“Something will have to give”—IMF warns of build-up of US debt

Nick Beams

The opening chapter of the World Economic Outlook report of the International Monetary Fund, released at its spring meeting in Washington yesterday, presented a generally upbeat report on the state of the global economy, at least on the surface. But not far below it there are gathering storms.

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Chief Economist of the IMF, holds up a tablet with the World Economic Outlook report. [AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin]

In his foreword to the report, IMF economic counsellor Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas wrote: “The global economy remains remarkably resilient, with growth holding steady as inflation returns to target.’

Despite “gloomy predictions,” the world had avoided a recession and the banking system proved “largely resilient.” He was also gratified that despite the surge of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis there had been no “wage-price spirals.”

In other words, because of the actions of the trade unions in all the major economies in suppressing wage demands and imposing sub-inflationary agreements, workers had been made to bear the cost of the inflationary spiral set off by the COVID pandemic and the boost to energy prices flowing from the Ukraine war.

In contrast to the generally upbeat outlook on the immediate situation, examination of the IMF’s own data and projections for the medium-term told a different story with growth over the next five years unlikely to return to anywhere near previous historical norms.

And even the immediate projections for the major economies show a significant slowing of economic output. Within the G7, the US economy leads the way with growth for this year expected to be 2.7 percent, an upgrade of 0.6 percentage points on the previous estimate.

But it is all downhill from there. The next best performer is Canada with expected growth of 1.2 percent. The German economy, by some measures now the third largest economy in the world after the US and China, is expected to grow by only 0.2 percent, the lowest in the G7.

Japan, now relegated to the world’s fourth largest economy, will grow by 0.9 percent with the UK coming in at 0.5 percent, after experiencing no growth in 2023.

On the growth of the US economy, which was described as “exceptional,” Gourinchas sounded a warning about the increase in government spending. It had led to a “fiscal stance that is out of line with long-term fiscal sustainability.”

This is a reference to the rise of US public debt, now equivalent in size to US GDP which is expected to accelerate in coming years and is characterised by the Treasury department itself as “unsustainable.”

“This raises short-term risks to the disinflation process, as well as longer-term fiscal and financial stability risks for the global economy since it risks pushing up global funding costs. Something will have to give,” Gourinchas wrote.

While he did not specify it, the key driving force of this expansion is the escalation of military spending as well as large handouts to major corporations under the Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips Act and other measures.

The IMF also expressed concern about the Chinese economy which has been a mainstay of global growth since the global financial crisis of 2008. It continues to be heavily impacted by the property crisis and the IMF has called for strong measures to provide an increase in domestic demand to lift growth.

But there is little sign of that. The Chinese government is seeking to boost manufacturing, especially in high tech areas such as green energy and electric vehicles, which it can turnout at lower cost than in the West, leading to a risk this will “further exacerbate trade tension in an already fraught geopolitical environment.”

These conflicts were on display during the IMF gathering. US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has been organising meetings with her counterparts with the aim, among other things, of developing a unified response against the outflow of high-tech exports from China that cut into the US and other markets.

This was a central topic of her discussions with Chinese officials and government representatives during her visit earlier this month in which virtually no agreement was reached.

In comments at the weekend on the eve of the IMF meeting, she made clear what was at stake.

“This is a complicated issue that involves their entire macroeconomic and industrial strategy. “It’s not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month,” she said.

These remarks underscore the existential nature of the conflict. The US is demanding the total subordination of China to its demands that it completely scrap its focus on what president Xi Jinping calls the development of “new productive forces” because this is seen as one of the chief threats to its continued domination of the global economy.

From the Chinese side this strategy is seen as the only way to sustain economic growth, even at the much lower target of 5 percent, to maintain “social stability” that is, to try to prevent the eruption of struggles by the Chinese working class which would threaten the regime of the ruling capitalist oligarchy represented by the Communist party.

This conflict can only intensify under conditions where, as the IMF made clear in Chapter 3 of its report published last week, global growth is markedly slowing.

In a blog on the chapter, two of its authors warned that in the coming period growth is “set to fall far below its historical average.”

“The world economy,” they wrote, “faces a sobering reality. The global growth rate—stripped of its cyclical ups and downs—has slowed steadily since the 2008–09 global financial crisis.”

It said economic growth was expected to reach just 2.8 percent by 2030, well below the historical average of 3.8 percent.

The prospect of weaker growth was “exacerbated by strong headwinds from geo-economic fragmentation, and harmful unilateral trade and industrial policies.”

They noted that half of the growth decline was the result of a fall in total factor productivity (TFP), which measures the input of capital and labour and how these resources are used.

In recent years increasingly “insufficient distribution of resources across firms has dragged down TFP and, with it, global growth.”

It was not referred to, but one of the key factors in this process is that corporations have used their profits and even run up debts not for productive investments but to finance share buy backs to meet the demands of hedge funds and other parasitic financial institutions for a boost in “shareholder value.”

Overall, the IMF gathering was not so a meeting to deal with growing global economic problems but was more akin to a war council in which the immediate target is China on the one hand, and the working class on other.

There was an insistence on the need to continue the fight against inflation, the code phrase for driving down real wages, the need to increase productivity, the intensification of exploitation, and the maintenance of financial buffers—that is, cuts in social spending—to deal with mounting debts.

Insofar as the resolution of economic problems was addressed, the IMF said “multilateral cooperation” would be needed.

But that has gone by the board. Its passing was highlighted in remarks this week by the Australian Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese in which he announced government support for war-related industries.

Starting with the US, he listed a series of nationalist measures introduced by a range of countries to boost their economic and national security.

This “strategic competition,” which is directed towards war, he said, was now a “fact of life.”

Canadian imperialism outlines its plans for global war

Keith Jones

Canada’s Liberal government presented a “defence policy update” last week that pledges tens of billions of dollars in increased military spending and outlines plans to procure a vast array of new weapons to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has the means to wage war around the world.

Canadian Armed Forces "Operation Unifier" mission to train Ukrainian military personnel. Since its launch in 2015, the CAF claims to have trained some 40,000 Ukrainian troops, including some of those integrated from far-right militia groups. [Photo: Canadian Armed Forces]

Titled “Our North, Strong and Free: a Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defence,” the update is notable for the breadth of ruling class interests, ambitions, and strategic commitments it outlines. Invoking Canada’s “diverse population, extensive global presence, and commercial ties,” it asserts that Canada must have the military capabilities—working in conjunction with the US, and its other NATO and Five-Eyes imperialist allies—to wage war on every continent and ocean so as to uphold “global stability” and a western-imposed “international order.”  Space and cyber-space are similarly identified as key arenas of military conflict for which Canada must prepare.

Like the 2017 defence policy statement that it builds upon, the update is not a national strategy assessment. But it does spell out a predatory, military-strategic vision. “Instability at home and abroad” are “increasing quickly” it asserts. If Canadian imperialism is to secure its global position, it must be at the centre of the growing global conflict that pits the United States, “our closest ally,” against Russia and China.

Canada, the update affirms, is at the core of NATO’s “western” and “northern flanks” in the US-NATO instigated war with Russia. Moreover, as “an Atlantic and Pacific nation that shares a continent with the United States, Canada lies at the geographic middle” of the “strategic competition... centred in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions” that “will define” the world’s “future.”

As the update observes, Canada is already deeply involved in the Ukraine war; the US-led military-strategic offensive against China, including provocative “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait; and in Washington’s wars and intrigues in the Middle East. Like Washington, Ottawa has provided Israel with arms and political support as it massacres the Palestinians in Gaza and pursues aggression across the Middle East. In addition to Russia and China, the update specifically names Iran and North Korea as strategic threats to Canada.

Although the update does not say so in so many words, it makes clear that Canada is already at war and must rapidly accelerate and expand its preparations to wage war. It reiterates Ottawa’s oft-repeated vow to militarily support Ukraine for as long as it takes, claiming “the stakes could not be higher.” It also highlights Canada’s role in leading the NATO “forward” forces in Latvia, where the current CAF deployment is to be more than doubled to 2,300 by 2026, and the importance of greatly enhancing the military’s capacity to strike Russia from the Canadian far north.

It also refers on multiple occasions to the need for the CAF to apply the “lessons learned” from the Ukraine war. Drawing those lessons is among the specific goals of the recently concluded 10-year Canada-Ukraine military-security pact.

Citing the Ukraine war as well as the shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of supply chains, the update emphasizes the need to develop new technologies, including military applications for AI, and Canada’s military-industrial capacity. The war “has confirmed the need for large forces and combat power, well-supplied by standing inventories of ammunition and spare parts, backed by a strong industrial base to re-arm over time.” Two immediate goals set out in the update and directly tied to waging the Ukraine war are expanding Canada’s production of munitions and establishing a “greater strategic reserve of battle-decisive munitions.”

As suggested by its title, a major focus of the defence policy update is the need to dramatically expand Canada’s military capacities in the far north, so as to counter both Russia and China. It notes that due to climate change, by 2050 the “Northwest Passage” (a sea-channel that Canada considers its internal waters but whose sovereignty is contested by the US) could be the shortest route from East Asia to Europe.

Expanding Canada’s military prowess and reach in the Arctic is part of an ongoing commitment from Ottawa to “modernize” NORAD, the Canada-US joint aerospace and maritime defence command, for great-power “strategic competition” in the 21st Century.

Established in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, NORAD, as the update boasts, is the world’s only joint military command. Last year the Trudeau government committed to spending C$38 billion over the next 20 year on NORAD modernization. The update outlines further steps to bolster Canadian and NORAD capabilities in the far north. These include setting up a network of “northern operational support hubs;” building a satellite ground station in the Arctic; procuring airborne early warning aircraft; and deploying new specialized maritime sensors on Arctic and other off-shore vessels.

“Our North” emphasizes that the importance of NORAD to the Canada-US economic and military-strategic partnership that since 1940 has been the cornerstone of Canadian imperialism’s global strategy. With US global hegemony under threat and Washington responding with protectionist and unilateralist policies that frequently roil its allies, the Canadian ruling class is all the more anxious to maintain the closest ties with Washington and Wall Street. Its strategists frequently argue that Canada must advocate in tandem for a “North America First” and “Fortress North America” strategy. While Ottawa publicly eschews such language, hoping to uphold NATO and other multilateral institutions and frameworks, its default posture is to cleave to the US.

In this vein, the defence update stresses that strong North American defences are pivotal to the ability of both North American imperialist powers to exert power and wage war around the world. “A secure North America,” it asserts, “creates strategic dilemmas for adversaries, and enables Canada to reinforce allies in crisis or conflict.”

The policy update announced an additional $8 billion in military spending over the next five years and more than $72 billion over the next 20 years. This is on top of the enormous sums the Trudeau government already allocated under the 2017 defence policy framework, which announced plans to hike Canada’s military spending by 70 percent by 2026.

Since then, the trade union and New Democratic Party-backed Liberal government has embarked on a massive armament drive, headlined by new fleets of 15 warships, 88 F-35 fighter jets, and attack drones.

The new spending will push Canada’s defence budget from the current $30 billion or so per year to $49.5 billion by 2029-30. This represents a hike from 1.33 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 1.76 percent. If defence-related spending from other departments were included, a government official told the Toronto Star, Canada’s overall expenditures would be “in the zone of $57.8 billion” in 2029-30.

Among the major new initiatives announced in the update are:

• The purchase of a new fleet of attack helicopters at a cost of more than $18 billion
•  Establishing a worldwide military satellite communications system, $5.5 billion
• Obtaining long-range missile capability, $2.6 billion
• The creation of a joint CAF cyber command with the Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian component of the Five Eyes global spy network to carry out offensive and defensive cyber-war operations globally, $2.8 billion

“Our North” also announces that the CAF will explore the adoption of a vast array of additional weapons systems, including more advanced replacement submarines, tanks, and armoured all-terrain vehicles.

Welcoming the policy update, US Ambassador to Canada David Cohen said it was “a substantial down payment toward Canada’s pledge to meet its NATO commitment to spend at least two per cent of its GDP on defence.”  While praising Canada’s role in arming and training the military forces of the far-right Zelensky-led Ukrainian regime, Washington has been pressing the Trudeau government to hike military spending faster.

Significantly, at the press conference where the defence policy update was released, Prime Minster Trudeau suggested that Canada will consider the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines and said it is in discussions to join the anti-China AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) military alliance.

One further element of “Our North” merits brief comment. In keeping with the government’s political posture, it tries to give Canadian imperialism’s plans for global war an identity politics gloss. It pledges the CAF will integrate “gender perspectives in military operations and institutions” and will give the Inuit and other aboriginal peoples in the far north a major role in the militarization of their traditional lands.

The Liberal government’s defence policy update must serve as a warning and call to action for the working class. In recent months, all the major imperialist powers, including the US, Japan, France, Germany and the UK, have announced record military budgets and multi-year programs to dramatically increase their arsenals of mass destruction. Canadian imperialism is following suit.

Indeed, the corporate media and Conservative opposition’s response to the announcement that tens of billions more are to be diverted to making war was that this is woefully insufficient. Far too much of the money is budgeted for the next decade and the military’s ranks need to be rapidly expanded, they clamoured. The Globe and Mail, the traditional voice of the Bay Street financial elite, said the government had done “a passable job in articulating the mounting security threats facing Canada,” but chastised it for not immediately moving to NATO’s 2 percent GDP bench level. “Plans to come up with a plan, the exploration of options: they all add up to delay, not action.”

The Conservatives led by the far-right populist Pierre Poilievre were even more scathing, accusing the government of failing to address “years of neglect.” The NDP echoed the Conservatives, only adding that they too were responsible for the governmental “neglect” of the military. At the urging of the trade unions, the NDP responded to the outbreak of the NATO-instigated Ukraine war by entering into a formal government alliance with Trudeau so as to ensure the Canadian ruling class had “political stability” in waging war abroad and imposing “post-pandemic” austerity and inflation-driven real wage cuts on the working class.

Behind the backs of the population, Canada’s political and military-security establishment, like that of its allies, is embroiling the Canadian population in a global conflict that has already resulted in war with Russia, Israel’s imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza, and an escalating campaign of US provocation and threats that threaten to explode into war in the Asia Pacific.

Tesla announces more than 14,000 layoffs as global attacks on jobs mount

Tom Hall

Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk. [AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino]

Electric vehicle company Tesla is cutting 10 percent of its global workforce, CEO and world’s third-richest human Elon Musk announced Sunday night. The company has a global workforce of 140,000 people, meaning at least 14,000 people will lose their jobs.

“As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity,” Musk said in a letter to employees. “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done” to ensure the company be “lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”

There is staggering hypocrisy in this billionaire ignoramus, who made his fortune through speculation on the stock market and in cryptocurrency, telling workers their jobs must be sacrificed in the name of “efficiency.” Musk and other ultra-wealthy individuals, who have seen their wealth soar since the start of the pandemic, are by far the largest waste of social resources on the planet.

The $187 billion hoard which Musk personally controls is more than the gross domestic product of the country of Kuwait and nearly twice the annual K-12 schools budget of California. Musk runs his businesses Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter/X as personal fiefs, with the latter also serving as a sounding board for his extreme-right politics. Massive purges at Musk’s companies are a semi-regular event. Tesla cut 10 percent of its white-collar workforce in 2022 and thousands of Twitter workers lost their jobs that same year almost immediately after Musk purchased the social media platform.

Many layoffs at Tesla began immediately Monday morning. Business Insider reports that plant workers in Nevada waited in line for two hours to clock in while management weeded out laid-off workers from the crowd. Others were told that if their badges didn’t work that meant they no longer had a job.

Tesla itself, as far as Musk and its stockholders are concerned, is less of a car company than a speculative venture. The company has more than $510 billion in market capitalization on the stock market, more than any other auto firm, despite controlling less than 2 percent of global auto sales. However, the company’s sales declined for the first time since 2020 last year, to 1.8 million, and its massively overvalued market cap is down by around half since a high of more than $1 trillion.

Worldwide attack on jobs

But the layoffs are not simply the product of greed and stupidity of Musk and Tesla’s stockholders. They are part of a broader attack on jobs in industries across the world, spearheaded by the Biden White House, the US Federal Reserve and their counterparts in other countries. The aim is to weaponize high interest rates, sellout contracts rammed through by corrupt union bureaucracies and new labor-saving technologies to smash the growing resistance of the working class through mass unemployment.

The purpose of this is not only to protect corporate profits, but to free up resources for wars, including the spiraling conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and well-advanced plans for a war against China. Washington sees the global electric vehicle market in particular as a key battleground against China, which currently leads its western competitors. Earlier this year, Chinese car company BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s largest EV manufacturer. Without Tesla, by far the largest American EV manufacturer, the US would be even further behind.

This same technology could and should be used to ease the burden of work, improve wages and rebuild the decaying social infrastructure. Instead, under the capitalist profit system, developments in science are being used to ramp up exploitation and inequality, demonstrating the totally irrational and obsolete character of this form of economy.

A report earlier this month by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that US businesses announced more layoffs in March than any other month since the start of 2023. More than 90,000 job cuts were announced in March, bringing the total for the first quarter of the year to 257,254. That is more than twice the number of jobs cut in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The largest cuts were in the technology sector, which continues to lead the way in the jobs bloodbath as companies purge relatively better-paid tech workers as they move towards the utilization of artificial intelligence. Transportation and manufacturing were fourth and fifth place, with 15,746 and 9,214 cuts, respectively, up 483 percent and 726 percent over the same time last year.

Meanwhile, business news outlets are crowing that the “Great Resignation is Over,” a reference to the tightening labor market and modest wage increases since 2021 which have emboldened workers to push for strike action.

The role of EV and AI in auto

The auto industry is a major center of the job cuts. Hundreds of thousands of global auto jobs are on the chopping block over the next several years as the industry moves rapidly towards electric vehicles, which requires less labor to produce, and to implement new automated technologies. The auto industry in the United States has already slashed thousands of jobs this year, including 200 supplemental workers at Stellantis in Detroit last week.

A recent front-page article in the Detroit News dealt in-depth with the implications of new automation technology which is also being introduced to the industry. “In 2022, the global automotive industry installed 135,000 new industrial robots, according to the International Federation of Robotics,” the paper said. “The only industry to surpass that installation rate was electronics.”

The article highlighted new automation being introduced by General Motors at its Fort Wayne Assembly plant, which resulted in 30 job cuts, as well as automation at parts warehouses. “That, however, is likely just a glimpse for what it is to come, say executives and other experts in the industry,” the News added. It cited a new factory in Singapore by Korean automaker Hyundai, where “about 50 percent of all tasks are completed by 200 robots with human collaboration.”

The role of the union bureaucracy

While Tesla in the United States is nonunion, the United Auto Workers has played a central role in helping the auto industry carry out mass job cuts, which have all taken place after a toothless “standup strike” last fall and a new contract with no provisions against cuts.

According to the Detroit News article, the only provisions on automation in the new contract are that it “must notify the local union about the introduction of ‘new or advanced technology’ to allow ‘meaningful discussion of its impact.’ If unresolved issues ensue, the contract does outline a grievance procedure.”

While the UAW has kept a guilty silence on the massive job losses, which it is in fact helping to carry out, UAW President Fain’s star is rising. He is making regular appearances with Joe Biden, including at last month’s State of the Union speech and at an official reception at the White House last week for the Japanese prime minister. This shows that the ruling elite sees the services of the union bureaucracy in reining in the working class as of key political importance.

This function is being performed by the union bureaucracy in every industry. UPS has announced more than 12,000 job cuts since the Teamsters union pushed through a sellout contract in similar fashion last year. The company recently outlined plans to close more than 200 facilities and “automate everything,” in the words of CEO Carol Tomé. Meanwhile, the Teamsters have hosted both Biden and Donald Trump at its headquarters this year as part of a series of “candidate roundtables.”

Dengue fever epidemic sweeps through Latin America

Benjamin Mateus

The unprecedented wave of dengue fever continues to sweep across Latin America and the Caribbean with nearly five million people infected thus far in 2024, nearly two-thirds of them in Brazil, which is the epicenter of the epidemic.

Next worst affected among other countries in the hemisphere, Argentina has recorded over 233,000 cases in its summer, a figure eight times higher than last year. Other countries reporting high figures include Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru. In late March, even Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency as cases surpassed the highs seen in the entire previous year. 

Brazil has thus far registered a record 3.14 million cases with health experts soberly noting that the tally could top 4.2 million, a figure approximating the total number of dengue cases in all the Americas in the full year 2023. The country’s health ministry, on its dengue dashboard, indicated 1,344 people have already died and another 1,872 deaths are under investigation. By comparison, 1,094 deaths were attributed to dengue in 2023. 

Weekly dengue cases in Brazil, 2023 and 2024 [Photo: Brazil Health Ministry]

There are four serotypes of dengue viruses (DENV 1-4) that cause the mosquito-borne illness known as dengue (breakbone) fever that is currently circulating in the Americas this year. 

Approximately half the world’s population (across 129 countries) live in areas—tropical and subtropical—at risk for dengue. Health experts estimate that up to 400 million people get infected with dengue each year. Upwards of 100 million have symptomatic infections and 40,000 die from complications caused by severe infections, which include hemorrhagic shock. 

In the South and Southeast Asia regions, Bangladesh and Thailand, among others, reported similar surges in dengue cases. By November 2023, health authorities reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) that cases for the year had topped nearly 310,000 compared to just 62,400 in 2022. Thailand saw a three-fold rise over the preceding year with 136,655 dengue infections in 2023. As the WHO noted, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand rank among the world’s 30 most affected countries for endemic dengue fever. 

Global map of dengue fever outbreaks [Photo: WHO and CDC]

Among the WHO Western Pacific Region, Vietnam (150,000 cases and 36 deaths) and the Philippines (167,000 infections and 575 deaths) were hardest hit by the disease. Australia, Cambodia, China, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia and Singapore are other countries reporting impacts of dengue. As the report notes, “Member states with endemic transmission continue to report longer seasonal dengue epidemics with increasing magnitude and geographic spread. However, disease incidence is less reliable due to underreporting of cases, particularly in the Pacific Island Countries and territories …”

Winter tends to prevent year-round infections with mosquito-borne diseases. However, the rise in global temperatures has made the temperate climates more susceptible for dengue virus transmission, as higher rates of precipitation from torrential rain falls lead to floods and stagnant water pools, conditions favorable for these mosquitos. 

As the December 21, 2023, WHO report on the dengue global situation remarked, “The global incidence of dengue has markedly increased over the past two decades, posing a substantial public health challenge. From 2000 to 2019, the WHO documented a ten-fold surge in reported cases worldwide, increasing from 500,000 to 5.2 million. The year 2019 marked an unprecedented peak, with reported instances across 129 countries.”

After a slight dip during the onset of the COVID pandemic, dengue fever began to spread even more widely in 2023, and the outbreak in 2024 in the Americas eclipses any previous epidemics. 

In their assessment of the unprecedented development, the WHO highlighted various factors that include climate change-induced shifts in weather patterns, the mosquitos’ distribution and adaptation, unplanned urbanization and human activities, fragile health systems amid political and financial instability, co-circulation of multiple strains of the dengue viruses, lack of specific treatments, and “prolonged ongoing concurrent outbreaks, including COVID-19.”

The disease is not contagious. Mosquitos harboring the viruses transmit the pathogen to humans. Symptoms typically begin from a few days to two weeks. These include high fevers, severe headaches, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic rash and itching. These usually last up to seven days and treatment is supportive. In rare cases, the disease can progress to a condition known as dengue hemorrhagic shock, with mortality rates of 10 to 25 percent, even with intensive medical support. 

There are currently two vaccines available to protect against dengue infection. Dengavaxia, a live attenuated virus-based vaccine suitable against all four serotypes of dengue manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, became available in 2015. The vaccine is given as three doses at six-month intervals. It is approved for use in individuals aged six through 45 with a previously laboratory-confirmed previous dengue infection and who live in endemic areas. Due to an antibody-dependent enhancement, the vaccine can make future dengue infections more severe in dengue-naïve recipients. 

A second dengue vaccine, Qdenga, manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceuticals Vaccine which completed clinical trials in 2022, has been recommended by the WHO for the prevention of dengue in people four years of age or older without a previous dengue infection. It too is a live attenuated vaccine against all four serotypes of the dengue virus given as two doses three months apart.

However, limited supplies and costs of the vaccine have made it prohibitive. In Europe, the vaccine can be purchased at $115 per dose. It is $40 in Indonesia. In January, according to the New York Times report, Brazil purchased the entire global stock of Qdenga, paying $19 per dose for the bulk purchase. Still, that only leaves enough vaccine to treat 3.3 million of Brazil’s 220 million people. Children aged six to 16 are being prioritized. 

The rising prevalence of dengue and its spread towards the poles is exemplary and indicative of the massive redistribution of global biodiversity caused by climate change. 2023 was the warmest year since global records were started in 1850 and is 1.35 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial averages from 1850 to 1900. The continued global processes that are accelerating can only aggravate these processes for human populations.

According to a report published in February 2023 by the Royal Society, “One foundational meta-analysis estimated that, to date, terrestrial species have been moving uphill at a pace of 1.1 meter per year, and to higher latitudes at a pace of 1.7 kilometer per year. Among the millions of species on the move are some of the most consequential pathogens, disease vectors and wildlife reservoirs that affect human health and economic development.”

They continued, “In recent years, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue and Zika virus have also expanded to new latitudes and elevations, and will continue to do so in the future, following the thermal limits on transmission set by their ectothermic vectors. Some of this expansion has been facilitated by parallel global invasions of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, which have spread an estimated 250 and 150 kilometers per year, respectively.”

In another 2022 scientific report published in Nature, the authors attempted to quantify the full extent of climate change on human pathogenic diseases. In their exhaustive work, they wrote, “The compilation of pathogenic diseases aggravated by climactic hazards represent 58 percent of all infectious diseases reported to have impacted humanity worldwide, that is, out of an authoritative list of 375 infectious diseases documented to have impacted humanity, 218 were found to be aggravated by climactic hazards.” 

In their summary, they warn, “The human pathogenic disease and transmission pathways aggravated by climatic hazards are too numerous for comprehensive societal adaptations, highlighting the urgent need to work at the source of the problem: reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

However, greenhouse gas emissions and the ongoing climate change are a byproduct of the anarchy of capitalist production that places the immediate accumulation of profits above the broader issues that are making life inhospitable on the planet. It exacerbates the already criminal levels of inequality that have seen the accumulation of obscene wealth on one end and the impoverishments of billions of people on the other. Abject poverty, inadequate housing and nutrition, lack of access to quality health services, aggravate the dangers posed by these diseases that are growing in incidence and virulence.

Floods devastate parts of Russia, Kazakhstan

Lev Novitsky

Local residents stand at barriers watching a flooded area in Orenburg, Russia, on Thursday, April 11, 2024. [AP Photo]

For the past week, large regions of Russia and Kazakhstan have been devastated by the most severe flooding in decades. The rapid melting of snow due to high temperatures caused the swelling of the Ural River, which flows from Russia’s Ural Mountains through Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea.

In Kazakhstan, flooding is at its worst in over 80 years. As of April 10, a state of emergency has been declared in ten of Kazakhstan’s seventeen provinces. At least 3,400 residential houses and 336 yards have been flooded. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic, a total of 96,500 people have been evacuated. Almost 3,000 of them had to be airlifted from the flood-hit regions, and more than 7,600 are staying in temporary accommodation.

Water has also flooded 14 anthrax burial grounds and eight cattle burial grounds. Anthrax is a serious infectious disease, the spores of which can remain in the soil for a long time. Reportedly, all necessary measures are being taken, but the question necessarily arises as to how the opening of anthrax burial grounds by water could occur in the first place.  

In Russia, over 12,000 people have been evacuated. So far, the floods have centered on the Orenburg region. The Orenburg region is located in the south of the Ural Mountains, at the junction of Europe and Asia, on the border with the former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan, and is home to about 2 million people. On the evening of Friday, April 5, due to a strong flood, the dam protecting the city of Orsk, with a population of almost 200 thousand people, from the Ural River broke. More than 2,400 people were evacuated from the city. Moreover, often people from neighboring settlements had to save themselves when the water level reached the roofs of houses.

The Ural river in Russia and Kazakhstan [Photo by Materialscientist / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0]

Peak water levels in Orsk were recorded at about 9.3 meters (30.5 feet). In an indication of the growing popular anger over the floods, on April 8, more than a hundred local residents gathered for a spontaneous rally near the city administration to protest low payments for partial or total loss of property due to flooding. The mayor of the city, Vasily Kozupitsa, was met with angry shouts when he came to speak to protesters and had to flee back into the administration building. One woman said angrily, “We feed emergency ministry workers with pies and dumplings and bring them thermoses… Kozupitsa cannot even provide for emergency workers. Shame!” 

As of this writing, the water has begun to recede from the city of Orsk. But the situation with flooding is worsening in the regional center, the city of Orenburg, which has a population of more than half a million people. At the time of this writing, water levels have reached 11 meters 54 centimeters (39 feet).

The first deputy mayor of Orenburg said that the city has not experienced such flooding in more than 30 years. Over 12,000 houses and about 15,000 household plots in Orenburg have already been flooded. About 7,500 people have been evacuated. A state of emergency has been declared in Orenburg, as well as the Kurgan and Tyumen regions, where evacuations have now also begun.

Extremely high temperatures have been recorded throughout Russia since March, causing the melting of ice and the rapid rise of water levels. Moscow recorded a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius (69.8 Fahrenheit) on April 10, and St. Petersburg (the northernmost city with a population of more than 1 million) recorded a temperature of 21.5 degrees Celsius (70.7 Fahrenheit) on April 10, breaking a 134-year-old record. Scientists attribute the abnormally hot temperatures to the emission of greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere.

But while the rapid rise of the water levels of the Ural River was bound up with climate change, the devastating consequences of the floods are the direct result of the failure of the Russian and Kazakh oligarchies to invest in the infrastructure necessary to protect the population from its impact. 

Meteorologists warned the authorities of the Orenburg region about the threat of flooding back in early March. Nevertheless, the Orenburg region’s authorities did not take any protective measures in March or at the very beginning of April, when it was already obvious that this year’s floods would be serious. The mayor of Orsk was at the dam itself on the eve of the breach, declaring that the dam was in good condition and that there was no threat of flooding.

The dam breach in Orsk was not inevitable. Experts believe that the dam in Orsk was designed and constructed without taking into account possible maximum water levels, noting that “the dam, at least, should withstand a flood, which happens once in a hundred years, and even with a small reserve, because it is modern, the construction was built recently.” Defects in the construction of the dam are also considered possible. 

Experts have emphasized the desire to save money over the safety of people during construction: “The dam was low, designed for a much smaller amount of water than could be expected… Measurements... of course, have predicted such high water level rises. But apparently they decided to save money.”

The regional prosecutor’s office said that the dam collapse occurred because measures for its maintenance were not taken in a timely manner. A completely absurd version of the dam breach was presented on federal television by the general contractor who built the dam in Orsk in 2010. According to his story, the dam was gnawed through by rodents. However, even the mayor of Orsk soon refuted this version, saying that the dam simply could not withstand the water pressure.

Regardless of the primary reason for the dam collapse, it is clear that the desire to save money played a key role in its collapse. The technical means to build a dam that could contain such a flood were and are available.

The bursting of the dam in Orsk demonstrates yet again the failure of the capitalist system, in which the ruling class is concerned only for its own profit, with no regard for the lives and health of millions of people. In considering this situation, it is impossible not to mention two other recent incidents that occurred for a similar reason: The collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore in the US, on March 26 and the collapse of the Pioneer mine on March 18 in the Amur region of Russia. In the first case, six workers who were on the bridge at the time were killed, while in the second case, all 13 miners in the mine at the time of the collapse were declared dead. All of these disasters happened primarily due to the refusal of the ruling class to spend money on safe infrastructure.  

This is all happening against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. Colossal funds from all sides are squandered on military spending, while minimal amounts of money are allocated to social welfare, environmental policy and other areas important to the population. Biden’s budget calls for insane military spending of over $1 trillion. The Putin regime’s current military budget lags far behind its Western rival, totaling approximately $115 billion, but when compared to Russia’s budgets in previous years, it is still the largest in terms of military spending.

Mass stabbing in Sydney shopping centre by mentally ill man

Oscar Grenfell

Horrific scenes unfolded in Sydney on Saturday afternoon, as a man roamed through Westfield shopping centre in Bondi Junction, stabbing random people in his path. Six victims have lost their lives. With at least eight others still in hospital, the toll may increase. The attack ended when the offender was shot dead by a police officer at the scene.

A mother was fatally stabbed, and her nine-month-old baby was also attacked. The dead include two young women in their 20s, a mother of two, a 53-year-old businesswoman and a security guard who was a refugee from Pakistan.

The attack was among the worst mass casualty incidents in Australia in recent decades. The shopping centre is one of the largest in Sydney, visited by tens of thousands of people every week.

Westfield Bondi Junction [Photo by Sardaka / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Understandably, the incident has provoked widespread concern and anguish. Many have noted that the victims could have been anybody going about their shopping. Footage of the attack, captured on mobile phone cameras, gives the dreadful incident an immediacy that it would not have had in earlier times.

The ubiquitous media coverage of the past two days has been an exercise in cynical sensationalism, aimed at exploiting and profiting from these sentiments.

Almost as soon as the attack was over, corporate reporters were clambering over each other, shoving microphones and cameras in the faces of witnesses who were still clearly in shock. Details of the incident and images of it that need not have been made public were broadcast without the slightest concern for the victims’ families, the media’s professions of great sympathy notwithstanding.

The commentary, despite its volume, has been almost entirely devoid of social insight. It has dovetailed with the statements of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and other official politicians. All have presented the mass stabbing as a senseless and unfathomable event, while glorying in the response of the police and promoting crass nationalism of the “how brave are Australians” variety.

However, while the details are still emerging, what has been released thus far shows that far from being an event out of the blue, the mass stabbing was a product of a deepening social crisis, particularly as manifested in the evisceration of mental health services.

The perpetrator, 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, was publicly identified by police yesterday morning. The details of his life paint a predictably forlorn picture.

Born in the Queensland city of Toowoomba, in a suburb known for relatively high rates of poverty and crime, Cauchi was reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 17. Queensland Health has confirmed that Cauchi received mental health care through the public system until 2012, at which point he was transferred to a private provider for unknown reasons. For a period, he was well enough to have attended university.

For years afterwards, though, it seems that Cauchi moved around Queensland, without a fixed address or any employment. It is unlikely that he was receiving sustained and consistent mental health assistance during this period, given his itinerant existence.

At some point, Cauchi moved to Sydney, though when is not entirely clear. The only property that has been searched is an inner-city storage unit, reportedly no larger than around one cubic metre in size. Cauchi was reportedly homeless, but at this stage, no one knows.

Cauchi’s prolific online history includes recent posts, asking in Facebook groups if strangers would go surfing with him and engage in other social activities. The loneliness is apparent.

A profile Cauchi created, advertising his services as a male escort, hinted at an increasingly desperate existence. Unconfirmed reports have suggested a history of using methamphetamine, a drug known to trigger psychosis.

NSW and Queensland police have both emphasised that Cauchi had no criminal history and had never been arrested. But there were clear red flags, which were not acted upon. Last year, Cauchi, still in Queensland, reportedly called the police, accusing his father of having stolen his knives. No action was taken, and no alarm bells rang about a mentally ill man in conflict with his relatives over an unhealthy obsession with knives.

Already exhibiting signs of crisis, Cauchi arrived in Sydney, where his presence does not seem to have been noticed by any government agency, including in the health sector.

Sydney, the financial hub of Australia, is also the epicentre of a massive housing bubble. In the 12 months to July 2023, apartment rents in the city increased by more than 27 percent. Secure housing is unaffordable for many full-time workers; for the unemployed, it is an impossibility.

Meanwhile, mental health care is in a parlous state, having been cut back and privatised over decades.

A 2023 report by the NSW Branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists described mental health care in the state as “poorly funded, operating in crisis; Where people are falling through the cracks, with dire consequences; That’s ill-prepared to address community trauma, and in some cases, re-traumatising people; Where help is hard to access and often unaffordable; That’s complex, fractured and disconnected…” etc.

Among many similar comments, one anonymous psychologist bluntly stated: “There is almost zero access for people on Centrelink or low incomes to see a psychiatrist for assessment or medication review.”

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), established by the previous federal Labor government in 2013, and since expanded has effectively privatised the provision of mental health services. In addition to turning over the care of patients to a patchwork of for-profit operators, governments have declared that their own NDIS costs are too high and have insisted on the need for funding cutbacks.

How many people, like Cauchi, have been shut out of society, left to wander on their own and to deal with complex mental health conditions without a skerrick of assistance? It is likely that no one, including government authorities, knows because they have no interest. In a society dominated by corporate profit, such people are viewed by official institutions as a nuisance, unproductive and their needs a potentially expensive impost.

Most crises among this vulnerable cohort take a very different form, in the descent into drug addiction, self-abuse, and deaths of despair, including suicide. It is increasingly families who bear the brunt of the care and impact of their mentally affected loved one.

Why Cauchi’s breakdown took the violent form it did is not known and perhaps never will be. There are undoubtedly specific biographical dimensions. It has been noted that almost all of those attacked were women.

Whatever the details, though, it is undeniable that Cauchi’s violent act occurred in the context of an eruption of violence on a far larger scale.

Most graphically, people are confronted every day with images of women and children being murdered in the most horrendous fashion in Gaza, as the Australian government and all the imperialist powers insist on “Israel’s right to defend itself” through the slaughter of an entire people. Australia is actively supporting the US-instigated proxy war against Russia in Ukraine that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and is on the frontlines of preparations for a disastrous conflict with China.

An atmosphere of officially-cultivated reaction, accompanying the program of militarism and war, was evident in the response to Cauchi’s attack. X/Twitter and other social media networks were flooded with right-wing propaganda, falsely claiming that Cauchi was an Islamic fundamentalist who had perpetrated a terror attack.

Other equally racist posts asserted that the perpetrator was Jewish. Extraordinarily, the Seven Network, one of the country’s largest broadcasters, incorrectly named the attacker, giving a common Jewish surname. The result was an avalanche of vitriol against the entirely innocent man named.

Seven has since apologised, blaming “human error.” Which humans and how they made the error has not been specified. Whatever exactly happened, the “mistake” had a decidedly inflammatory and antisemitic odour to it. That is notable, given that Seven, together with the rest of the official media, has sought to blackguard all opposition to Israel’s crimes over the past six months as antisemitism.

The elevation of violence by official society has also been evident in the response to Cauchi being killed. The police officer who fired the shots has been named, her photo emblazoned in the papers, alongside descriptions of her as a “hero.”

Aside from legitimising the use of force and violence by police in other, less extreme situations, this also serves to cover over the many questions raised by the police response. Under conditions where police numbers and budgets have grown every year, Cauchi was able to roam around one of the city’s busiest places, stabbing people at will for 15 minutes without an officer in sight. Multiple paramedics who responded had to be stood down and prevented from entering the centre to assist the dying and injured because police had not arrived.