Court documents list Jeffrey Epstein’s associates among political, corporate, celebrity elite

Kevin Reed

Three troves of previously sealed court documents related to deceased billionaire financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein were released by a federal court in New York City late last week.

Contained in the unsealed documents are the names of more than 150 people, including high-profile and powerful individuals within the capitalist establishment—politicians and celebrities, as well as less well-known figures from corporate, academic and scientific circles.

2011 photo taken at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion. From left: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; Epstein; Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder; and Boris Nikolic, who was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s science adviser.

The 180 exhibits, totaling 2,644 pages of mostly unredacted records, were released by Manhattan US District Judge Loretta Preska. The documents are court records from the defamation lawsuit brought in 2015 by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, against the billionaire’s longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Giuffre, who was a teenager when Maxwell facilitated and participated in her abuse by Epstein and others, filed the suit after Maxwell called her a liar. In a criminal prosecution in 2021, Maxwell was convicted of conspiring with Epstein in his sex-trafficking operation and is now serving a 20-year sentence in a Tallahassee federal prison.

Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein in 2005 [Photo: US DOJ]

Judge Preska ruled in December that the Giuffre lawsuit documents should be unsealed and made public. They comprise depositions, incident reports, court filings, emails and other documents, and include the names of witnesses, accusers, members of Epstein’s staff, members of law enforcement and other people linked to Epstein.

The documents provide little new information about Epstein’s abuse of under-age girls. It has long been established that he and elite individuals associated with him engaged in depraved and criminal activities for decades without being arrested or prosecuted.

According to Judge Preska, most of the information in the newly unsealed documents had already been made public and the papers do not include salacious material about individuals other than Epstein. As reported by CBS News, “Much of the information has been previously reported, and many of those whose names are mentioned are not accused of any wrongdoing.”

However, the documents—largely derived from the testimony of women who were victimized by Epstein from the 1990s up to his first arrest in Florida on sex charges in 2007—provide further evidence that the socialite and billionaire wealth manager was well connected to a wide range of political, corporate and entertainment celebrities during the first two decades of his criminal sex trafficking operation.

In his 2007 prosecution, Epstein was charged in a 50-page indictment involving the Palm Beach Police Department and an FBI investigation that included 34 minors. The charges against Epstein involved allegations of sexual abuse of under-age girls as young as 12, some of whom were transported to his private residences in Paris for lavish parties attended by his elite guests.

This July 9, 2019 photo shows Jeffery Epstein's estate on Little Saint James Island in the US Virgin Islands. [AP Photo/Gianfranco Gaglione]

In the end, through the intervention of US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alex Acosta, Epstein was given a slap on the wrist. A non-prosecution agreement was negotiated by his legal team, including Alan Dershowitz, which enabled the sex offender to plead guilty to state charges of “procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18.”

When asked later about his intervention, Acosta said he offered a lenient plea deal because he was told that Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and was “above his pay grade.” Acosta said he was instructed to “leave it alone.”

Jeffrey Epstein came to prominence within elite circles during the unprecedented rise in US social inequality in the 1990s. These were years of an offensive against jobs, living standards, working conditions and social programs under the Democratic Party administration of Bill Clinton.

Enormous fortunes were made by the capitalist elite, while past social concessions to the working class associated with the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s were stripped away by both Democratic and Republican administrations, with the complicit assistance of the trade union bureaucracy.

Epstein, a former New York City private school mathematics and physics teacher, went into private equity at Bear Stearns in 1976, through his acquaintance with the CEO of the investment firm, Alan Greenspan. After working his way into the Wall Street elite, Epstein became a well known figure in the lucrative and parasitic world of hedge fund management. Among his business activities during this time was a startup with connections to the Israel Defense Forces.

Epstein worked his contacts relentlessly while he developed his sex trafficking operations in the 1990s. In his 28,000-square-foot townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Epstein hosted lavish parties and ingratiated himself with the rich and famous, who were for the most part well aware of his sordid abuse of under-age girls.

In 2019, Epstein was arrested in New Jersey after being charged by a New York City grand jury with sex trafficking “dozens” of under-age girls in Florida and New York. He was refused bail and jailed in Manhattan. While awaiting trial, he was found dead in his cell on August 10, 2019 under suspicious circumstances.

Although New York City authorities moved quickly to conclude that Epstein had committed suicide by hanging, there is substantial conflicting evidence that suggests the billionaire sex trafficker was murdered in his Manhattan jail cell.

The list of political and state figures named in the new documents includes Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Britain’s Prince Andrew, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Richardson, Ehud Barak (former Israeli prime minister), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Louis Freeh (former FBI director). Ultra-wealthy individuals named include Hyatt Hotels billionaire Tom Pritzker, hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin and the founder of Limited Brands, Les Wexner.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump pose for photos at the 6th annual Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation Golf Classic at Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York, July 6, 2009. [AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey]

Among the celebrities named are Oprah Winfrey, David Copperfield (magician), Michael Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Spacey, George Lucas, Cate Blanchett, Naomi Campbell, Chris Tucker, Bruce Willis and Camron Diaz. The named lawyers, scientists and academics include Alan Dershowitz, Stephen Hawking, Marvin Minsky (artificial intelligence pioneer) and Noam Chomsky. The list also includes the names of many of Epstein’s accusers and victims.

The new documents contain testimony and depositions given by Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s teenage sexual abuse victims. She describes an encounter with Prince Andrew at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion where she was groped by the British royal.

Regarding former President Bill Clinton, Sjoberg stated, “[Epstein] said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.”

In an email to a journalist in 2011, Virginia Giuffre said that when Vanity Fair (VF) was preparing an article for publication, “B. Clinton walked into VF and threatened them not to write sex-trafficking articles about his good friend J.E.” Clinton has publicly denied these accounts.

Sjoberg said she met Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion. Asked whether she massaged Jackson, Sjoberg said: “I did not.” Sjoberg stated that David Copperfield was a friend of Epstein and that he attended dinner at one of Epstein’s homes and “did some magic tricks.”

Sjoberg mentioned Donald Trump in connection with a flight from Palm Beach, Florida in 2001 that included Epstein, Giuffre and a few others. When Epstein’s plane was unable to land in New York due to a storm, they had to land in Atlantic City.

Sjoberg recalled Epstein saying, “Great, we’ll call up Trump” and go to his casino. Sjoberg wasn’t asked if they met up with Trump that night, although they did go to one of the Trump casinos. Sjoberg said she was never asked to give Trump a massage.

There is evidence that Trump flew on Epstein’s plane at least once, and video emerged in July 2019 of Epstein and Trump partying together at Mar-a-Lago in the early 1990s. A housekeeper testified that Trump dined at the Palm Beach home of Epstein but never received any massages there. During the years in question, both Trump and Epstein were supporters of the Democratic Party.

Ukraine continues strikes on Russian city of Belgorod

Jason Melanovski

Ukraine carried out another series of rocket strikes on the Russian city of Belgorod on Friday, resulting in at least two civilians with shrapnel injuries.

Friday’s attack marked the seventh consecutive day that Ukraine had carried out strikes on Belgorod, which is located just 25 kilometers from the Ukraine border and is often characterized by Ukrainian nationalists as “historic Ukrainian lands.” The attacks have been described as “indiscriminate” by Russian authorities and have resulted in the deaths of a number of Russian civilians. A number of Belgorod residents have begun leaving the city due to the ongoing attacks.

On December 30, Ukraine carried out its largest attack to date on Belgorod, resulting in the deaths of at least 25 civilians who were celebrating the New Year at the city’s main square. More than 100 were wounded and five of those killed were children, according to Belgorod authorities.

In response, Russia called an emergency UN Security Council meeting last Sunday, where the Russian ambassador to the UN Vasily Nabenzya called the strikes, “a terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime against a civilian city.”

“In order to increase the number of casualties of the terrorist attack they used cluster munitions,” Nabenzya claimed.

The strikes mark a significant escalation in the targeting of the Russian civilian population and attacks inside Russian territory by NATO-backed Ukraine. Already, the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has resulted in an estimated 400,000 Ukrainian military deaths and tens of thousands of Russian dead.

The Ukrainian government has yet to comment directly on the attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin has sworn the attacks “would not go unpunished.”

According to Russian media reports, the attacks were ordered personally by Zelensky and carried out by the head of Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR), Kiril Budanov, and the neo-Nazi Kraken regiment, which was formed by veterans of the better-known fascist Azov regiment. The Kraken regiment forms part of the HUR and thus operates separately from the regular Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This suggests that the attacks were likely carried out outside the command of the regular Ukrainian Armed Forces, led by General Valery Zaluzhnyi, who has been embroiled in a public conflict with Zelensky over the war’s future direction. Zaluzhnyi publicly warned in November in the British Economist that the war was at a “stalemate.” His statements were quickly contradicted by Zelensky and his cabinet, who promptly canceled the upcoming 2024 presidential elections, in which Zaluzhnyi would have been his main rival.

On Friday, Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, appeared on Ukrainian television and claimed that Ukrainian special forces had carried out another raid in the Belgorod region and injured a “rather iconic person” within the Russian military. Budanov, who was reportedly favored as Zelensky’s pick to replace former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, is clearly being empowered by Zelensky to carry out an adventurist military campaign.

Over the past year, Budanov’s military intelligence service has been central to a series of drone attacks, including on Moscow and the Kremlin, and incursions into Russian territory that have been spearheaded by fascist forces. A year ago, a picture circulated of Budanov in his office with a map of Russia, carved up between different powers, behind his desk.

The United States and the European imperialist powers have defended the attacks despite the civilian casualties. British envoy Thomas Phipps cynically blamed Moscow for all civilian deaths as a result of the war.

“There are hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers in Ukraine. There is not a single Ukrainian soldier in Russia. If Russia wants someone to blame for the deaths of Russians in this war, it should start with President Putin,” Phipps said.

As the 30,000 dead civilians in the Gaza genocide—and the millions of dead in the US wars in the Middle East—demonstrate, Western imperialism has no qualms about indiscriminate mass murder as long as it serves their interests. According to the UN, more than 10,000 civilians, including more than 560 children, have been killed and over 18,500 have been injured since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

While Russian attacks against Ukrainian cities that have resulted in civilian casualties are quickly picked up as headline news in Western media and condemned as war crimes, not a word is said against the Israeli government slaughter of over three times as many civilians within just three months, carried out with weapons supplied by the US.

After the disastrous failure of the NATO-orchestrated “counteroffensive” in 2023 and the deaths of over 125,000 Ukrainian soldiers in just a few months time with no territorial gains, the Zelensky government is now clearly resorting to provocative attacks on both military and civilian targets in order to elicit a stronger Russian response and in turn maintain imperialist backing for the war.

Already, the logic of the war, which de facto is waged between NATO and Russia, is extending well beyond Ukraine. On Friday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby responded to the increasing volley of missile attacks by Russia with unsubstantiated claims, suggesting that Russia was now using missiles and ballistic launchers supplied by North Korea.

“The most effective response to Russia’s horrific violence against the Ukrainian people is to continue to provide Ukraine with vital air defense capabilities and other types of military equipment,” Kirby said. “Iran and the DPRK [North Korea] are standing with Russia. Ukrainians deserve to know that the American people and this government will continue to stand with them,” Kirby added, indicating that the Ukraine war is being viewed as a precursor to a much larger world war by the American ruling class.

While provocatively striking inside Russia, the Ukrainian government is also doubling down on its efforts to mobilize yet another half-million Ukrainians for the continuation of the war.

With a reported death toll of at least 400,000, Ukraine is in dire need of both soldiers and ammunition. Prior to the Christmas holiday, Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian military would conscript 500,000 soldiers to continue the war and later submitted a draft law to parliament to take up the issue.

According to Ukrainian news outlet New Voice, General Zaluzhnyi told Ukrainian parliament during a meeting of the National Security Council, “I need people. The Russians have already called up 400,000 and are preparing several hundred thousand more. And who do I have?” Zaluzhnyi added, “There will be 80 days of training for each person mobilized. But give me people,”

The Ukrainian media is reporting that the mobilization has effectively begun. Viktor Yahun, a leading figure in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which has played the central role in cracking down on political opposition to the war and the Zelensky regime, told Espresso TV that “mobilization must be total” and that had to be a “total check of who and where” everyone is. “If a person has not passed the military medical commission and has not provided documents proving that he or she is working for the defense, not the economy, all the rest are excuses.”

Yahun then demanded that those who refuse to serve in the armed forces be deprived of their citizenship: “I would deprive of citizenship those people who say they do not want to fight. If you don’t want to fulfill your duties, then what rights can you have?”

Spain’s PSOE-Sumar government renews austerity

Santiago Guillen & Alejandro López

In line with its austerity commitments to the European Union (EU), Spain’s new Socialist Party (PSOE)-Sumar government has started to rollback the social concessions it was forced to make to the working class during the COVID-19 pandemic and amid spiraling inflation provoked by NATO’s against Russia in the Ukraine.

Homeless men sleep in a street in downtown Barcelona, Spain. [AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti]

In early 2020, as the pandemic swept across Europe, the European bourgeoisie confronted the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. As workers shut down major industries to stop the spread of the virus and forced governments to implement initial lockdowns, European officials designed the €800 billion Next Generation EU bailout fund. Madrid was allocated €140 billion, equivalent of 11 percent of the country’s gross national product (GDP) in 2019, and made Spain the second biggest recipient after Italy.

While the fund consisted mainly of handouts to corporations, measures to boost the stock market, and shore up the wealth of the super-rich, the ruling class was forced to make certain concessions to workers in the form of wage subsidies, electricity and housing benefits, and tax cuts to avoid a social rebellion.

In Spain, the PSOE-Podemos government (2019-2023), the predecessor of the PSOE-Sumar government, covered wages through the furlough scheme for 3 million workers—over one sixth of Spain’s workforce.

Subsequently, as a response to NATO's war against Russia in the Ukraine and terrified about the inability of its affiliated trade unions—Podemos-linked Workers Commissions (CCOO), social-democratic General Union of Workers (UGT)—to suppress mounting strikes and protests, the PSOE-Podemos coalition implemented a series of measures to address the mounting inflation that reached a peak of 8.3 percent in 2022.

These included the implementation of a price ceiling in the electricity market, an extension of rent controls initially introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, reductions in public transport costs, the temporary imposition of a wealth tax, and the imposition of windfall taxes on the profits of banking and energy conglomerates.

At the same time, the government made long-term attacks on living standards including the approval of a pension reform which led to the consolidation of the retirement age at 67 and a labour law slashing workers’ legal protections in the workplace. It also worked with the trade union bureaucracy to impose salary increases below inflation.

The PSOE-Sumar government is now preparing to roll back all the previous concessions and impose billions of euros in austerity measures.

In December, EU economy ministers agreed to reactivate the Stability and Growth Pact. Under the current rules, countries are required to maintain government deficits below 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and public debt below 60 percent of GDP. These rules were temporarily suspended during the pandemic.

The new agreement put forward by Spain as the rotating presidency of the EU and sealed by Germany and France allows countries with debt ratios exceeding 90 percent to reduce debt by one percentage point annually. For member states with debt ratios between 60 percent and 90 percent, the required reduction will be 0.5 percent per year.

To ensure the EU’s imperialist powers continue their path to militarization, the new rules will also grant member states leeway on military spending. If they invest in defence industries, the period during which a country has to balance its public accounts will be extended to seven years from four.

Spain’s Economy Minister Nadia Calvino celebrated the deal stating, “The rules are more realistic, they respond to the post-pandemic reality, and they incorporate also the lessons learned from the great financial crisis”.

The truth is, far from turning a page to the austerity measures imposed across Europe after the 2008 global capitalist crisis, the deal means savage austerity to be achieved through tax hikes and spending cuts in healthcare, education and infrastructure.

For Spain, with a current debt of 109.9 percent of gross domestic product (€1.5 trillion), a reduction of 1 percent is equivalent to €15 billion this year. Cuts are expected to continue into 2025, so on as long as the debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP and the fiscal deficit exceeds 1.5 percent annually.

Following the meeting, Spain started to roll back some of the temporary concessions it was forced to implement since the pandemic. It announced it will revert the value-added tax (VAT) on gas from its current 5 percent to 21 percent in April 2024. VAT on electricity will jump from 5 percent to 10 percent, and the Regulated Tariff (TUR) on gas will rise to an average of 8.19 percent.

The government extended some subsidies, including public transport subsidies for minors and young people and axed VAT on staple foods (such as bread, flour, milk, cheese and eggs), and on oil and pasta from 10 percent to 5 percent. But press reports indicate that these will terminate in June. Spain’s AIReF fiscal authority has already warned that Spain will only comply with the deficit limit in 2024 if the bulk of these subsidies are totally withdrawn.

The withdrawal of food tax cuts will impoverish the population, which has already confronted a 15.7 percent rise in food prices over the past year. Olive oil has increased by 55.6 percent, sugar by 50.2 percent, flour 37.6 percent, butter 37.5 percent, milk by 30.9 percent. Other staple foods have also become more expensive: eggs are 27.1 percent more expensive; yogurt, 25.6 percent; potatoes, 20.5 percent; cheese, 20.3 percent; and chicken, 16.6 percent.

The government also announced that energy companies will be allowed to offset the windfall tax if they invest in renewable energy projects. Under conditions where energy companies must invest in this area anyway to compete in the global markets, this basically means a tax reduction for some of Spain’s largest corporations.

Introduced after energy corporations, Ibedrola, Endesa, Naturgy and Repsol, reaped record profits of €12.5 billion ($13.8 billion) in 2022, 41 percent more than the year before, the windfall tax sought to address mounting anger of the population which had to pay 88 percent more in energy prices in the same period.

Madrid has also announced the beginning of major labor reforms as part of its commitment to the EU. The latest changes affect subsidies for long term unemployed who have exhausted or are not entitled to unemployment benefits. There are around 759,900 workers, of which nearly half, 361,600, are over 50 years old.

So far, they have received €480 ($523) a month for a maximum of 30 months. Now unemployed workers below 45 years of age will be able to access this subsidy and for those below 52 it will see their benefit increase to €570 ($622) for the first six months and €540 ($590) for the next six. After 12 months, it will be back to €480 ($523). However, the major aspect of this reform affects those long term unemployed above 52—the largest number of recipients of the subsidy. They will remain at €480 and have their contributions to the pension system reduced by up to 25 percent. In effect, it will mean that the pensions of hundreds of thousands of workers will be slashed.

These attacks are just the beginning. The text of the recent reform states, “Within six months, the Government will develop, within the framework of social dialogue [between businesses and the trade union bureaucracy] a Global Strategy for the employment of long-term unemployed workers […] with the aim of promoting their reintegration into the labor market or their maintenance in it.”

The billions of euros in austerity measures this year will throw fuel on the flames of working class opposition that is already starting to develop. Over the past month, tens of thousands of workers in over 30 different sectors have been on strike against low wages and global cost-of-living crisis, including nurses, air service handling workers, Amazon workers, and hospitality workers.

It will exacerbate deteriorating social conditions and bring more workers into direct conflict with the state and the PSOE-Sumar government. Recent reports show that Spain has 12.3 million people at risk of poverty and exclusion, 26 percent of its population. Almost 9 percent of the population, some 4.2 million people, live in severe poverty living on less than €560 per month, less than the widely promoted increase in long term unemployment benefit for those below 52. Almost half of Spanish citizens have difficulties making ends meet, while a third can’t afford one week of vacation time per year. Meanwhile, 35 major corporations trading on Spain’s Ibex35 stock exchange saw their profits surge by 22 percent last year, its best figure since 2009.

South Korean opposition party leader attacked in assassination attempt

Ben McGrath

The head of South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party (DP) Lee Jae-myung was attacked on Tuesday morning in the southeastern port city of Busan in an assassination attempt. The assailant stabbed Lee in the neck with a modified mountaineering knife and caused a serious injury from which the DP leader is expected to recover. The suspect was detained at the scene.

South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, Sept. 26, 2023. [AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon]

The exact motive for the attack is yet to be made clear, but according to the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency, the man admitted he intended to kill Lee and claimed he acted alone. He has been identified only as a 66-year-old real estate agent with the family name Kim. The man reportedly approached Lee posing as an autograph seeker before stabbing him, damaging the jugular vein but missing the vital carotid artery.

The incident took place on Busan’s Gadeok Island after Lee toured the construction site of a new airport. He was first taken to Pusan National University Hospital for emergency treatment before being airlifted to Seoul National University Hospital for surgery and where he is currently recovering.

The Busan District Court issued a formal arrest warrant for Kim on Thursday, charging him with attempted murder. The police are also continuing to investigate the attack, including if Kim had accomplices, and may release their findings as early as next week. They have searched Kim’s home and office in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, approximately 260 km from Busan and have concluded that the attack was thoroughly planned. The investigation has so far revealed that Kim had been following Lee since last June, attending at least six events where the DP leader was present.

While being taken to his arrest hearing, Kim responded to a reporter’s question on his motivations by saying, “Please refer to the eight-page ‘justification document’ I submitted to the police.”

This document has not been made public. Police claim it does not list criminal or political motives, but instead is supposedly filled with several “pedantic” phrases and “abstruse” references to “history.”

Without more information, it is impossible to make a definite declaration on the causes and reasons for the attack on Lee. However, it appears likely that politics played a role.

Lee is a significant political figure. In addition to being the leader of the DP, he is a member of the National Assembly, and was the party’s presidential candidate in 2022, only narrowly losing to President Yoon Suk-yeol of the right-wing People Power Party (PPP). Lee has also been embroiled in a politically motivated corruption investigation involving numerous accusations. Tuesday’s attack took place with the next general election for parliament scheduled to be held in April.

The Hankyoreh newspaper reported on Friday that Kim had written in his document: “During the previous government [of Democrat Moon Jae-in], the economy was ruined due to real estate policy failures and humiliating diplomacy toward North Korea. After the Yoon government was inaugurated and Lee Jae-myung became the opposition leader, the DP has dedicated itself to saving Lee. If everything goes like this, the economy will collapse, whoever wins the general elections.” Busan police claimed this report was not completely accurate.

The Hankyoreh also reported that Kim was likely influenced by far-right elements in South Korea. Kim’s nephew told the newspaper that his uncle had frequently attended far-right “Taegeukgi rallies” four or five years ago. Taegeukgi is the name for South Korea’s flag.

These rallies are notable for their unhinged anti-communism, support for United States imperialism, denunciation of democratic rights, and support for South Korea’s past dictators, Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee. They are also marked by calls for violence against their political opponents, all of whom they denounce as “communists.”

Beginning in 2016, far-right-wing layers of the political establishment first organized “Taegeukgi rallies” in support of then-President Park Geun-hye. Mass protests had developed that year demanding her removal from office for corruption and which were also fueled by Park’s growing attacks on the working class.

While these far-right demonstrations have continued, they lack any mass appeal. The organizers within the political establishment however are working to whip up the most reactionary elements in South Korean society, ultimately directed against the working class. If this is indeed the milieu Lee’s assailant had surrounded himself with, it is be likely that his actions were in some way politically motivated.

Political attacks of this nature are not unheard of in South Korea. In 2022, then-DP leader Song Yeong-gil was struck in the head with a hammer by an attacker. In 2015, a man slashed US Ambassador Mark Lippert across the face with a knife in Seoul. In 2006, Park Geun-hye was slashed across the face by an attacker when she was head of the Grand National Party, the predecessor of the PPP.

In response to the assault on Lee, the South Korean political establishment has joined together to denounce the act. The Democrats released a statement on Tuesday saying, “We strongly condemn the act of political terror against Lee,” while also calling on its members not to draw attention to or mention the assailant.

President Yoon made his first public remarks on the attack at a New Year gathering on Wednesday. He stated, “Terrorism, in whatever form, is more than just an act of harm or crime against the victim. It suppresses human freedom and is an enemy to everyone that seeks a free society. It is an enemy of liberal democracy.”

Yoon’s supposed concern over the impact on “democracy” rings entirely hollow. During his administration, he has moved to restrict democratic rights while denouncing his political opponents as North Korean sympathizers in an open appeal to far-right layers in society.

At the same time, violence and killing is increasingly becoming the primary manner in which the ruling class pursues its political interests overseas. Over the past year, Yoon has closely aligned South Korea with the US-led war drive against China in a de facto trilateral military alliance that includes Japan.

It is therefore entirely possible that the Yoon administration and the police will attempt to whitewash the motivations for the attack on Lee and cover up the role of the far-right in mobilizing violence against its opponents.

Turkey’s foreign minister warns of “risk of spreading war” from Gaza to wider region

Barış Demir

The danger of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which is unconditionally backed by US imperialism and its European allies, turning into a region-wide war is growing.

“The spread of war is a serious risk,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters on Wednesday, warning NATO and other Israeli allies of the consequences of regional escalation.

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara, Turkey, November 6, 2023 [Photo: US State Department]

Fidan’s comments came amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. On Tuesday, Hamas deputy head Saleh al-Arouri was assassinated in the Lebanese capital Beirut. On Wednesday, bomb attacks in the Iranian city of Kerman killed 84 people at a memorial service for General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by the US four years ago while on a diplomatic mission in Iraq.

“We are deeply saddened by the heinous terrorist attacks in Iran’s Kerman province... I send my condolences to the friendly and brotherly Iranian people,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on X/Twitter after the attack.

Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for such attacks, but it is no secret that it carries out illegal assassinations in Iran and across the region. These latest attacks come on the heels of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s recent declaration, “We are in a multi-front war. We are being attacked from seven fronts—Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], Iraq, Yemen and Iran.”

As the World Socialist Web Site has explained, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has given impetus to Washington’s preparations for war to establish its domination in the Middle East, targeting in particular Iran and its allies.

In connection with Israel’s war against the Palestinians, preparations are being finalised for an operation against the Houthis in Yemen in order to “secure” the Red Sea. According to the Wall Street Journal, the US military has “prepared options” for attacking Yemen. It wrote that “potential targets could include launchers for antiship missiles and drones, targeting infrastructure such as coastal radar installations, and storage facilities for munitions.”

On this issue, Fidan said, 'Now the activity in the Red Sea, especially on the trade routes... America's efforts to form an alliance with the West on the grounds that 'we want to get this under control'... ... The issue of a naval alliance and the launch of a joint operation for this purpose... This is precisely the issue of escalation, i.e., regional expansion, to which we have drawn attention. This question of regional expansion, of sprea6ding the war, is a serious risk.'

Regarding the attack in Lebanon, Fidan said that the target of this operation was not only Hezbollah, but Lebanon itself. He added that “the Israelis are trying very hard not to go to war with Lebanon.”

Among his most striking remarks were his warnings to NATO allies about the consequences of a regional war: “Every country must learn hard lessons from this. There will be those who think that alliances are so useless that if the same thing happens to them tomorrow, no one will do anything.”

He continued, “The unconditional support of the US or some Western countries for Israel is a serious problem. In an equation where the US is fighting on behalf of Israel, the countries in the region will want to develop a counter-force. I think that those who do not want the kind of massacres in Gaza to happen again may start looking for rearming and power.”

Ankara fears that it could be drawn into such a war against Iran, which would undermine its interests. Turkey and Iran share a long border that has remained unchanged for almost four centuries. Turkey is home to a number of US and NATO bases, including Incirlik Air Base in Adana and the Kürecik Radar Base in Malatya. In the event of a war between the US and Iran, these bases could become flashpoints.

Turkey and Iran also share the Kurdish question. The Turkish bourgeoisie fears that a victory for Washington and Tel Aviv in a war in the Middle East could lead to the creation of a Kurdish state. During NATO’s regime-change war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish nationalists have become the main proxy force of Washington.

Against this backdrop, and shortly after the assassination of al-Arouri in Beirut, 34 people were detained in Turkey on Tuesday for allegedly carrying out “international espionage” activities on behalf of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service. In early December, unnamed Turkish intelligence (MİT) officials told Reuters and Anadolu Agency that they would not tolerate Mossad targeting Hamas leaders in Turkey.

Before October 7, Ankara had renormalized its relations with the Netanyahu government in the interests of exploiting oil and gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. The Erdoğan government fears that the Gaza genocide will disrupt plans to seize and share these Palestinian resources.

Such concerns are the basis for the Turkish government’s calls for restraint, mediation initiatives and warnings against ongoing US-NATO support for Israel’s massacres since October 7.

Fidan's remarks expose the dilemma and hypocrisy of the Turkish ruling class, which has close ties with imperialism and Israel and has been defending its interests in foreign policy through NATO for decades.

In late December, during Israel’s NATO-backed genocide in Gaza, the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee, with Erdoğan’s endorsement, sent Sweden’s application for NATO membership to parliament for approval. Ankara also maintains Turkey’s critical trade with Israel, including steel and fuel, and refuses to impose any sanctions.

According to the Turkish Trade Ministry, exports to Israel, which totaled $319.5 million in November, rose by 35 percent to $430.6 million in December. This figure is even higher than exports of $408.3 million in July. However, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said in mid-December that “Turkey’s foreign trade with Israel has fallen by 48 percent since October.”

This support for the Israeli genocide is covered up with rhetorical condemnations and symbolic protests and boycotts. On January 1, hundreds of thousands of people protested in Istanbul against both the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Israel, in demonstrations called by pro-government organisations and members of Erdoğan’s family.

Ankara accuses Israel of attacks targeting civilians and illegal assassinations that violate international law, but it uses similar methods. The Turkish army and intelligence services recently against the PKK and its Syrian ally, People’s Protection Units (YPG) militias in Iraq and Syria, whose governments considers this a violation of their sovereign rights.

Fidan declared they would continue these illegal operations even if the Iraqi and Syrian governments did not authorise them, stating, “We tell them [Iraqi officials] that if you want, you can solve it, if you want, we can solve it together. Let us solve it, so we will continue to fight. Whether you want to or not. We have no problem with that. We are clear about that.”

The tensions between Ankara and Tel Aviv have manifested themselves in mutual accusations of genocide and massacres. Last week, Netanyahu took to X/Twitter to respond to Erdoğan’s comparison of him to Hitler, saying, “Erdogan, who commits genocide against the Kurds, who holds a world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his rule, is the last person who can preach morality to us.”

He added, “The [Israel Defense Forces] is the most moral army in the world that fights and destroys the most abhorrent and cruel terrorist organization in the world, Hamas-ISIS, which committed crimes against humanity and which Erdogan praises and hosts their senior officials.”

Germany’s SPD-led government slashes welfare benefits

Marianne Arens

The German government (a coalition of the Social Democratic Party/SPD, the neoliberal Free Democratic Party and the Greens), headed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), is stepping up its attacks on the working class to finance its war budget for 2024. This is the significance of the government’s latest proposal to withdraw citizen’s allowance from welfare recipients who are alleged not to have fulfilled all the requirements of Germany’s labour laws.

Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) [Photo by Dirk Vorderstraße / CC BY-SA 2.0]

The measure pushed by Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) serves two primary objectives: firstly, the country’s already rampant low-wage sector is to be further expanded. The sanctions will force the unemployed to accept the worst type of jobs for a pittance, which in turn will lower wages even further. At the same time, the billions allocated for rearmament and war in the new year is to be financed at the expense of workers.

In November, the country’s Federal Constitutional Court declared the government’s planned climate fund to be unlawful. Since then, the Scholz government has faced a huge deficit of €60 billion in its 2024 federal budget. In order to raise a part of this sum, €170 million, Labour Minister Heil announced the following step shortly after Christmas: Welfare recipients who repeatedly fail to fully cooperate with the requirements of employment centres will be threatened with the complete withdrawal of their citizen’s allowance, i.e., all social benefits except rent and heating, for a period of up to two months. Anyone who “does not fully cooperate and refuses all offers must expect harsher consequences,” Heil told the Bild tabloid.

The move underlines the aggressiveness of the German ruling class. Many FDP, opposition Union (CDU/CSU) and SPD politicians are delighted with Heil’s proposal, with several of them using the spurious phrase: “Solidarity is not a one-way street.”

The new measure is reminiscent of the “demand and promote” rhetoric with which the former SPD-Green government led by Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer pushed through the repressive Hartz IV reforms between 2002 and 2005, forcing millions into low-wage labour and condemning them to abject poverty. Heil’s initiative emphasises that it was never the aim of the current government to alleviate the hardship resulting from the Hartz laws. From the outset, the Citizen’s Income reform was Hartz IV under a new name and now serves as a lever to intensify exploitation even further, pushing redistribution from the bottom to the top to new extremes.

The announced sanctions will inevitably “affect people with special needs,” declared one leading welfare organisation, “for example those who cannot read and write well, or people with mental illnesses or addiction problems.” Ulrich Schneider, spokesman for another welfare organisation—the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband—told Welt-News that such a 100 percent withdrawal of basic income support is not only illegal according to the German constitution. It would also affect people who “may have missed appointments” or “those completely overwhelmed and afraid to leave their homes to go to the authorities.”

Already, entire neighbourhoods in socially deprived areas are sinking into poverty. In addition to poverty among the elderly, child poverty is also on the rise, officially standing at over 22 percent. Low-paid work is rampant and 4.5 million people have at least two jobs to make ends meet. Homelessness is also on the rise: more than 600,000 people in Germany are currently without a home. Many more do not have a warm home. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), last year 5.5 million people lived in flats they were unable to heat adequately for financial reasons. This figure has doubled in just one year.

People collecting bottles to redeem the deposit are a common sight in Germany. [Photo by Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY-SA 2.0]

Politicians like Heil live in a completely different world. As ministers, they receive more than €20,000 a month, including bonuses, i.e., around five times as much as the average salary (which many employees do not receive). Added to this sum are the annual increases for all MPs, an entitlement to a pension after only four years as a minister and, for some, supervisory board bonuses on top. The phrase “Solidarity is not a one-way street” certainly does not apply to the top politicians themselves.

Nor does it apply to the super-rich and billionaires whose interests are represented by government politicians. In reality, their assets and incomes are even greater than is generally recognised.

This was recently pointed out by journalists Julia Jirmann and Christoph Trautvetter from the nongovernmental organisation “Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit” (Tax Justice Network). Sponsored by the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation, the pair have spent years compiling their own report: “Billionaire fortunes in Germany. Gaps in wealth recording and taxation—proposal for an alternative wealth report.”

The two authors describe the knowledge gap on billion-euro assets in Germany as “huge.” They write: “We have already found 11 previously unidentified billionaire fortunes, including the richest German family. And we estimate previously unaccounted wealth at €500 billion—enough to buy up all the property in Berlin.”

According to the report, there are more than 200 billionaires in Germany, and together their assets total “at least €1,400 billion, possibly significantly more.” This huge total private wealth of €1.4 trillion corresponds to a third to a half of Germany’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) and massively exceeds the current budget gap of €60 billion.

In total, only around 4,300 households are involved in the assets of the 200 billionaires, or around 0.01 percent of all households in Germany. The same government politicians who are prepared to let thousands of welfare recipients starve have no objection to a wafer-thin upper layer of 0.01 percent owning assets worth €1.4 trillion, or €1,400,000,000,000.

The authors from the Tax Justice Network rebuff claims that today’s billionaires are also the captains of large companies. They are “rarely entrepreneurs. One in five billionaire dynasties have already sold their companies, and of the remaining billionaire concerns, only around half are still actively managed by the family.” In other words, while they endlessly enrich themselves as wealth owners and shareholders at the expense of society, these billionaires contribute nothing of worth to the real economy.

The obscene orgy of enrichment is the result of an aggressive class-war policy from above. Over the past 30 years, every successive government has cut taxes for the rich. Under Helmut Kohl (CDU), wealth tax was abolished. A top tax rate that was as high as 95 percent immediately after World War II, and remained at 56 percent at the end of the 1980s, was reduced to 42 percent during the reign of the SPD-Green government at the turn of the millennium. Federal Chancellor Schröder and Finance Minister Hans Eichel (both SPD) were responsible for this policy.

At the same time, the gap in social polarisation has widened. The social democratic Agenda 2010 and Hartz laws—the relaxation of protection against dismissal, the liberalisation of temporary work, the introduction of precarious types of employment—have caused the low-wage sector and the associated poverty in old age to explode.

Regarding the current situation, the authors of the aforementioned study write: “Since 1996, the typical effective tax rate on billion-dollar assets has roughly halved. Few people realise this.” By exploiting loopholes and tax tricks, the super-rich can even reduce the rates to 1 percent in some cases.

It should be seen as a warning when Heil and the government parties declare welfare recipients to be shirkers and social parasites in this exacerbated situation. The ruling class is aware that the growing social divide is generating anger and resistance. It senses the developing social explosion and is responding with increasingly right-wing policies, turning to war abroad and a police state at home. To this end, it is trying to divide the working population and prevent genuine solidarity. Just like the non-stop agitation against refugees, the agitation against welfare recipients serves the same purpose: workers who have to toil for low wages are now being incited against the unemployed.

Food bank usage in Toronto doubles in just one year

Steve Hill

Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank, in partnership with the North York Harvest Food Bank, released its annual “Who’s Hungry” Report late last year. Once again, it comprises an indefensible list of neglect, exploitation and betrayed promises in Canada’s largest city.

Recovered food is prepared to be distributed at a mobile food bank [AP Photo/Seth Wenig]

The report states that one in 10 people in Toronto is now relying on food banks, twice as many as in 2022. The doubling of food bank usage in just a year is the highest annual increase ever reported. There have been 2.53 million visits to food banks in Toronto over the past 12 months. Of those who used the service, 31 percent reported having gone a whole day without eating and 55 percent missed meals to pay for other needs. 

The report projected that by the end of 2023, the number of annual food bank visits could have exceeded 3 million. Underlining the increasing deprivation in Canada’s largest city, which is also home to the country’s TSX stock market and a super-rich capitalist elite, the report indicates that over 120,000 new individuals started using food banks for the first time. This amounts to a 154 percent increase compared to the previous year.

The median monthly income of food bank clients is $1,131, less than half the $2,302 single person Official Poverty Line for Toronto.

Over a third of food bank users (35 percent) have disabilities, and 43 percent of them rely on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), which provides a miserly $1,308 per month. Another 18 percent of food bank clients with disabilities who cannot access ODSP must rely on the provincial social assistance program, Ontario Works, which provides a paltry $733 per month, less than one-third of the poverty-line income.

Not surprisingly, the lack of affordable housing is a major factor for those compelled to use the services of the city’s food banks. Defined as costing more than 30 percent of income, 89 percent of food bank clients report living in unaffordable housing. Almost one-quarter now spend 100 percent of their income on housing, leaving them at high risk of homelessness.

Underscoring that wages are failing to keep pace with rising prices, 47 percent of food bank clients reported having at least one member of their household who is employed. This statistic alone indicates a massive one-year expansion of the ranks of the working poor.

Of those clients who are employed, 71 percent have no medical, dental, retirement benefits or paid sick days through their employer, making an already precarious situation potentially one step away from becoming disastrous.

A particularly sharp indicator of the exploitative nature of Canadian capitalism is the fact that the privation of relying on food banks is also reaching further into the supposedly upwardly mobile layer of the working class. In 2008, 25 percent of food bank clients in Toronto had completed post-secondary education. Ten years later that number rose to 34 percent, and in 2023 a majority (59 percent) of clients had achieved education levels ranging from college diplomas to master’s degrees or higher.

This broad immiseration is occurring in one of the wealthiest cities in the world. A report by Henley & Partners ranked Toronto 12th out of 97 cities around the world in 2023 that have the fastest growing millionaire populations. The report considers the number of High-Net-Worth-Individuals (HNWI), those with at least US $1 million in investable wealth, the number of individuals with prestige work titles and the number of high-value homes in the city to determine the rankings.

Toronto also achieved the designation of fifth wealthiest city in North America with 105,200 HNWIs. Among these were 193 centimillionaires, those with more than US $100 million, and a whopping 18 billionaires. The three other Canadian cities that made the list—Vancouver, ranked 29th with 37,300 HNWIs, Montreal, ranked 48th with 17,900 HNWIs and Calgary, ranked 55th with 14,700 HNWIs—are also facing explosive demand for charitable assistance. A recent report on Quebec, where Montreal is the largest city, revealed that one in 10 residents rely on food banks.

Chief operating officer of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Cynthia Boulter, related to the media that five years ago her organization was supporting about 7,000 people a month. Now, they are helping as many as 17,000 people a month. She said, “Parents are skipping meals so their children can eat, adults are skipping meals so they can pay their rent.”

At the extreme end of the crisis, Toronto has an estimated homeless population of 18,000 people. The city’s woefully inadequate public shelter system only has approximately 9,000 beds. As politicians from various levels of government boast about investments in affordable housing, the reality is that the social housing wait-list is 10 to 12 years long.

That the working class has been even more acutely feeling the intensifying grip of economic hardship over the past few years is not without reason. Statistics Canada reported that in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, the annual incomes of the country’s wealthiest people jumped by almost 10 percent on average, while the bottom half of society saw their incomes conspicuously decrease. This was even before 2022, when a spike in inflation driven by the “let it rip” ruling class response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the US-triggered war against Russia in Ukraine worked to accelerate the wealth accumulation of the country’s financial elite. The working class experienced, and continues to experience, a massive hollowing out of their purchasing power.

Underscoring the widening income gap in Canadian society, the report specifically enumerates the financial haul enjoyed by the privileged few in 2021. Before taxes and not including capital gains, the average total income of the top 1 percent increased by 9.4 per cent to $579,100. And the higher up the income ladder, the greater the gains. The average total income of the top 0.1 percent jumped 17.4 percent to $2,086,100 and the top 0.01 percent raked in a 25.7 percent increase to “earn” a very tidy average of $7,731,400. Such large increases among the wealthy elite have not been seen since just before the financial crisis of 2008.

In the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives annual pay report, the country’s highest earning 100 CEOs were revealed to be earning 246 times the wage of an average worker. By 9:27 a.m. on January 2, they had made more money than the average worker will earn during the entire year.

The fact is that before 1981, there was not a single food bank in all of Canada. Today, the monopolized retail grocery business is controlled by five large corporations that are generating record profits.

Meanwhile, the federal and provincial governments have been throwing billions in public money at profitable corporations to “attract investment.” And, in 2020,  at the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the federal Liberal government, with the support of the unions and New Democrats, simply handed $650 billion to the financial markets and major banks to guarantee that there would be no serious disruption to the flow of wealth from the bottom to the top.

Speaking to CBC News, Neil Hetherington, CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank, said every elected representative in the city is being mailed a copy of the 2023 Who’s Hungry report. Hetherington stated, “Food bank usage is a symptom of policy failures. It is clear that there are multiple failures by all levels of government who have the opportunity to read the report and change.” He continued, “Given the provincial government’s initiatives and the fact that we have seen a four-fold increase at food banks over the past four years, we believe it is time for the government to revisit its strategy on poverty reduction and food insecurity.”

In the Toronto mayoral election earlier in 2023, the top candidates had nothing to offer except trite prescriptions for unspecified minor reforms. None of them, including the winner of the dismal electoral contest, Olivia Chow (NDP), addressed the enormous and growing wealth inequality in the city in any substantive manner. 

The capitalist ruling class is driven by what it views as the imperative to defend its own interests through the ceaseless accumulation of wealth. In fact, the global system of capitalist profit extraction, dominated by the major imperialist powers, is in a crisis that has propelled it to maximize exploitation at home and wage war abroad.