Google carries out mass layoffs of 12,000 workers as global jobs massacre continues

James Martin

Google’s parent company Alphabet became the latest technology company to carry out a jobs bloodbath on Friday, when it announced it would cut over 6 percent of its global workforce, or 12,000 employees. Laid off workers in New York City who arrived at the office on Friday found that they could not enter the building as their badge access was cut off.

The same day, Vox Media also announced it would lay off over 7 percent of its employees, about 130 workers, and e-commerce company Wayfair said it would cut 10 percent, or 1,750 of its workforce. Layoffs have also begun at Apple’s retail sector, according to AppleInsider, although it remains unclear how many workers have lost their jobs so far.

Large layoffs were also announced at a number of technology companies globally on Friday, including the Indian-startup Medibuddy (200 jobs), e-commerce company Zilingo (280), analytics firm Visier (80), visitor-management company Envoy (67), Indian-based global consulting firm Wipro (452), Brainly (48), and others.

In total, over 40,000 workers were laid off this week, primarily in the tech sector. This includes 10,000 at Microsoft and 18,000 at Amazon, one of the largest layoffs the latter company has ever carried out in its nearly three-decade history as an e-commerce retailer. The first 20 days of the year have seen over 74,431 job cuts in the tech sector, compared to a total of 228,091 jobs cut in all of 2022, according to tech layoff tracker TrueUp.

In just the past month of January 2023, there have been over 70,000 job cuts across the technology sector. [AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File]

In an email sent to employees Friday and published on the company blog, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai justified the cuts by declaring that Google had “hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.” He added that cuts would be made across multiple business units, including in recruiting and its cloud computing divisions and its Area 150 business incubator, which had already faced job cuts last September. Pichai claims the layoffs goal would be to “reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.”

News of the layoffs was greeted very positively by Wall Street investors. Alphabet stock jumped over 5 percent Friday. Wayfair stocks skyrocketed by 22 percent. Capital One Financial Corp, which announced that it would cut 1,100 technology positions, also saw its stocks jump 4 percent Friday.

Alphabet’s hedge-fund investors such as TCI Fund Management have been demanding that the company pursue an aggressive policy of cost cutting and layoffs since last year. In an open letter to the CEO of Alphabet, TCI demanded that the company’s “management needs to take aggressive action,” adding that the “company has too many employees and the cost per employee is too high.”

Investor analyst outlet Seeking Alpha likewise demanded layoffs this week in an article, “Google: When Will Pichai Drop The Axe?”, citing the company’s stock performance and a number of earnings misses and sales misses last year. It noted, “global ad spending is likely to remain muted, or even contract, within the near term given the industry's inherent sensitivity to macroeconomic headwinds… As such, reducing headcount could be a ‘low-hanging fruit’ for Google to preserve and expand its profit margins, and lift sentiment on the stock's sluggish performance.”

The tech cuts are only the beginning of a broader offensive against jobs by the entire capitalist elite, who are determined to use unemployment as a weapon against the rise of strike activity as workers push wages that keep pace with the rising cost of living and other basic demands. This is being spearheaded by Washington and the Federal Reserve, whose series of interest rate hikes has as their stated purpose curbing wage growth. Globally, workers’ real wages declined last year, according to reports by the International Labor Organization, the product of skyrocketing cost of living caused by pervasive shortages caused by the pandemic and the NATO-backed war in Ukraine.

In December, Democrats and Republicans came together to ban a strike by 120,000 railroad workers, justified in public on the grounds that it would have an unacceptable impact on “the economy” and even “working families.” But the same ruling elite is deliberately pushing towards recession and mass unemployment to make workers bear the cost of the crisis which their own policies have created.

Substantial cuts in manufacturing and other sectors of the global workforce are also on the docket for this year. Stellantis has indefinitely idled its Belvidere Assembly Plant and its CEO has threatened that a number of other auto plants could be shuttered.

Google workers responded to the announcement of mass layoffs with shock and anger. Chris McDonald, a Google software engineer, tweeted Friday morning, “I just got laid off. Mass layoffs happening at Google apparently.” He added, “I was expecting a glowing performance review and had just started to lead a critical project in my org. This came as a total and nasty surprise.” McDonald said he felt he had been “stabbed in the back” as management had assured him that his performance was valued.

Charlotte Cucchiaro tweeted about the cruel way in which Google shut down employee access, “I was not emailed. Just booted out of all corporate accounts with zero explanation. After 11 years.”

Rob Giampetro tweeted, “Today me and many of my talented colleagues from Google's Insight+Innovation team were let go….My heart goes out to all those affected. I'm still processing, but in every end is a new beginning. I'm looking forward to discovering what's next.”

Google employee Nick Eberts tweeted of the broader tech layoffs, “Imagine being 24 years and ten months at a company that has a 5 year stock vest schedule that fully vest on your 25 year... and being let go a month and change before 25... and the company that cut you made $198 billion last year. I HATE CAPITALISM.”

The wave of layoffs will only fuel, not dampen, the growth of opposition in the working class. Indeed, the month of January has already seen massive strikes around the world, including by tens of thousands of nurses and railroad workers in Britain and millions in France who marched last week against government pension cuts. This is intersecting and fueling growing political opposition against right-wing capitalist governments, as seen by the demonstrations by more than 100,000 in Israel.

Major class battles lie ahead in the US as well this year. On March 1, the contract expires for 5,000 Caterpillar construction equipment workers. Later this year, contracts expire for 200,000 postal workers, over 300,000 UPS workers and 150,000 autoworkers, among others.

Ethnic Terrorism Continues to Stalk Ethiopia

Graham Peebles

Where there is division there will be conflict. In a country such as Ethiopia with dozens of ethnic/tribal groups, the need for tolerance, cooperation and unity is essential if there is to be peace and social harmony. Where these are absent, where differences and historic grievances are enflamed by ideologically ambitious individuals/groups, fear hate, and violence flourish.

Ethiopia is a large country divided into 11 regions. Covering over a third of the total land mass Oromia is the largest and, with an estimated 35% of the total population (approximately 122 million), the Oromo constitute the largest ethnic group, followed by the Amhara (28%).

Within Oromia and neighboring regions (Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz), a targeted slaughter, that many believe constitutes genocide, is taking place — perpetrated by Oromo extremists against the Amhara people.

The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) is the principle force behind the violence. During the recent war they allied themselves with the US-backed TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) terrorists, and have over the last four years carried out dozens of deadly incursions. Whole districts in western Oromia are being purged of Amhara people in a brutal campaign which, some fear, could trigger a civil war between the two largest ethnic groups.

The situation is complicated, contradictory narratives, denials and accusations abound; dis-misinformation is being propounded by the OLA through sympathetic media outlets such as the Oromo Media Network (OMN) and Kush Media Network (KMN). Spurious material which, according to Genocide Prevention in Ethiopia (GPE), an NGO collating data on the conflict, has previously “led to a massive campaign against Amharas across the entire Oromo Region”.

While the politics of the conflict, objectives and the line/s between tribal political alignments and terrorism may appear obscure, what is crystal clear is that the Ethiopian people, drained after two years of war with the TPLF (November 2020-November 2022), with many deeply traumatized, cannot withstand another bloody conflict.

The OLA militants

The OLA constitutes the armed wing of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Formed, according to their website, in 1973 by “Oromo nationalists to lead the national liberation struggle of the Oromo people against the Abyssinian colonial rule.” The fundamental objective of the OLF is, they say, “to exercise the Oromo people’s inalienable right to national self-determination to terminate a century of oppression and exploitation.” They routinely claim to be defending Oromo civilians from Amhara militia and federal forces, and maintain that, “the protracted armed resistance ……of the Front, [OLF] is an act of self-defence exercised by the Oromo people against successive Ethiopian governments including the current one, who forcibly deny their right to self-determination.”

Exiled in Eritrea/Kenya until 2018, when, under an amnesty introduced by the current government led by Abiy Ahmed (an Oromo), thousands of political prisoners, journalists and critics of the previous regime (a coalition of which Abiy, as leader of the Oromo Democratic Party, was a part) were released, and opposition parties located abroad, welcomed home. Upon their return a number of OLF politicians are said to have secured influential positions on the fringes of the government, whilst some of the more military minded, were assimilated into the OSF. Since the arrival of the OLA on the scene, unlike other armed groups, they have not only been allowed to retain arms, but given the space in which to radicalize, recruit, and train young Oromos.

Since 2018, when the violence began, it is impossible to know the number of people (mainly Amharas) killed. GPE estimates it to be around 30,000, other sources put the figure much lower; the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project e.g. shows that from August 2021 to July 2022 alone “there were 3,784 deaths linked to the OLA.”

What is undisputed is that it is overwhelmingly Amhara people who are being murdered (sometimes in the most barbaric, horrific fashion), women/girls raped; hundreds of thousands displaced, countless homes destroyed, livestock stolen; and that, despite their claims to the contrary, the OLA/OLF are responsible. The OLA is supported by regional terror groups (Gumuz Liberation Movement and Gambella Liberation Front), criminal gangs and, it is widely believed, factions within the Oromo Special Forces (OSF), acting on orders from the Oromia Regional Authority (ORA).

The ORA is widely thought to have been infiltrated by Oromo nationalists, and is not under the control of the federal government. In July 2022 an elected member of the Ethiopian parliament, Hangaasa Ahmed, accused the (Oromo) regional administration of coordinating attacks in Wollega, where many of the killings have taken place. Elements within the regional body (not the federal government) are said to be conspiring with the OLA, and radicalized OSF fighters.

One such incursion, with witnesses asserting OSF involvement, took place on 10 December in the Kemashi Zone of Benishangul-Gumuz region (bordering Sudan). The Amhara Association of America (AAA), a human rights group based in the US with a small team of investigators in Ethiopia, relates claims that the OLA were supported in the attack by Qeerro, a notorious Oromo youth group, which was instrumental in removing the previous EPRDF regime in 2018, and, eye witnesses claim, by members of the OSF. “They killed at least thirteen Amhara civilians, injured five more.” Over 500 houses were deliberately burned [forcing around 2000 people to flee] and over 3,000 farm animals were looted.” A survivor told AAA’s investigators: “There were both Special Forces and Shene (OLA) united to eliminate Amharas.”

There have been many such attacks over the last three years or so, too many to recount: the Gimbi massacre however stands out. It is one of the few incidents to be widely covered by western media, and highlights the brutal nature of the Oromo nationalists’ campaign, and the degree of human suffering inflicted.

On 18 June 2022, “OLA militants entered Tole Kebele (district) [West Wollega Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia] and opened fire on Amhara civilians in a nine hour long killing spree which spanned ten villages.” AAA relate witness statements — “First, the militants began shooting people and then used machetes to finish off victims whom they suspected had not died from the gunshots.” The NGO estimate around 503 Amhara civilians were killed, while elsewhere it was reported that, “more than 1500 ethnic Amhara were massacred, including children and women.”

True to form the OLA denied any involvement; their spokesperson, Odaa Tarbii, told AP that the Gimbi attack, “was committed by the regime’s military and local militia as they retreated from their camp in Gimbi following our recent offensive.” Local residents however confirmed that the OLA were behind what one survivor described as a “massacre of Amharas.” Prime Minister Abiy condemned the “evil force” and vowed, to “eliminate” the OLA. A pledge, like political statements made the world over, easily made, but more difficult to accomplish.

Amhara homes demolished

In addition to attacking unarmed Amhara civilians, a house demolitions program, which has existed in and around Addis Ababa since 2018, is intensifying. A detailed investigation by AAA found that, “At least 3,415 houses belonging to non-Oromo owners (most of them belonging to Amhara owners) were demolished” this year alone — properties owned by Oromo were left untouched. The human rights group claims that, “Oromia Special Forces [OSF], Oromia Region police, government representatives, and local youth” are responsible for the demolitions in various parts of “the newly established Sheger City administration”; an area populated by both Amhara and Oromo, where control switched from a local administration to the Oromia Regional State in August 2022.

According to AAA, when people asked the authorities why their houses had been destroyed, their personal belongings trashed. The response was swift and ferocious: “At least 40 individuals were arrested and their whereabouts remain unknown. Another 10…were brutally injured by security forces of the Oromia Regional State.” A local resident whose home was levelled, relates that on 3 January, “hundreds of local youth, police and special police came to the Enku-Gabriel area (Betachignaw side),” they opened fire on those trying to stop them and proceeded to “abscise the roof and doors of houses and took the tin to the Oromia Region with the help of 11 [Isuzu] FSR trucks.”

The houses, many occupied by the same family for 30/40 years, may, as some claim, have been built illegally, and some will no doubt argue that demolitions were based, therefore, not on ethnic hatred but on legality of ownership. Where a legitimate question of ownership exists the matter should be properly investigated; there is no justification for such wholesale vandalism, and, in a country seeking to strengthen democratic institutions and the rule of law the perpetrators of such destruction should be held to account.

Many of those affected believe the demolition campaign is an attempt to eradicate Amhara people and “Oromize the area”. A plan, which, some hold, included the recent introduction of the Oromo national anthem and display of the Oromo flag in schools in parts of Addis Ababa. An illegal move that triggered powerful popular resistance forcing the policy to be withdrawn; a triumph for community action and common sense, which could empower people to take further action against ethnic nationalism and communal division.

Building unity creating peace

Although the OLF (regarded as a legitimate political party) and OLA appear to be two distinct groups, they are but opposite sides of the same violent tribalistic coin. Sharing a flag, a hatred and resentment of Amhara people, and a divisive vision of Oromo Statehood; an expanded Oromia that would swallow up territory of neighboring states (Amhara, Afara, BSG, Gambella, Ogaden) and include the capital, Addis Ababa.

Whether their aim is self-determination as stated on the OLF website, or an independent (enlarged) Oromo Republic, the need for urgent government action to stop the killing/displacement and destruction of homes is clear. Long-term grievances can be examined and dealt with after the guns have been silenced, the machetes laid down, those responsible arrested and prosecuted. This requires government to act decisively, to powerfully condemn OLA attacks and loss of life — something routinely lacking — enforce law and order effectively and consistently, and to safeguard the community. As The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission rightly states: “The killing, maiming and displacement of civilians in the [Oromo] region……calls for immediate action by the federal government and a concrete and lasting solution.”

To date, the government’s response has been disappointing. This may be partially explained by the demands the TPLF conflict placed on federal forces and officials; some, however, believe it shows political weakness in the face of Oromo nationalist influence at the heart of government; other, more critical voices, suggest that through neglect and omission, the government is complicit. GPE for example, claim that government agencies are implicated in OLA/OSF incursions, cutting telecommunication, electricity/water supplies and blocking roads in preparation for an impending attack.

Such accusations, if true do not prove federal government involvement; they may point towards participation at a local administrative level however, and thereby reveal the degree to which regional administrations and some (Oromo) ethnically aligned voices within the federal government are able to act independently. If this is so, again strong decisive government action is required to weed out such voices.

Immediate substantive action must be taken to stop the carnage. It can be done if the will is there: when the TPLF attacked in November 2020, the government initially responded decisively and swiftly. The OLA and their allies are just as great a threat as the TPLF; they, too, must be stopped.

In the long term, constitutional reform is required, ethnic federalism jettisoned, all regional militia disarmed, and a national debate around democratic participation and regional governance initiated. Nothing lasting can be achieved in the country without first peace; no prosperity, no social changes, no lasting democratic developments. These will not be created by gesture politics or flamboyant speeches, but through inclusive policies that encourage broad democratic participation; by building relationships based on respect and trust and creating a vibrant sense of national unity.

Liberty Steel plans to cut 450 UK jobs and downscale production

Simon Whelan

Liberty Steel has placed almost 450 jobs at risk in the UK under plans to idle industrial production at three plants and restructure at others.

The company says it will restart production at the idled plants only “when the market and operating conditions allow”. It claims the UK’s high energy costs and stern competition from cheaper foreign imports make its current operations “unviable”, i.e. not profitable enough.

Sanjeev Gupta (right) of Liberty House Group pictured with Fergus Ewing, Minister for Business, Energy & Tourism outside the Dalzell steel plant in Motherwell in 2016. [Photo by Scottish Government/FlickR / CC BY 2.0]

Liberty Steel employs 35,000 workers at around 200 locations globally. It is part of billionaire Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance. Most plants are in Europe, with the firm also employing 6,500 across several Australian states and 1,500 across 16 sites in the US. Liberty operates 11 plants in Britain employing around 3,000 workers and is the third largest steelmaker in the UK.

Under its new plans, production and processing facilities in South Wales will be idled, making 120 workers in Newport and another 35 in Tredegar redundant.

The West Bromwich site in England’s Midlands will also be made dormant, with 100 jobs to go. Liberty’s Performance Steel plant at West Bromwich will be transformed into a sales and distribution hub, with workers offered continued employment through a “retain, redeploy and reskill” programme.

Production will be reduced at the Rotherham, Scunthorpe and Dalzell plants.

This week the company confirmed that 185 jobs will be lost in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, by plans to cut the production of primary steel and instead use imported metals to manufacture higher-priced special alloy steels. They will be imposed following a 45-day “consultation” period.

The company will also focus on the production of higher-value alloy steel manufacturing at its other South Yorkshire plants in Brinsworth and Stocksbridge, abandoning cheaper “commodity grade” products for which there is tough global competition.

Liberty Steel has had cashflow issues since the collapse of its main financier, Greensill Capital, in 2021. Greensill was a financial backer of Gupta’s collection of companies known then as Gupta Family Group. The steel and energy group controlled by Gupta has still not paid back a £7 million publicly funded loan it received in 2016.

Gupta’s operations face multiple problems, ranging from the resignation of the auditor of several key companies in September last year, to an investigation by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office and French police into “suspected fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering”.

No campaign is being waged by the trade unions to oppose the job cuts. Their pro-company, corporatist perspective was expressed by Alun Davies, national officer at steelworkers’ union Community, who said mournfully that Liberty’s announcement was a “body blow to Liberty Steel’s loyal UK workforce, who couldn’t have done more to get the company through an exceptionally challenging period.”

He continued, “Since the collapse of Greensill Capital the trade unions have supported the company because we believed that delivering the company’s business plans, which were audited and backed by the unions’ independent experts, was the best route to safeguard jobs and the future of all the businesses.”

Davies complained, however, that “the plans we reviewed were based on substantial investment and ramping up production, including at Liberty Steel Newport, and did not include the ‘idling’ of any sites.”

Community has partnered with Liberty management throughout repeated restructurings, the pandemic, and earlier suspensions of production, always at the cost of its members.

Davies declared, “These are challenging times for all steelmakers but the company’s decision to change their plans, on which we based our support, and announce a strategy seemingly based on capacity cuts and redundancies is devastating.”

No jobs will be defended. Rotherham Community union rep Chris Williamson said the union would do its “utmost to ensure there are no compulsory redundancies,” leaving the door open for pressured “voluntary” schemes.

Davies demanded of the company only that “The consultation on these proposals must be meaningful and the unions will be scrutinising the detail of plans to idle Newport, West Bromwich and Tredegar, including Liberty’s commitment to restart the plants when conditions allow.”

As the Rotherham redundancies were announced, the role of the unions as an industrial police force, isolating and dividing the working class for the benefit of the corporations, was underscored by the Unite union’s response to the decision by Liberty Steel not to sell off its Stocksbridge plant. Stocksbridge is located only a few miles from the Rotherham plant where redundancies are being enforced.

In words that indistinguishable from a Liberty corporative executive, Doug Patterson of Unite union said of the Stocksbridge decision, “It appears the financing is on a sound footing and the trajectory is upwards. It probably ties in with growth in the markets for oil, gas and aerospace. It is the best news for years, although the cost of electricity remains a problem and there is no certainty about government support. They were supposed to be announcing an extension of support in January.”

Community also insisted that in defence of the steel industry, the Conservative government “must play their part, stop the dithering and act to deliver the competitive energy prices our industry so desperately needs…steelworkers have had enough of warm words, it’s past time for government to decide whether it wants a steel industry in this country.” This appeal is made to a government waging a ruthless offensive against striking workers across all sectors.

It also seeks to tie steelworkers to a bankrupt nationalist programme. Community’s campaign is headed with the moniker, “Britain, we need our steel”. It’s accompanying webpage is redolent with right-wing nationalistic sentiment boasting, “Steel is a great British industry and we are proud of its contribution to building our nation” and “It is critical to Britain’s economic independence and our national security”.

The right-wing essence of this campaign was made clear by Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Steel. He wrote on PoliticsHome that it was “critical that we recognise the absolute necessity that we make our steel here in Britain. In the age of Vladimir Putin's invasion and China’s aggression, it is madness to surrender our sovereignty by off-shoring our steel-making capability to authoritarian regimes that wish Britain harm.”

A “defence” of the steel industry on this basis cuts steelworkers off from the vital support of their coworkers internationally in a highly globalised industry and signs them up to Labour and Tories’ trade and military wars.

Community is putting into practice the anti-working-class agenda of the entire union bureaucracy in connection with the NATO war on Russia.

At its conference last October, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) passed a motion calling on the “General Council to convene a major national initiative involving sympathetic manufacturers, unions, professional bodies and industrial area administrations to establish a national commission for manufacturing to oversee a revival in all sectors and plan a rejuvenation of production and skills development.”

This rejuvenation would help to reverse the “run-down of UK defence manufacturing”. The motion demands “immediate increases in defence spending”. It insists that “defence contracts to be placed in the UK where possible and shipbuilding orders to be placed with UK yards.”

Declaring its support for Britain’s role ploughing billions worth of military hardware into Ukraine, the motion states, “Congress further recognises that defence manufacturing cuts have hindered the UK’s ability to aid the Ukrainian people under brutal assault from Putin’s regime.” The motion denounced the previous TUC “policy carried in 2017 in favour of diversifying away from defence manufacturing” as “no longer fit for purpose.”

China’s growth rate falls as population declines

Nick Beams

Two sets of data came out of China this week with major implications both for the social and economic relations in that country and the world economy as a whole. They point to a significant slowing of growth and make clear, as the threat of world recession grows, that China is not going to provide an economic buffer as it has in the past either in the short- or long-term.

Beijing West Railway Station, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. [AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein]

Economic data revealed that Chinese growth last year had dropped to its lowest level in decades as the population fell by 850,000 in 2022—the first such decline since the so-called Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The National Bureau of Statistics announced that growth in 2022 was 3 percent, a very marked slowdown from the 8.1 percent growth in 2021. It was also well off the government’s target of 5.5 percent, already the lowest since the beginning of the 1990s.

Apart from 2020, when the economy expanded by only 2.2 percent due to the onset of COVID, it was the lowest growth figure since 1976.

The main reason for the lower growth was the public health measures introduced in the battle against COVID. This was reflected in retail sales, which increased by only 0.2 percent as compared to a rise of 12.5 percent in 2021, and the fall of industrial production growth to 3.6 percent, compared to 9.6 percent the previous year.

The COVID restrictions, which despite the clamour in certain upper middle-class layers, accompanied by a fanfare of publicity in Western media, were broadly supported in the population which considered the government was taking the necessary action to protect public health.

However, in December, under intense pressure from the imperialist powers and from companies which threatened to move their operations out of the country, the government scrapped virtually all protective measures leading to a surge in infections and deaths.

Having dropped protective measures, the Xi Jinping regime is making a desperate attempt to convince the major capitalist powers that China is back in business.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos on Tuesday, China’s retiring vice-premier Liu He, who has functioned as the chief economic adviser to Xi, claimed the country had passed the peak of its COVID-19 infections and was returning to normal faster than had been expected.

“The majority of society has recovered to a normal state of affairs,” he said. “The speed of reaching the peak and speed of recovering normality were relatively fast in a way exceeding our expectations.”

Following the policies of governments around the world, China has not only abandoned safety measures but has virtually shut down data on deaths and infections, amid concerns there could be surge because of widespread travel during lunar New Year celebrations.

With the economy already on a path to lower growth even before the pandemic struck, Liu made an appeal to the financial oligarchs and investors at Davos, assuring them China was committed to a market economy.

“Some people say that China is pursuing a planned economy, but this is fundamentally impossible: Chinese people will not walk this path,” he said.

The Xi regime has cracked down on some technology giants in the name of a “common prosperity” program. Reflecting the balancing act of the regime, acting in the interests of the Chinese oligarchy which dominates the Chinese Communist Party, Liu said this was to prevent economic polarisation and was aimed at trying to keep inequality in check.

“We are absolutely not about egalitarianism and welfarism,” he reassured his Davos audience.

He also addressed some of the major issues confronting China arising from the high interest rate regime initiated by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks as they seek to suppress the global upsurge of the working class in response to the highest inflation in 40 years.

Liu said Chinese growth would most likely return to its normal trend and the risks in the property sector had been stabilised by what he called a “blood transfusion”—the injection of liquidity into the market.

But, he added, any Chinese recovery would be “export challenged” and trade would “not be as strong a driver for China’s own domestic growth performance as perhaps some Chinese economic planners would want.”

Liu then made an indirect reference to the policies of global central banks, which are not being followed in China, saying “some countries have chosen the policy that will result in a hike-recession-recovery loop.”

He called for “more attention to the negative spillover effect of major countries rate hikes on the emerging markets and developing countries, so as not to add more debt or financial risks.”

Liu noted that inflation was being boosted by a more complex set of factors than simply demand, which central banks were attempting to dampen with interest rate rises. Supply-side measures were needed to repair supply chains, which would require global coordination. He warned against adopting a “Cold War mentality,” referring to the increased economic and military pressure being exerted against China, spearheaded by the US.

As the Chinese government tries to navigate the present, increasingly complex international economic environment, there are also long-term factors at work. These militate against any return to the high growth levels of the past, which have played a central role in the maintenance of global expansion over the past three decades.

These factors were highlighted by the news that the population of the country had declined last year for the first time in six decades.

In comments reported by the Financial Times, Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demography at the University of California, said: “This is a truly historic turning point, an onset of a long-term and irreversible population decline.”

COVID is being blamed for a decline in birth rates last year, but the origins of the population decline go back to the one-child policy imposed by the regime in the 1980s with major economic implications.

The period of high Chinese growth—sometimes reaching levels approaching 10 percent per annum—was based on the continued inflow of workers from the countryside into the cities. The regime itself recognised more than a decade ago this policy could not continue and has sought to increasingly base Chinese growth on the development of more advanced technologies to increase productivity.

However, this strategy has now hit a major obstacle in the form of the US drive to cripple Chinese technological advance with a series of widening restrictions because it fears China’s advance will further undermine its own global economic position.

The Chinese regime rests on the capitalist oligarchy which started to emerge as “market economy” was increasingly installed in the 1980s. It then developed in leaps and bound as China was increasingly integrated in the global economy following the crushing of the working class during and after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989.

But it must now contend with a massive social force—the population of 1.4 billion people and a vastly expanded and urbanised working class.

It seeks to maintain itself by invoking the legacy 1949 revolution, while claiming it is possible to provide a prosperous future by integrating the country into the framework of world capitalism under the fraudulent banner of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

This perspective has increasingly run up against “capitalism with imperialistic characteristics” in the form of the US drive to reduce China to a semi-colonial status, if necessary through war.

The regime has long ago abandoned any notion of social equality, as Lui’s remarks at Davos again made clear. Insofar as it retains political support among the population and in the working class, it is because it was seen as engineering the economic growth that lifted living standards.

The measures against COVID were instituted because of the widespread expectation in the population that action should be taken by the government in defence of public health.

These pillars of support may not have yet entirely collapsed but they are in an advanced state of disintegration. While it is impossible to predict the exact course of events, rising social tensions point to the development of class struggle against the regime whose central strategy is increasingly exposed.

Zero-COVID in China ultimately collapsed because it was a national policy trying to deal with a global problem. The perspective of a national economic rise of China is equally constrained by global forces.

Pregnant women with COVID-19 face 7 times higher risk of dying, new study finds

Kate Randall

More than 400 million babies were born worldwide during the first three years of the pandemic. Although there are no reliable figures on how many women have been infected during pregnancy with the virus that causes COVID-19, a new study finds that those who do face a seven times increased risk of dying.

Registered nurses are suited up with protective gear before entering a patient's room at the COVID-19 ICU at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Monday, Jan. 3, 2022. [AP Photo/Steven Senne]

The analysis indicates that SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of “maternal death, severe maternal morbidities and neonatal morbidity.”  

Research published this week in BMJ Global Health finds that pregnant women who contract COVID-19 are also at three times greater risk of being admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). The study also suggests that COVID-19 during pregnancy increases the risk that the baby will need intensive care. People who need intensive care are also more likely to die.

Emily R. Smith, assistant professor of global health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in a statement, “This study provides the most comprehensive evidence to date suggesting that COVID-19 is a threat during pregnancy.” She added, “Our findings underscore the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for all women of childbearing age.”

Hundreds of millions of women of childbearing age remain unvaccinated. In the industrialized world, pregnant women are not being vaccinated due to a combination of government “let it rip” policies and the promotion of anti-scientific theories that vaccines will harm the mother or unborn fetus. In poorer countries, vaccines are not available largely due to logistics and the unprofitability of providing them. 

Smith and her colleagues brought together individual patient data from 12 studies involving more than 13,000 pregnant women (1,942 COVID-19 positive, 11,194 COVID-19 negative). The studies involved data from China-Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United States, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Republic of Congo, Ghana and Nigeria. Prior analyses based on published data have included limited data from low-income countries.

Researchers’ key findings of meta-analysis of this patient data shows that, in addition to an elevated risk of death and being admitted to an ICU, compared to uninfected pregnant women, pregnant women with COVID-19 infection were at:

• About 15 times higher risk of needing ventilator treatment, due to COVID-19’s effect on the ability to breathe

• About 23 times higher risk of developing pneumonia, a potentially life-threatening complication of COVID-19

• More than 5 times higher risk of thromboembolic disease, or blood clots, which can cause pain, swelling and other life-threatening complications.

Additional heightened risks to pregnant women infected with SARS-CoV-2 include hemorrhage, placental abruption, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, pre-term labor and caesarean section.

Babies born to women with COVID-19 also face significant health risks when compared to the newborns of women not infected with the coronavirus, including:

• Almost twice the risk of being admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after birth

• Higher risk of being born prematurely. Babies born pre-term are at high risk of suffering from lifelong health problems, including delayed cognitive development.

Implications for the US

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the already scandalous state of maternal health in the United States. Data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), analyzed by the Commonwealth Fund in 2022, exposed the widening gap in maternal mortality between the US and other leading industrialized nations.

The US stands at 55th in maternal mortality rates, just behind Russia and ahead of Ukraine, according to the World Health Organization. In 2020, the latest year complete data are available from the CDC, the US maternal mortality rate (MMR) was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to the Netherlands, where it stood at 1.2 deaths.

The CDC concluded that 84 percent of pregnancy-related deaths, or 17 in 20, are preventable. Provisional CDC data from 2021 show that of 1,178 maternal deaths reported, 401, or more than a third, were COVID-19-related. Also contributing to these deaths is the fact that nearly 7 million women of childbearing age and 500,000 babies in the US live in counties that are “maternity care deserts,” meaning they have no obstetric hospitals or providers.

Parallel to the US increase in maternal mortality has been an overall decrease in life expectancy. According to mortality data released by the CDC, life expectancy in the US decreased for the second year in a row in 2021. The death rate increased by 5.3 percent over 2020 figures, leading to a decline in life expectancy from 77 years to 76.4 years, the lowest level since 1996. Globally, life expectancy has declined for the first time since World War II.

CDC statistics show that COVID-19 accounted for nearly 60 percent of the life expectancy decline in the US in 2021. The alarming maternal mortality rate in the US, aggravated by the deaths of mothers and newborns from COVID-19, is undoubtedly a contributing factor to this decline.

Mass protests against Israel’s far-right government: a harbinger of revolutionary struggle

Chris Marsden

Saturday’s mass protest in Tel Aviv marks a significant shift in the political life of Israel, the Middle East and the world.

Just two weeks after the election of the most far-right coalition government in the nation’s history, one riddled with racists and outright fascists, around 100,000 gathered in Habima Square protesting plans by the new regime to assert direct political control over the judiciary. Thousands more protested in Jerusalem outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, and in Haifa and Rosh Pina.

Legislation announced by Justice Minister Yariv Levin is set to curtail the High Court’s ability to strike down laws and allow parliament to override any such rulings. The government would also take control over the appointment of judges and do away with the post of Attorney General. This would allow Netanyahu to appoint his own state prosecutor, helping avoid his own prosecution on corruption charges. More importantly, it would facilitate plans for stepped up settlement construction in preparation for annexing much of the West Bank.

Israelis protest against the government's plans to overhaul the country's legal system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 14, 2023. [AP Photo/Oded Balilty]

However, opposition to the new government stretches far beyond this question. Netanyahu’s coalition includes his own Likud party, the fascistic and racist parties Religious Zionism, Jewish Power and Noam, and the right-wing religious parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism. It stands for Jewish supremacy and apartheid rule; the permanent seizure of the Palestinian territories; Jewish prayer at the al-Aqsa Mosque; the rollback of anti-discrimination measures through sweeping changes to Israel’s legal system; and stepped-up police and military repression against the Palestinians and workers, Jewish and Palestinian, in Israel itself.

New Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionism was recorded declaring, “I’m a fascist homophobe.” One of his first acts was to seize $40 million in tax revenues Israel had collected on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf. New National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of Jewish Power, meanwhile immediately made a deliberately provocative visit to Jerusalem’s most sensitive religious site, the Al Aqsa compound.

The coming to power of such political criminals and provocateurs has aroused mass anger. Homemade placards on the protest warned against “fascism,” a “coup d’état,” a “criminal government,” and “the end of democracy.” Jewish people joined Israeli Arabs in carrying Palestinian flags, in defiance of Ben-Gvir’s call for the police to crack down.

This points to the possible emergence of a new axis of struggle, cutting across the carefully cultivated divisions between Arab and Jewish workers.

Media reports sought a measure of comfort in identifying the protest as largely mobilising the secular Israeli middle class and being led by the tame opposition parties. But this tells only half the story.

The new government is dragging Israel into the blackest forms of political reaction, including war against the Palestinians. It does so under conditions where Israel is a social and political powder keg and the entire Middle East has been destabilised by the deepening global economic crisis, the pandemic and US-led plans to widen the war against Russia in Ukraine into open hostilities against Russia’s regional ally, Iran, with Israel as its chief attack dog.

The Tel Aviv rally was addressed by figures such as former Defence Minister Benny Ganz, retired Supreme Court President Ayala Procaccia, former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Labor Party chairwoman Merav Michaeli, and the leader of the Arab Ra'am Party Mansour Abbas. But these figures, associated with the previous “government of change,” are all massively discredited by its implementation of a right-wing agenda of austerity and war. This led Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer to caution that “this protest still has no leader… The anger against the new government still has to grow, but there was plenty of rancor to be heard around the square from the leaders and activists of left-wing groups…”

Yaakov Katz, writing in the Jerusalem Post, warned the opposition against the dangers of provoking a civil war. He writes, “Talk of a civil war is dangerous. Israel is on the eve of its 75th anniversary and the thought that this latest experiment in Jewish sovereignty in thousands of years will be in jeopardy because of internal discord should shake us all at our core.”

“Yes, the issues that are being brought up are significant, and the consequences are potentially dire. But we must not take this state for granted. We must protect it, and yes, we must also fight for it.”

Given the gravity of the situation, pro-imperialist commentators have appealed for some form of intervention from the US and European powers to curb Netanyahu. Thomas L. Friedman in the January 17 New York Times, pleads to President Biden, “You may be the only one able to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition from turning Israel into an illiberal bastion of zealotry,” adding that, “I fear that Israel is approaching some serious internal civil strife.”

This, he says, “has direct implications for U.S. national security interests. I have no illusions that Biden can reverse the most extreme trends emerging in Israel today, but he can nudge things onto a healthier path, and maybe prevent the worst, with some tough love in a way that no other outsider can.”

Simon Tisdall, writing for similar purposes in the Guardian, warns, “By endangering western public support for the state of Israel, undermining its democracy and confounding its alliances, Netanyahu and his hate-mongering cronies show themselves to be their country’s own worst enemies.” But he is forced to acknowledge the reality that Netanyahu can only proceed with his offensive because “the response to this alarming, destabilising development from Israel’s western allies has been strangely muted…”

He notes that “so far, the US has eschewed overt criticism,” a “shamefully supine approach” also being pursued by the European Union and Britain. Added to this is the shift by the region’s authoritarian Arab regimes towards openly friendly relations with Israel.

The imperialists and the Middle East’s regional powers are united against any challenge to the Israeli government because of their own crisis. They all need to suppress rising social and political opposition to their shared agenda of ever more grotesque enrichment of the financial oligarchy at the direct expense of the workers and oppressed masses, and the drive to imperialist wars of conquest and global hegemony against Russia, China and smaller regimes including Iran and Syria.

The eruption of mass opposition in Israel, for example, coincides with the el-Sisi regime in Egypt passing 38 life sentences against those involved in the 2019 anti-government protests, under conditions of a near meltdown of the economy and rising social discontent. It follows the months-long anti-government protests in Iran.

The mass protests in Israel will change the political climate the world over—just as did the abortive Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.

The denunciations of Netanyahu and his fascist allies by tens of thousands of Israeli demonstrators has given the lie to the global campaign slandering and witch-hunting opponents of Israel’s repression of the Palestinians as anti-Semites—a filthy lie that has seen thousands driven out of Britain’s Labour Party, and numerous academics, artists and political activists victimised in the US and Europe. If they are “anti-Semites,” then so too are hundreds of thousands of Israel’s own citizens!

Conversely, the protests are a powerful refutation of the central tenet of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign, which treats all Israelis as if they share responsibility for the crimes of their government.

The Zionist project of establishing a Jewish state through the violent dispossession of the Arab population has led inexorably to the creation of an apartheid-style regime built on mass repression.