No compromise in economic war against China, says US commerce secretary

Nick Beams

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has made it clear to her Chinese counterparts during a four-day visit to the country this week that there will be no let up in the economic warfare waged by Washington.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo reacts during the press conference at the Boeing Shanghai Aviation Service Co., Ltd, in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. [AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool]

The main purpose of the visit and the talks, which the US has said are aimed at keeping open lines of communication, has been to ensure that China does not escalate retaliatory measures in response to a swathe of US sanctions covering the export of high-tech components and US investments in Chinese enterprises.

Even as it intensifies the pressure, the US is seeking to extract concessions from Beijing. As was the case earlier this year during visits by US officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Raimondo’s statements reeked of hypocrisy. She made clear the US is not going to shift from its measures being implemented under the banner of “national security.”

Speaking on her departure to return to the US, Raimondo said the newly established “commercial relations working group” would lessen frictions and was the beginning of a new relationship overcoming the problems of the past.

“We have to make it different. The US-Chinese relationship is too consequential and we can’t drift to a place of greater conflict.”

Raimondo, however, made clear in the course of her visit that there will be no let up in the economic war waged by the US.

Speaking to reporters during a high-speed train trip from Beijing to Shanghai earlier this week, she told reporters: “Increasingly I hear from businesses, ‘China is uninvestible because it’s become too risky.’ There are the traditional concerns that they’ve become accustomed to dealing with. And then there’s a whole new set of concerns, the sum total of which is making China too risky for them to invest.”

The chief factor that has increased the risk is the ever-growing list of US sanctions aimed at the high-tech sector. The US claims they are narrowly based but the aim is actually to cripple China’s development in this area, now and into the future.

On Monday the two sides agreed to establish more dialogue on commercial questions and to set up regular meetings to share information on the enforcement of the Biden administration’s export controls.

However, that will not mean any concessions by the US. As Bloomberg reported: “Raimondo emphasized… that opening the lines of communication wouldn’t result in Beijing influencing US policy. She said she refused requests from Chinese officials during the visit that the US lower tariffs, cut export controls and scrap plans to limit some forms of outbound investment.”

The “information exchange” was to build an understanding about US laws, not to open the door for negotiation.

“The very fact that now we would have informal communication, be able to pick up the phone and talk, is a step forward,” she said. “It doesn’t mean when we talk, I’m going to compromise or concede. It means we have a shot at reducing miscalculation and sharing information.”

The reference to “miscalculation” is the fear in Washington that, in response to its increasing economic belligerence, China is going to hit back with its own sanctions that will impact vital supply chains before the US has developed alternatives.

China has announced restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium, both of which are used in making computer chips. In May, it banned the use of products from the US firm Micron Technology, the biggest American maker of chips, citing network security risks.

In a vivid display of the staggering hypocrisy of US statements, Raimondo said there had been no rationale given for what had happened to Micron. There was “no place for arbitrary rules, lack of due process, lack of clarity, lack of the rule of law.” That was an “unlevel playing field… and we’re going to stand up to them when they do that.”

The response from Beijing, as expressed by Premier Li Qiang, who met with Raimondo, contained pious hopes, coupled with a warning.

Li called the economic ties between the two countries the “ballast and anchor of stability.” He added that “we do hope the US side will work in the same direction as the Chinese side, show sincerity and take concrete actions to maintain and further develop the bilateral relationship.”

But as Li and the entire political leadership are well aware, none of that is going to happen. The US is hell-bent on suppressing the economic advance of China particularly regarding high-tech development which it regards as an existential threat to its economic hegemony, quite apart from any military implications.

The conflict between the world’s number one and number two economies is very often described as a new Cold War. This is a serious misdiagnosis.

The existence of the Soviet Union and its military capacity formed an obstacle to US global ambitions. Washington always harboured the desire to overturn the nationalised property relations established by the October 1917 revolution. But despite the enormous economic advances these property relations made possible, the Soviet Union never constituted a threat to the economic supremacy of the US.

Today, as the US continues its economic decline, its once dominant industrial capacity seriously undermined by the growth of financial parasitism and recurring financial crises, China does. This situation is the driving force of its interconnected offensive: escalating economic warfare and the ever-increasing preparations for a military conflict.

In remarks reported by the Chinese state-owned news agency Xinhua, Li fired something of a warning shot across the US juggernaut.

“Politicising economic and trade issues and overstretching the concept of security will not only seriously affect bilateral relations and mutual trust but also undermine the interests and enterprises of the two countries and will have a disastrous impact on the global economy.”

In other words, under conditions where the Chinese economy—a mainstay for global growth, especially since the financial crisis of 2008—is already experiencing major economic and financial problems, the US drive to bring it down could have major consequences for the global economy, on which the US ultimately depends.

Recently at a fundraising event, Biden, having just made an executive order banning US investments in high-tech areas in China, gleefully referred to the lowered Chinese growth rate and said it was a “ticking time bomb.”

Such is the interconnected character of the global economy, he may well find that it blows up in his face.

Sri Lanka Insurance management announces new job-destruction scheme

Jothipala Dadigama & S.K Keerthi

Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) management has announced an Early Retirement Benefits Scheme (ERBS), following its previously introduced Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). Supported by the SLIC trade unions, both schemes are in order to restructure the state-owned enterprise by slashing jobs, wages and working conditions.

Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation workers protesting in Colombo on 8 December 2022.

The schemes are part of the Wickremesinghe government’s cost-cutting privatisation and restructure of hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOE) as dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a $US3 billion bailout loan. In March, the Wickremesinghe government’s cabinet of ministers approved the sale of shares in SLIC and six other SOEs. Three consultancy firms have been appointed to monitor and speed up this process. Next month an IMF team will visit Sri Lanka to review the progress of its austerity program.

Union officials endorsed the VRS, following secret wine-and-dine discussions with the management on June 16 and 17 at the MAS training centre at Thulhiriya, 70 kilometres from Colombo.

The VRS will be available to employees who have worked at SLIC for over five years. They will be divided into different categories, according to their period of service, and paid compensation for the remaining years till they reach the retirement age of 60.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Employees Union, the Samagi Employees Union, the National Employees Union, the Podujana Progressive Union, the Inter-Company Employees Union, and four other unions that claim to be independent, were involved in the MAS training centre discussions.

The first five unions are controlled by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), the United National Party (UNP), the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) respectively. Like the SLPP and UNP, which are part of the Wickremesinghe government, the opposition SJB, SLFP and JVP and their respective unions, are committed to the IMF’s austerity measures.

These unions, having previously appealed to the government not to restructure SLIC because it was a profitable institution and pledged their support to further boost these profits, are now openly supporting the restructuring plan.

In a July 12 letter to the SLIC chairman, the unions voiced their agreement with the VRS but urged the company to give retrenched employees shares in the company and pay an additional half-month salary for every year of service. It warned that, if shares were not given to retiring employees, the VRS would fail.

The recently announced ERBS is a result of further discussion between management and the trade unions. It is not yet clear why the additional hybrid retirement system has been offered. However, an August 11 letter to employees about ERBS by Chandana L. Aluthgama, the chief executive director, said the SLIC would be divided into normal and life insurance divisions, and “redundant employees” removed.

SLIC employees have warned that management plans to close SLIC’s “unprofitable” normal insurance section, which includes health, business, vehicle, family and travel insurance.

Aluthgama’s letter says that ERBS is a result of further talks with the unions who suggested an “attractive retirement scheme” be offered to those retiring before the age of 60 and they be given company shares and health benefits.

The letter said these proposals have been submitted to the SOE restructuring unit in the finance ministry. This “restructuring” will severely impact on the jobs, wages and working conditions of SLIC employees.

Closure of the normal insurance division, which currently employs 1,500 workers, will throw these workers onto Sri Lanka’s rising unemployment scrapheap, amid hyperinflation and drastic cuts to public health and education.

Retirement and retrenchment payments or provision of shares will not be enough for the workers to maintain themselves and their families under these conditions. Union calls for improved payments and company shares are a cynical fraud to dissipate workers’ opposition to the government’s brutal social attacks.

An SLIC worker told the World Socialist Web Site: “We have not been provided clear information on ERBS and when we make inquiries from the union leaders, they ask us what is going on. They pretend to have no idea but they know everything. They know everything but say nothing to us. The union leaders have sold us out and they have undermined the struggle.”

The ongoing collaboration with SLIC management to implement Wickremesinghe’s job destruction policies is a clear exposure that workers cannot defend themselves through the unions.

This is not limited to the SLIC unions but is the modus operandi of all unions in Sri Lanka and internationally. The trade unions are not workers’ organisations, but an industrial police force to suppress workers’ struggles and implement the demands of capitalist governments and companies.

The betrayal of the SLIC unions has strengthened management, encouraging it to impose measures to suppress employees’ opposition. This includes the forcible transfer of Insurance General Employees Union (IGEU) general secrtary Diwakara Athugala and Nayomi Hettiarachchi, who organised protests on December 8, 2022 and March 15 this year against the restructuring.

Management has also issued warning letters to nearly 50 workers for “rallying inside the institute” as part of a lunchtime protest against the new collective agreement of about 300 workers on February 15.

Part of the SEP and IYSSE protest outside the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation in Colombo on 15 June 2023.

On June 6, SLIC union leaders, including IGEU officials, quickly dispersed a demonstration of hundreds of SLIC workers to protest the forced transfer of Athugala and Nayomi Hettiarachchi. SLIC employees are now prohibited from assembling or discussing workplace issues in company premises.

Old Dominion submits $1.5 billion bid for bankrupt freight company Yellow’s assets

Alex Findijs

Yellow Corp. trailers at a YRC Freight facility on July 28, 2023, in Richfield, Ohio. [AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki]

Old Dominion, the second largest less-than-truckload company in the United States, has issued a $1.5 billion bid to purchase YRC Freight’s 169 terminals. Following Yellow’s bankruptcy filing on August 7, the once third-largest LTL company in the US has billions of dollars in assets up for grabs.

The bid by Old Dominion exceeds that of rival Estes Express by $200 million. Yellow’s management has reportedly accepted it as a “stalking-horse” bid, which sets the floor for new bids. Other bidders may offer more money for Yellow’s terminals ahead of the October 15 deadline with an auction for Yellow’s assets, which includes 169 terminals, more than 300 total facilities, 12,700 tractors and 42,000 trailers set for October 18. Old Dominion’s bid does not include the tractors and trailers, which will be sold off in separate deals.

If Old Dominion’s bid is accepted, it would increase its current number of its terminals from 256 to 425. Old Dominion will not have an immediate use for all of these terminals but will look to grow into the new terminals as the company grows, according to a statement from CFO Adam Satterfield.

“We’re always looking for opportunities, and that’s why we try to stay so far ahead of the growth curve,” said Satterfield prior to making the bid. “We generally are looking at each service center in each region and projecting out five years of potential growth to know where we’re going to have facilities that start hitting capacity…Sometimes, an opportunity presents itself [where today] maybe we don’t need this particular location. But in year four, for example…if it’s a good facility, then we would go ahead and take advantage of it.”

Yellow’s terminals offer extensive opportunities for rival trucking companies and Wall Street investors. Yellow had been in operation for nearly a century and many of its terminals are in major metropolitan areas with ready access to markets. Industry analysts have noted that whoever buys Yellow’s properties will gain a considerable amount of relatively cheap space to grow into and the ability to deny access to those assets to competitors.

Ultimately, it will be Wall Street that benefits the most from Yellow’s dismantling, regardless of who acquires Yellow’s assets.

Old Dominion is backed by some of the largest private equity firms in the world. Nearly 10 percent of Old Dominion’s stock is owned by Vanguard Group, which has $7.7 trillion in managed assets. Another 7.75 percent of Old Dominion’s stock is owned by BlackRock, which has $8.5 trillion in managed assets. Significantly, BlackRock is the named fiduciary of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, which once collected contributions from Yellow.

Yellow’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy is financed by Boston-based hedge fund MFN Partners Management and the private equity firm Citadel with a $142.5 million loan. This will grant MFN, which owns 40 percent of Yellow’s stock, authority over how the funds raised from Yellow’s dismemberment will be distributed. Common stockholders are often last in line to be paid, but MFN will have the ability to push its way to the front. Citadel also purchased $500 million of Yellow’s debt from Apollo Global Management, which had been considered the prime candidate to take control of Yellow’s bankruptcy proceedings before being displaced by MFN and Citadel.

In total, Yellow has over $1.5 billion in debt to repay. The sale of its terminals to Old Dominion would cover nearly all of its debt, including a $700 million loan from the federal government, while the sale of its additional facilities and equipment could raise hundreds of millions of dollars more to pay back investors.

This financial bonanza for Wall Street is paid for through the destruction of 30,000 jobs at Yellow, including 22,000 members of the Teamsters.

The responsibility for this jobs massacre lies at the feet of not only Wall Street but also the Teamsters bureaucracy.

Wall Street refused to loan Yellow additional funds to maintain its operations, demanding that Yellow demonstrate an ability to extract further concessions from workers before providing new funds. For Wall Street investors, the continued existence of Yellow and the preservation of 30,000 jobs was secondary. If Yellow survived it could extract profits from the company’s revenues. If Yellow died then its assets could be sold off to the highest bidder for a tidy profit.

Wall Street was more than happy to let Yellow fall into bankruptcy if it could still recoup its investment. Moreover, the sudden loss of 30,000 jobs would also serve to drive down wages in the rest of the freight industry.

The Teamsters, for their part, refused to wage any struggle to oppose the annihilation of 22,000 union jobs. Throughout the entire year, Teamsters bureaucrats threw around pseudo-militant rhetoric about refusing to give up any more concessions to the company, citing the incredible $5 billion in concessions the Teamsters had given up to Yellow over more than a decade.

But instead of mobilizing their members to defend the jobs of Yellow workers, the Teamsters disarmed workers and left them isolated. The Teamsters never publicly treated the threat of bankruptcy at Yellow with any real seriousness and when Yellow failed to make benefit contributions the bureaucracy called off a strike action at the last minute.

Study provides a genetic explanation for asymptomatic COVID infection

Bill Shaw

An international collaboration of researchers recently published a study that conclusively demonstrated a biological explanation for how a human genetic variation known as the HLA-B*15:01 allele results in a much higher likelihood of asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The study not only found a strong association of the HLA-B*15:01 allele with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, it also subsequently elucidated the biological mechanism that explains the association.

‘HLA’ stands for ‘human leukocyte antigen’ and thus HLA genes are directly involved in human immune responses to infection (‘leukocyte’ is the medical term for the white blood cells that fight infections in the body). Prior research on viral infections has shown that varying HLA alleles are associated with differential responses and outcomes to infections with human immunodeficiency viruses and hepatitis viruses.

The researchers first studied the association with carrying at least one HLA-B*15:01 allele and the odds of having an asymptomatic infection. They demonstrated the association in one dataset, and then confirmed it in an additional two datasets. These “replication cohorts,” as they are called, are a key methodology in genetic and genomic studies and strengthen the results of the study considerably.

Across all three cohorts—the initial cohort and two replication cohorts, a meta-analysis showed that individuals with an HLA-B*15:01 allele were 2.55 times more likely (95% confidence interval of 1.73 to 3.77) to experience asymptomatic infection than individuals without HLA-B*15:01. In the first cohort, individuals who were homozygous—that is, they had two HLA-B*15:01 alleles—were 8.58 times more likely to have an asymptomatic infection.

Overall, the researchers found that 20 percent of individuals with asymptomatic infection were carriers of HLA-B*15:01 versus 9.4 percent of symptomatic individuals. This finding was replicated in both additional cohorts, with rates of 17 percent of asymptomatic versus 7 percent of symptomatic, and 25 percent asymptomatic versus 9.4 percent of symptomatic as carriers, respectively.

The researchers went on to show that no other HLA allele was significantly associated with asymptomatic infection. Furthermore, they looked at interactions among HLA alleles by studying all possible pairs of HLA alleles. They found that only one such pairing was significantly associated with asymptomatic infection: the pair of HLA-B*15:01 and HLA-DRB1*04:01. Individuals with this pairing were 3.17 times more likely to have asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting that the effect of HLA-B*15:01 is enhanced by additionally having HLA-DRB1*04:01.

a) DSF plots showing the normalized fluorescence intensity versus temperature for HLA-B*15:01 in a complex with the NQK-Q8 (purple) or NQK-A8 (orange) peptide measured at concentrations of 5 μM and 10 μM. n = 2 biologically independent experiments performed in duplicate, represented by the different lines. b) Superimposition of the crystal structures of HLA-B*15:01 (white cartoon) in a complex with either the NQK-Q8 (purple stick) or the NQK-A8 (orange stick) peptide. [Photo by Augusto, D.G., Murdolo, L.D., Chatzileontiadou, D.S.M. et al. / CC BY 4.0]

The researchers subsequently went on to demonstrate the biological mechanism by which such protection of HLA-B*15:01 carriers occurs. This work is an enormous strength of the study and makes its results even stronger.

At a high level, the mechanism is that individuals with HLA-B*15:01 who were previously exposed to seasonal, pre-pandemic coronaviruses had memory T cells which were highly activated by SARS-CoV-2 proteins. This “cross-reactivity” was mediated by two SARS-CoV-2 proteins, NQK-K8 and NQK-A8, and it was specific to prior exposure to seasonal coronaviruses OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV.

The fact that the T cells were highly reactive means that they divided rapidly, making copies of themselves for distribution throughout the body to recognize and neutralize virus and virus-infected cells. Early activation of memory T cells is thus associated with rapid clearing of infection and reduced duration and severity of illness.

The researchers demonstrated such T cell reactivity from blood specimens they had taken from participants prior to the onset of the pandemic. This showed that memory T cells sensitized to proteins from seasonal coronaviruses OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV reacted strongly to the NQK-K8 and NQK-A8 proteins of SARS-CoV-2. By using samples obtained prior to the onset of the pandemic, the researchers left no chance for bias or contamination by “apparently” unexposed individuals who had really been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers then were able to study the three-dimensional conformation of the peptide transcribed from HLA-B*15:01 —also called HLA-B*15:01—in combination with the NQK-K8 peptide and with the NQK-A8 peptide of SARS-CoV-2. They demonstrated that HLA-B*15:01 clearly binds both NQK-K8 and NQK-A8 at its major binding site, necessary to induce an immune reaction of the T cell.

Furthermore, the three-dimensional conformations of HLA-B*15:01/NQK-K8 and HLA-B*15:01/NQK-A8 are nearly identical, with a deviation metric of only 0.08 Angstroms (10-10 meters) at the cleft in HLA-B*15:01 where it binds each peptide. This means that the binding of either peptide will produce a highly similar immune response.

It is notable that NQK-K8 differs from the peptide of OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV by only one amino acid (the basic building block of peptides). Also, NQK-K8 is conserved (the same) across all variants of SARS-CoV-2, including the XBB variant that until recent weeks was predominant globally. Thus, the results of the study are applicable across all variants of SARS-CoV-2 up to and including XBB.

This study adds to the irrefutable evidence that asymptomatic infection occurs, and it is convincing evidence that individuals’ genetic makeup is a significant factor in whether they experience asymptomatic infection. Given that asymptomatic individuals are a known significant source of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, this study further justifies properly executed lockdowns, masking, and social distancing measures as necessary components of an overall COVID-19 eradication program.

Also, asymptomatic infection is not consequence free. One study that pooled results from multiple previous studies found that 17 percent of asymptomatic individuals had at least one long-term sequelae at one year after infection. That means that between 1 in 5 and 1 in 6 individuals who had no symptoms of their acute SARS-CoV-2 infection are impacted longer term.

Ultimately, the study adds to the growing evidence of the ruling class’s criminality in implementing a series of reckless policies designed to maximize the production of profits, not aimed at the eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Netanyahu government set on provoking all-out Israeli war with Palestinians

Jean Shaoul

In the face of Israel’s escalating political crisis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for an all-out confrontation with the Palestinians.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), police and settler groups are mounting near daily attacks on towns and villages in the West Bank. These are consciously designed to incite retaliatory attacks and thereby create a climate of fear and apprehension within Israel as means of deflecting explosive social tensions and political opposition to Netanyahu’s government outwards against a “common enemy”.

Israeli soldiers patrol an area damaged bay fires from torched vehicles during a rampage by settlers in Hawara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. [AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed]

At the same time, Netanyahu is ramping up his rhetoric against Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon. Blaming “Iran and its cancerous proxies” for instigating attacks in the West Bank, occupied illegally since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of international law and UN resolutions, he hopes to derail the protest movement opposed to his far-right government’s efforts to grant itself dictatorial powers, and to unite Israelis amid the threat of a wider war.

Last week he declared, “Hamas and other Iranian proxies understand very well that we will fight with all means against their attempts to promote terrorism against us—in the West Bank, in Gaza, and anywhere else.”

On Sunday, he repeated the message, saying, “I would also like to appeal to the citizens of Israel: We are facing waves of terrorism, both internal and external. These are not simple times; these are challenging times. We need to unite our forces against terrorism, against the crime in the Arab sector, and against the external and internal threats that are being organized, to a large extent, by Iran via its proxies. If we stand together, we will prevail. This is my call to all members of the government, MKs [legislators], and all Israeli citizens.”

Netanyahu’s declarations came after Saleh al-Arouri, a spokesperson for Hamas, the bourgeois clerical group that controls Gaza and has a following in the West Bank, said in a televised interview on Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen, that any resumption by Israel of targeted killings of Hamas leaders or attempts to take control of the al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem—called for by Netanyahu’s fascistic coalition partners—could spark a “regional war.”  He warned, “The all-out war will be a defeat for Israel.”

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shia Islamist party Hezbollah, warned that any attempt by Israel to target a senior Hamas member living in Lebanon would be met with a “severe reaction.”

The attacks on Israelis by Palestinians determined to resist Israel’s brutal suppression have followed mass search and arrest operations by the IDF in towns and cities across the West Bank, supposedly under the full control of the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Soldiers have closed towns and villages and placed their inhabitants under a curfew.

These almost daily operations in search of individuals alleged to have killed Israelis—26 Israelis, including six children, have been killed so far this year—have killed at least 206 Palestinians, 170 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and 36 in Gaza, including 35 children, and injured hundreds more with live bullets and tear gas since the start of 2023.

IDF executions have now been “normalized” as state-sanctioned policy. The army’s murderous brutality not only goes unpunished but is belittled by Israel’s extremist politicians who declare that the IDF is not doing enough to deter the “terrorists.” Netanyahu and his security chiefs are running a campaign of vilification against IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, with the prime minister’s son Yair sharing a post, later deleted, calling Halevi the worst army chief in history.

Last week, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the fascistic leader of Jewish Power, speaking on television, lamented Halevi’s “lack of the necessary powers to protect Israeli citizens” and called for a return to consistent targeted assassinations and the denial of entry permits for Palestinian workers.

Ben Gvir wants a law which gives police the power to jail Israeli citizens without trial or charge, as is the practice in the West Bank, alongside a “national guard” under his control. He has overseen a crackdown on Palestinian prisoners—at least 1,500 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails—including the storming of a prison in the Negev and the forcible removal of 75 prisoners from their cells and their relocation, prompting hundreds of political prisoners to threaten a hunger strike.

The actions of Israel’s police are no less barbarous than those of the army. Last week, Orwah Sheikh Ali, a 22-year-old Palestinian from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, reported in the Magistrate’s Court in Jerusalem that his face had been branded with the Star of David, Israel’s national symbol, after his arrest for drug dealing, a charge he denied, and detention in a police station where he was brutalized and tortured, including having a plastic bag placed over his head.

Ben Gvir also claimed that Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s “problematic” policies in the West Bank had left settlers “sitting ducks”. He declared in a brazen display of the government’s apartheid policy, “My right, my wife’s right, my kids’ right to move around freely on the roads of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is more important than that of the Arabs.”

Under the physical protection of the army and with political encouragement from Israel’s ultra-nationalist politicians, settler vigilante groups have carried out a daily campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence in the West Bank, aimed at driving Palestinians off their land and into neighbouring countries—a repeat of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Israeli forces between 1947-49 when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes.

According to UN statistics, settler attacks have been on the rise since 2016, with 228 attacks last year leading to casualties. This year, settlers have killed at least eight Palestinians, up from five in the whole of last year, injured hundreds more and inflicted damage and destruction of Palestinian homes, property and agricultural land.

Earlier this month, Ben Gvir praised two settlers accused of killing Qusai Jamal Maatan, a 19-year-old Palestinian, in the West Bank village of Burqa as “heroes” and said that anyone defending themselves against “stone throwing” should “receive a commendation.” So embarrassing were Ben Gvir’s comments that Israel’s paymasters in Washington felt obliged to condemn his “racist rhetoric,” describe Maatan’s killing a “terror attack” and make a pathetic plea for “full accountability and justice.”

Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister and leader of the fascistic Religious Zionism Party, leapt to Ben Gvir’s defence, accusing the US of hypocrisy and saying, “The United States is in no position to go after Israel on human rights issues given how its army acted in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US shouldn’t be preaching to Israel about morality.”

Netanyahu’s plans for war against the Palestinians that risk a far wider regional conflagration cut across the Biden administration’s efforts to bring Saudi Arabia on board his anti-Iran alliance (the Abraham Accords) and to disrupt Riyadh’s growing relations with China. On Monday, Smotrich warned that despite being willing to reach a breakthrough in normalization talks with Saudi Arabia, the government would not agree to any pro-Palestinian “gestures” in exchange for a future agreement.

Further upsetting Washington’s plans to promote normalization between Israel and other Arab countries is the turmoil in Libya where there have been widespread protests reflecting deep-seated hostility to the suppression of the Palestinians.

Protests erupted after Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced that he had met his Libyan counterpart Najla el-Mangoush in Rome last week in a meeting he described as “historic” and “the first step of ties between Israel and Libya.” Libya’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeiba—backed by the US against the rival government based in Benghazi that is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia—was forced to deny he had authorized the meeting and sack el-Mangoush, who has fled to Turkey.

New Zealand criminal investigation into systemic migrant worker exploitation

John Braddock

A New Zealand criminal investigation and government inquiry have been forced after dozens of migrant workers were discovered crowded inside a squalid three-bedroom home in south Auckland earlier this month. 

New Zealand Immigration Minister Andrew Little speaks to a group of migrant workers stranded without jobs at a meeting in Auckland. [Photo: Facebook/Labour MP Phil Twyford]

Newshub reported on August 14 that the workers paid thousands of dollars for employment agreements with local recruitment contractors, but since arriving three months ago they had received no work or pay. The men called police after their food ran out and they had to resort to begging.

“Forty men were crammed into the filthy, overcrowded three-bedroom home in Auckland for months on end, sharing a single shower and cooking over one stove,” the report stated. “Three days, we don’t have nothing to eat, only just drinking water. No food, nothing,” Indian migrant Prasad Babu said.

The men paid tens of thousands of dollars each for job offers and signed contracts with New Zealand recruitment contractors. “[They] took $20,000 from us to get a job. Why did [they] promise us you can give a better life here? There is no better life here,” Babu said. “Like beggars, we are going to the temple and eating the food there,” he explained. 

Following the initial report, several similarly horrific stories emerged. Immigration officials began investigating four more Auckland properties housing dozens more victims. “In Papakura,” Newshub reported, “at least 20 more migrants were shoved into a grotty, run-down three-bedroom property. There was an overflowing rubbish bin, one toilet, and one shower.”

A total of 115 migrants from India and Bangladesh have so far been found living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in six houses across Auckland. In one case, a business couple have been using their former home to house up to 30 migrant workers. The tenants, who rent “beds” at $160 each per week, said there were no smoke alarms and sometimes no electricity. The wealthy owners of the $2.97 million property are reportedly major donors to the conservative opposition National Party. 

Elsewhere, Karen Gibney, president of the Latin American Community in Tauranga, told the New Zealand Herald on August 22 that about 200 people from Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia had paid between $4,000 and $10,000 for visas and employment agreements to work with construction company Buildhub. Many have received hardly any work or pay since arriving and some said they are “living like strays” and begging for food.

Two Chinese building workers interviewed by TVNZ last week said they had paid $16,000 to an agent to be employed on the redevelopment of Waikeria Prison near Hamilton, with promises they could eventually qualify for residency and bring their families. The pair were paid just $25 an hour and after eight weeks were suddenly sacked by the subcontractor via text message while still owed pay.

The migrants all entered the country through the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme, introduced under pressure from big business last May, following the abandonment of COVID public health measures, to boost the labour supply. The Labour government boasted that its “immigration reset” would help build a “high wage, high skill economy.” 

AEWV was, officially, meant to streamline the work visa system by inviting employers to apply for accreditation to hire overseas workers. Immigration NZ (INZ) then issues visas for workers who are linked with an “approved” employer. INZ has approved nearly 81,000 visas among about 27,900 accredited employers.

Under the scheme, migrants are tied to particular employers, creating the conditions for mistreatment and even slave-labour conditions. Unable to quit for fear of invalidating their visas and often with no avenue of complaint, they are frequently forced to work and live in illegal and subhuman conditions.

Immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont told Radio NZ that employers only had to self-declare they were financially sustainable and operating proper wage and time records. “So you can make one dollar’s profit, and then bring in $600,000 worth of migrants,” who are then “dumped on the street with no jobs and no income,” he said.

According to a Stuff article on August 23, concerned INZ staff said employers were being allowed to bring in migrants without any paperwork or financial checks, even when immigration officers feared jobs may be fake, paid for with illegal premiums, or the migrants were at risk of exploitation. 

Stuff was told only two employers have been declined accreditation. One INZ worker said: “Now what we have is thousands of migrants exploited and potentially thousands of businesses that shouldn’t have got accreditation.”

INZ currently has164 active investigations underway. After initially denying any links between the Auckland cases and increased migrant exploitation, following “serious concerns” raised by an INZ whistleblower, Immigration Minister Andrew Little ordered a review of the scheme. Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes promptly declared the “assurance review” would only check the policy was working as intended, rather than assessing the policy itself.

Migrant exploitation is an entrenched feature of New Zealand capitalism. Economics commentator Bernard Hickey has called the proliferation of scams a sign of the country’s “churn and burn” economy, describing it as the “Dubai of the South Pacific” for allowing “fraudulent agents and fly-by-night firms to bring in desperate and poor workers with suggestions of high-paid jobs and residency, only to pull the rug out from under their feet and leaving them indebted and even more desperate.” 

Workers in the Recognised Seasonal Employer program, introduced by the then Labour government in 2007, which brings Pacific Islanders in on temporary visas to work in the horticulture industry, were subjected to conditions akin to “modern slavery,” according to a Human Rights Commission report last December. The report cites numerous instances of basic human rights breaches, including in workers’ dire accommodation and authoritarian employer supervision. 

At the same time, politicians continually scapegoat migrants for social problems including the housing crisis, inequality and pressure on public services. Labour assumed office in 2017, in coalition with the anti-Asian NZ First, promising to halve immigration numbers, then around 70,000 a year. 

Labour has continued a cruel policy of deportations, including for people who “overstay” the term of their visa or who commit trivial breaches of their visa conditions. In early 2021, thousands of migrants and their supporters held a series of protests, including in India, over the government’s inhumane policies.

The systemic exploitation of immigrant workers is a vast global enterprise under capitalism, carried out by ruthless employers and unscrupulous agents, imposed by accommodating governments of all stripes. In the interests of profits, low pay, temporary work, summary sackings, ditching of basic rights and miserable living conditions are all on the agenda of every ruling elite as the economic crisis intensifies.

The political lessons of the 2023 Thai election

Ben McGrath & Peter Symonds

More than three months after Thailand’s May 14 general election, a new prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, a wealthy property magnate from the Pheu Thai Party (PT), was chosen on August 22 with the backing of a coalition that includes both the country’s pro-military parties. The Pheu Thai’s embrace of the military, which ousted it in two coups in 2006 and 2014, marks its complete abandonment of any pretentions to represent a democratic alternative.

Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, arrives at Pheu Thai Party headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

The entire election process under the constitution imposed by the military junta in 2017 was anti-democratic from beginning to end. The prime minister and therefore the government is not chosen by the elected lower house, but by a joint sitting with the upper house appointed entirely by the military. The Move Forward Party, which won most seats, was blocked by the military appointees and its leader subjected to trumped-up charges in the Constitutional Court.

Similar moves were taken against Pheu Thai which won a majority of seats in the 2019 election. The protracted mass protests dominated by young people, which erupted after the 2014 coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha was reinstalled as prime minister and targeted the opposition parties, were suppressed by force.

That the military has allowed its bitter political enemy, Pheu Thai, to form government speaks to the fear throughout ruling circles that a repeat of the 2020-21 protests would involve sections of the working class under conditions of deepening economic and social crisis. The party has now ditched campaign promises not to form a coalition with the military’s parties and will work with them to impose an agenda of austerity on working people and suppress any opposition.

As for the Move Forward Party, which capitalised on the previous protests, and advanced, at least in words, proposals for limited democratic reforms, it has accepted its sidelining with barely a murmur of protest. While it formally voted against the new prime minister to maintain its oppositional posturing, Move Forward mobilised no opposition or demonstrations to the anti-democratic outcome of the election.

Both Pheu Thai and Move Forward have done their utmost to confine any opposition within the straitjacket of parliament and the courts—a system rigged by the military to favour Thailand’s traditional elites centred on the monarchy. Both parties were founded by business tycoons and represent dissident sections of the Thai capitalist class seeking to assert their interests against the stifling domination of the conservative establishment.

For many young people, workers and rural poor who voted for Pheu Thai and Move Forward in the hope that they represented a progressive alternative that would guarantee democratic rights and improve living standards, the election outcome is a bitter disappointment. It is necessary to understand why this has occurred and, above all, what is the political road forward.

In his Theory of Permanent Revolution elaborated more than a century ago, Leon Trotsky explained that no section of the bourgeoisie in countries of a belated capitalist development, including its so-called democratic and liberal wings, was capable of leading a political struggle for the basic democratic aspirations and social needs of the masses.

Unlike the classic bourgeois democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and America, the weak capitalist class in countries like Russia confronted a powerful working class that threatened its very existence. Invariably, when confronted by a mass movement, even the liberal bourgeoisie sides with reaction against working people.

Trotsky established that as a result of this, the democratic tasks necessarily fall to the working class, leading the rural masses. The working class carries this fight using its own class methods as part of the struggle for socialism. That political struggle on the national arena necessarily extends internationally as a component part of the world socialist revolution.

The Theory of Permanent Revolution provided the theoretical basis for the 1917 Russian Revolution led by Trotsky and Lenin that brought the first workers’ state to power and provided an enormous impetus to the fight for socialism internationally. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was bound up with its degeneration under the Stalinist regime that usurped power from the working class and, based on the anti-Marxist perspective of “Socialism in One Country,” was responsible for terrible defeats of the international working class.

Permanent Revolution was confirmed in the negative countless times in the course of the 20th century, not least in Asia, where the Stalinist parties repeatedly subordinated the working class and peasantry to one or other supposedly progressive wing of the bourgeoisie. The Stalinist two-stage revolution—first the democratic revolution under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, then the fight for socialism in the distant future—inevitably produced a disaster.

Nowhere were the consequences more tragic than in Indonesia where the Stalinist Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) promoted the peaceful road to socialism and kept workers shackled to President Sukarno by promoting the illusion that he would defend their democratic and social rights.

Yet, as the Theory of Permanent Revolution explains, this “progressive bourgeoisie” was incapable of defending democratic rights. In promoting Sukarno, the PKI opened the door for the 1965-66 CIA-backed military coup that resulted in the systematic slaughter of up to a million workers, peasants and PKI members.

Thailand is no exception. Time and again, the weak and venal ruling class has resorted to the military to crush any threat to its rule by the working class and rural masses. On each occasion, the parties representing the so-called progressive wing of the bourgeoisie shamelessly capitulated leaving working people to their fate.

Billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra established Pheu Thai’s forerunner, Thai Rak Thai, in 1998 as a political vehicle to prosecute his interests and gained a following by pledging to ameliorate the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on working people. He came to power in 2001 and provided hand-outs to villages and state-funded health care. Thaksin rapidly came into conflict with the conservative establishment concerned that he was stoking demands for social improvements that could not be met and which he would be unable to control.

The Thai Rak Thai government was ousted by the military in 2006 which Thaksin did little to oppose. He fled the country after he was convicted on trumped-up corruption charges. The coup opened up a period of political instability which continues today. Popular opposition to the persecution of Thaksin and his party and the continuing attacks on basic democratic rights erupted in protracted mass demonstrations in 2010 of his Red Shirt supporters to which the military ultimately responded by firing on a mass protest in Bangkok, killing 91 people and injuring thousands more.

The military and its backers will not hesitate to do so again. The flagging Thai economy and growing social tensions, which are part of the global crisis of capitalism, will inevitably lead to an eruption of the class struggle as is the case around the world. At this stage, the ruling class is relying on Pheu Thai to use its residual political influence to contain the opposition as it emerges. If it fails to do so, other means including the use of military force will be used.

Ruling class propaganda on the “end of the pandemic” falls apart

Benjamin Mateus & Evan Blake

In recent weeks, the reality that the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing and remains very dangerous has broken through the propaganda of governments, public health agencies and the corporate media, who have falsely proclaimed the pandemic over.

At last week’s World Health Organization (WHO) press briefing, COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove was forced to admit that millions of people across the globe are being infected each week based on the limited data available on cases and hospitalizations. Just three months after the WHO unscientifically ended the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration, which prompted numerous countries to dismantle their surveillance systems, Dr. Kerkhove warned that tracking emerging threats will become much more difficult if not impossible, while noting that the virus will continue to mutate and could become more lethal.

According to the WHO briefing, only 103 out of 234 countries and territories are reporting COVID-19 cases, 54 are reporting deaths, 19 are providing hospitalization data and 17 are reporting ICU admissions. Additionally, according to GISAID, in the month of August global genomic surveillance produced less than 7,000 sequences of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, just 1.6 percent of all cases sequenced in August 2022.

Presently, the Omicron EG.5 subvariant, nicknamed “Eris,” is dominant globally. In China, it now accounts for 71.6 percent of all sequenced cases, up from less than one percent in April. In the United States, Eris and FL.1.5.1, another concerning variant, now make up 34 percent of all sequenced cases and are expected to dominate all other variants in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Omicron BA.2.86, dubbed “Pirola,” which many scientists are deeply concerned about because it possesses more than 30 new mutations on its spike protein, has been labeled a Variant Under Monitoring (VUM) by the WHO. Just in the past two days, the variant has been detected in Germany, Spain and Portugal, bringing the total number of countries where it is known to be spreading to 10.

Given the collapse of surveillance globally, the only available means to estimate the ongoing impact of the pandemic are wastewater tracking, official hospitalization figures and excess death estimates, which collectively provide only a pale reflection of reality.

In the US, wastewater figures have more than tripled over the past two months, with one scientist calculating that roughly 580,000 Americans are now being infected with COVID-19 each day. Weekly hospital admissions for COVID-19 were over 15,000 for the week ending August 19, the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This figure is nearly triple the low of 6,461 just six weeks prior and will continue to rise in the weeks ahead.

Globally, there continue to be 11,100 excess deaths attributable to the pandemic each day—a 42 percent increase in the past four months—with the cumulative total now standing at a staggering 24.8 million, according to The Economist.

The latest summer COVID-19 surge is now intersecting with the global reopening of schools after summer and winter breaks, which will only fuel community transmission. Combined with influenza and RSV, there will likely soon be a deluge of reports of this triple viral threat inundating hospitals operating with dangerously low staffing levels and exhausted workers.

School districts in Kentucky and Texas have had to close their doors a few days or weeks after reopening, due to large numbers of students and educators infected with COVID-19. Hospitals and colleges have been compelled to reintroduce mask mandates in Georgia, New York, California and other states.

In this context, and over two months after this major pandemic wave began, the New York Times published an article Monday headlined, “Not Over Yet: Late-Summer Covid Wave Brings Warning of More to Come.”

The article was effectively a form of damage control, as the outlet has been at the forefront of downplaying the ongoing dangers of COVID-19 and almost entirely dropped coverage of the pandemic after the WHO and Biden administration ended the PHEs in May.

Needless to say, the Times neglected to remind its readers that just over a month ago it published an article by David Leonhardt—among the most notorious pandemic minimizers—falsely claiming that “the pandemic is finally over.” As with that article, the latest piece by Julie Bosman omits the critical terms “variant,” “viral evolution,” and “Long COVID.”

In opening her article, Bosman acknowledges that a “late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has touched schools, workplaces.” Noting the recent rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations, she adds that “local government experts warned the public to brace for even more COVID-19 spread this fall and winter.”

The article furthers the Times’ role in downplaying the ongoing dangers of the pandemic, in particular for hundreds of millions of elderly and immunocompromised people globally.

Ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of schools still lack adequate ventilation systems to protect against COVID-19 and therefore remain centers of viral transmission, Bosman cites Hedy N. Chang, the executive director of Attendance Works, who opposes the basic public health practice of keeping sick children at home. Chang states, “We actually have to shift norms again, to being judicious and thoughtful about when we keep kids home, and only keeping them home if we think it’s truly a problem.”

This dovetails with the criminal policy now in place in Los Angeles schools, in which children sick with COVID-19 and other illnesses are being encouraged to attend school.

Finally, as if bringing an expert witness to the stand to justify their crimes, Bosman quotes Northwestern Memorial Hospital pulmonologist Dr. John M. Coleman, who states on cue, “Moving forward, we have to learn to live cohesively with Covid. Covid is always going to be around.”

The Times then advances the essentially eugenicist policy of the Biden administration, in which millions of elderly and immunocompromised Americans are being left to fend for themselves. Summarizing the sage wisdom of Dr. Coleman, Bosman writes, “People who are hospitalized for Covid now tend to have pre-existing conditions or suppressed immune systems that make them more susceptible to severe symptoms.”

For these tens of millions of at-risk individuals, the Times and their learned doctor give the following medical advice: “Particularly for people who already have health risks, he said, it is crucial to receive the new booster this fall, wash hands frequently and wear a mask if feeling unwell.”

In other words, amid a major wave of the pandemic the Times is telling its readers to get a booster shot that will not be available for weeks, wash their hands to protect against an airborne pathogen, and wear a mask once infected instead of to prevent such infections. Such patently unscientific advice only underscores their role as a purveyor of propaganda.

Furthermore, the attempt to downplay the dangers posed by COVID-19 by suggesting only those with “pre-existing conditions or suppressed immune systems” are susceptible to more severe forms of COVID-19 is not only eugenicist but patently false.

In a recent report by Harvard biostatistician, Dr. Edward Goldstein, PhD, published in Epidemiology and Infection, comparing Omicron infections and influenza in the same period in late 2022 and early 2023 in France, he found the risk of death from SARS-CoV-2 to be four times higher.

Just days before the Times article was published, noted Long COVID researcher Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and his team at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, published their latest study focusing on the impacts of Long COVID two years after infection.

They found that in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 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.

For those who were hospitalized for their infection, risk of death and hospitalizations remained elevated compared to non-infected controls at two years. Of the 80 types of sequelae being measured, which involved every organ system, 65 percent remained at elevated risk after two years.

The authors conclude, “Measures to reduce the risk of post-acute and long-term sequelae in people with SARS-CoV-2 infections should remain the foundation of public health policy. … It is clear that the burden of health loss will not only impact patients and their quality of life but also potentially contribute to a decline in life expectancy, and may impact labor participation, economic productivity and societal well-being.”

The horrific realities of the “forever COVID” policy are becoming increasingly evident to masses of people globally, as hundreds of millions of working people and their families face an array of health consequences and maladies that not only shorten their life spans but make miserable the years that are afforded them. Their ranks will only grow with each new wave of the pandemic.

The emergence of the highly mutated Pirola variant demonstrates that SARS-CoV-2 remains quite fit to continue mutating. The unprecedented spread of this virus into nearly 8 billion hosts in just over three years underscores the critical point that the pandemic has far more breathing room than most were willing to imagine at the outset.