UN report: Record food import prices threaten food insecurity for hundreds of millions worldwide

Kate Randall

The United Nations is warning of substantial risks to food security around the world as soaring food prices place pressure, particularly on poor countries, to secure food supplies. Hundreds of millions face severe hunger worldwide as soaring prices on food and fertilizer are set to rise to record levels in 2022.

Women wait in line for food donated by the COVID Without Hunger organization in the Jardim Gramacho slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, May 22, 2021. [AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo]

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Outlook report released Friday estimates that the global food import bill, the price countries spend on foodstuffs, including cereals, oil crops, sugar, meat, dairy and fish, will rise to an all-time high of $1.94 trillion in 2022, up 10 percent from last year.

This new forecast, marking an all-time high, is due to the depreciating values of currencies against the US dollar, the main currency of exchange on international markets, as well as the UN-NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

The report also cites climate variability and geopolitical tensions as the biggest factors contributing to food-security concerns. “Worryingly, many economically vulnerable countries are paying more while receiving less food,” the FAO states in the report.

Although not specifically mentioned in the UN report, the criminal response of governments to the COVID-19 pandemic—fueling inflation, the food supply chain and currency crises—has been a major factor in exacerbating the food crisis and its attendant poverty and hunger.

The world agricultural input import bill is forecast to reach a new high of $424 billion in 2022. This would represent a hike of 48 percent in costs compared to 2021, with 86 percent of this due to higher energy and fertilizer prices.

The war in Ukraine has hit poorer countries in the Middle East and North Africa the hardest. These countries have extremely high import dependencies and have been further weakened by depreciating currencies against the dollar.

Prior to the war, Russia and Ukraine accounted for 30 percent of the world wheat trade and 78 percent of sunflower oil exports. The war in Ukraine has caused significant disruptions to Black Sea grain and fertilizers, with cultivation and exports severely damaged, a situation made worse by the strain on shipping in the region. World wheat trade is expected to fall 1 percent year-on-year due to a lack of exports from the region.

However, while world wheat production is forecast to reach a record 784 million tons over the coming year, bolstered mainly by substantial harvest recoveries in Canada and Russia, pushing global wheat inventories to record levels, these accumulations are expected mainly in China and Russia, while stocks are predicted to decline by 8 percent in the rest of world.

Poorer countries will feel the strain of these increased agricultural import costs most severely, with lower application of fertilizer taking place, further lowering productivity and total output of foodstuffs. The UN FAO said that “high world fertilizer prices are likely to extend into 2023, with negative repercussions for global agricultural output and food insecurity.”

High-income and upper-middle-income countries are expected to account for 85 percent of world expenditures on imported food, driven mainly by costs. High-income countries continue to import across the spectrum of food products while so-called developing nations are forced to increasingly focus on staple food purchases.

While aggregate costs of food imports for low-income countries will remain largely unchanged, food imports are predicted to shrink by 10 percent in volume, making it increasingly difficult for these countries to finance the cost of food, threatening an alarming deepening of food insecurity.

For example, while sub-Saharan Africa, already hard-hit by malnutrition, will spend an estimated $4.8 billion more on food imports in 2022, the region will see a decline in volumes of food imported worth $0.7 billion. Net food-importing developing countries are expected to confront $21.7 billion in extra costs for a mere $4 billion of extra imported food volumes.

The climate crisis is directly affecting food production and prices. Recent devastating heatwaves in Europe have severely hampered grain output, with subsequent droughts leading to a 15-year low in corn production.

Since the Ukraine war began, the US Biden administration has pledged to deliver tens of billions of cubic meters of national gas to Europe, which will lead to a corresponding increase in greenhouse gas emissions, further deepening the climate crisis and exacerbating the continent’s agricultural crisis.

The catastrophic floods that began in Pakistan in June are a horrific expression of the climate crisis, as water from glacial melting in the Himalayas coupled with unusually heavy rain have killed at least 1,700, injured thousands more and displaced at least 33 million.

More than 3.4 million children in Pakistan are facing chronic hunger. According to Save the Children, an estimated 760,000 children in flood-ravaged areas of the country are experiencing severe food shortages and at risk of severe malnutrition. Since the floods came, the number of people going hungry has soared by a staggering 45 percent, rising from 5.96 million before the floods hit to 8.62 million now facing emergency levels of food insecurity.

Haiti is the country in Latin America and the Caribbean most vulnerable to climate change, due to topography, poverty, land-use practices and limited infrastructure. According to the UN’s FAO and World Food Program, “An unrelenting series of crises has trapped vulnerable Haitians in a cycle of growing desperation, without access to food, fuel, markets, jobs and public services.”

Widespread deforestation and poor drainage structure have increased Haiti’s vulnerability to hurricanes, storm surges and flooding. Increasing temperatures during the dry months, strengthening tropical storms, have worsened climate impacts. 

A record 4.7 million of the impoverished nation’s 11.5 million people are currently facing acute hunger, including 1.8 million in the Emergency phase of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification index. For the first time ever in Haiti, 19,000 are in the Catastrophe phase of this index.

The country relies on imports for half of its food, including 80 percent of its rice. Any increase in the cost of food or a decrease in its volume, as predicted by the FAO’s report, will result in starvation for countless more Haitians.

Hunger and malnourishment are not confined to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The UK imports almost half of its food and the food supply has been aggravated by the pandemic and Brexit, which has disrupted its food supply chain.

Nearly 10 million adults and 4 million children of the UK’s 67.5 million population are malnourished. Food insecurity affects one in four households with children and food banks are facing unprecedented demand.

Workers and their families in Europe and the United States are being shocked by an inflationary crisis, exacerbated by governments’ homicidal response to the pandemic and the US-NATO war in Ukraine. They are being asked to pay the price in the form of rising prices for food, gas and housing, and job and wage cuts. These attacks have been met with an upsurge of workers’ struggles against these brutal ruling class policies.

The FAO’s Food Outlook report on the rising global food import bill, and the increasing food insecurity it threatens worldwide, points to the deadly consequences of a world economy subordinated to private profit. Global social inequality in the form of poverty and hunger is no more a natural phenomenon than the deaths due to imperialist war and the misery caused by the pandemic. 

Imperialist powers abandon climate pledges at COP 27 summit

Peter Schwarz

Nearly one hundred heads of State and 45,000 delegates from 200 countries are taking part in the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27), which began earlier this week in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. It is one of the largest international meetings in recent times.

But unlike previous climate summits, the participants are barely trying to give the impression that they are doing anything about the climate catastrophe. The heads of imperialist governments who arrived read some hollow phrases about environmental protection off the teleprompter and then disappeared into the back rooms to plan their involvement in the conflicts with Russia and China and plans to dominate the former colonial countries.

NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and the preparation of a military confrontation with China have launched a new redivision of the world between the imperialist powers, which is being fought on all continents, including the polar regions, and by all available economic, political and military means. “Climate protection” is put at the service of these imperialist machinations – and turned into its opposite.

The Egyptian dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, as the host of the conference, is ensuring the undisturbed conduct of the imperialist intrigues. The luxurious tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at the top of the Sinai peninsula is hard to reach except by plane. It is guarded by an army of heavily armed soldiers who suppress any protest. For environmental activists who nevertheless made it to the conference location, a special zone has been set up in which they can protest, far removed from the public and under the watchful eyes of the security forces. 

President Joe Biden speaks as Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi laughs during a meeting at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022, at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]

Al-Sisi, who came to power in a bloody coup d'état in 2013, rules Egypt with an iron fist. He does not allow any serious political opposition or freedom of opinion and the press. 60,000 political detainees are confined to his regime’s prisons, many of them on death row. Torture and extrajudicial killings are commonplace. Immediately before the conference began, some 150 people were arrested for political reasons in several Egyptian cities.

But while the imperialist powers never tire of invoking “human rights” against China or other rivals, they renounced this principle in Egypt. After all, al-Sisi is one of their most important allies in the Middle East.

“On the Highway to Climate Hell”

In a rare hint of honesty, UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the climate conference with the warning that the world is “on the highway to climate hell – with our foot on the accelerator.” This was not a verbal exaggeration, but a sober statement of fact.

All available scientific data show that greenhouse gas emissions – the main cause of global warming – continue to rise 30 years after the first world climate conference in Rio de Janeiro. Between 1850 and 1960, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased linearly from 285 to 320 percent per million, and since then it has risen exponentially to 418 percent. The curve is still pointing upwards. 

The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, which was set at the 2015 World Climate Conference in Paris, has long since been abandoned. The UNFCCC has calculated that emissions will increase by a further 10.6 percent by 2030, even if all countries adhere to the national reduction plans (NDCs) submitted by them. In order to achieve the 1.5-degree target, however, an emissions reduction of 43 percent would be necessary. At best, current plans limit global warming to 2.5 degrees by 2100, according to the UNFCC. So far, only 26 out of nearly 200 countries have submitted NDCs at all.

The approaching catastrophe is already visible. Although the earth has only warmed by 1.15 degrees since the end of the 19th century, extreme weather events such as heat waves, heavy rain and hurricanes are destroying the livelihoods of millions of people. The rise in sea levels as a result of the melting of glaciers and polar caps will lead to even greater disasters.

The floods in Pakistan, which killed 1,700 people this summer, injured more than 12,000 and displaced at least 33 million people, give an impression of the coming dramas. In the meantime, diseases such as malaria, dengue and cholera are spreading unchecked in the devastated country and continue to claim lives.

Passengers wait by a damaged road next to floodwaters, in Bahrain, Pakistan, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022. [AP Photo/Naveed Ali]

Similar disasters are occurring in Africa, largely ignored by the international media. Wide swathes of the central Sahel are currently under water. After years of drought, floods have washed away the remaining fertile soil and flooded entire cities. Millions of people are affected in Chad, Nigeria, South Sudan and Sudan. At the same time, years of drought continue in Ethiopia, Somalia, parts of Kenya and southern Madagascar, threatening millions more with starvation and death.

In Europe and the US, too, the number and extent of forest fires, floods and tornadoes have increased noticeably in recent years.

But the imperialist powers rush towards the abyss. There are no proposals before the Sharm el-Sheikh summit to change direction. On the contrary, the completely inadequate decisions from previous world climate conferences have been largely abandoned since they were adopted. 

War and the climate

One of the main reasons for this is the imperialist offensive against Russia and China. 

The sanctions against Russian gas and oil have led to an explosion in energy prices. Many countries have therefore decided to burn coal and other high-emission energy sources again and to put already adopted programmes to phase-out coal on hold. In particular, poorer countries are hardly in a position to finance the transition to environmentally friendly energy due to high energy prices and rising loan interest rates.

The lack of Russian gas has also led to an 'aggressive expansion' of liquefied natural gas capacities, as the Climate Action Tracker, an international team of climate researchers, states in its recent report in Sharm el-Sheikh. On all continents combined, LNG capacity will increase by 235 percent by 2030, so that at the end of the decade, with full capacity utilization, twice as much liquefied natural gas will be consumed as Russia exported last year. Climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions thus rose to just under two billion tonnes, which is “incompatible” with limiting global warming.

The main beneficiaries of this development are countries such as the US and Qatar, which are able to sell their gas surpluses over long distances thanks to LNG technology.

The efforts of the imperialist powers to reduce their dependence on the Chinese market and its products and raw materials in preparation for a war against China have triggered a fierce struggle for alternatives, which was fought in Sharm el-Sheikh partly openly, partly covertly.

The German government took a particularly brazen approach, shamelessly pursuing its economic and geopolitical interests under the false banner of climate protection. The Greens, who lead the foreign, economic and environmental ministries, play a leading role in this.

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats) used his two-day visit to Sharm el-Sheikh to land the contract for the largest construction project in Egypt's modern history, a milti-billion-dollar project. A consortium around Siemens Mobility will build a 2,000-kilometre high-speed network and supply passenger trains and freight locomotives for it. The network is operated by a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railway company.

The Federal Chancellor agreed, in obvious contradiction to the official climate policy goals of his own government, to develop new gas fields with Senegal. Germany has also kept an eye on the Congo. The country is 'richly blessed with raw materials such as diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, tin and lithium,' writes the German conservative daily FAZ in a flattering article about the Congolese activist Neema Namadamu, who participated in the climate summit. 'Recently, new oil and gas reserves have attracted a great deal of interest. Especially since the Western states are desperately looking for alternative suppliers to Russia.'

Not all the heads of government present showed their imperialist ambitions as openly as Scholz. But there is no doubt that Emmanuel Macron, Rishi Sunak, Giorgia Meloni, Ursula von der Leyen and Joe Biden, who paid a late visit to Friday's climate conference on the way to the G20 summit in Bali, put similar pressure on other delegations in Sharm el-Sheikh with “irresistible offers.”

The climate crisis requires a socialist solution

If anyone still needed proof that the climate catastrophe cannot be stopped by applying pressure on capitalist governments and politicians, the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh provided it. The reason for the bankruptcy of this perspective, which is advocated by Fridays for Future and other environmental movements, is not simply the malevolent intentions of individual governments or politicians, but the character of the capitalist system they defend.

The climate crisis can only be solved globally. Greenhouse gases do not stop at national borders, and an environmentally sustainable organisation of energy supply is only possible on a global scale. The scientific knowledge, technical means and material resources for such a solution are in place and enormous progress has been made in these areas over recent decades.

But such a global solution is not possible in a social system based on nation-states, which fiercely fight for global domination, and the subordination of every aspect of economic life to the profit and enrichment of a small minority.

According to a new study by Oxfam, 125 billionaires and their investments are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than countries such as France, Egypt or Argentina. One of these billionaires emits 393 million tonnes of CO2 a year, a million times more than any member of the lower 90 percent of society.

From the left, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz applaud on the sidelines of the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 7, 2022. [AP Photo/Ludovic Marin]

To defend their wealth and privileges, the capitalists and their governments are capable of anything. They proved their indifference to human lives in the pandemic when they put profits before human life. This is why almost 7 million people worldwide have officially died of the coronavirus, not counting the high number of unreported cases. And the pandemic continues to spread. They show the same ruthlessness when they risk a nuclear war with Russia and China, which threatens human civilization, and when they continue to fuel climate change.

As a study published by the journal Nature shows, there is a close link between the pandemic and the climate crisis. The study concludes that progressive climate change will dramatically increase the potential for viruses already present in animal populations to spread to humans, as was already the case with SARS-CoV-2, HIV and Ebola.

Australia: New COVID-19 variants fuel another surge of infections

Clare Bruderlin

Staff prepare to collect samples at a drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022. [AP Photo/(AP Photo/Mark Baker)]

COVID-19 cases are once again rising across Australia, driven by the highly contagious and immune-evading Omicron XBB and BQ.1 subvariants.

This is part of a global upsurge of the virus, with the spread of numerous new subvariants, described as a “variant soup,” amidst already waning levels of vaccine immunity. The continued spread of the virus is the result of the deliberate, profit-driven, “let it rip” policies of governments, with the systematic and widespread removal of public health measures to stop the spread of the virus.

More than 60,000 new COVID-19 cases were recorded across Australia in the week ending November 11, up from around 40,000 the previous week. In Australia’s most populous states, New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, new infection numbers increased by more than 50 percent, week on week. This does not include the more than 800 COVID-positive passengers on the cruise ship Majestic Princess, which docked at Circular Quay in Sydney on Saturday.

Since the start of the pandemic, 15,870 people have died from COVID-19 in Australia, according to official figures. This includes 83 deaths reported in the week ending November 11.

Across the country, 1,796 people are hospitalised for COVID-19, up from 1,395 on November 4, with 66 in intensive care, 25 more than the previous week.

The rising case numbers are in line with warnings from health experts of increased detection of COVID-19 in wastewater testing. However, the dismantling of testing, with reporting of positive rapid antigen tests no longer mandatory, means that the true number of cases is far higher.

The surge comes as the Albanese Labor government removed the last remnants of a public health response to the pandemic, with COVID-19 isolation requirements for infected individuals and federal pandemic leave payments for COVID-positive workers ended on October 14.

The measures followed the ending of daily COVID-19 reporting by the Labor government, which have made it impossible to monitor the pandemic, as well as the lifting of mask mandates on public transport in September—the last mask mandates outside of healthcare and aged care facilities. This took place amidst the deadliest period of the pandemic in Australia, with the month of August recording the highest death toll.

Despite the surging cases, state and federal governments have made clear that there will be no restoring of even the most basic public health measures. In every state and territory, for those who test positive for COVID-19, it is merely “recommended,” that they isolate at home until symptoms resolve. Mask-wearing for COVID-positive individuals who are in public is similarly only recommended.

In Queensland, face masks have been recommended more broadly, “indoors when people can’t socially distance, in healthcare facilities and around older or vulnerable people.” However, this is not mandatory and the type of mask is not specified, when it has been medically established that N95 masks, at a minimum, are required to protect against the airborne transmission of COVID-19. Surgical or cloth masks are entirely inadequate, notwithstanding the fact that health departments in most states provide only surgical masks to their health staff.

The population is forced to be exposed to dangerous and increasingly vaccine-evasive COVID-19 variants under conditions of already waning immunity. Less than 25 percent of the adult population have received a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Only those over 30 are eligible to receive this booster, as well as those five years or older who are “severely immunocompromised.” Children aged five to fifteen are only able to receive two doses.

Moreover, recent serological surveys suggest that at least two-thirds of the Australian population, or 16.9 million people, have already been infected at least once with COVID-19. It is estimated that one-fifth of all adults in the country contracted the virus between June and August.

Blood samples from children and teenagers also showed that the rate of COVID-19 infection among those aged under 20 was similar to the overall population, with 64 percent of samples testing positive, and the rate slightly higher among school-aged children.

Studies have also shown that COVID-19 reinfections have a cumulative impact, weakening the immune system and significantly increasing the risk of death, hospitalisation and Long COVID.

A recent report by the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and the Age found that Long COVID clinics in Australia are so under-resourced that patients are waiting up to a year for treatment.

The Victorian government, in a submission to a federal inquiry, revealed that the disease affected some 218,000 people across the state, with 41,000 having a severe form.

Professor Steven Faux, co-lead of St Vincent’s Hospital’s Long COVID clinic in Sydney, where there is an 11-month waitlist for treatment, told the Age and the SMH, “We have been inundated because of limited resources. We’ve only got capacity to open one day a week. We’ve not got staff; we can’t get them. I can’t find physios; I can’t find psychologists.”

The systematic removal of COVID-19 public health measures, beginning in Australia from December 2021, has resulted in more than 13,500 deaths from COVID-19 this year alone. This unending wave of death and illness, has created a disaster within healthcare, education and in the working class more broadly.

In healthcare, the hospitals are already continuously overwhelmed, with reports of record-high levels of ambulance ramping in multiple states, patients being treated in hospital corridors due to lack of beds and life-threatening delays of care. Healthcare workers face impossible workloads and burgeoning patient to nurse ratios, resulting in compromised patient care.

The unfettered spread of COVID-19 has only exacerbated an existing crisis in public health, produced by decades of underfunding and privatisation by successive governments. A recent report by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine for 2020‒21, found that the health system in Australia has “never been in a worse state,” and that “there have never been more people requiring acute healthcare, people have never had such complex health needs and the health system has never been so strained… if you need emergency care in Australia right now, you will wait longer than ever before.”

In schools across the country, throughout the year there have been reports of chronic daily shortages of teachers due to illness, with classes being combined or cancelled. This week, it was reported that Tangara School for Girls, in Sydney, NSW, moved years 7 to 11 to remote learning for the remainder of the week after one-third of staff, as well as one secondary student, tested positive for COVID-19. Whilst outbreaks of COVID-19 are occurring in schools more broadly, many do not have adequate resources to conduct remote learning.

Despite the growing opposition of healthcare workers, educators and other sections of workers to the intolerable conditions this has caused, the trade unions have supported the lifting of restrictions and have consistently opposed lockdowns and other public health measures.

The industrial action of nurses, teachers, as well as other public sector workers in multiple states, who face the same intolerable conditions and assault on wages, have been isolated and divided to ensure no unified action nationally is possible. The Health Services Union NSW secretary, Gerard Hayes, actively campaigned for the ending of COVID-19 isolation requirements, prior to their removal, stating that he was concerned about the impact it had on the “economy,” that is, on business profits.

Bolivia’s Socialist Government Confronts Separatist, Racist Uprising

W.T. Whitney Jr.

With the exception of a coup-government interregnum in 2019-2021, the Movement toward Socialism political party (MAS) has headed Bolivia’s government since the beginning of Evo Morales’s presidency in 2006. The MAS government led now by President Luis Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca announced on July 12 that its every-ten-year Population and Housing Census would be moved from November 16, 2022 to sometime in 2024.

Spokespersons attributed the change to difficulties left-over from the pandemic, a need for translations into indigenous languages, uncertain financial resources, and extra time required for “technical” changes. Leaders of Santa Cruz department in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands, the nation’s largest, immediately demanded a census in 2023, not in 2024. Department governor Luis Camacho and Rómulo Calvo, president of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee, warned that without a settlement on the census, they would initiate a strike aimed at undoing the department’s economy, and thereby the national economy.

In response, “over one million Bolivians mobilized” on August 25 in support of the government and against a regional leadership group that is the vanguard of opposition to Bolivia’s socialist and indigenous-led government. Even so, the strike began on October 22. Recent Bolivian suggests another coup may be in the offing.

Why a seemingly routine piece of government business like staging a census might provoke momentous consequences is not obvious. A look at expectations attached to Bolivia’s census and at the nature of Santa Cruz politics may clarify.

Census results help to determine the national distribution of government-provided services and resources and are the basis for each department’s representation in the national Legislative Assembly. Opposition forces in Santa Cruz see operation of the national census, as presently constituted, as beneficial to their side, particularly for the national elections of 2025. They see advantage in the increased numbers of indigenous peoples migrating recently from Bolivia’s poverty-stricken highlands to economically-resourced Santa Cruz. That advantage rests on indigenous peoples showing up on the census with an identity other than indigenous.

The national census in 2012 fueled controversy when it showed that many indigenous people identify themselves as mestizo and not as belonging to a particular indigenous nation. That was encouraging to the reactionary and racist Santa Cruz leaders who have no enthusiasm for increased indigenous representation in the national legislative assembly. The Arce government, by contrast, objects to an undercount of indigenous people and especially in the eastern lowland departments, where their numbers are increasing.

The category of mestizo did not appear in the census of 2012 and is not part of the census in dispute now. The Santa Cruz leaders are insisting that that mestizo identity be incorporated into the census. Expert advice was sought in 2012 and the Arce government is now proposing the same.

The peculiarities of Santa Cruz are central to this story. For one thing, Bolivia’s four easternmost departments, particularly Santa Cruz, produce most of Bolivia’s wealth. Santa Cruz is home to industrial-scale agricultural operations and to facilities for oil and natural gas production. This lowland region accounts for most of Bolivia’s export income.

The realities are these: Santa Cruz alone accounts for 76% of the country’s food production, for all of its sorghum and sunflower oil production, 99% of its soy products, 92% of its sugar cane, 75% of its wheat, 72% of its rice, and 66% of its corn. In 2021 farmers owned 4.6 million head of cattle, over a million pigs, and 130 million chickens.

Among departments, Santa Cruz consumes 39% of the country’s diesel fuel and contains the bulk of Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, which rate as South America’s second largest. The Financial Times lauds the Santa Cruz economy’s explosive growth and large foreign investments. It mentions Santa Cruz city as one of the world’s fastest growing urban areas.

Also relevant to the strike story is the reactionary and racist nature of opposition leaders in Santa Cruz.  They are utilizing the department’s “Civic Committee” to organize the strike and the Union of Santa Cruz Youth to carry out violent, paramilitary-style street actions.  Governor Luis Camacho formerly headed the Santa Cruz Civic Committee.

The civic committees of all departments originated decades ago in response to national-regional tensions. Members of formerly eastern European families, some of them big landowners, belong to the Santa Cruz civic committee. Many brought fascist ideology with them when they immigrated to Bolivia after World War II.

At the last of three big gatherings in Santa Cruz, Governor Camacho on September 30 announced the start on October 22 of an anti-government strike of “indefinite” duration.  In operation, the strike has led to barriers being placed across major highways to impede exports and in-country deliveries of commodities, mainly food. Strike leaders have forced key factories and commercial centers to shut down.

The Youth Union and other thugs have carried out anti-government demonstrations and fought in the streets against MAS party supporters and the national police. There have been injuries, human rights violations, and one death. The strike has had little impact in the other eastern departments.

With a presence at border crossings, the strikers have sharply reduced the transit of exported goods. Government authorities on October 27, anticipating domestic food shortages, banned all exports from Santa Cruz of soy products, beef, sugar, and vegetable oil.

The government and MAS activists organized a rally and march by hundreds of thousands of people before the strike began, and another on the day after. In La Paz on October 26, confrontation between government supporters and an opposition march left 20 persons wounded.

The government on October 25 held a “Pluri-national Encuentro for a Census with Consensus.” Officials from throughout the country attended.   A proposal emerged that would enable a technical commission to determine a date for the national census. Camacho rejected it, but opposition leaders Rómulo Calvo and Vicente Cuellar accepted the proposal. In an interview, Camacho asserted the federalism remains as the only solution to the “fissure” present since the “founding of the Republic.”

On November 1, President Arce, referring to threats to “national integrity,” called upon military leaders “to guarantee and defend the independence, unity and integrity of our territory.” A presidential spokesperson indicated that Arce favored new negotiations with no established date for the census and without conditions.

Events in Santa Cruz align with a grim history. President Evo Morales’s accession to power in 2006 was a culmination of old indigenous resistance against European colonialists and of recent pushback against neoliberal assaults inflicted by local enablers of U.S. and European ruling-class objectives. Social gains achieved by the MAS-led government and its program of modest wealth distribution seemed to cement its place in history and certainly inflamed the animosities of reactionaries in Santa Cruz and nationally.

As a new Constitution was being shaped – it was approved in 2009 – Santa Cruz and its neighboring eastern departments staged a separatist revolt fueled by racism.  A failed assassination plot against Morales in 2008 was part of it. During this period the Morales government expelled a U.S. ambassador and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

The U.S. government and the Organization of the United States, serving the United States, facilitated the coup that removed the Morales government in 2019 after his election to a fourth term. Luis Camacho of Santa Cruz led the coup and reportedly delivered the U.S. moneys used in various payoffs.  Bolivia’s military participated.

The president of the coup government, Jeanine Áñez, is now in prison, in part because of human rights abuses and killings by soldiers during her tenure.

The current MAS-led government came into existence in 2020 following the first-round electoral victory of President Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca. It’s approval rating currently is  51%. The present strike has set back governmental efforts to restore a national economy devastated by the coup government’s neoliberal reforms and by pandemic effects.

President Arce, reporting to the Legislative Assembly on November 8, indicated that “We have complete certainty that our people are fully behind us and that they recognize a national patriotic government that looks out for the national welfare, which stands above sectarian and regional interests.” He observed that “in times of crisis, it’s always the poor that end up losing more, or losing everything.”

Secrets of an AT&T Scandal

David Rosen

Photograph Source: AT&T’s Illinois – CC BY 2.0

On October 14^th, AT&T’s Illinois subsidiary agreed to pay a $23 million fine to resolve a federal criminal investigation into alleged misconduct involving the company’s efforts to unlawfully influence former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan.

Madigan was a very influential political player.  The Justice Department notes that, in addition to being Speaker, he had been a congressman representing Illinois’s 22^nd District; Committeeman for Chicago’s 13^th Ward; Chairman of both the Illinois Democratic Party and the 13^th Ward Democratic Organization; and partner at the influential Chicago law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner.  It adds, he “used these positions to further the goals of the criminal enterprise.”

The Justice Department states, “AT&T Illinois admitted that in 2017 it arranged for an ally of Madigan to indirectly receive $22,500 in payments from the company.  The company paid the money through an intermediary – a lobbying firm that performed services for AT&T Illinois.” The ally was Michael F. McClain who, the Justice noted, “carried out illegal activities at Madigan’s behest.”

A week later, on October 21^st, the former president of AT&T Illinois, Paul La Schiazza, pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging he orchestrated and approved the scheme to funnel payments to a Madigan associate. A federal grand jury charged La Schiazza with conspiracy, federal program bribery and using a facility in interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity. According to the Chicago Tribune, “the most serious counts carry up to 20 years in prison if convicted.”

Seven months before the AT&T’s Illinois revelations, Madigan was accused in a separate 22-count indictment “of leading for nearly a decade a criminal enterprise whose purpose was to enhance Madigan’s political power and financial well-being while also generating income for his political allies and associates.”

The indictment alleged that between January 27, 2014, and May 3, 2019, the Chicago utility company, Commonwealth Edison (aka ComEd), made payments totaling more than $2 million to Madigan and his close associates.  They included McClain and ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore as well as ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and consultant Jay Doherty.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports “Doherty made $256,000 in payments to an unnamed individual identified by the Sun-Times as former Ald. Frank Olivo, $325,000 in payments to a second unnamed individual, and $144,000 in payments to a third.”  It added, “ComEd agreed to pay a $200 million fine —believed to be the largest criminal fine ever in Chicago’s federal court.”

Digging deeper, the most hidden “secret” of the AT&T Illinois bribery scandal involved a 2017 state legislature vote regarding what is known as “Carrier of Last Resort” (COLR), that “terminated AT&T Illinois’ costly obligation to provide landline telephone services to all Illinois residents.” Still more hidden, the secret involved the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), one of the most important groups influencing telecom policy.  It promotes itself as a “nonpartisan individual membership organization of state legislators that favors federalism and conservative public policy solutions.”

ALEC is, formally, a non-profit group that drafts model legislation.  It has an estimated membership exceeding 2,400 state legislators from both political parties, but most are conservative Republicans.  It regularly invites members to all-expense paid private gatherings with corporate executives and lobbyists where they devise model legislation to fulfill their political agenda, many involving telecommunications policy.  These legislators, in turn, return to their home states and promote the legislation at state houses throughout the country.  Many of their initiatives are enacted.

With the adoption of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, telecom providers succeeding in having telecom services “deregulated,” allowing the internet and wireless phone services turned into what is known as ”information services.”   They also sought to end COLR obligation – the principle that a phone service must be available at prevailing rates even to customers who live in places that are expensive to serve, such as farms.  And ALEC led the campaign to end COLR obligations.

John Stephenson, former director of ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force, led the campaign against COLR.  “Those [old rules] were written at a time when consumers had no choice in the matter,” he said.  Going further, he insisted that fewer regulations would lead to more investment in broadband and other services. “If we were to clear the underbrush of these rules written long before the Internet was even a word,” Stephenson argued, “there would be a lot more broadband deployed to the United States, and things that are even better that we can’t conceive of today.”

Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld is concerned about the abolition of COLR protections.  “It’s been this sort of, ‘The Internet is magic and we don’t want to look too closely at it,'” Feld says. “The problem is, it’s not magic … and when you just leave this stuff to its own devices, sometimes it breaks down.”

To date, more than 29 states have adopted COLR legislation, including Illinois.  In 2020, the Oregon legislature pointed out, “Meeting the broader policy goal of universal access to broadband would effectively moot the need for a COLR obligation for voice telephony, as broadband service can provide both information and voice services.”  It then added: “More than a quarter of Oregonians live in areas that are unserved, underserved, or have older technologies that will not be able to meet the digital demands of the very near future.”

When the latest corporate scandal is revealed by the media, it important uncover the hidden factors that contributed to the public exposure.

Protests continue in Iran in face of government repression

Jean Shaoul

Students and young people have protested in more than 200 towns and cities across Iran. The demonstrations and rallies have been ongoing for two months, despite the brutal crackdown ordered by the government of President Ebrahim Raisi, with solidarity protests taking place in Europe, the United States and parts of the Middle East.

Initial protests were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of the regime’s morality police after her arrest for “improperly” wearing a hijab. Fueled by widespread anger over social and economic conditions, including high unemployment, and the corruption and monopolization of political power by the Shia clerical establishment, protests that started in the Kurdish provinces soon morphed into wider, anti-government rallies throughout the country.

However, having made no appeal to the working class, the largely leaderless youth movement has attracted little active support from workers, apart from brief strikes by teachers and oil workers last month, leaving them vulnerable to government repression.

Iranians protest 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022. [AP Photo/Middle East Images, File]

Appalling living conditions are to a large extent the result of the brutal sanctions regime imposed by Washington after the Trump administration unilaterally abandoned the 2015 nuclear accords. It was little short of a declaration of war on Iran. While the incoming Biden administration claimed it wanted to restore the deal, the talks have been stalled by the ever-increasing demands from Washington, coming to a halt in September. Iran’s oil exports have plummeted, slashing the country’s most important source of income, while its currency has fallen to its lowest-ever level against the dollar.

Amid provocative military threats and actions, President Joe Biden has sought to establish an anti-Iran alliance of the Gulf states, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Israel. Tel Aviv, acting as Washington’s attack dog, has stepped up its aggressive air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean, even as it carries out acts of sabotage within Iran.

According to official figures, inflation in Iran is running at 54 percent and food prices have risen by more than 100 percent since President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August last. Last May, his government began removing subsidies worth up to $15 billion on the import of basic foods, medicine, and animal feed, although it said there would be some cash assistance to some families. Iran’s youth—two thirds of Iran’s 85 million population are under 30 years of age—are some of the worst affected. Some 27 percent are without work, with those in the ethnic minority areas of Sistan-Baluchestan and Kurdistan among the worst affected.

As well as the protests over Amini’s death, there have been demonstrations in Sistan-Baluchestan, near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, over the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a police officer. An “unprecedented” crackdown on the Baluchis by the security forces in the provincial capital of Zahedan in late September killed at least 82 people.

While the protests have been smaller than those of 2018 to 2019, they have lasted longer than any since the movement that brought down the Shah’s regime, with demonstrators calling for the downfall of the ruling establishment and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They have been met with far greater violence by the authorities, with leading figures calling for mass trials and harsh sentencing, including the death penalty.

Security forces have attacked unarmed protesters with live fire, beaten them with batons and thrown tear gas at funerals, on the streets and at universities and high schools, killing 318 protesters, including at least 49 children, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). 38 members of the security forces have been killed.  

The funerals for the dead have sparked further protests, with young people shouting slogans such as “Death to the dictator,” and “Women, life, freedom!”

Memorial rallies have been held to commemorate the 40th day of mourning for victims in at least 10 cities that were broken up by armed riot police.

At least 14,000 people have been arrested, including 392 students. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that 54 journalists had been arrested, a dozen of whom were released on bail. The government has severely limited internet access and communications.

On Sunday, legislators called on Iran’s judiciary to take “decisive” action against protestors, whose actions they referred to as “riots” and “seditions,” saying that the US was targeting Iran to effect regime change. The US and its allies had “openly entered the scene,” providing finance and encouraging “thugs” to attack security forces, leading to dozens of deaths. They called for the judiciary to punish the attackers with equal consequences, taken to mean the call for the death penalty.  

Some leading figures have called for dialogue with the protesters, with Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamadani urging the government to listen to the people’s demands. The former speaker of the Majles, now a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ali Larijani said, “the government in Tehran badly needs to listen to the other side.” He advised the government to consider the fact that “Perhaps the other side is also partly right.” Nevertheless, he added that Iran’s “enemies” were behind the uprising, saying, “The enemy has targeted Iran as a whole... In a neighboring country, the Americans are openly telling Iran’s counter-revolutionaries to be active and exert pressure on Tehran.”

Tehran has repeatedly blamed the US and Israel for orchestrating the protests and accused western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, of instigating the violence, fueling ethnic and religious tensions and collaborating with exiled Kurdish groups. Last week, in a joint statement with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s intelligence service accused two female Iranian journalists who publicised Amini’s death of being foreign agents trained by the US to create chaos, leading to their arrest and detention by the authorities.

Iran has also accused Saudi Arabia of fueling the unrest via its funding of its Persian language network, Iran International, that has reported the protests extensively.

The major powers have lost no time in denouncing Tehran for “violently suppressing peaceful protesters.”

At the end of last month, the Biden administration unveiled a new tranche of sanctions targeting commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a provincial governor and other Iranian officials involved in Tehran’s crackdown. Canada, the UK and European Union followed suit.

Washington has also given internet software companies permission to bypass sanctions to provide SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink to the Iranian market to evade state restrictions on the internet. It has tried to remove Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and to form an investigative body under the auspices of the UN’s human rights council. Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, denounced this, telling reporters that its objective was “clearly to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state” in violation of the UN Charter.

The US and European imperialist powers have also seized on reports that Russia is using drones supplied by Tehran in its invasion of Ukraine, potentially opening up another front on the war. 

Speaking at an election campaign rally in California last Thursday, Biden promised to “free Iran,” adding that the protesters would “free themselves pretty soon.”