UN for escalating the conflict.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico Marcelo Ebrard during the IX Summit of the Americas, in June 2022 (Credit: Gobierno de Mexico)

In his morning press briefing on Monday, AMLO called for a five-year truce and warned about the planned nuclear missile tests by NATO and Russia, stating: “Some of them don’t even have good aim, which is what worries me the most.”

He denounced those “sending weapons to countries where there are conflicts and interfering in the internal affairs of other countries…They already bombed a bridge. They already sabotaged a pipeline. There was already a statement that we are about to press the button.”

The UN is acting as a mere “ornament,” he said, while “it should be demanding a dialogue and peace every day. Have you heard anything from the UN? Nothing!”

López Obrador stressed, “Do not drag us in. We are not warmongers. We have ties with peoples from all over the world. Our policy is against war and for peace. Our policy is neutrality. No, we are not on the side of any hegemonic power in the world… In this case, we have acted and will continue to act in a neutral manner.”

These comments followed those he made during his Independence Day speech on September 16, when he denounced the war in Ukraine, Western sanctions and the massive shipment of weapons to Ukraine as “irrational.” He said in this speech seen by tens of million, “The large powers position themselves before the conflict only to serve their own hegemonic interests… and the interests of the war industry.”

Weapons shipments to Ukraine, he added, “have only served to exacerbate the conflict, create more suffering among victims, their families and refugees, worsen the shortage of food and energy and drive inflation globally—issues that harm the vast majority of people in the world.” After citing the invasions of Mexico by France and the United States, he concluded by calling for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement mediated by Pope Francis, the far-right Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and UN Secretary General António Guterres.

Among other similar statements, on October 5, AMLO denounced the proposal by the European Parliament to nominate Ukrainian President Zelensky for the Nobel Peace Prize. “How could one of the actors of the war receive the Nobel Peace Prize?” he said incredulously.

That day, Zelensky spoke remotely to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States held in Peru and called on Latin American nations to support Ukraine, including through sanctions against Russia.

The following day, AMLO responded to Zelensky indicating that sanctions are “irrational” and only serve to exacerbate “the suffering of the people.” Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil then refused to sign a statement of the OAS summit that condemned solely Russia for the war.

While there is certainly an element of demagoguery and hypocrisy in the statements by AMLO, that the government of America’s neighbor and main trade partner openly blames the United States for escalating the war in Ukraine for its “own hegemonic interests” is a blow for the war propaganda of the United States and NATO, which argues that all would be well with the world if only Putin had not invaded Ukraine.

The same week that the Biden administration announced its National Security Strategy, which sets out a plan for waging world war against Russia and China to “win the competition for the 21st century,” the elected leader of Mexico, whose resources, industries and territory constitute a key pillar for the American economy and military, declared “neutrality.”

Under the headline “Foster Democracy and Shared Prosperity in the Western Hemisphere,” Biden’s strategy states: “Our priority is to work with Canada and Mexico to advance a North American vision for the future that draws on our shared strengths and bolsters U.S. global competitiveness.”

Following decades of integration of the North American supply chains to facilitate the competition by US and Canadian imperialism against its economic rivals in Europe and Asia, the initial shutdowns during the pandemic proved that all major US industries depend on Mexican suppliers.

After a US-Mexico High-Level Security Dialogue in Washington D.C. on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced AMLO’s statements on the war. “There is no neutrality when we are speaking about annexations,” he said. “What’s important is to ask oneself if the U.N.’s values are reflected in Mexico’s position.”

Undoubtedly, these comments give only a glimpse of much more severe threats and bullying behind the scenes. This was reflected in Mexico’s vote in support of a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of four new territories in eastern Ukraine. The Mexican ambassador to the UN, Juan Ramón, said in a speech that the annexation “represents an escalation of the armed conflict, including a nuclear threat or a nuclear accident” and called for an immediate truce. On March 2, Mexico had also voted in favor of a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a joint press briefing on Thursday, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard also felt compelled to clarify that an agreement on space exploration with Russia that was announced last weekend was actually from September 2021 and is not in effect.

In a speech on Monday, the EU Foreign Affairs chief Josep Borrell denounced Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Indonesia as “swing states, voting on one side or the other according to their interests” and “creating this messy multipolarity.” Then, he singled out AMLO, declaring, “Look at Mexico’s President’s recent speech. Who is our Mexico delegate? Is he here? You heard what the Mexican President said about us recently.” He made these bullying remarks seconds before denouncing Putin’s supposed “imperialism.”

Walking the tightrope, AMLO then declared Wednesday that he had no problem with Ukraine’s president speaking to the Mexican Congress. As early as June 10, Mexico had signed a joint statement with the US and Canada condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Our coordinated responses to Russian aggression against Ukraine, including calls to establish a diplomatic path forward, demonstrate the importance of North American solidarity,” the statement said, vowing in the same paragraph to “strengthen our relations, which is key to our collective security and prosperity.”

At the same time, US and Canadian imperialism seek to further consolidate the North American supply chains as a platform to wage economic and shooting wars. Ultimately, this presents new profit opportunities to the Mexican ruling class that AMLO represents.

A crucial element of this process has been semiconductors and advanced chips, most of which are produced in Taiwan. The Biden administration has not only placed Taiwan at the forefront of its war provocations against China, but last week banned the export to China of advanced computer chips and equipment to produce them.

On September 12, Blinken and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo met with AMLO and other top Mexican officials to indicate that, handed major incentives to move production to the United States, semiconductor manufacturers “would like to see the rest of their supply chain in North America, Mexico specifically.” In other words, they want a greater access to Mexico’s cheap labor and resources.

At the meeting, AMLO responded positively to the announcement of investments in semiconductors, which is a blatant measure in preparation for war.

In the final analysis, the capitalist government in Mexico will seek to use geopolitical tensions to extract investments and other concessions from the US and Europe for the Mexican corporations and banks, which are entirely beholden to their imperialist patrons.

Floods, hunger, disease and IMF austerity devastate Pakistan’s workers and poor

Sampath Perera

The catastrophic climate change-linked floods that have ravaged Pakistan since June and peaked in late August continue to inundate vast swathes of the country.

Torrents of water produced by melting glaciers in the Himalayas combined with an unusually heavy rain season have devastated substantial portions of the country. Millions have been displaced, often with their homes completely destroyed, and tens of millions more are being impacted by the destruction of crops and livestock and much of the country’s limited infrastructure.

Since mid-June more than 1,700 people have officially lost their lives due to the floods, among them 615 children. A further 12,000 are reported as injured.

Over 33 million people are variously affected by the floods. As grim as these official figures are, they provide only a pale reflection of the true human toll.

Victims of heavy flooding from monsoon rains carry relief aid through flood water in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province, Pakistan, Sept. 9, 2022. Scientists have said climate change no doubt helped swell monsoon rains this summer that dumped three-and-a-half times the normal amount of rain, putting a third of Pakistan underwater. [AP Photo/Fareed Khan]

Relief workers are warning of an explosion of disease and hunger in the coming weeks and months, yet Pakistan’s ruling elite and the major imperialist powers are doing virtually nothing to provide emergency aid.

Despite the urgent need for billions of dollars to deal with the social disaster and help people rebuild their lives, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rejected any relaxing of the stringent austerity conditions it attached to the release of the latest $1.16 billion tranche of its loan program with Islamabad in September. “Policy commitments made by the Pakistani authorities as part of the Seventh and Eighth review under their IMF-support program continue to apply,” its resident in Islamabad, Esther Pérez Ruiz, callously told Reuters last Monday.

The government’s “policy commitments” mean that it must slash the remaining price subsidies, raise prices of energy products and impose taxes on hitherto exempted products including essentials and medicine. In addition, the provincial governments must produce a budgetary surplus. The unstated assumption behind these stringent orders is that the government must not spend on relief programs, since these would violate the IMF’s stipulations.

Assistance from the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)-led government has been limited to payments of 25,000 rupees (less than $US 115) to 2.6 million families, reported the Dawn earlier this week.

Officially 7.6 million are listed as displaced. Yet according to UN data only 600,000 are living in official relief camps. While some may have found refuge with relatives or friends, millions have been left to fend for themselves, living in makeshift camps and often in the open air, without drinking water and sanitary facilities.

The absence of toilets has forced the displaced to relieve themselves in the open. After losing what little they owned, many flood victims are now threatened by diseases such as malaria, dengue and scabies, child morbidity and malnutrition.

Indicative of the authorities’ disorganized and indifferent response to the human tragedy playing out across much of the world’s fifth most populous country, there is no systematic government collection of data on the floods and the health and well-being of its victims with a view to mobilizing and distributing desperately needed resources.

Newspaper reports are largely limited to harrowing accounts from victims and aid-workers. BBC spoke to Dr. Ammara Gohar, a member of a medical team that visited several villages in rural Sindh, still cut-off by flood waters, by wooden boat. She spoke of tending to a “severely malnourished” nine-month-old, adding, “there are so many people like this baby.”

AFP spoke to parents of an unresponsive child of seven treated for suspected malaria in a “desperately rundown emergency clinic.” The child’s mother described the squalid conditions in the camp where they are living. “From early evening until dawn, throughout the whole night, the mosquitoes are overwhelming,” she said. They and other flood victims are drinking from a well suspected to have been contaminated by flood water. Due to rising flood waters, the family had had to flee twice before settling in the current relief camp. According to the AFP report, Sindh has reported 208,000 cases of malaria in 2022, a substantial increase from last year.

The estimated damage from the flooding has already surpassed $40 billion. Over 750,000 homes have been destroyed and 1.3 million damaged. 13,000 kilometres of roads, 410 bridges, 2,000 hospitals and health care facilities and 25,000 schools are said to have been destroyed or damaged.

The floods have also devastated the country’s crops, with Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman estimating that 50 percent of the country’s breadbasket has been destroyed. The Guardian reported on October 12 that four million acres of crops have been destroyed nationally, including rice and cotton. The decimation of crops will directly compound the food supply crisis and hit Pakistan’s textile industry hard. Textiles are one of the country’s most important exports.

The disruption of agriculture will continue for years to come. In addition to the destruction of this year’s crops, farmers report that they cannot sow wheat, rice, and other crops for next year because water levels have yet to recede. “[W]e have no dry land left,” one landowner in Baluchistan’s Sohbatpur district told the Guardian. Another farmer from Sindh province added, “People have lost their crops and some have also lost their seeds of wheat, which they had kept for new seasons in storerooms and factories.”

Amid a slew of reports of widespread disease, hunger and poverty, entirely predictable for an impoverished country such as Pakistan, the United Nations has increased the meagre “urgent” relief fund target it set last month five-fold, from $160 million to $816 million. In an October 5 press release, the UN said it was doing so in response to the “growing lifesaving needs of the people.” According to Reuters, the UN was able to raise just $90 million by the time it renewed the appeal, little more than half of the initial woefully inadequate sum.

Even before the floods, Pakistan was reeling from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the US-NATO proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. Decades of IMF austerity and “structural adjustment” programs implemented by all of the parties of the Pakistani elite, including the PML (N), the Pakistan People’s Party and Imran Khan’s PTI, have placed the overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s 225 million people in poverty or one crisis away from it.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned a public health disaster is in the making. “The water has stopped rising, but the danger has not,” he said last week. “Many more lives than were lost in the floods could be lost in the coming weeks if we don’t mobilize greater support for Pakistan.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that 5.7 million flood survivors will face a serious food crisis between September and November. This adds to some 38 million Pakistanis–more than 16 percent of the population–estimated by the WHO to have been in moderate to severe food insecurity even prior to the floods.

Aid agency Save the Children estimated that 3.4 million children in Pakistan are facing chronic hunger. Its country director in Pakistan, Khuram Gondal, said, “As well as dealing with the wreckage, the country is now facing a full-blown hunger crisis. We simply cannot allow a situation where children are starving to death because we did not act quickly enough.”

The World Bank, which is working hand in hand with the IMF and Islamabad’s elite to push ahead with privatization, including in the energy and education sectors, warned of a sharp increase of poverty as a result of the floods. It noted that “without decisive relief and recovery efforts to help the poor,” between 5.8 and 9 million people will be pushed into poverty–which it defines as living on less than $1.90 a day.

While the warning is certainly valid, the projections are an underestimate.

General Zafar Iqbal, the coordinator of the National Flood Response and Coordination Centre set up by the government and the military to coordinate relief efforts, said the aid received so far was “a drop in the ocean… If you send 100 planes, they would take 1,600 tonnes, or 2,000 tonnes or maybe 2,500 tonnes of aid material, but we require 300 to 400 tonnes of food every day.”

In other words, most of those affected are hungry, sick and desperate for assistance but hardly anything is coming their way.

The total assistance provided by the United States since the beginning of the year to Pakistan, its Cold War-era ally and still a major non-NATO partner, amounts to a pittance of $56 million.

Between 2002 and 2017, the United States paid Islamabad a staggering $33.4 billion for the dirty work it rendered to sustain the catastrophic invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. While a minuscule portion of this sum trickled down as humanitarian assistance, the vast majority went to pay for various war-related expenditures, including fattening the pockets of the single most important decision-maker in the country, Pakistan’s military. Washington used these large sums of aid as leverage to pressure Islamabad into serving as a US satrap to strengthen American imperialism’s position in Central Asia.

The military aid provided to Pakistan over a 15-year period is outstripped by the vast quantities of advanced arms, military hardware and financial aid Washington has flooded into Ukraine. Just the latest shipment on October 4 cost the US $625 million, bringing the Biden administration’s direct “military assistance” to Kiev to $17.5 billion. The US president, who has authorized over $66 billion for Ukraine to escalate the war against Russia, recently warned an audience of billionaires to prepare for nuclear Armageddon.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan’s PML (N)-PPP coalition government allocated a massive $7.5 billion, or 16 percent of its total budget, to defense for the 2022–23 financial year, a 12 percent increase over the previous year. While pursuing its own reactionary military-strategic rivalry with India, Pakistan’s ruling elite relies upon the military as the bulwark of the capitalist state machine that upholds its privileges and ruthlessly suppresses the democratic, social and economic aspirations of the working class and rural toilers.

At least 25 miners killed in a blast in Turkish coal mine after lack of precautions

Ulaş Ateşçi

At least 25 miners were killed and dozens injured in yesterday’s firedamp explosion at the state-owned Turkish Hard Coal Enterprises’ (TTK) Amasra Plant Directorate mine in Bartın on the Black Sea coast. At the time of writing, several miners were still underground.

Miners carry the body of a victim in Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin, Turkey, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. (Nilay Meryem Comlek/Depo Photos via AP) [AP Photo/ (Nilay Meryem Comlek/Depo Photos via AP)]

“An explosion occurred at the Amasra Hard Coal Plant Directorate at minus 300 [meters] level around 6:15 p.m., with no cause yet,” the Bartın Governor’s Office said in a statement yesterday, adding that a large number of rescue teams were sent to the scene. “There are 44 workers at minus 300 level and 5 workers at minus 350 level,” Bartın Governor Nurtaç Arslan announced.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) of the Interior Ministry later deleted a tweet claiming that the explosion was “caused by a transformer.” However, Hakan Yeşil, the chair of the General Mine Workers Union (GMİS) affiliated to the pro-government Türk-İş confederation, to which the miners in Amasra belong, also said that it was a “transformer-induced firedamp explosion.”

A worker who came out of the mine after the explosion said, “We don’t know anything. There was dust and smoke, we don’t know what happened. We couldn’t see it. I got out by my own means. It was probably an explosion. Since we were a little behind, there was only pressure. Because of the pressure, there was a mass of dust, you couldn’t see anything.”

“According to the information we have, there was a firedamp explosion,” said Fatih Dönmez, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, who arrived at the scene in the following hours. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu also announced that there were 110 workers in the shift; 61 workers were unharmed, but 49 miners were in the risk zone. At midnight, the Bartın Governor’s Office announced that 36 of these 49 miners had been extracted from underground and the death toll had risen to 25.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ claimed that “Amasra Public Prosecutor’s Office has started an investigation into the explosion. The incident will be investigated in all its dimensions.” This statement was made to appease the anger of millions of working people who were waiting for the miners to be brought out unharmed. This anger was based on previous experiences, notably the Soma mine disaster in 2014, in which miners were sacrificed to the profit motive through the lack of precautions.

As the World Socialist Web Site then explained, the catastrophe in Soma “was not an unexplainable ‘accident’ but the inevitable result of privatization, government neglect and the capitalist profit system, which sacrifices the lives and limbs of millions of industrial workers around the world every year.” Failure to take precautions by a private mining company close to the Erdoğan government and the connivance of state officials and the union cost the lives of 301 miners. Following the massacre, mass protests erupted across the country and the government was forced to introduce new legislation on mines. However, the mining company’s chairman Can Gürkan was released from prison in 2019, and no one is currently imprisoned due to Soma mining disaster.

It soon became clear that a similar situation existed in Amasra. Deniz Yavuzyılmaz, Zonguldak deputy of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), posted the 2019 Court of Accounts report on Twitter, stating that “The Court of Accounts warned! The Court of Accounts says that the production depth in Bartın, Amasra has reached 300 meters; that the gas content is high in the mineral veins worked and the risk of sudden eruption of gas and coal, and firedamp explosion is increasing!”

The official report stated: “In 2019, the plant’s stabilized production depth was 300 meters. This deepening leads to increased risks of serious accidents such as sudden eruption of gas and coal, and firedamp explosion. It is known that the gas content is high in all of the mineral veins worked, therefore the degassing capacities are also high, and the risk increases even more in failure zones. For this reason, in addition to the provisions of the relevant legislation, the provisions of the ‘Institution Degassing Directive’ must be meticulously implemented in the mines of the plant.”

The daily Evrensel reported that “According to the report of the Court of Accounts on the Amasra Hard Coal Plant, while 190 work accidents occurred in 2019, 164 workers were injured in 164 work accidents in 2020, 157 of which occurred underground and 7 above ground.”

It quoted the Court of Accounts’ report for the General Directorate of TTK and five plants in 2021, which revealed that in 2019 and 2020, inspectors from the Labor Inspection Board of the Labor and Social Security Ministry did not visit the plants and did not conduct audits and inspections.

In the first hours after the explosion, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, “We will do our best to reduce the painful news and give good news to all of Turkey.” What nonsense! A government minister announces that they are “trying to reduce the painful news” after an explosion that had been warned of by state officials.

Shortly before this tragedy, on September 20, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez had visited the Amasra mine with a large delegation. It included TTK General Director Kazım Eroğlu, Türk-İş Confederation President Ergün Atalay, GMİS Union President Hakan Yeşil, GMİS executives and the governor and mayor of Bartın.

The statements made during this visit, in the face of official warnings of such a mining disaster, and the concealment of the facts from the workers instead of taking immediate measures, are an indictment of the state and union bureaucrats.

In his speech, GMİS President Yeşil said in a wheedling fashion, “Mr. Minister [Dönmez] took time out of his busy schedule to visit you [miners] where you work. He is here with us today. I thank him on behalf of all of you.”

Türk-İş President Atalay also thanked the government, stating: “The two ministries I knock on the door of when our miners have a problem are the Labor Ministry and the Energy Ministry. A short while ago, there was a problem with a site in Soma. Mr. Minister solved that issue immediately.” He added that, “We also had the opportunity to talk about this place [Amasra].”

What the union bureaucrats, who function as an extension of the state and the companies, told the ministers had, of course, nothing to do with defending the vital interests of the miners, including their safety. The only demand of the union bureaucracy, as they stated during this visit, was to hire more workers to increase production.

During the visit, Minister Dönmez also confirmed that they have the same goal as the union bureaucracy, saying, “We have a target to increase production.” Dönmez’s remarks to the miners who will be sent to their deaths in a few weeks are particularly staggering in terms of their level of hypocrisy. He claimed: “First of all, let me say this: safety first. We would not trade the safety of your lives for the entire plant. When we appoint managers, the first instruction is that production may be slightly disrupted, we will compensate it, but not a single hair or nail of one of our workers should be harmed.”

Dönmez also said, “Following the Soma accident, special measures were taken for those working in the mining sector, especially underground. Working conditions were improved, working hours were shortened. Weekend vacation was provided. At least two minimum wage requirements were imposed on miners working underground,” before adding: “After these measures, work accidents have quickly decreased. Yes, we did not achieve zero [accidents]. We would like our goal to be zero fatal work accidents. But unfortunately, the mining sector is one of the most risky industries in the world.”

The minister’s attempt, with his last sentence, to persuade miners to accept fatal work accidents as inevitable, brings to mind the notorious statement of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after the massacre of miners in Soma: “These are normal things. It is in the nature of this business.”

However, Dönmez’s claim that “work accidents have quickly decreased” since 2014 is also untrue. According to data from the Health and Safety Labour Watch (İSİG) in Turkey, a total of 386 miners in Turkey fell victim to “industrial accidents” in 2014, after 301 miners lost their lives in the Soma disaster. In 2013, this figure was 93. 67 miners died in 2015, 74 in 2016, 93 in 2017, 66 in 2018, 63 in 2019, 61 in 2020 and 70 in 2021. As of October this year, the number of miners killed at work is 53. Moreover, in the last five years, an average of 2,052 workers have been killed at workplaces in Turkey.

Kroger announces purchase of Albertsons for $25 billion in deal to make grocery superchain

Alex Findijs

Supermarket giant Kroger announced the purchase of rival chain Albertsons early Friday morning. Expected to be completed by 2024, the merger would combine the first and second largest grocery chains in the United States. Kroger, which owns regional chains like King Soopers, Ralph’s and Fry’s, would add other dominant regional subsidiaries like Safeway, Vons and Acme.

The deal will reportedly cost Kroger nearly $25 billion dollars using available cash and $17.4 billion in debt financing. Kroger will pay $34.10 per share, about 33 percent more than the current stock price of Albertsons.

Should the deal pass regulatory approval, Kroger would expand to over 5,000 stores and 700,000 employees. In order to avoid anti-trust litigation, the chain announced plans to divest from between 100 to 375 stores in a subsidiary called SpinCo.

However, there is considerable overlap between Alberstons and Kroger chains, which have competed with each other for years. This may prompt Kroger to sell off or close many stores and lay off thousands of workers in order to trim costs.

Cost is a primary driver for the merger. Combined, Kroger and Albertsons bring in around $209 billion in revenue. However, retailers like Walmart and Costco still outsell their grocery-focused rivals, and growing competition from Amazon has been a particular concern for grocery chains. Following Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods in 2017, the online retail giant quickly expanded its role in the grocery market, becoming the second largest grocery seller behind Walmart.

Kroger corporate executives have argued that the merger will enable Kroger and its many subsidiary chains to streamline production and distribution across its 66 total distribution centers, making it more competitive.

Ostensibly, this will allow Kroger to cut costs and leverage its market share to lower prices. But anti-monopoly watchdogs have argued that the new merger will only strengthen Kroger’s domination of local grocery markets and drive up prices in an economy that has already seen 13 percent inflation in food items in the last year.

Notably, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said that the merger would “accelerate our position as a more compelling alternative to larger and non-union competitors.”

This is directed at Walmart, the only store chain larger than Kroger, which has maintained a non-union workforce for decades. McMullen’s appeal to customers and regulators as a “union” store is telling. Kroger executives seek to leverage the unionization of their workforce as a selling point, waving it as some kind of moral flag to justify the merger.

However, the gap between union and nonunion chains is being continuously eroded by sellouts engineered by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. This was most recently shown by the contract betrayal in Columbus, Ohio, where UFCW local 1059 forced workers to vote on the same concessionary contract four times before it was ratified, with workers reporting that they were bullied and threatened with termination by union officials if they voted ‘no.’

The merger also explodes the arguments of management and union officials that Kroger cannot afford to pay its workers more. Columbus workers were told that the company had no money to offer more than the measly $1.65 raise they were offered over three years. Yet Kroger has suddenly produced $25 billion in cash to swallow its second biggest rival.

Kroger has amassed such large sums of wealth through the brutal exploitation of its more than 400,000 employees. A recent study by the Economic Round Table found that two-thirds of Kroger employees struggle to afford basic necessities due to low pay and rising costs of living. Three-quarters of Kroger workers are food insecure, meaning that most Kroger workers can barely afford to shop at the store they work at.

Albertsons workers tend to make slightly more than their Kroger counter parts as a whole. Depending on how the merger proceeds, Albertsons workers may find their new corporate overlords attacking wages and working conditions as part of a “restructuring” of the Albertsons chains.

The merger announcement should be taken as a warning to all grocery workers. The consolidation of the grocery market is based on the need of the corporations and Wall Street to extract ever more wealth from the working class at a lower price. Thousands of jobs may be at risk as Kroger prepares to trim the fat from its national grocery empire and further expand its already incredible $4 billion annual profit margin.

If stores are to close, not only will it slash jobs, hours, and pay, it will contribute to the growth of “food deserts,” areas where the poor and marginalized lack access to fresh and healthy food. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), more than 53 million people live in areas with low access to food. As stores continue to consolidate into larger and more dispersed super-centers, the number of people who struggle to reach these stores will increase.

Kroger in particular is known for strangling out competition, including rival chains and smaller stores, establishing itself as a the dominant grocery retailer. Consolidation with Albertsons will only push this further.

Federal regulators will review the merger as part of the government’s anti-trust regulations. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) blocked a similar merger between Office Depot and Staples in 2015, despite arguments from the two chains that a merger would help lower prices and aid competition with Amazon.

However, the economic outlook in the US is vastly different now than it was in 2015. Mass working class unrest and constant supply chain disruptions are sparking fear in the financial and political elite. There may be a belief that a consolidated grocery market may allow for greater control over food distribution and worker rebellions, kept in line by the UFCW bureaucracy.

IMF report reveals dictatorship of finance capital

Nick Beams

Governments around the world must obey the dictates of finance capital, as transmitted via the bond markets that trade in their debts, and organise an attack on the working class through deep cuts in spending on vital social services.

That is the message delivered in the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Monitor Report issued this week at its semi-annual meeting in Washington.

Of course, the directive was not put in such blunt language. It was written in the style characteristic of such reports and aimed at trying to obscure their essential class content. But it is clear nonetheless, as was recognised by the financial press.

The Financial Times summarised the report as follows: “Governments must place greater weight on keeping their finances in shape, or risk undermining the confidence of the bond market investors that buy their debt, the IMF has cautioned.”

It noted the decision was a reversal of the IMF’s previous position when it called on governments to spend more in response to the economic devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. The switch is the result of the high interest rate regime being imposed by the US Fed and other central banks.

It was not so much a “caution” as a directive as the foreword to the report, written by Vitor Gaspar, IMF head of fiscal policy, spelled out.

Vitor Gaspar, director of the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund, addresses Washington press conference, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

“In the context of high inflation, high debt, rising interest rates, and elevated uncertainty, consistency between monetary and fiscal policy is paramount. In most countries, this means keeping the budget on its tightening course,” he said.

In other words, the government cannot be providing a stimulus when central banks are raising interest rates aimed at inducing an economic contraction, and even a recession, to crush the growing wages movement of the working class in response to inflation. In this class war, the two arms of the capitalist state must pursue a unified strategy.

If they deviate, there will be major consequences as Gaspar made clear.

“With inflation elevated and financing conditions tightening, policymakers should prioritize macroeconomic and financial stability above all else,” he wrote.

“This is especially relevant as recent developments in bond markets show increased market sensitivity to deteriorating (or bad) fundamentals. That raised the prospect of more disruptive fiscal crises across the world.”

While Gaspar was not specific, he was referring to the financial crisis in Britain in response to the Truss Tory government’s mini-budget of September 23 which pledged £45 billion in tax cuts for the corporations and the super-rich.

Sterling was sent down to record lows against the US dollar, falling to near parity at one point, and the price of long-term Treasury bonds, so-called gilts, plunged, rapidly pushing up their yields. (The two move in opposite directions.) The crisis, which is by no means resolved, threatened to push pension funds into insolvency.

The violent reaction of the financial markets was not because they objected to still more money being showered on the corporations and the wealthy but that the tax cuts were unfunded. That is, they were not financed by sweeping cuts in government spending, aimed at further impoverishing working class.

The crisis was a directive by finance capital to the UK government and to governments around the world, as alluded to in Gaspar’s remarks about bond market “sensitivity”—proceed with attacks on the working class or financial mayhem will result.

The message has been received and understood. In Britain, the Truss government has drawn up a hit list of spending cuts to vital services that have already been slashed to the bone.

Those attacks will now proceed under whatever government comes to power, whether it is a rejigged Tory government, following yesterday’s sacking of the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, with Truss set to fall on her sword or be axed in another inner-party coup, or by a Labour government under Keir Starmer.

In Australia, where the Labor government is preparing a budget to be brought down on October 25, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has continually spoken of the worsening global economic and financial situation and the lessons of the British experience. He has cited three key areas where government spending has supposedly blown out, health care, aged care, and the disability insurance scheme.

In both the UK and Australian cases, as with other governments, military spending will be increased in line with the drive to World War III.

The IMF’s report made clear that job support measures, introduced to a limited degree because of the pandemic, cannot be continued in response to economic contraction and recession.

“Public guarantees and job support schemes lead to market distortions that, if left unchecked, could hamper economic growth,” it said.

Gaspar was more explicit in his foreword.

“Facing a shifting landscape,” he wrote, “policymakers must stay agile to be able to respond to the unexpected. Long commitments are not more than a pretence of certainty and can quickly become unaffordable.”

Staying “agile” means governments must be prepared to respond immediately to the dictates of the financial markets and take the axe to basic services that have come to be regarded as part of be necessary social infrastructure. In the new economic and financial environment such “long commitments” are a thing of the past.

While the task of governments is to meet the demands of their financial masters, this also involves ensuring that the class struggle is suppressed because there is no greater danger than that posed by an independent movement of the working class.

The first paragraph of the report’s executive summary pointed to this issue noting that “households are struggling with elevated food and energy prices, raising the risk of social unrest.”

It then set out how this should be dealt with. While governments seek to blame inflation on Russia, analysis, for example in the recent report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, makes clear that a major factor is speculation in commodities by hedge funds and the profit gouging by major corporations. However, not a hair on their head should be touched.

“Faced with long-lasting supply shocks and broad-based inflation,” the IMF report said, “attempts to limit price increases through price control, subsidies, or tax cuts will be costly to the budget and ultimately ineffective.”

Governments, it said, should “allow prices to adjust and provide temporary targeted cash transfers to the most vulnerable.”

In other words, just as the policy on COVID-19 was “let it rip,” this same doctrine must be applied to inflation. The food and energy giants, among others, must be allowed to continue to make super-profits, while totally inadequate and temporary amounts of cash are doled out to try to prevent a social explosion.

As the working class engages in the battles now unfolding, it necessary to delve into the political economy of what is involved.

In the world of finance, it appears that money is simply able to beget more money. But ultimately the vast profits accumulated in this sphere are extracted from the working class. Finance capital is not an independent source of wealth. It is fictitious capital, that is a claim on the total mass of the surplus value extracted from the working class under capitalist production, which it appropriates.

Finance capital has two fundamental interests: increasing the flow of surplus value by forcing down wages and increasing exploitation; and reducing social spending which, in the final analysis, is a deduction from the pool of surplus available for appropriation. Both these processes are now at work.

The first was made visible with the onset of the pandemic. The fear in ruling financial circles was that meaningful public health measures to eliminate the virus would adversely impact on the flow of surplus value on which they rest.

This was the basis for the “opening up” and “let it rip” agenda. Nothing—certainly not measures to prevent death and disease—must be allowed to halt the flow of surplus value into the coffers of finance capital.

This drive to increase exploitation has been intensified as central banks seek to crush the wages struggles of the working class. These were set off by the inflation resulting from the refusal of capitalist governments to act to eliminate the virus even though that was eminently possible.

Now, to sustain the increased mass of fictitious capital created by the injection of trillions of dollars into the financial system by the central banks over the course of the pandemic, not only must wages be further suppressed but an all-out assault undertaken against social spending.

In the field of finance, the ruling class and its mouthpieces spin a web of illusions. And so it is in politics. The great illusion is that through the vote and parliamentary democracy the working class, the mass of the people, exercise control over the running of society.

But the value of every crisis, as has been remarked on many occasions, is that it lays bare the real social and political relations. The bond market and financial crisis have revealed, as the IMF’s report laid out, where real power resides. Parliamentary democracy is a screen for the dictatorship of finance capital.

Russian government cuts expenditures as it struggles to finance mobilization

Andrea Peters

The Russian government is facing a budgetary crunch as it struggles to shoulder the cost of the war in Ukraine. Its just-released financial plan for 2023 will reduce federal spending to 17 percent of GDP compared to 20 percent this year. It projects that number will decline to 15 percent by 2025. While nominally expenditures will remain the same, the corrosive impact of an inflation rate that is running at over 13 percent and of the economic sanctions imposed by NATO are constraining Moscow’s purse.

National defense, national security, and law enforcement will collectively make up the largest share of the 2023 budget, coming in at 9.127 trillion rubles ($147 billion), an increase over this year. However, spending specifically devoted to the armed forces is slated to be axed by nearly 30 percent. News of the cut provoked stunned commentary from lawmakers and others close to the military.

Duma Deputy Mikhail Delyagin stated, “Reading the budget of the Russian Federation for 2023, I feel in a parallel dimension,” and went on to imply that there was disarray within the Kremlin, which had prepared a budget “in new conditions that are little familiar and poorly understood.” “The financial wing of the government does not know what is happening in the country,” stated parliamentary representative Oksana Dmitrieva. “They believe that oil and gas revenues should be stored up, and this is their only idea, and no more have appeared.”

The apparent inability of the government to substantially increase allotments for national defense reflects on the one hand the crisis facing the country’s economy and on the other, the military and political miscalculations of the Kremlin, which appears to have thought that it would be able to force a settlement with NATO over Ukraine much earlier in the conflict. In an indication of the Putin government’s lack of preparation for the present state of affairs, no money is specifically set aside in the 2023 budget to finance the provisioning and payment of the 300,000 reservists just called up.

The “partial mobilization” that began in later September already appears to be in a state of semi-disorder. Responsibility for equipping troops—222,000 have already been draft and 16,000 of them sent to the front—has largely fallen on regional governments, which are scrambling to find everything from uniforms to first-aid packs for soldiers. There are shortages of military supplies and prices are rising.

Families are given list of things their sons are permitted to bring with them that bear little resemblance to what anyone is likely to have sitting around their attic. Newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported, “The ‘Explain.rf’ website, which was created to inform the population about the partial mobilization, has a list of items that conscripts can take with them. Among them: personal hygiene items, thermal underwear, a chemical heating pad, a flashlight, a balaclava, tactical gloves, a camping seat, batteries. Separately, it is noted that as personal belongings, you can also take with you a quadrocopter, binoculars, an optical sight and a night vision device.”

Payments to draftees and their relatives beyond the federal government’s base rate have also been made the responsibility of regional authorities, whose budgets are actually slated to be reduced next year. As a result, compensation for draftees varies from one place to the next. In Vladimir, those mobilized will receive 40,000 rubles a month (about $638). In Moscow, an extraordinarily expensive city, they get 50,000 rubles. In Novosibirsk, those in the lowest ranks will get one-time payments of 200,242 rubles, a number that rises to just over 490,000 for lieutenants. In Saint Petersburg, draftees are paid 100,000 rubles, 200,000 less than volunteers.

Furthermore, no money has yet changed hands. Some regions have said payments will be sent out by the end of October, others not till November. In the meantime, inflation continues to erode household incomes. The price of tomatoes rose 7 percent last week alone, according to state statistical agency Rosstat.

Aware that the sums promised are inadequate and anxieties are rising among ordinary people over the departure of their sons and husbands and the loss of their wages, officials are scrambling to make other services available to conscripts’ families. These include things such as free daycare, free school meals, vouchers for camps and retreats, discounts on housing, utilities, and transportation, and special services for the disabled and elderly left behind.

In an expression of the general poverty that exists in Russia, in Sakhalin, the ruling party United Russia promised to give draftees’ relatives frozen fish. Elsewhere, according to the website Yarnovosti.ru, people will get a sheep; in Buryatiya—free firewood, although only for the needy; and in the Tuva Republic, each family will be given “one ram” and “50 kilograms of flour, two bags of potatoes and cabbage, and farmers will receive an additional ton of oats.”

Speaking to Yarnovosti.ru, Ilya Grashchenkov, the head of the Center for Regional Policy Development, noted, “Governors are interested not so much in the mobilized as in the families left behind, who may give voice to social discontent…In one place they placate them with money, in another they give sheep, and still elsewhere they will subdue them with force, if necessary. But people are not happy with what is happening. The myth of a strong army could be seriously damaged if the clashes with reality continue in the same vein.”

In an expression of the ruling elite’s nervousness over the impact that the war in Ukraine is having on the Russian economy and political moods in the country, one area of the federal budget will see a relatively substantial increase next year. Expenditures on some social programs, namely pensions, welfare benefits, and other efforts aimed at helping families and children are slated to rise by about 1.58 trillion rubles.

This amount is to be offset by significant cuts to the ministries of culture and sports, special direct and indirect forms of financial support for cities, and some national development projects long on the books but unrealized for over a decade. In addition, businesses’ tax and payroll obligations will be increased, a fact that provoked Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), to complain to the press about the content, opaqueness, and short-sightedness of a federal budget that does not even take into account the possibility of future large-scale economic shocks, such as major price increases.

In short, the Kremlin is attempting to put the Russian population on a “guns and butter” budget, straining every nerve in order to do so. It will ultimately fail to do so. The allocation of large amounts of money to internal policing is part of the ruling elite’s preparations to crush social discontent when it can no longer finance the war.

While its treasury has been buoyed by profits generated from and gas oil sales, Russia has had to sell its products at a “geopolitical discount” for months. Countries still willing to buy the resources are unwilling to pay global-market prices. The price of Russian oil has been falling for three months, with the Ministry of Finance recently reporting that the country can now fetch just $68.25 per barrel. The government, however, had not expected prices to dip so low until the end of the year. According to financial daily Kommersant, “The situation with non-oil and gas, i.e., with other budget revenues looks worse: minus 4.3% for the first nine months and minus 4.1% for September alone.”

There are other indicators of a faltering economy. With a federal moratorium on bankruptcies having just been ended, Russia is witnessing a sharp spike in the number of companies going officially broke. According to the Russian Association of Jurists, restaurants, fitness centers, movie theaters, wholesale traders, and companies whose earnings are tied to the rental of real estate are among the hardest hit. Moscow and the surrounding region, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg and Bashkortostan have the highest concentration of newly bankrupt firms.

Between just October 2 and 11, 307 corporate bankruptcy cases were registered in Russia for a total of 5.3 billion rubles. One of the primary creditors against which companies are seeking relief is Russia’s Federal Tax Service. Thus, if it does not wish to see its tax base hammered by a wave of bankruptcies, the government has to figure out some way to bailout the very corporations that cannot pay to the federal government itself what they owe.

The rapid withdrawal of 300,000 men from the workforce is also destabilizing the economy. Many of their jobs cannot be rapidly filled, absent an appropriately trained workforce. The transportation and logistical sectors are especially vulnerable. The head of Gruzovtrans, an organization which speaks on behalf of trucking companies, said that there are some smaller operations which have seen more than half of their workers drafted, threatening the industry’s ability to move goods around the country. According to the business press Delovoy Peterburg, between 50 and 80 percent of aviation employees are draft eligible. Business associations representing the airline and rail industries have issued special appeals to the government to exempt their essential employees from the call-up. 

Google Internship Program 2023

Application Deadline:

Varies according to program

What is the Award?

Know the user. Know the magic. Connect the two. At its core, marketing at Google starts with technology and ends with the user, bringing both together in unconventional ways. Our job is to demonstrate how Google’s products solve problems. And we approach marketing in a way that only Google can changing the game, redefining the medium, making the user the priority, and ultimately, letting the technology speak for itself.

Which Fields is/are Eligible?

Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Business or related field.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Any

Where will Award Take Place?

There are numerous remote opportunities available

What Type of Award is This?

Scholarship Entrepreneurship Fellowship Workshop Internship

Who is Eligible?

Responsibilities and detailed projects will be determined based on your educational background, interest and skills.

We welcome and encourage people who are expecting and/or parents-to-be to apply to this or any other role at Google.

What is the Benefit of Award?

From Google Ads to Chrome, Android to YouTube, Social to Local, be part of changing the world one technological achievement after another.

How to Apply:

Apply below.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Fellowship Programme 2023

Application Deadline: 31st December 2022 9:59:00 PM

Eligible Countries: FAO Member countries.

To Be Taken At (Country): FAO Regional, Sub-regional, Country Offices Liaison Offices and headquarters.

About the Award: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads international efforts to defeat hunger and to support development in member countries in the areas of agriculture, fisheries and forestry. FAO’s mandate is to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy.

The Fellowship Programme is designed to attract fellows, typically PhD students, researchers and professors, who have an advanced level of relevant technical knowledge and experience in any field of the Organization. They are willing to fulfil their specialized learning objectives and at the same time, contribute their technical expertise and knowledge through time-bound arrangements with FAO. Assignments should be in line with FAO Strategic Objectives and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• Graduate or post-graduate degree (Master’s or PhD) or be enrolled in a PhD programme.
• Working knowledge of at least one FAO language (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian or Spanish). Knowledge of a second FAO language will be considered an asset. Only language proficiency certificates from UN accredited external providers and/or FAO language official examinations (LPE, ILE and LRT) will be accepted as proof of the level of knowledge of languages indicated in the online applications.
• Be nationals of FAO Member Nations
• Age: no age limits.
• Candidates should be able to adapt to an international multicultural environment and have good communication skills.
• Candidates with family members (defined as brother, sister, mother, father, son or daughter) employed by FAO under any type of contractual arrangement are not be eligible for the Fellows Programme.
• Candidates should have appropriate residence or immigration status in the country of assignment.

Selection Criteria: Candidates may be assigned in a field relevant to the mission and work of FAO.

Number of Awards: Numerous

Duration of Program: According to time bound agreement with hiring office

How to Apply: 

•    To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate, complete and includes your employment records, academic qualifications and language skills.
•    You are requested to attach a research proposal, the evidence of attendance in a recognized university or copy of your academic qualifications to the online profile.
•    Once your profile is completed, please apply and submit your application through the FAO recruitment portal. Only applications received through the FAO recruitment portal will be considered.
•    Your application will be screened based on the information provided on your online profile.
•    Please note that FAO will only consider academic credentials or degrees obtained from an educational institution recognized in the IAU/UNESCO list.
•    Incomplete applications will not be considered.
•    Candidates who are not selected before the closing date and wish to be continuously considered for an assignment are requested to re-apply to the new Calls.
•    We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.
If you need help, or have queries, please contact: Careers@fao.org

Visit Program Webpage for Details

Important Notes: 

• Qualified female applicants and qualified nationals of non- and under-represented member countries are encouraged to apply.
• Persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.
• All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
• FAO strongly encourages candidates from the Global South and Indigenous Peoples to apply to this Call for Expression of Interest