Plane that reportedly carried Wagner leader Evgeny Prigozhin crashes in Russia

Clara Weiss

A private jet that reportedly carried the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Evgeny Prigozhin, along with six top commanders and three crew members, crashed on Wednesday, August 23, in the Russian Tver region. Everyone on board died in the crash. 

A portrait of the owner of private military company Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin lays at an informal memorial next to the former 'PMC Wagner Centre' in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, August 24, 2023. Russia's civil aviation agency says mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was aboard a plane that crashed north of Moscow. [AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky]

Two months ago, on June 24-25, Prigozhin led a short-lived coup attempt against Putin and the army leadership, based on an appeal to pro-NATO factions in the Russian oligarchy. Prigozhin’s Wagner troops had earlier played a central role in the war in Ukraine, which the Putin regime launched in February 2022 after years of imperialist provocations, based on the bankrupt conception that, through limited military action, it could force the imperialist powers to the negotiating table.

The passenger list released by Russia’s aviation agency included, in addition to Prigozhin, Dmitri Utkin, a former member of Russia’s military intelligence (GRU). Utkin is believed to have been the main founder and top commander of Wagner and was known to hold neo-Nazi views. Another leading Wagner figure on board was Valery Chekalov, who was reportedly in charge of managing both Prigozhin’s personal security and Wagner’s finances, which largely derived from state funds. The other four passengers were also leading Wagner commanders.

While the Kremlin has not officially confirmed that Prigozhin has died, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a video Thursday evening, offering his condolences to the family of the victims of the crash. The Russian president said that “if” the Wagner leaders had indeed “been on board,” they should be remembered as “people who have made a substantial contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.” 

He added that he had personally known Prigozhin since the early 1990s and that he considered him, despite “serious mistakes,” to have been a “talented man, a talented businessman” who would yield “necessary results” whenever he had assigned him a task “for our common cause.” Prigozhin, a fascistic figure and ex-convict, had previously been Putin’s personal chef. For many years, he enjoyed the president’s personal protection while building Wagner as a significant paramilitary force and business empire that turned Prigozhin into billionaire.

Despite earlier denunciations of Prigozhin and his supporters as “traitors,” Putin met with Prigozhin and dozens of Wagner commanders just days after the insurrection, and the Kremlin effectively gave carte blanche to the organization in the weeks that followed. Wagner troops continue to operate in Africa on behalf of the Russian government, and on Monday, a Wagner recruitment video surfaced on the internet that appeared to show Prigozhin in a desert in Africa.

Wagner troops were also relocated to Belarus whose president, Alexander Lukashenko, had brokered a deal between Putin and Prigozhin during the coup attempt. In the wake of the failed coup attempt and the relocation of Wagner groups to Belarus, tensions have been growing between NATO member Poland and Belarus, with Poland substantially increasing its troops on the border with Belarus in recent weeks. 

Despite the apparent reintegration of Wagner into the Kremlin’s foreign and military policy, however, there are many indications that the infighting within the state and ruling class had continued. Also on Wednesday, hours before the plane crash, the Kremlin announced that General Sergei Surovikin was removed as the head of the Russian air force. Surovikin is considered the originator of the heavily mined Russian defense lines in Ukraine, which have managed so far to stall the NATO-backed counteroffensive. He was the best known supporter of Prigozhin in the army command and had not been seen since the coup attempt.

The causes of the plane crash remain unclear. The Kremlin is investigating the incident but has not provided an explanation. On Thursday, US officials declared that a preliminary investigation by US intelligence found that the crash was likely caused not by a surface-to-air missile, as had been initially reported, but by a bomb on board the aircraft. 

The Ukrainian regime of Volodymyr Zelensky, which has engaged in multiple incursions of Russian territory and drone strikes on Moscow over the past months, immediately denied any involvement, suggesting that Putin was behind the crash. The Western media too has been quick to suggest that the plane was downed at the order of Vladimir Putin as a “revenge” for the coup attempt and a “message” that was meant for his rivals in the Russian oligarchy. 

It can certainly not be excluded that the Putin regime, which arose out of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991 and is steeped in the methods of gangsterism, or a section of the Russian state apparatus was behind the downing of the plane. However, it is far from the only possible version of events.

It must also be noted that the other cases that are frequently cited in the outlets like the New York Times as examples for previous alleged attempts by Putin to eliminate his political opponents—including the murder of Boris Nemtsov, and the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and of the NATO-backed oppositionist Alexei Navalny—were not only part of the relentless anti-Putin and anti-Russian campaign leading up to the war but also highly dubious and never really clarified. The official media account of Navalny’s alleged Novichok poisoning in 2020, in particular, was so mired in contradictions as to be bordering on the ludicrous.

As for Prigozhin and the Wagner leadership, it is clear that they did not lack enemies inside or outside of Russia, and various political forces had an interest in seeing them dead.

It is noteworthy that early on in its coverage of the plane crash, the Washington Post drew attention to the Pentagon leaks earlier this year, which revealed discussions by the US, Ukraine and other “allies” about plots to eliminate Prigozhin. Based on the leaked document, the Washington Post reported in April that US airstrikes in February 2018 had killed several hundred Wagner fighters in Syria. Another US attack in Libya, where Wagner had also been destroyed, had “destroyed a Wagner logistics aircraft,” according to one leaked document. The Post wrote, 

At a time when Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin has been preoccupied with Kremlin infighting over the paramilitary group’s deepening involvement in the war in Ukraine, U.S. officials depict Wagner’s expanding global footprint as a potential vulnerability.

One document in the trove lists nearly a dozen “kinetic” and other options that could be pursued as part of “coordinated U.S. and allied disruption efforts.” The files propose providing targeting information to help Ukraine forces kill Wagner commanders, and cite other allies’ willingness to take similar lethal measures against Wagner nodes in Africa.

Regardless of who and what was behind the downing of the plane, the death of much of the leadership of Wagner is set to further intensify the crisis of the Putin regime and the conflicts within the Russian oligarchy and state apparatus. Amidst the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, these conflicts have themselves become a component of the warfare. The imperialist powers have long deliberately fueled the infighting within the oligarchy as part of their efforts to bring about a regime change in Moscow, which is itself a central war aim of Washington and Berlin.

Growing mortgage stress in Australia amid cost of living crisis

Vicki Mylonas

With 12 interest rates increases since May 2022, homeowners are confronting steep rises in repayments pushing more and more into mortgage stress.

There were more than 1.4 million borrowers, or 28.7 percent, who were at risk of mortgage stress in June 2023, according to recent research by Roy Morgan. These are the highest levels since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Suburban housing in Hobart, the Tasmanian capital, Australia. [Photo by Graeme Bartlett / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Around 539,000 more households are now at risk then before the interest rate hikes, with research showing that these figures are the “equal biggest number” since May 2008, when there were 1.46 million borrowers at risk of mortgage stress.

With the Reserve Bank of Australia already having hiked the cash rate from a record-low of 0.1 percent in April 2022, to 4.10 percent, any further increases will push the number of borrowers at risk of mortgage stress to around 1.5 million, or 30 percent of borrowers.

Roy Morgan defines mortgage stress as based on the percentage of income a household receives, in proportion to the amount they need to repay, which varies according to the borrower's income levels. A household that spends 30 percent or more of its gross income on mortgage repayments, is classified as being in mortgage stress.

The number of households deemed to be “extremely at risk” of mortgage stress is also increasing. This means that even the interest portion of their repayments exceeds what is deemed an affordable proportion of their income.  There has been an increase of over 400,000 borrowers classified as “extremely at risk,” from a year ago, with around 943,000 or 19.6 percent of borrowers in June 2023 in this category.

According to financial comparison group Canstar, those who took out new loans in April 2022 will be facing mortgage stress. For example, borrowers in the highly expensive housing market of Sydney, who took out a loan in April 2022 of around $1.4 million, could face spending up to 50 percent, if not more, of their income on mortgage repayments by August 2023. This statistic is provided for couples on a combined income of $187,542.

The statistics are similar in other capital cities. Two income households in Melbourne could be paying around 47 percent of their income on mortgage repayments, while those in Perth, Adelaide and Darwin confront the prospect of paying just over 40 percent.

Although official figures indicate that arrears and defaults remain low, they are edging higher from a low base during the pandemic.

The areas with the highest arrears are in the outer suburbs of the major cities. Houses in these areas were marketed as being more “affordable.” But these are also the areas where there is a higher concentration of younger and more recent first home buyers, as well as those on lower incomes.

The highest percentage of arrears in New South Wales are found in the suburb of Katoomba, where 5.5 percent of loans in arrears, followed by Bonnyrigg at 4.9 percent. Following this are the suburbs Forrestfield in Western Australia (4.9 percent), Avoca Dell in South Australia (4.1 percent) and West Melbourne (4.2 percent).

It is these households at risk of default, and with high debt levels, that are also confronting a fall in property prices in these very suburbs. In that scenario, some borrowers may end up with a situation in which their mortgage debts exceed the value of their property.

Recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirms that these areas have borrowers with below average incomes. Only around 5 percent of borrowers in these outer areas of the capital cities have a total weekly income exceeding $3,000.

Arrears are expected to rise further as more and more borrowers are coming off the cheap fixed-rate home loan they initially took out and are rolled over to the higher variable rates. This will tip millions over a mortgage cliff, forcing them to find hundreds of dollars more each month to make repayments.

Canstar estimates that for some now coming off fixed-rates, monthly repayments could increase by up to 63 percent overnight. A borrower repaying $1,200 per month will now need to pay $3,101 per month.

It is estimated that at least 880,000 fixed rate mortgages will expire at the end of 2023, and another 450,000 in 2024. Confronting a financial shock, where interest rates would increase to 6 percent and more, many people will have to make difficult decisions on whether they can afford to keep their homes, and even risk their homes being repossessed.

An article in Nine News stated that there has been a notable increase in the number of homes being repossessed in Sydney.  The article stated that, as of the latest figures from the NSW Supreme Court, 346 writs were issued for the repossession of homes, from January 2023 to June 2023, about 13 per week. This figure is set to double.

The sharp increases in mortgage repayments will force more and more to dip into their savings and cut back on discretionary spending and even non-discretionary items such as grocery shopping.

There has been a record number of Australians working multiple jobs just to keep up with mortgage repayments and the surge in the cost of living. Around 950,000 Australians, according to the ABS, work more than one job.

That is an expression of the broader cost of living crisis. The ABS recently reported that living costs surged in the June quarter, with employee households seeing an increase of 9.6 percent over the previous year.

This is not simply the outcome of automatic economic policies. The governments and state institutions, such as the RBA, are pursuing a class policy. The successive interest rate rises have nothing to do with fighting inflation. In fact, they are driving up costs in housing.

Instead, the aim is to slow the economy, even if it induces a recession, to preempt any wages’ push by the working class. The federal Labor government fully backs the RBA’s program, and is working in tandem with it, by slashing social spending and insisting that workers must “sacrifice” during the deepest cost of living crisis in decades.

Meanwhile. the ruling elite is raking it in. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia reported a cash profit of $10.16 billion for the 2022‒2023 financial year, acknowledging that this ‘boost’ is attribute to the increase in interest rates.

Pakistan’s military strengthens hold over government, reinvigorates ties with Washington

Zayar

With Washington’s support, Pakistan’s military has moved in recent weeks to strengthen its already tight grip on the reins of power.

As legally required, the discredited Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government ceded power to a “pre-election” caretaker government at the beginning of last week. The man selected to serve as interim prime minster, Anwar-ul-Haq, is notorious for his close ties to the military.

President Arif Alvi, right, administrates oath to Anwar-ul-Haq as caretaker Prime Minister during a ceremony, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023 [AP Photo/Pakistan President Office]

The caretaker government is supposed to rule for no more than 90 days, while National Assembly and provincial elections are organized. However, rumours are swirling to the effect that Pakistan’s military, backed by the ruling elite, will greenlight the postponing of elections under a manufactured pretext. The Election Commission has already announced that the elections should be held on the basis of the 2017 census, which would require a months-long process to delimit new electoral districts.

The world’s fifth most populous country, Pakistan is in the throes of multiple, intersecting crises—socioeconomic, political, geopolitical, and environmental. Islamabad is dependent on financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stave off state bankruptcy, while the political establishment is embroiled in bitter factional conflicts, including over how to straddle the ever-widening geopolitical divide between China and US imperialism.

Powerful sections of the ruling class view a caretaker government, acting in close cooperation with the military and to a large degree at its command, to be its most effective means of implementing a new round of IMF-imposed economic restructuring in the face of mass discontent, while containing the factional warfare among its political parties.

On its first day in office, the caretaker government raised fuel prices, delivering yet another punishing blow to the country’s impoverished masses. According to government data, prices rose 3.46 percent in July, pushing the year-to-year inflation rate above 28 percent.

Earlier this week, the caretaker government pushed through highly controversial changes to the Official Secrets Act and Pakistan Army Act that are aimed at shielding the military from criticism and preventing exposure of its crimes. The amendments were reputedly adopted over the objection of Pakistan’s president, Arif Alvi, an ally of the now jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan, raising a question mark over their legality.

Until his appointment as prime minister, Anwar-Ul-Haq had a low political profile. But he has a well-deserved reputation as a staunch ally of the military. He has been a strident supporter of its brutal crackdown against an ethnically based separatist insurgency in his home province of Balochistan, which has included widespread disappearances, torture and other crimes. The interim Prime Minister’s appointment required the ascent of both the outgoing Pakistan Muslim League (Sharif)-led PDM government and the main opposition party, which is Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI—Pakistan Movement for Justice).

Agreement on a $3 billion emergency IMF loan to avert imminent state bankruptcy was only reached at the last minute in late June and sanctioned by the IMF’s board of directors in mid-July. During the months-long negotiations, Pakistan government officials repeatedly accused the US-dominated IMF of moving the “goal posts” and demanding ever more draconian, pro-global investor measures. While this is undoubtedly true, it is evident that there was also a parallel back-channel negotiation, in which US imperialism extorted significant secret concessions from Islamabad.

New military pact with Washington

In early August, it was announced that a key US-Pakistan military agreement, the “Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement,” which had lapsed in 2020 after 15 years had been renewed. The agreement, like similar such agreements with other important US allies, provides a framework for joint operations, possible US accessing of Pakistani military bases and logistical support, and weapon sales.

Since Pakistan’s creation through the bloody communal partition of South Asia in 1947-48, Washington has backed a series of brutal military dictatorships in the country and viewed the alliance between the Pentagon and the Pakistan army as the lynchpin of its patron-client relationship with Pakistan’s venal ruling elite.

US imperialism’s embrace of India as a frontline state in its preparations for war with Beijing drove Pakistan over the past decade-and-a-half to develop closer economic and military relations with China, including through the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. As a result, Islamabad’s traditional partnership with Washington has badly frayed.

In April 2022, Khan’s and his PTI were removed from office after the military signaled that it had withdrawn its support, and the government lost a parliamentary non-confidence vote.

Since then, the military and, during its 16 months in office, the PDM government have sought to mend fences with US imperialism. Washington, for its part, is determined to exploit Pakistan’s economic and geopolitical vulnerabilities for all their worth. There are growing indications that Pakistan may be supplying Ukraine with weaponry for its US-NATO proxy war on Russia though a third state or states. In July, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba paid a two-day visit to Pakistan, the first such trip by a Ukrainian Foreign Minister in the more than three decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

On the domestic front, the state apparatus is continuing its campaign of repression against Khan and his PTI. While Khan was once a protégé of the military, the top brass—shaken by the targeting of military personnel and installations during the mass protests that erupted in early May following his seizure-arrest by paramilitary forces—are determined to subject him to exemplary punishment.

The PTI is a right-wing Islamic populist party. During its three-and-a-half years of rule, beginning in August 2018, the PTI imposed brutal austerity measures at the IMF’s behest. Nonetheless, the PTI is currently believed to be the country’s most popular party. This is a measure of the hostility among the masses to the military, the other establishment parties, and Washington, whose bullying and brutal conduct of the neo-colonial Afghan war, Khan has at times criticized from a Pakistani nationalist-Islamicist perspective.

At the beginning of this month, Khan was convicted of corruption and jailed for three years for having illegally profited from gifts given to him while Pakistan’s prime minster. Corruption is endemic within Pakistan’s elite and the country’s governments, Khan’s included, have routinely used corruption cases to victimize their political opponents, while eagerly stuffing their own pockets full. On Aug. 8, the Election Commission, citing Khan’s corruption conviction, issued a five-year ban on his standing for election.

Khan faces dozens of other outstanding criminal cases, including potential terrorism charges. Hundreds of PTI supporters remain incarcerated following mass arrests aimed at quelling last May’s mass protests and exacting revenge for their marked anti-Army character. The crackdown has prompted much of the PTI leadership, including many of those who had previously served as key officials in the Musharraf dictatorship, to abandon Khan and the PTI.

Leaked cypher points to Washington’s role in Khan’s ouster

Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the PTI’s vice-chair and Khan’s Foreign Minister, was arrested last Saturday amid claims that he leaked a 2022 diplomatic cypher (coded communication) from Pakistan’s US ambassador in which he reported that Washington was urging Khan be removed as Prime Minister. The cypher came in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to which Khan, who was visiting Russia at the time, responded by declaring Pakistan’s neutrality and eagerness to develop closer relations with the Putin regime.

The cypher was published by The Intercept earlier this month. Qureshi is expected to be charged under the newly amended Official Secrets Act.

The cypher included an account of a meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan's ambassador to the US.

It reports Lu as threatening things would be “tough” for Pakistan unless Imran Khan was removed from office. “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds,” said Biden’s Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, “all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise,” he continued, “I think it will be tough going ahead.”

The military helped engineer Imran Khan’s victory in the 2018 elections over the two parties that for decades had dominated Pakistan electoral politics, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PML (N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). But it soured on him after a clash in the fall of 2021 over the appointment of the head of the main military intelligence agency, the ISI, and his decision, in the face of popular protests, to roll back energy price increases he had imposed in Jan. 2023 on the orders of the IMF. Khan’s stance on the US-NATO war with Russia, which the military and most of the Pakistani ruling class saw as needlessly imperiling Islamabad’s relations with Washington, was the last straw.

In April 2022, Khan was voted out of office, after issuing repeated statements charging a foreign power was orchestrating his removal. He subsequently shifted to accusing a senior military officer of leading the effort to oust his government. Over the past year, he has blown hot and cold on the issue, sometimes attacking the US and the military top brass and other times offering to work closely with them.

The Biden administration responded to the publication of the cypher with a hypocritical denial/non-denial. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “Nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be.” (Only who it should not be). Miller then declared he would not comment on private diplomatic discussions.

Shabaz Sharif, the head of the PML (N) and prime minister in the PDM government, termed the leak of the cypher to The Intercept a “massive crime,” while the now ex-Interior Minister, Rana Sanaullah, called for Imran Khan to be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. “Khan,” he declared, “has hatched a conspiracy against the state’s interests and a case will be initiated against him on behalf of the state for the violation of the Official Secrets Act.”

Under PDM rule, ruthless austerity measures demanded by the IMF were implemented. Social misery was compounded by last year’s devastating floods, which impacted 33 million people, killed over 1,700, and left wide swathes of the country in ruins.

Conditions for Pakistan’s workers and toilers will only worsen as the caretaker government implements further IMF austerity measures and Pakistan’s economy is battered by the headwinds of global inflation, rising interest rates, and slowing growth.

Faced with growing social anger and unrest, the Pakistani ruling class is relying, as it has in the past, on state repression, led by the military, and fanning Islamic fundamentalism and communalism. Last week, mobs, whipped up by claims two Christians had desecrated the Koran, burned at least five churches to the ground in Jaranwala, a city in Punjab, vandalized more than 15 others, and terrorized a Christian neighbourhood, ransacking dozens of homes.

Eighteen migrants killed as fires rage in Greece and southern Europe

Robert Stevens

Europe’s “Fortress Europe” policy led to the horrific deaths of at least 18 migrants in Greece Tuesday.

The migrants were burnt to death as wildfires continued to rip through Greece, with their charred bodies found by the fire service in the Dadia Forest near a shack outside the village of Avantas, north of Alexandroupolis. Among the dead were 16 adult males and two children. Pavlos Pavlidis, the coroner for Alexandroupolis said, “They were all found in groups of two or three at a distance of five hundred metres, apparently while trying to escape, and some of them had been burned in a shed [where livestock are usually kept].”

A forest on fire in the village of Dikela, near Alexandroupolis town, in the northeastern Evros region, Greece, August 22, 2023. [AP Photo/Achilleas Chiras]

The authorities had no reports that any locals were missing in the area and thousands of people had evacuated the area, with a 112 emergency message sent to their mobile phones.

The terrible plight facing asylum seekers is evidenced in this tragedy. Those who perished had made the perilous crossing in the Evros region near the border with Turkey and had been hiding in forests north of the port city Alexandroupolis. In the hours leading up to their deaths, surrounded by encroaching fires and breathing in air filled with toxic smoke, they had not alerted the authorities of their presence out of fear of the consequences.

The BBC reported Wednesday that a Syrian man “has told the BBC he fears his 27-year-old cousin died in the blaze as he has been unable to reach him for four days. The cousin was among a group of Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis hoping to follow a well-worn path through the forest.

“The Syrian said they would not have called Greek authorities for help, despite the evacuation order, for fear of being sent back across the border to Turkey.”

Many more migrants could be dead due to the fires and the brutal anti-immigration regime they face in Greece. Alarm Phone, a volunteer organisation which asylum seekers can call when in danger posted a tweet Tuesday afternoon: “We are in contact with 2 groups of ~250 people in total, who are stranded on different islets of the #Evros river! One group shared a video of the fires raging nearby. They say ‘The fires are getting very close to us now. We need help as soon as possible!’”

Around an hour later they posted another message:

“We received a new alert for a group of ~9 people near #Soufli in the #Evros area! They tell us one person struggles to breathe. They unable to move due to the nearby fires and worry they will die. They need urgent help. @hellenicpolice : evacuate them now!”

Greece’s right-wing New Democracy government responded with a statement, abdicating all responsibility for the deaths and using them to whip up further anti-immigration sentiment. Shedding crocodile tears, Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Keridis declared the government’s “great sadness” at the loss of life, and “despite the continuous and persistent efforts of the Greek authorities to protect the borders and human life, this tragedy confirms, once again, the dangers of illegal immigration.”

The situation in Greece has worsened drastically since the initial outbreak of wildfires last month. In the area where the bodies were found wildfires had been raging for a fourth day and continue to burn. Evacuation orders were issued for villages in Greece’s northern regions of Alexandroupolis, Komotini, Kavala and Orestiada, the central region of Viotia and the island of Evia.

On Monday, an elderly shepherd died trying to save his flock near the village of Prodormos, in the prefecture of Viotia.

In Alexandroupolis, more than 13,000 people were evacuated Monday and Tuesday, of a population of around 72,000. A major hospital in the city was evacuated late Monday, with 160 patients transferred, including 65 on a ferry, to other health centres in northern Greece. The Financial Times reported, “A woman had to give birth in an ambulance on Monday night as she was being escorted from the hospital.”

Greece is no longer able to even adequately safeguard some of its key NATO infrastructure, vital in the military bloc’s war against Russia in Ukraine. The port of Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea provides crucial road and rail links north through the alliance’s eastern flank, and access to Ukraine via Bulgaria and Romania. In July, fires set ablaze a military warehouse just miles from the major military air base in Nea Anchialos, central Greece. The fires ignited ammunition setting off huge explosions, with bombs and ammunition for Greek F-16 fighter jets stored at the site.

The capital Athens, already threatened by the July wildfires, was again endangered when a fire broke out on foothills close to Mount Parnitha. The fire required the evacuation of a monastery and the closure of a section of Athens’ suburban road network. On the outskirts of the city of over 3.5 million people, a fire reached the industrial town of Aspropyrgos where four factories and five warehouse were set alight. According to state broadcaster ERT, explosions were heard. The authorities ordered the evacuation of several nearby villages.

On Monday, a new fire broke out in the central region of Boeotia, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Athens, which saw the historic 10th-century monastery of Hosios Loukas burnt down.

Fires are raging on Greece’s Evia and Kynthos islands. A second fire broke out Monday on Evia burning forest and farmland near the town of Psachna.

Greece’s fire service has been overwhelmed by fires spreading due to prolonged record high temperatures and gale force winds. A spokeswoman told AFP, “There are nine active fronts… it’s a similar situation to July.”

The Financial Times reported, “Copernicus, the EU’s weather monitoring service, said that by July 22, more than 182,568 hectares—an area almost six times the size of Malta—had been reduced to ashes by wildfires. That figure was more than 40 per cent above the year-to-date average between 2003 and 2022, it said, with fires continuing to rage across the bloc.”

The catastrophe worsens, as reported by the Press Project, “More than 400,000 hectares have been burnt by the fires in the Greek territory in the last three days, according to the preliminary analysis of satellite data conducted by the Meteo unit of the National Observatory of Athens (NAA).” This included, “Approximately 380,000 acres in Evros; about 30,000 acres in Rodopi; 380,000 acres in Boeotia; almost 8,000 acres have been burnt in Kythnos; about 5 000 hectares have been burnt in Psacha.”

The fires and destruction is being replicated across Europe’s southern states.

In Spain, a wildfire has burnt for a week on the popular tourist destination island, Tenerife. This forced the evacuation of 12,000 people as 15,000 hectares of land was burnt—fully 7 percent of the Canary island’s entire surface area.

A wildfire which started late Monday on the Italian island of Elba required the evacuation of 700 people from homes and a campsite.

There has been no co-ordinated response by the European Union. In response to the latest fires Greece’s fire service said that among six countries—Cyprus, Romania, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany and Serbia—just 120 firefighters had been sent via the EU’s civil protection mechanism to help fight fires.

Europe’s capitalist states are lavishing tens of billions of euros funding their war machines and the conflict in Ukraine, meaning that vital public services such as firefighting are being decimated. Greece’s cumulative budget cuts to the Fire Service exceeded €1 billion between 2010 and 2019 in austerity measures imposed by successive governments, including the pseudo-left SYRIZA from 2015.

Last week, the Euronews site reported, “In 2022, there were almost 360,000 professional firefighters—2,800 fewer than there were in 2021, according to the EU’s statistical office Eurostat.” France slashed its firefighting force by 5,446 workers between 2021 and 2022, the most of any EU country. Romania cuts its force by 4,250, and Portugal by 2,907. Devastating cuts have been imposed by eastern European states, with Slovakia cutting firefighter numbers by 30 percent, and Bulgaria (22 percent). Portugal cut numbers by 21 percent and Belgium 19 percent. The report noted “Latvia, Sweden, Hungary and Germany also saw cuts.”

COVID hospitalizations double amid worsening US pandemic surge

Benjamin Mateus

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hospitalizations for COVID-19 have doubled since reaching their lows in the week ending on June 24, 2023. During that week, 6,313 people were admitted for COVID infections. For the week ending August 12, 2023, hospitalizations rose to 12,613.

These limited yet crucial statistics, released belatedly, well after the fact, only underscore that the summer wave of COVID-19 is all too real. It has also been under way for several months without any warnings from the public health agency or concerns raised by the Biden administration.

On the contrary, the CDC, through the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), has been diligent in attempting to walk back the dangers posed by the virus since the agency ended public health emergency phase of COVID-19 pandemic in May.

Entirely ignoring the reality that SARS-CoV-2 is an aerosolized virus that infects poorly protected people through the air, the CDC has suggested by respirators show no more benefit than surgical masks in controlling infections and are more cumbersome for healthcare workers.

In a letter dated July 20, 2023, sent by experts in occupational safety and health, medicine, epidemiology, industrial hygiene, ventilation, aerosol science, and public health to new CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen, the authors warned:

We are deeply concerned, based on work group presentations at the June 2023 HICPAC meeting, that the revised CDC/HICPAC guidelines will severely weaken protections for health care personnel exposed to infectious aerosols, including SARS-CoV-2. The draft recommendations fail to reflect what has been confirmed about aerosol transmission by inhalation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The draft recommendations do not adequately provide for the proper control measures—isolation, ventilation, and NIOSH-approved respirators—to protect against transmission of infectious aerosols. They are weaker than existing CDC infection control guidelines. The draft recommendations, if adopted, will put health care personnel and patients at serious risk of harm from exposure to infectious aerosols.

The complacent inaction of the CDC will have significant implication for the future of pandemic preparedness and the well-being of frontline workers, and by extension, the population as a whole, who rely on appropriate evidence-based recommendations. All the more criminal, this refusal to fight the latest COVID upsurge was carefully thought out in advance, and bears the stamp of the White House and corporate America.

Meanwhile, the latest wastewater data shows that levels of SARS-CoV-2 continue to climb across all regions of the United States, corresponding to around 610,000 COVID infections per day. Despite limited testing, positivity rates nationally are at 45 percent, as evidenced by the Walgreens COVID-19 Index, providing even further evidence of the high levels of COVID transmission across the country. Most of these are in highly urbanized areas in every region: East, Midwest, South, and West.

In the mountain regions of the Northwest and Northeast, along the Canadian border, no testing is being reported, which indicates the population is blind to the state of the pandemic.

Now the peak of the summer surge is intersecting with the return to school by tens of millions of children and young adults piled into crowded classrooms which will provide the current wave of infections something akin to a gravitational slingshot that will speed the rates of infection like a boomerang back into their communities.

The case of schools in Lee County, Kentucky, is exemplary, as they opened for in-person instruction just two weeks ago. On August 18, 150 students (20 percent of the student body) were out sick, according to Superintendent Earl Ray Shuler. Officials have called off classes for Tuesday and Wednesday “due to student and staff illness,” with return to non-traditional instruction for Thursday and Friday.

The current surge in infections exposes the lie that the coronavirus is just another virus that can be largely ignored or treated like just another flu. It also lays bare the criminal scheme by the ruling elites, executed by their political operatives in governments around the world, led by the US, to declare the pandemic over and force a grossly negligent approach to dealing with COVID.

Joe Biden in his interview with 60 Minutes, where he declared the pandemic over. (Credit: CBS)

Accepting the virus as a permanent feature in every community around the globe means waves of infections that continue unabated and uncontrolled viral evolution. This raises the specter of a virus developing greater lethality, causing higher levels of chronic disability with Long COVID, displaying complete immune-evasion and becoming more transmissible. These concerns are not exaggerated.

For instance, BA.2.86 (dubbed Pirola), the new Omicron sub-variant under monitoring, as declared on Thursday by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been detected in six countries—Denmark, South Africa, the United States, Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It has more than 30 mutations in its spike protein, making it potentially the most formidable variant since Omicron appeared in late 2021. Meanwhile, EG.5 (Eris), descendant of XBB.1.9.2, which is now the dominant Omicron sub-variant in the US and globally, has itself acquired more immune-evasive characteristics.

Experts have also warned about additional mutations that possess FLip mutations in EG.5 and rarer variants of XBB.1.5 that work synergistically to both increase the variants’ transmissibility while reducing the number of antibodies that the immune system can generate to fight it.

As a recent BMJ article explained, “The L455F and F456L mutations are nicknamed FLip mutations because they switch the positions of two amino acids on the spike protein labelled F and L. These mutations were predicted months ago as a likely consequence of the widespread use of monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID.”

The report continued, “The EG.5 variant descends from and resembles the still circulating XBB.1.9.2, but with the addition of one FLip mutation, F456L. Its subvariant EG.5.1 carries a further spike mutation called Q52H. The role played by Q52H is still unclear, but it appears to boost potency, as this subvariant has already overtaken its progenitor.”

However, a legion of public officials and supposed media experts, rather than take a sober measure of these concerning developments and speak directly to the precautions that must be taken, instead repeat the standard line that the severity and deadliness of the current iterations of the virus remain unchanged and therefore can be ignored.

This is an insult to the memory of the more than 24 million people who have perished over the last three and half years and the close to 10,000 global daily excess deaths, a figure that remains persistently high. It is a slap in the face of the hundreds of millions of people who suffer Long COVID globally, in whom their infection has led to injury and dysfunction in a wide range of cell types affecting almost every organ system in the human body without any viable treatment for the complex chronic disease.

The publication in Nature of the latest study by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and colleagues from the Washington University School of medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, on the impact of Long COVID two years after infection, provides objective evidence for the serious health consequences posed by the coronavirus.

In this large population study involving patients from the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, the authors studied the risk trajectories for 80 components of Long COVID over two years post-infection to glean the long-term complications associated with the disease.

In non-hospitalized people, risk of death remains elevated up to six months and risk of hospitalization for 19 months. Two years in, coagulation disorders, pulmonary disorders, fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes and other sequalae remain increased, “suggesting a longer lasting risk horizon for these organ systems,” according to Al-Aly.

However, for those who were hospitalized for their infection, risk of death and hospitalizations remained elevated compared to non-infected controls at two years. Sixty-five percent of sequelae of the 80 components being measured (these involved every organ system) remained at elevated risk at the end of the study period.  

The essence of the forever COVID policy ruthlessly practiced by the ruling elites means that this dangerous virus that should be contained in a BSL-3 laboratory is allowed to undergo a dynamic gain-of-function experiment (a test of a virus’s ability to develop its potency and infectiousness) on a global scale with the entire human population being used as test subjects.

Many of the lab leak conspiracists have claimed, without a shred of evidence, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that first broke out in late 2019 in Wuhan, China was a byproduct of nefarious bioengineering tricks, such as gain-of-function experiments, that make viruses or other pathogens more transmissible or virulent. And despite the preponderance of evidence that continues to support a zoonotic spillover at the open-air Huanan Seafood Market, a byproduct of live animal trades that had been previously documented, they and their spokesmen in the mainstream media continue to insist that a lab leak is an equivalent hypothesis, when in the last three years, not one datum of evidence has supported these claims, which even the US intelligence agencies were forced to admit.

The same fascist elements that spearheaded the lab leak conspiracy theory have also been taking the lead in the campaigns against vaccination, masking and other forms of mitigations. In other words, while claiming falsely that a Chinese lab created the original virus, these same political provocateurs, backed by wide sections of the corporate media and political establishment, support turning the entire world into a laboratory for creating endless waves of newer and more lethal versions of SARS-CoV-2.

Military-backed coalition government installed in Thailand

Robert Campion

A joint session of Thailand’s parliament on Tuesday selected Pheu Thai Party (PT) candidate Srettha Thavisin to become the next prime minister—a decision that was endorsed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn last night. The new government will be sworn in within 15 days.

Srettha Thavisin pays respect in front of portrait of King Maha Vajiralongkorn as he receives the royal endorsement appointing him as the new prime minister in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. [AP Photo/Government Spokesman Office]

Srettha, a property tycoon, won 482 votes out of 728 present members in a joint sitting of parliament, including 152 votes from the current 249 seats held in the military-appointed Senate. The upper house had previously blocked the formation of a coalition government headed by the Move Forward Party (MFP), which won 151 seats in May’s general election, the most of any party.

Following Tuesday’s vote, Srettha, who is not a member of parliament, gave a perfunctory victory speech lasting a minute. He avoided interacting with the media before being shepherded away by PT leaders including Paetongtarn Shinawatra who refused to comment.

Pheu Thai, which won 141 seats, initially joined an MFP-led coalition before dumping the general election winner and instead joining arms with the right-wing Bhumjaithai Party (71 seats). Later two main military-backed parties joined the coalition—the United Thai Nation Party (UTN) with 36 seats and the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) holding 40 seats. Seven other minor parties also joined, giving a lower house majority of 314 out of 500 seats.

Pheu Thai has stated it would control eight cabinet posts and nine deputy cabinet posts while the military-backed parties would receive two cabinet posts and two deputy posts each. Ministries are yet to be allocated but it is almost certain that the military will assume control of the key security posts.

Pheu Thai’s formation of a government with these parties demonstrates its complete repudiation of any democratic pretensions. The PPRP is the outgoing ruling party and headed the coalition that held power after the fraudulent 2019 election and included UTN and Bhumjaithai.

Furthermore, UTN and the PPRP are the political vehicles of the generals who led the 2014 military coup against the PT government of Yingluck Shinawatra. Outgoing prime minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha joined UTN early this year after splitting from the PPRP. General Prawit Wongsuwon leads the PPRP and is the outgoing deputy prime minister.

The inclusion of the military-backed parties in the new coalition overturns promises made by PT and has angered many supporters of the party, which had postured as an opponent of military rule. Srettha told the Straits Times before the May election, “We only work with parties… that are not responsible for the coup.”

PT leader Cholnan Srikaew, who earlier declared he would step down if the party broke its promise, is now chief spokesman for the new coalition. Justifying the party’s about face, the declared: “The goal right now is shared responsibility for the sake of the country.”

The new government amounts to a repudiation of the popular vote in May, which was characterized by a broad rejection of the military and its political parties. The incoming government’s pledge to reform the thoroughly anti-democratic, military-imposed constitution to “make it more democratic” is entirely empty.

Pheu Thai is the successor of Thai Rak Thai, which was founded in 1998 by Thaksin Shinawatra and came to power in 2001 pledging assistance for the poor in the wake of the devastating impact of the 1997‒1998 Asian financial crisis. Thaksin, a billionaire and former police lieutenant colonel, postured as an alternative to the traditional elites in the monarchy, military, and state bureaucracy.

As prime minister, Thaksin won a significant following among the poor with his limited financial assistance to rural areas and provision of health care. At the same time, however, his government privatized state-owned enterprises, suppressed freedom of the press, and carried out a savage “war on drugs” that hit the most oppressed social layers hardest. In the first three months, some 2,800 extrajudicial murders took place.

The traditional ruling elites who had backed Thaksin initially increasingly turned against him as his pro-market policies cut across their interests. He was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and fled the country in 2008 after being convicted of trumped-up corruption charges.

Thai Rak Thai transformed into the People’s Power Party (PPP) returned to office in 2008. At the end of that year, this party was banned in what was essentially a judicial coup and replaced by the military-aligned Democratic Party. Anger grew and PPP supporters led by the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), also known as Red Shirts staged large and protracted protests against the military government. Mass demonstrations in 2010 were violently suppressed by the military which opened fire on protesters, killing 91 and injuring thousands.

In 2011, Thaksin’s party, renamed as Pheu Thai, won the national election and came to power again, with his sister Yingluck as prime minister. She was subsequently ousted in the 2014 coup that brought Prayut and the military to power and led to the creation of the 2017 constitution.

Now Pheu Thai is effectively in alliance with the military. Indicating the extent of discussions between PT and the military, Thaksin returned to Thailand on Tuesday. Undoubtedly a deal has been struck behind the scenes to ensure Thaksin does not serve any significant jail time, in exchange for toeing the military’s line.

The ruling class undoubtedly intends to exploit PT and Thaksin to suppress the growing anger of workers and the poor towards declining economic conditions. According to the Bank of Thailand, the ratio of public debt to GDP at 61.6 percent is the highest of any incoming government in over two decades. The growth rate for the second quarter was a sluggish 1.8 percent according to the National Economic and Social Development Council, well below the 3.1 percent expansion expected by economists.

Significantly Pheu Thai’s coalition has received the tacit support of the so-called “progressive” Move Forward Party, led by wealthy businessman Pita Limjaroenrat. While the MFP voted against Srettha in a calculated move to maintain its oppositional posturing, it has conducted no campaign against the anti-democratic methods used to install the new coalition.

After the Senate rejected Pita as prime minister on July 13 and barred him from renomination, he was suspended from parliament by the military-appointed Constitutional Court on July 19 on concocted charges. MFP stepped back to allow Pheu Thai to form a government and continued to support PT even as it became clear the latter was in talks with the military parties and would push the MFP into the opposition.

The MFP limited its response to petitioning the Constitutional Court on Pita’s behalf, arguing for his ability to stand again for prime minister. The case was dismissed last week on the technicality that the MPs making the petition were not prime ministerial candidates and hence were not directly affected by the decision.

DAAD MIPLC Scholarships 2024/2025

Application Deadline: 15th October, 2023

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the DAAD MIPLC Scholarships: With its development-oriented postgraduate study programmes, the DAAD promotes the training of specialists from development and newly industrialised countries. Well-trained local experts, who are networked with international partners, play an important part in the sustainable development of their countries. They are the best guarantee for a better future with less poverty, more education and health for all. The scholarships offer foreign graduates from development and newly industrialised countries from all disciplines and with at least two years’ professional experience the chance to take a postgraduate or Master’s degree at a state or state-recognised German university, and in exceptional cases to take a doctoral degree, and to obtain a university qualification (Master’s/PhD) in Germany.

Fields of Study: Development-Related Postgraduate Courses

Type: Postgraduate

Eligibility: Candidates eligible for the DAAD scholarship for “Development-Related Postgraduate Courses” must:

• hold at least a four-year Bachelor’s degree (or a three-year Bachelor’s degree plus a further degree), completed with above-average results.
• have received their latest degree no more than six years ago.
• have at least two years of full-time professional experience gained in a public authority or a state or private company in a developing country (university staff and academics are generally not taken into account). To meet this requirement, it is sufficient if candidate has completed the two years by the time the program starts in October. In any case, the experience must have been gained after the completion of your first university degree.
• have English test scores which meet the MIPLC requirements (see scholarship website).

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• The scholarship recipient(s) will get a full tuition waiver from the MIPLC.
• The DAAD will pay the scholarship recipient(s) a monthly stipend of EUR 750.00.
• As a rule, the scholarship additionally includes certain payments towards health, accident and liability insurance coverage in Germany.
• In addition, the DAAD will generally pay an appropriate travel allowance, unless these costs are covered by the home country or by another funding source.
• Furthermore, the DAAD will also pay a study and research allowance.
• Last but not least, the scholarship covers a mandatory two-month German course before the start of the MIPLC LL.M. program.

The scholarship does not cover additional costs, e.g. enrollment fees or the fees for a semester ticket for public transport in Munich.

Duration of Scholarship: Duration of course

How to Apply for the DAAD MIPLC Scholarships: You may apply more than a year in advance. To apply for this scholarship, please proceed as follows:

1. Please refer to the List of all Postgraduate courses 2024/25 and read the information carefully.
2. Determine whether you are eligible to apply by DAAD and MIPLC standards, keeping in mind that where MIPLC and DAAD have differing requirements, the stricter requirements prevail.
3. Apply for admission to the MIPLC (please refer to the How to Apply page).
4. When you come to the end of the online application form, check “I would like to apply for the DAAD scholarship” and complete the MIPLC Financial Assistance Application Form that opens automatically (please refer to the Financial Assistance Application Instructions).
5. Print the forms and add all required documentation, as per the instructions provided.
6. Download and complete the DAAD Scholarship Application Form and add the other documents required by the DAAD (please refer to the DAAD brochure; NB: the MIPLC does not require a research proposal). You only have to submit one copy of each document, even if a document, e.g. your CV, is required by both MIPLC and DAAD.
7. Make sure that your file is complete, including all three application forms
   (the MIPLC application form for admission; the MIPLC application form for financial assistance, and the DAAD application form for the scholarship)
   and all the required documents. Otherwise, your application cannot be processed. Please note that we only need the original application package, no additional copies.
8. Make copies of all application documents. If your are awarded the scholarship, you will have to upload electronic copies of these documents to the DAAD’s system.
9. Send your application: Please submit your application directly to the MIPLC, unless you are from Cameroon, in which case you must submit your application through the German Embassy in your country. Your complete file must reach the MIPLC by October 15 of the year preceding the program start.

Visit DAAD MIPLC Scholarships Webpage for details