Australia: Horrific abuse of children at Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home

Sue Phillips

Stolen Generations children raising their hands at Kinchela. [Photo by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation]

The Guardian recently published a distressing account of the maltreatment suffered by hundreds of children at the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home. The revelations, which included the possibility of secret graves on site, are just one of the many hidden crimes of the dark and violent history of Australian capitalism against Aboriginal people.

The Kinchela boys’ home in the state of New South Wales (NSW) was a government-controlled body, just one of numerous institutions established during the Stolen Generations era, when assimilation policies forcibly separated Aboriginal children from their families. Thousands of girls and boys, including infants, were placed in government-institutions, some managed by churches and other welfare agencies. The children were to be trained and exploited as a source of cheap labour, employed as domestic servants and farm labourers. Additionally, other children were adopted into non-Aboriginal families.

From 1924 to 1970, it is estimated that nearly 600 Aboriginal boys, some as young as five years old, were removed from their families and incarcerated at Kinchela. Many of them suffered horrific physical, sexual, and psychological abuse at the hands of those in authority.

Presently, only 56 survivors of the home are still alive. Although precise government records were not maintained, it is believed that throughout Australia, as many as 100,000 Aboriginal children were separated from their families, during the period spanning from 1910 to 1969. Many were never re-united with their families suffering life-long trauma.

Kinchela boys in vegetable garden outside manager's house in the early to mid-1950s. [Photo by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation]

The Kinchela boys’ home was located on the site of an Aboriginal reserve used for crops, a dairy herd, horses, chickens and pigs. The boys worked long hours on the farm, housed in large tin shed dormitories. Education was minimal. Some children were told their parents no longer wanted them, others that their parents had died.

In the Guardian interviews, the Aboriginal survivors describe the shocking conditions in the boys’ home as like living in a “concentration camp,” a “hell hole” with continuous and harsh punishments meted out.

When children arrived at the home their clothes and shoes were incinerated, their bodies covered with flea powder and all their hair shaved off. Shoes were only worn if government authorities visited. Each child was given a number to dehumanise and destroy their individual identity. If a child used a given name instead of the mandated number, they were punished. The practice was so deeply ingrained, that survivors still recall each other’s numbers to this day.

Uncle Bobby Young explained: “We had animals in there and they had priority over us. They all had names. One horse we used to call Sue and they had three German shepherd dogs. One was called Prince and if you didn’t call him by the name, they would cane you. It was a concentration camp…”

Punishments happened daily, were violent and inflicted for the most minor issue. Many of the staff were ex-military and implemented some of its most sadistic practices.

In 1937, complaints of cruelty and abuse were filed against the manager, A.J. McQuiggin, who was accused of sadistic behaviour, whipping boys with hosepipes and a stock whip, and withholding food. He was reprimanded and transferred to another mission, where his cruelty led to a walk-out by Aboriginal residents.

The survivors are still haunted by the shocking punishments. One involved being chained to a tree at the rear of the property overnight, sometimes for longer periods. The penalty was imposed for the most minor “transgressions,” such as bedwetting.

Uncle Roger Jarrett recounted the experience. “There was a fig tree with a six-foot chain. If a boy did something trivial, they would cut the sleeves and neck out of an old sugar bag, make him wear it, soak it in water, and then be taken out to the tree, where they would chain you up, padlock the restraints, and leave you exposed.” Throughout the night, a bucket of water would be tossed over the child, even during the coldest winter nights. Traces of the chains can still be seen on the tree.

Aboriginal boys lined up outside the manager's home in 1958. [Photo by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation]

Other punishments included the degrading and cruel practice known as being “sent down the line.” This aimed to desensitise the children by forcing them to inflict pain on others, even upon their own siblings.

Survivors vividly remember, being arranged in line, often with 30 or more on each side. The boy singled out for punishment was then “sent down the line” and punched by everyone. If the punches were deemed insufficiently forceful, a staff member struck with a cane to administer further punishment. The punishment for not striking hard enough was to be sent down the line as well.

One survivor explained, they “made us hate each other and hate ourselves. When I left the home, I was in such a state…. What they taught us, these ex-army people, was how to hurt a person. We thought it was a natural thing to do because an adult taught us.”

In 1995, Kinchela survivors raised their concerns as part of a submission to the Bringing Them Home inquiry, the first national investigation into the Stolen Generations. The Kinchela submission recommended that an area at the home be investigated because of strong suspicions that some children “may have met foul play.”

Survivors wondered about the sudden disappearance of children. Had they been adopted out, thrown into the river or buried somewhere? All knew that male staff had sexually abused many boys, raising the horrific possibility that boys had died at the hands of the abusers. No-one dared ask out of fear. No investigation was carried out.

Reunion of surviving former members of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home in 2002. [Photo by Sarah Barker/Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation Portrait Project]

In 2008, after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s cynical apology to the Stolen Generations, the son of a Kinchela survivor reported that his father had been traumatised for life after being forced to bury other boys who had been bashed to death by drunken supervisors. Again, nothing was done.

It was not until 2016 that the NSW government agreed to work with survivor organisations to “locate the remains of any Aboriginal children.” A further six years elapsed before a ground-penetrating radar survey took place. Its report to the state government earlier this year highlighted “high priority anomalies” in the ground showing “signal patterns that in other contexts has to be human burials.”

In 2022, the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation released a two-part video retelling the history of the home titled, We Were Just Little Boys.

The video powerfully explains the terrifying moment when the boys were taken from their families, the crimes perpetrated at Kinchela and the ongoing trauma once they were released. Some boys unsuccessfully attempted to rejoin their families, others turned to alcohol and drank themselves to an early death, others ended up in prison. In many cases, their trauma impacted their families, contributing to family violence, self-harm, and suicides.

In response to the report, the NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns has agreed to further investigations and evacuation of the Kinchela site. Linda Burney, the federal Labor government’s Indigenous Affairs minister endorsed the call for an investigation, declaring that the claims of secret burials were “deeply disturbing.”

Such comments from state and federal Labor politicians are utterly hollow and contemptible. Why is Burney suddenly “deeply disturbed” when the information in the Bringing Them Home report was available 28 years ago. Why has no government acted on the survivors’ requests or implemented other recommendations from that inquiry?

The very belated expressions of concern take place amid the federal Labor government’s campaign of a Yes vote in the October 14 referendum to insert a Voice, an indigenous advisory body to government and parliament, in the constitution.

The Voice is being presented as the means for redressing past crimes as well as the appalling conditions that continue to face most Aboriginal people. In reality, the federal Labor government is using the campaign for the Voice as a means of putting a progressive face on its regressive program of war and austerity.

Those who are justifiably shocked by the revelations about the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys training home and are considering voting Yes should recall the long history of similarly disingenuous exercises that have done nothing to improve the lot of indigenous people—one of the most oppressed layers of the working class.

Over many decades there have been multiple government inquests, Royal Commissions, public apologies, promises and lists of recommendations to supposedly address the crimes against the Aboriginal population. Yet the conditions facing most Aboriginal workers and youth—along with the working class as a whole—have only worsened as governments, including the current Labor government, have imposed their austerity agenda.

The only beneficiaries have been a privileged Aboriginal elite of businesspeople, academics, media personalities and self-appointed representatives who are promoting the Voice as a means of further advancing their privileges and wealth.

The official opposition to the Voice—the No campaign—led by the federal Liberal-National Coalition offers no progressive alternative and is as responsible as the Labor Party for the continuing oppression of Aboriginal people.

That is why the Socialist Equity Party is campaigning for an active boycott of the Voice referendum. It is the only vehicle for workers, indigenous or non-indigenous, to take an independent stand and build a unified movement to abolish the capitalist system which is responsible for the crimes against the indigenous population.

The horrific treatment of children at Kinchela is not an aberration. The Guardian has published similar stories from Western Australia where it is thought hundreds of Aboriginal children may be secretly buried in unmarked graves at former religious and government institutions.

Nor are the crimes against indigenous populations as capitalism expanded globally limited to Australia. Similar policies were implemented in Canada where it is estimated that as many as one in three children in the first half of the 20th century were captives of the government enforced church-run residential system. Indigenous children suffered severe neglect and abuse and thousands died from disease.

OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully returns asteroid sample to Earth

Bryan Dyne

A sample of the asteroid 101955 Bennu was returned to Earth on Sunday by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. It marks the latest in a series of ambitious “sample return” missions conducted by a number of countries, which have as their goal to collect material from asteroids and other bodies in our Solar System and return them to Earth for careful study.

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. [Photo: NASA/Keegan Barber]

OSIRIS-REx was launched on September 8, 2016, five years after the project was selected by NASA to be the agency’s third mission of its New Frontiers program, beating out a sample return mission to the far side of the moon and a Venus lander. It spent two years cruising to Bennu, including two weeks in February 2017 during which the team used the spacecraft’s MapCam instrument to search for near-Earth asteroids.

While no new asteroids were found, the techniques developed were used to avoid potential hazards when OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu in December 2018. Throughout the month, the spacecraft was used for a detailed survey of Bennu, which has a diameter of only half a kilometer. The spacecraft then descended from an orbit of 19 kilometers to an orbit of 1 kilometer, beating the previous record set by the Rosetta spacecraft, which orbited comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 7 kilometers.

A year later, NASA announced it had selected its primary and backup landing sites from which to retrieve a sample of the asteroid. Then in April and August of 2020, amid the first and second wave of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, OSIRIS-REx was used in two rehearsal landings, which took the spacecraft to 65 meters and 40 meters, respectively, above the surface of the asteroid.

The rehearsals were critical. At the time, Bennu was more than 320 million kilometers from Earth, more than the average distance between Earth and Mars, and two-way communication between OSIRIS-REx and its operators took more than 35 minutes. Given that gap, the entire landing and sample retrieval had to be pre-programmed and executed without direct human intervention. The rehearsals paid off and OSIRIS-REx collected an estimated 250 grams (about 8.8 ounces) of the asteroid as it “tagged” Bennu’s surface for five seconds before springing off, using essentially a highly sophisticated pogo stick.

That material is now safely back on Earth and remains ensconced in a capsule containing only nitrogen, to prevent contamination with material from Earth. The samples will ultimately be curated by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science directorate (ARES) and at Japan’s Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center.

Moreover, the spacecraft’s mission is ongoing. Rather than wastefully end its life in a crash landing into Earth or other body, OSIRIS-REx is now on a trajectory to rendezvous the asteroid 99942 Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid that will make a close pass to Earth on April 13, 2029. It will spend 18 months orbiting the asteroid and is slated to use its thrusters to kick up material from Apophis’ surface to study what lies beneath.

Bennu was selected as the target of OSIRIS-REx because it has undergone almost no geological evolution since the formation of the Solar System. It is made up primarily of compounds containing carbon, one of the key elements of organic life, and thought to have existed before the formation of Earth. It is possible that complex carbon-based molecules were collected, including amino acids, which are the building blocks of all known life.

Asteroids and comets are carefully studied largely for these reasons. Unlike Earth, the other planets and even several moons, asteroids are largely unchanged over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. Comets are similarly preserved when they are not close enough to the Sun to have their tails. Each is a definite piece in the puzzle of the Solar System’s formation and provides further insight into how the entire complex of star, planets and lesser bodies, and its living inhabitants, developed.

One of the many other reasons that spacecraft are sent to study asteroids is to compare the in situ data to that collected from the Earth. While there are numerous observations of asteroids from telescopes, the distance and atmosphere makes the light reflected far more difficult to interpret. By studying Bennu up close, measurements from OSIRIS-REx can be compared with those from ground-based telescopes and used to better understand similar observations of other asteroids.

Data from OSIRIS-REx was also used to study the Yarkovsky effect, which is a force that acts on small asteroids as a result of uneven thermal emissions from the body. While the effect is very small, it has a definite impact on the orbit of bodies around Bennu’s size. This is especially important for asteroids that cross Earth’s orbit; the gravitational influence of other bodies on these relatively small objects is well known, but the influence of forces like the Yarkovsky effect is far less so. Understanding this mechanism helps track objects that might be on a collision course with Earth and, if need be, deflect them.

There have been several other sample return missions. The most famous are of course the manned Apollo landings, which brought back several hundred kilograms of rocks and lunar regolith (the Moon’s “soil”). Those samples have been intensely studied since they were first brought back in the late 1960s. A renewed effort was launched in 2019 when lunar samples from that era that had been sealed away were opened for study, allowing the more advanced scientific instruments of the modern era to undertake investigations that technology from 50 years ago simply couldn’t.

The first robotic sample return mission was in 1970 when the Soviet mission Luna 16 returned 101 grams of lunar soil. The achievement was followed up in 1974 by Luna 20, which returned 55 grams, and in 1976 by Luna 24, which returned 170 grams. While they returned far less lunar material than the Apollo program, the Luna missions paved the way for further robotic sample return missions.

Despite their scientific value, there were no sample return missions in the 1980s. Only one was conducted in the 1990s, when the Soviet-launched Mir space station used an aerogel to capture interplanetary dust in low Earth orbit. In 2004, the Genesis spacecraft returned particles from the solar wind and in 2006, the Stardust spacecraft returned dust samples from the tails of the comet 81P/Wild.

The modern sample return missions began when the Hayabusa probe from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) brought back a small number of particles from asteroid 25143 Itokawa, despite the failure of the sampling device. Hayabusa was followed by Hayabusa2, which deployed two small rovers on the surface of asteroid 162173 Ryugu and returned a sample of Ryugu to Earth in December 2020. Both missions were the first successful sample returns from an asteroid.

Several future sample return missions are planned. JAXA is slated to launch its MMX mission to Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, in 2024 and return a sample from Phobos that will reach Earth in 2029. China has sample return missions planned for the Moon, Mars and the asteroid Ceres throughout the 2020s and 2030s. Russia has a new Luna-Glob mission which will bring back new samples from the Moon in 2027. And NASA and the European Space Agency are planning on retrieving the samples collected by the Perseverance Mars rover in the late 2020s.

In a rational world, these missions would be universally celebrated. Under capitalism, however, they are seen by the ruling elite as further instances of geopolitical rivalry. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson focused on the fact that the mission was “the first American asteroid sample return in history,” as if space exploration does not build on itself in an inherently international process.

Nor was any mention made of the paltry sums spent on the project, about $1 billion so far, compared to the nearly $1,000 billion squandered at the Department of Defense every year, including $30 billion to the Space Force. One can only imagine what will be achieved and discovered when such vast sums are spent for exploration instead of destruction, a future well worth fighting for.

Macron announces pull-out of French troops from Niger

Athiyan Silva

Amid massive protests in Niger against French imperialism, French President Macron announced the withdrawal of the French ambassador to Niamey on Sunday. The withdrawal of French troops from Niger is to occur by the end of the year. After leaving Mali and then Burkina Faso, the French military is now slated to leave a third country in the Sahel.

French soldiers disembark from a U.S. Air Force C130 cargo plane at Niamey, Niger base, on June 9, 2021. [AP Photo]

After a decade of devastating counterterrorism military operations in the Sahel since it launched a war in Mali, France now has only 1,000 troops stationed in the region. They are concentrated in Chad, on Niger’s eastern border.

After coming to power via a coup on July 26, the Nigerien junta led by General Abdurahmane Tiani canceled security cooperation agreements between Paris and Niamey. It also ordered the withdrawal of French troops from Niger by the end of August.

Macron initially refused to evacuate French troops or to recognize the Nigerien junta. He accused them of ruling Niger “illegally.” At the same time, France encouraged ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries to prepare military action against Niger. Niger’s military regime accused France of deploying troops and military equipment for a war of aggression against it in alliance with the ECOWAS countries of Nigeria, Benin, Ivory Coast and Senegal.

French imperialism’s war plans in Africa are now inseparably bound up with the escalating NATO war with Russia in Ukraine. Niger has signed a military self-defense alliance with Mali and Burkina Faso, which has sought out ties with the Russian military. This creates conditions for the war in Ukraine to rapidly escalate to a war involving large swathes of West Africa.

On Sunday, as he announced the withdrawal of French troops, Macron nonetheless hailed the French war in Mali, praising the “success of the Barkhane military operation … Without it, most of these countries would have already been taken by territorial caliphates and jihadists.”

Macron’s attempt to justify France’s wars in the Sahel as an “anti-terrorist” struggle is a cynical fraud. France and NATO countries waged a war of aggression against Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, arming jihadists linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist network as their principal proxy forces in Libya. The fighting then spread across the Sahara into Mali, which provided a pretext for France’s military intervention in Mali.

Last year, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop sent a letter to the UN Security Council accusing France of aiding the jihadists. Diop alleged that Mali’s “airspace has been breached more than 50 times this year, mostly by French forces using drones, military helicopters, and fighter jets. These flagrant violations of Malian airspace were used by France to collect information for terrorist groups operating in the Sahel and to drop arms and ammunition to them.”

Macron tried to rewrite history, alleging that the African military juntas, not French imperialism, were to blame for the fighting across the Sahel. He said, “We are not here to be hostages of the putschists. ... The putschists are the friends of disorder.”

Due to growing social anger and mass protests against French troop deployments in the Sahel and West Africa, however, Macron has been forced to agree to the putschists’ demands that he withdraw his troops. It marks a setback for French imperialism’s strategy of plundering resources from its former colonial empire in Africa.

The junta in Niger has banned all French aircraft from flying over its airspace since Saturday evening. It announced that the airspace would be open to all national and international commercial flights except those chartered by France, including French Airlines and Air France.

Macron made clear, however, that French imperialism is leaving Niger only as part of a plan to buy time and reestablish its political domination over the region. He stressed that France will continue to work with West African governments. This shows that even with the withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, France is not ready to give up its economic and strategic positions in the geographical heart of West Africa.

The French withdrawal from Niger has also highlighted growing tensions between Paris and Washington in the region. While France was pressuring ECOWAS to intervene militarily to restore Nigerien President Mohamed Bassum, who was ousted by the currently ruling military junta, Washington made efforts to pacify the ECOWAS countries.

RFI reported: “At the UN, the Americans try in vain to change the position of ECOWAS countries on Niger. In New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the United States tried to convince the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to soften their position on respect for the putschists in Niger. It was this Friday morning during a meeting organized by American Secretary of State Antony Blinken. But clearly, the maneuver was not successful.”

RFI added that Blinken hosted several West African leaders, such as Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu and Senegal’s Macky Sall.

As French troops withdraw from Niger, the US will “review all actions” regarding its military presence, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austen announced Monday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. “While giving diplomacy a chance, we will also continue to consider any future measures that will prioritize both our diplomatic and security objectives,” he told journalists at a news conference in Nairobi.

While worker and youth struggles against imperialism mount across West Africa, the Nigerien junta does not oppose imperialism or the NATO alliance. It is ready to work with US imperialism, which is now waging a devastating war against Russia in Ukraine, while taking measures to expel French troops—for now, at least. The dubious maneuvers of the Nigerian junta with Washington expose its anti-imperialist fraud.

Two weeks ago, the junta authorized US forces to operate from Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger. Currently, 1,100 US troops are stationed in Niger and the US has resumed drone and warplane operations from this airbase against the jihadists. Also, the US has stationed troops near Niger’s strategic uranium mines.

Relations between France and the United States have undoubtedly been strained by the coup in Niger. As such, Niger’s ruling circles and the Nigerien military seek to maximize the political advantages they can gain by pitting the great powers against each other.

Ultimately, however, even the withdrawal of French troops from Niger cannot ultimately free the workers and youth in Niger and the Sahel from the grip of imperialism. Exploiting their control of global financial flows and military power, the imperialist countries will use the most ruthless policies to return French and NATO troops to the region. Already, France is working closely with the ECOWAS governments to strangle Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso with economic sanctions.

A sharp turn in China property market turmoil

Nick Beams

The ongoing and interlinked property development and financial crisis in China has taken a new turn with the announcement by the failed Evergrande conglomerate that one of its subsidiaries has failed to make a payment on an offshore bond.

Residents walk past a map showing Evergrande development projects in China, at an Evergrande city plaza in Beijing, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. Andy Wong [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

Evergrande, one of China’s largest real estate and property developers, defaulted on debts in 2021. It has been the subject of a restructuring operation aimed at trying to prevent its liquidation because that would set off turbulence through the financial system with unknown consequences.

On Monday it was announced that Hengda Real Estate, one of Evergrande’s subsidiairies, had defaulted on a 4-billion-yuan ($547 million) repayment due in principal and interest on a bond issued in 2020.

In March it had missed an interest payment on the loan and said it would “actively” seek to negotiate with bondholders, but the latest development indicates that no solution has been found.

In its report on the default, Bloomberg, which closely follows Chinese real estate developments, said: “Evergrande is running out of time to get what would be one of the nation’s biggest-ever restructurings back on track after setbacks in recent days have raised the risk of a potential liquidation.”

Evergrande is trying to reach an agreement with creditors and with regulators so that it can issue new bonds to restructure around $30 billion in offshore debt. Creditors would receive new securities in place of the ones that are failing.

The issuing of “new notes” by Evergrande is essential because without it the restructuring process cannot go ahead. Troubles first surfaced on Sunday evening when Evergrande said it could not issue “new notes” because Hengda was being investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

This brought an incredulous response from one of the people close to the negotiations, cited by the Financial Times.

They asked: “How can a process that has run for two years … [with] a whole army of offshore and onshore advisers … suddenly be derailed at the eleventh hour?”

As the Bloomberg report noted, the clock is ticking on the Evergrande restructuring because on October 30 the company faces a court hearing in Hong Kong on a winding up petition that could force it into liquidation.

Last week, Evergrande cancelled meetings with key creditors, saying it had to reassess the proposed restructuring. Its sales had also “not been as expected.”

According to Jonathan Leitch, a Hong Kong lawyer specialising in debt restructuring, cited by Bloomberg: “A huge amount of work has gone into the planning and formulation of Evergrande’s restructuring plans, but if the sales forecasts underpinning the turnaround now appear unachievable, it is better to revisit the deal terms before scheme meetings are held.”

Creditors could expect a downward revision in terms and a further lengthening of repayment periods which would “create uncertainty” and “further test the patience of bondholders,” Leitch said.

The restructuring of Evergrande, which revealed in July that it had incurred losses of $81 billion over the two-year period of 2021-2022, is being closely watched because of implications for the debt restructuring of other property developers.

Chinese authorities have taken some measures to try to boost the property markets, including the reduction in some interest rates for home buyers, but nothing that can bring a sustained boost.

There was an immediate market response to the news of the Hengda default. A Bloomberg index of property developer shares fell by 7.1 percent on Monday taking the total loss for the year to almost $56 billion.

Evergrande shares dropped by 22 percent and shares in the China Aoyuan Group, in which trading resumed after an 18-month break, plunged by 72 percent.

There has been a stream of negative news including an announcement by Chinese regulators that they are launching an inquiry into Ping An Real Estate over a loan replacement. China Oceanwide also said it faced liquidation after a court in Bermuda issued a wind-up order.

While it managed to avoid a default on two dollar bonds earlier this month, the real estate developer Country Garden, the country’s biggest and hitherto regarded as among the safest, is by no means out of the woods. It recorded a $6.7 billion loss for the first six months of the year—its highest ever.

Having dodged a bullet, Country Garden is reported to be still trying to stave off a debt default.

The property market slump is feeding into the financial system, hitting so called shadow banks. One of these, Zhingrong, has missed debt repayments at least partly because investments it has made with property developers have gone sour.

The crisis in the property market has invited comparisons with the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis which started in the US mortgage market. Questions have been raised as to whether China might soon face a “Lehman moment”—a reference to the failure of the US investment bank which triggered the meltdown.

Such comparisons are, at least at this stage, premature. Most of the debt is held domestically and the government has mechanisms available through which it can intervene.

Nevertheless, there are serious problems. The real estate and property development sector has been a mainstay of the Chinese economy over the past decade and a half. When its connections to other industries are taken into account, it comprises about 25 percent of the Chinese economy.

Its crisis both contributes to, and is a product of, the slowing economy. The official target for economic growth this year is 5 percent—the lowest in three decades—and there are doubts among analysts it will even reach this level. The World Economic Forum, for example, predicts growth of only 2.7 percent this year and 2.9 percent in 2024.

And the debt mountain in the property sector is symptomatic of a much broader phenomenon.

It has been estimated that Local Government Financing Vehicles, the means through which local authorities fund infrastructure projects, have a total of $10 trillion in debt. Overall Chinese debt is estimated to be 300 percent of GDP and comprises 15 percent of total global debt.

So, while there may not be the immediate prospect of a financial meltdown there is certainly the potential for major disturbances which will have a global impact.

Emerging pandemics and the role of bats

Frank Gaglioti

Many viral infections that plague humans originate from bats, yet intriguingly, bats suffer no ill effects from the myriad viruses that inhabit their bodies. Scientists are researching how this occurs in the hope of finding some insights into how to control or moderate the impacts of viral infections on humans.

Earlier this year, zoologist and geneticist Emma Teeling from University College Dublin told the Guardian, “Bats have the potential to teach us a great deal about how to fight off disease.”

Bats are a unique order of mammals, consisting of over 1,400 species known to exist on every continent except Antarctica. They range in size from the Kitti’s hog-nosed bat at 29 mm to species of fruit bat that are 40 cm long with a 1.5 m wingspan. They have a relatively long lifespan, with some species known to have lived approximately 40 years, far longer than most small animal species. They are the only mammal to have evolved flight and the ability to navigate through echolocation. Bats evolved in the time of the Eocene Epoch about 56 to 33.9 million years ago.

Kitti's hog-nosed bat [Photo by Sébastien J. Puechmaille1,*, Pipat Soisook2, Medhi Yokubol2, Piyathip Piyapan2,Meriadeg Ar Gouilh3, 4, Khin Mie Mie5, Khin Khin Kyaw5, Iain Mackie6,Sara Bumrungsri2, Ariya Dejtaradol2, Tin Nwe5, Si Si Hla Bu7, Chutamas Satasook2,Paul J. Bates8, Emma C. Teeling1 / CC BY 4.0]

Bats are the second largest mammal order, comprising 22 percent of all named species of mammals. Only the rodent order outnumbers them.

SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has killed at least 26 million people, is thought to have originated from bats. A study published in September 2021 outlined the discovery in 2020 by French and Laotian scientists of three coronaviruses considered to be close relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in bats living in limestone caves in Laos. This was a devastating blow to the Wuhan lab theory of the origin of the virus. The discovery confirmed the zoonotic origin of the virus as is the case for all other known viruses.

Many other viral infections are known to have originated from bats. In an important review published in Nature Reviews Microbiology in June 2020, molecular virologist Michael Letko and his team at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Hamilton, Montana, commented:

Most viral pathogens in humans have animal origins and arose through cross-species transmission. Over the past 50 years, several viruses, including Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and SARS-CoV-2, have been linked back to various bat species.

Letko et al. continued:

Despite decades of research into bats and the pathogens they carry, the fields of bat virus ecology and molecular biology are still nascent, with many questions largely unexplored, thus hindering our ability to anticipate and prepare for the next viral outbreak.

Bats have been identified as repositories for Marburg virus, Hendra virus, Sosuga virus and Nipah virus. African fruit bats are thought to be the source of the Ebola virus.

Many coronaviruses are considered to have emerged from bats, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Bats are responsible for several emergent coronaviruses such as Swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus, which emerged from horseshoe bats.

The role that bats play in the zoonotic spillover of emerging viral diseases and possible pandemics is exacerbated by the impacts of poverty, as people are forced to rely on bush meat to survive, increasing the chance of infections. Poor communities clearing land for agriculture disturb animal habitats, creating opportunities for zoonotic spillover of new viral diseases.

Bats rarely directly infect humans, but this usually occurs through an intermediary species such as civets for SARS-CoV and camels for MERS-CoV. As humans mostly become infected through a secondary agent, this means it is very difficult to determine the original source of a given virus, many of which are extremely dangerous. MERS-CoV has a lethality rate of 35 percent while Marburg is up to 90 percent.

Marburg virus

Marburg is a relatively recent emerging viral infection. It was first identified in 1967 in simultaneous outbreaks in Marburg and Hamburg in Germany, as well as Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia. The outbreak started with laboratory workers who became infected from African green monkeys. It resulted in 31 people being infected, of whom seven died, with a fatality rate of 23 percent.

Most other outbreaks of the virus have been confined to Africa, with the largest in the Congo and Angola in 1998-2000 and 2004-05, respectively. The Congo outbreak infected 154 people resulting in 128 deaths, while the Angolan outbreak infected 252 people with 227 deaths, fatality rates of 83 and 90 percent, respectively. The Angolan fatality rate was the highest on record for this type of virus.

Electron microscope scan of Marburg virus particles [Photo: NIAID]

The latest outbreaks were in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania that were declared on January 13 and March 16, 2023, respectively. In the Equatorial Guinea outbreak there were 20 probable cases resulting in seven deaths, while in Tanzania there were nine cases resulting in six deaths.

Two viruses have been identified that cause Marburg viral infections: the Marburg virus and the Ravn virus, both of which are similar to the Ebola virus. These viruses are members of the Filoviridae family of virus that consist of a single strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA).

Marburg virus is considered so lethal that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has characterised it as a Biosafety Level 4, the highest security rating, in line with its high lethality and transmissibility. Marburg and the Ebola virus are regarded as some of the deadliest viruses known to infect humans.

Marburg virus has been found in Egyptian rousette bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus), a type of fruit bat found in Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent. People become infected due to prolonged exposure to bat urine or saliva in caves and abandoned mines, where the bats are known to roost in large colonies. Healthcare workers have been infected due to treating infected patients.

Rousettus aegypticus [Photo by Emőke Dénes / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Marburg virus can be transmitted from human-to-human through contact with bodily fluids. It has an incubation period of 2-21 days. Early symptoms are similar to influenza, including high fever, chills, severe headache, severe tiredness and muscle aches and pains.

The infection then becomes more acute, with severe diarrhoea, abdominal pain and cramping, nausea and vomiting. The WHO describes the infected person at this stage as “showing ‘ghost-like’ drawn features, deep-set eyes, expressionless faces, and extreme lethargy.”

The severest cases have some form of bleeding, often from several orifices. The person often dies eight to nine days after the onset of symptoms.

In an important study published in Nature Communications in January 2020, titled “Isolation of Angola-like Marburg virus from Egyptian rousette bats from West Africa,” disease ecologist from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Brian R. Amman and his team outlined that the virus causing the Angolan Marburg outbreak was a significantly more virulent strain of the virus.

The study pointed out that the Angolan outbreak was the only one to have occurred in East Africa, indicating the further spread of the virus.

“All previous MVD (Marburg virus) outbreaks occurred in, or originated from, Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), or South Africa ex Zimbabwe,” the authors stated.

East Africa is known as a place of large concentration of Filoviridae virus. Amman et al. commented that “Other filoviruses circulating in Africa include the marburgvirus, Ravn virus (RAVV), as well as five ebolaviruses, EBOV, Sudan virus (SUDV), Tai Forest virus (TAFV), Bundibugyo virus (BDBV), and the recently discovered Bombali virus (BOMV).”

Map of Africa [Photo by JA Galán Baho / CC BY 4.0]

The Sudan virus occurs in the Sudan, Tai Forest in the Ivory Coast, Bundibugyo and Bombali in Sierra Leone.

Potential for Marburg to become a pandemic

While the Marburg virus is spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids from bats, secondary animal vectors such as apes, or infected humans, there is the potential for the virus to mutate so it can spread through aerosol transmission. Such an outcome could have devastating consequences, as the virus would have the potential to develop into a pandemic. The evolution of a constant stream of SARS-CoV-2 variants starkly demonstrates the potential for RNA viruses to mutate very rapidly.

Marburg mostly occurs in Africa but there have been two outbreaks in other countries, highlighting the ability of the virus to spread more broadly. In 1990, a laboratory worker in the Soviet Union became infected due to contact with infected tissue while containing the virus. The infected person did not die. In July 2008, a Dutch tourist who had visited caves in Uganda inadvertently brought Marburg virus to the Netherlands. The infected person died but the virus did not spread as the victim was isolated in time.

An important review article by virologist Sophie J. Smithers of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in the UK, published in the journal Viruses in April 2022, examined the “aerosol survival comparison” of the Ebola and Marburg viruses.

The review stated, “This work will help inform on the relative aero stability and virulence of different variants and isolates. Studying aerosols is important due to the possibility of deliberate or accidental release or generation of aerosolized virus.”

Smithers and her team point out that the Ebola and Marburg viruses are evolving constantly, producing new variants and that “infection of animals including non-human primates via the aerosol route is possible in laboratory studies.”

“Each outbreak of EBOV or MARV is typically associated with the emergence of a different variant and multiple isolates with the result that many variants and isolates exist,” Smithers et al. stated.

It is completely possible that a new Marburg variant could evolve to transmit via aerosols, developing into a pandemic involving a far deadlier virus than SARS-CoV-2.

Bats and viruses

The fact that bats are known to harbour myriad different viruses, but can coexist without any ill effect on the host, has become a promising area of research with potential insights into ways of protecting humans from viral infections.

“There is a kind of peace treaty between bats and the pathogens they host,” virologist Joshua Hayward of the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia, told Nature.

Evidence is emerging that it is bats’ long coexistence with virus species that makes any zoonotic spillover so lethal to humans.

A fascinating study by virologist Cara Brook and her colleagues at the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley in California, published in February 2020 in eLife, explains that bats have a “hyper-vigilant immune response” that would cause dangerous inflammation in other mammals.

The authors state:

Bats, however, have adapted anti-inflammatory traits that protect them from such harm, include the loss of certain genes that normally promote inflammation. However, no one has previously explored how these unique antiviral defenses of bats impact the viruses themselves.

Brook and her team used laboratory cell lines from the black flying fox (Pteropus Alecto) in which its interferon pathway is always on. This means its immune system is constantly and “perpetually trying to fight viruses.” They also studied the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in which the pathway goes on only during infection. They compared the response of the bat cells to those of African Green Monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops).

Interferons are signaling proteins made in a cell in response to viral infection to fight an invasion. The bat and monkey cell lines were infected with Ebola and Marburg. The monkey cells were completely destroyed by the viruses but some of the bat cells survived.

The researchers replicated the experiment using mathematical modelling to determine how fast the viruses infected other cells and whether antiviral defences played a role in their spread. The modelling found that the viruses replicated under pressure from the bats’ immune system spread rapidly from cell to cell. The rapid spread helps the viruses counter the bats’ antiviral abilities that quickly mounted defences. In the monkey cells, the viruses spread more slowly but all the cells were destroyed.

Brook and her team noted:

In both bat species, the strongest antiviral responses were countered by the virus spreading more quickly from cell to cell. This suggests that bat immune defences may drive the evolution of faster transmitting viruses, and while bats are well protected from the harmful effects of their own prolific viruses, other creatures like humans are not.

Scientists consider bats’ ability to dampen their inflammatory response to viral infection important in their ability to coexist with viruses. One mechanism that is being actively researched is that this characteristic is connected to bats’ ability to fly. Due to this ability, bats have an elevated metabolic rate, but in spite of this they have a relatively long lifespan, an observation which has triggered considerable interest.

An important study by Matae Ahn and his team from Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore published in Nature Microbiology noted:

As the only flying mammal, bats endure high metabolic rates yet exhibit elongated lifespans. It is currently unclear whether these unique features are interlinked. The important inflammasome sensor, NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3), has been linked to both viral-induced and age-related inflammation. Here, we report significantly dampened activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome in bat primary immune cells compared to human or mouse counterparts.

Inflammasome is an important cell signaling process that regulates the production of cytokine and is essential for the immune system. NLRP3 inflammasome is a multi-protein complex that plays a pivotal role in regulating the immune system.

The report notes that “how bats limit excessive inflammation while asymptomatically hosting a greater variety of viruses is unknown.”

A great deal of work had concentrated on the NLR family pyrin domain that recognises cellular stresses. The study reports a mechanism in bats that dampens the inflammation response to three RNA viruses, without affecting the viral loads in primary immune cells. They found dampened transcriptional priming and a lower functional capacity of bat NLRP3. This was in response to exposure to the bat-borne Melaka virus and MERS coronavirus. These viruses induced inflammation in human and mouse cells.

“Bats have naturally dampened stress-related and virus-induced host inflammatory responses, with implications for longevity and asymptomatic viral reservoir status,” Ahn et al stated.

In order to expand our understanding of bats, Professor Emma Teeling, the head of the Laboratory of Molecular Evolution and Mammalian Phylogenetics at the University College Dublin, founded the Bat1K project in 2017 that aims to map the genome of all bat species. This will provide invaluable insights into bat biology and their unique ability to live with viruses.

Emma Teeling [Photo by EPA Ireland / CC BY 3.0]

“If we could mimic the immune response of bats to viruses, that allows them to tolerate them, then you could look to nature to find a cure,” Teeling told the BBC. “It’s already evolved, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We now have the tools to be able to understand the steps we need to take; we need to develop the drugs to do it.”

In this context, the political attacks that have been made throughout the COVID-19 pandemic against principled scientists studying these topics and the dangers of future spillover events, including Drs. Peter Daszak, Shi Zhengli, Kristian Andersen, Peter Hotez, and many more, are all the more deplorable.

Dr. Peter Daszak, right, and Dr. Shi Zhengli, are two leading scientists studying bat coronaviruses, pictured at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. [Photo by EcoHealth Alliance]

The pandemic has revealed the underlying antagonism between the capitalist profit system, riven by divisions between nation-states, and the ability of scientists to carry out their research unhindered.

Australian PM pitches for bipartisan front as support plummets for indigenous Voice

Mike Head

With opinion polls showing a continuing fall in support for the Labor government’s referendum to entrench an indigenous assembly, called the Voice, in the constitution, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made a revealing plea for unity with the opposition Liberal-National Coalition.

Speaking at the launch of the Uniting Church’s Yes23 campaign for the Voice in Sydney on Sunday, alongside Liberal politician and Yes advocate Julian Leeser, Albanese said he had secretly made a pitch for a cross-party front in March.

For the first time, Albanese announced that he had met privately with Liberal leader Peter Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud in March to propose a joint parliamentary committee, with co-chairs from Labor and the Coalition, to oversee the drafting of legislation to govern the functions of the Voice.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese campaigns in Norwood, South Australia on September 20 with Labor Senator Marielle Smith (left) and other Yes referendum supporters. [Photo: Facebook Senator Marielle Smith]

Three polls published yesterday indicated that support for a Yes vote has dropped as low as 33 percent. This continued the trend of polls showing the Yes campaign, which the government has made absolutely central to its entire platform, headed for defeat at the October 14 referendum.

Significantly, the polls reported a parallel fall in support for the Labor government itself, above all because of the cost-of-living and housing affordability crisis. The ongoing cut to living conditions, the worst since World War II, is causing immense financial stress and social problems throughout the working class, including its most vulnerable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members.

For millions of working-class households, the Labor government’s claim that the Voice would mean “better outcomes” for indigenous people is as hollow as Labor’s 2022 election promise of a “better future.”

Albanese’s decision to now disclose his secretive offer to Dutton and Littleproud underscores the right-wing, pro-business character of the entire Voice project, which has the backing and financial support of large sections of the corporate elite.

While trying to appeal to the widespread sentiment for action to address the shocking social conditions of most indigenous people, it seeks to revamp and bolster the apparatus of the capitalist state that has been responsible for these conditions since 1901.

Despite Albanese’s March offer, both the Liberals and Nationals have officially called for a No vote, reflecting concern that the Voice could trigger constitutional conflicts under conditions of intensifying working-class alienation from the whole political setup. However, prominent factional leaders of both parties, like Leeser, have campaigned actively for a Yes vote.

At a doorstop media conference after the Uniting Church event, Albanese also revealed that he privately spoke to Dutton last weekend to give the Liberal leader advanced notice that he would make public his March offer. Albanese said Dutton had thanked him for the “courtesy.”

The offer of a joint parliamentary committee underlines the extent to which the Voice, although termed an “advisory body,” would become a key part of the existing political order. Representatives of a privileged indigenous layer of CEOs, bureaucrats and academics would be further integrated into the ruling establishment, while operating under the close supervision of the parliamentary establishment.

This is in line with the proposed amendment to the Constitution. The new section 129 would state explicitly that parliament—that is, the existing capitalist institution—would have the final say on all “matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

As the Socialist Equality Party’s statement calling for an active boycott of the referendum explains, the Voice would sit at the heart of the state apparatus of parliament, governments and the armed forces of Australian capitalism. This regime, established in 1901, has its roots in the British colonial administration that cleared the land of indigenous tribes through massacres, poisonings, disease and the herding of survivors into squalid reserves.

At the Uniting Church event, Albanese again declared that a Yes vote would be “a moment of national unity.” By “national unity” he really means unity with the Coalition and the corporate boardrooms! In making a patriotic appeal, they want to put a progressive gloss on the program of austerity and US-led war, to which they are all committed, against the working class.

The latest media polls show that the disintegrating support for the Voice is directly related to rising disaffection with the Labor government and the whole ruling establishment. They do not indicate a lack of support for genuine measures to address the plight of indigenous people, nor support for a small minority of right-wing racists.

A Redbridge poll, published in the Guardian on Sunday, said 62 percent of respondents intended to vote No and only 38 percent Yes. A Newspoll, conducted for the Australian, produced a similar outcome—56 percent No and 36 percent Yes.

In the Newspoll, the biggest swing occurred among women and younger voters, who were previously the strongest supporters of the Voice. In the 18- to-34-year-old demographic, support for Yes fell another five points to 50 percent, down from close to 70 percent at the beginning of 2023.

Significantly, the Newspoll also ­recorded a six-point fall in the satisfaction rating for Dutton, who has dog-whistled to racist elements in opposing the Voice. The official opposition leader has dropped to his lowest level of approval—minus 20—since taking the post after the Coalition’s election defeat in May 2022.

The most revealing result came from the Australian Financial Review’s AFR/Freshwater Strategy poll. It registered support for the Voice at only 33 percent, while the No vote reached 50 percent, with 17 percent undecided. That 33 percent figure matched the four-point fall in support for the government since December, back to the near-record low level that the Labor Party obtained at the May 2022 election.

The financial newspaper reported: “Among those who have switched their vote from Yes to No over the past five months, the most commonly cited reason is the Voice has served as a distraction from the top two issues of voter concern—the cost of living and the cost of housing.”

To that could be added crucial issues not even canvassed by the poll. They include the government’s accelerating commitment to the AUKUS alliance and massive military spending for a war against China, the “Stage Three” income tax cuts for the rich, the growing COVID toll of illness and deaths since the Labor government scrapped health safety measures, and the lack of any real measures to reverse the climate change disaster.

An accompanying AFR editorial voiced anxiety. Speaking on behalf of big business, it described the decline in popular support for the Voice as “alarming.” It said a “national tragedy” was looming due to the likely Yes defeat and the Labor government’s “loss of gloss.”

The editorial warned of political instability. “After winning government with a bare one-seat majority, since increased to two seats, this is a political recipe for a Labor minority government at the next election.”