Death toll from global heat wave climbs as 1,000 die from extreme heat in Mecca

Alex Findijs

Deadly heat waves are affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world. For the past week, much of the Eastern United States has seen temperatures far higher than average for this time of year, with the heat index reaching over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celsius) in some places and the National Weather Service predicting major and extreme heat risk for tens of millions of people over the next week. 

Paramedics carry a muslim pilgrim for a medical check after he fell down due to a heat stroke at pillars, in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, June 16, 2024 [AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool]

The US heat wave, the result of a “heat dome,” is predicted to shift from the Midwest and Northeast to the Southern and Southwest US by the middle of next week after having originated in Mexico at the beginning of June. 

Excessive heat in Mexico has claimed the lives of at least 125 people this year, as the country is being hit with the first named tropical storm of the year, predicted to be one of the most active hurricane seasons in recorded history. The heat has been so intense that howler monkeys were reported to be falling dead out of their trees.

This past week has also seen intense heat in the Mediterranean region that took several lives. Multiple tourists, including British journalist Michael Mosley, have died from the heat in recent weeks, and Greek authorities were forced to shut down the Acropolis to tourists, close schools and station medics across Athens as temperatures soared to up to 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44.5 Celsius).

According to meteorologist Panos Giannopoulos, heat waves are occurring earlier in the year. Speaking to Greek TV channel ERT, he said, “We never had a heatwave before June 19. We have had several in the 21st century, but none before June 15.

Similar temperatures stuck Italy and Turkey. Temperatures in Italy reached above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius), about 10 degrees Celsius above normal, according to Antonio Sanò, founder of the weather website ilmeteo.it.

Meanwhile, Turkey has seen temperatures 8-12 degrees Celsius above normal, with highs similar to Italy and Greece.

The research non-profit Climate Central estimates that the extreme heat has been made five times more likely to occur due to climate change, and the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization published a report earlier this year that found heatwave-related deaths have increased in Europe by 30 percent over the past 20 years.

India and Pakistan, as well as broader parts of Southeast Asia, have also suffered through deadly heat. For more than a month, India has seen temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the capital New Delhi, home to nearly 34 million people, recorded its highest night temperature in 55 years at 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35.2 Celsius). Adjusted for the heat index, temperatures at night are estimated to feel well above 100 degrees. 

The extreme heat has claimed the lives of at least 100 people and caused heat stroke in 40,000 over the past three and a half months. These numbers are likely an undercount as heat-related deaths with illnesses are not often recorded properly. Dileep Mavalankar, former head of the Indian Institute of Public Health in Gandhinagar, told the Associated Press that, “We don’t classify and measure deaths as much as we should and that is one reason why heat-related deaths are difficult to count.” 

Research by World Weather Attribution estimates that the beginning of the heat wave in April was 45 times more likely due to climate change, and India’s weather agency believes the heat wave is among the longest in the country’s history.

The most severe impacts of the global heat wave have been in Saudi Arabia, where an estimated 1,000 people have died from the searing heat during the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. The Hajj is one of the most important religious events in Islam, drawing millions of people every year on a pilgrimage to the Kaaba, the “House of Allah.” Temperatures in Mecca reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.8 Celsius) this week.

This year the Saudi government issued 1.8 million permits for the Hajj, a procedure designed to control the number of pilgrims. However, many people who are unable to afford a permit go anyway. Saudi officials reported removing hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca earlier this month.

Without a permit, unregistered pilgrims are unable to access air-conditioned areas and other safety systems established for the high heat. On Thursday morning, CBS News reported that an Arab diplomat said 630 of 658 people who died were unregistered. As of this writing, 10 countries have confirmed a total of 1,081 deaths.

This year’s extreme heat can be partially ascribed to El Niño, the warm period of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, that occurs in the Pacific ocean.

ENSO fluctuates between the warm El Niño and the cool La Niña, as ocean convection currents bring warmer or cooler water to the surface. This fluctuation, between about half a degree Celsius either side of average, fuels global conditions for wetter, drier, cooler, or warmer climates around the world.

The current El Niño, which began last spring/summer, is one of the strongest on record and has been associated with severe droughts in Mexico, Colombia, South Africa and India.

But the El Niño event cannot be solely blamed for the current global heat waves. The underlying cause is climate change.

Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that average global temperatures have risen steadily since the 1950s, and that the extremes associated with ENSO have risen with them.

The climatic changes from ENSO are gaining more energy and impact from a warming climate that is altering its behavior. As the world warms, the impacts of ENSO will strengthen as well.

If the ENSO cycle is like a swing, climate change is like a person behind the swing pushing it towards more extreme events. La Niña is associated with stronger hurricane seasons and this year is predicted to be one of the most prolific in history. And while La Niña is a relative cooling event in the tropics, it can cause warmer temperatures in parts of North America and Asia.

The current heat wave comes as El Niño weakens and shifts into a La Niña cycle, bringing with it a relative cooling to the planet. But this will not offset the impacts of climate change.

The 2021 heat dome, which killed upwards of 1,600 people in Canada and the US, occurred in the middle of a three-year-long La Niña. That period saw some the worst natural disasters in recent years, with two of the most active hurricane seasons in US history, historic flooding in Australia, and severe heat waves and forest fires in Chile and Argentina.

As the earth continues to warm, such natural disasters will only increase in frequency and severity. The rising death toll from the current heat wave is a product of the warming climate and the failure of world governments to effectively combat climate change and provide adequate social services to those most at risk from extreme heat events.

Putin launches purge of military

Lev Novitsky & Clara Weiss

Shortly after the inauguration of his fifth term as President in late April, Vladimir Putin has initiated a far-reaching purge of the military leadership.

Vladimir Putin [AP Photo/Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP]

The purge began with the arrest of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov on April 24. He was accused of taking a bribe of more than 1 billion rubles (about $11 million). Then, on May 14, at Putin’s suggestion, Sergei Shoigu (Minister of Defense since 2012) was not included in the new government. Instead, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development Andrei Belousov, who has no background in the military, was appointed as the new Minister of Defense.

The explanations given for the appointment of Belousov, a well-known economist, to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, have largely centered on Russia’s need to reduce military spending and transition to a full-fledged war economy. However, while this may be part of the explanation, it hardly accounts for the systematic replacement of the military leadership with civilian personnel close to the president.

Thus, on May 20, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Sadovenko was removed from his post by a decree from Putin. Oleg Savelyev, a former auditor of the Audit Chamber and Deputy Minister of Economic Development, became the new Deputy Defense Minister. On Monday June 17, Putin dismissed three additional deputy ministers of defense and appointed three civilian officials instead. Like Belousov, none of them have a background in the Russian army. The Kremlin justified their appointment with the fight against “corruption” in the military.

Other leading figures of the military command were removed as well, with many of them arrested and detained on bribery charges. This included Yury Kuznetsov, head of the Defense Ministry’s main personnel department, and Vladimir Verteletsky, head of the Defense Order Support Department. The former commander of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District, Ivan Popov, was detained and accused of embezzling a large sum of money from metal structures intended for the construction of defense facilities in Zaporizhzhya region in 2023. Last year, Popov vocally criticized the lack of military supplies on the front in Ukraine, and publicly spoke about the mass death of Russian soldiers on the front.

Sukhrab Akhmedov, the commander of Russia’s largest army unit (the 20th Army), was also removed from his post. The arrest of Vadim Shamarin, deputy to the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, has prompted speculation that Gerasimov himself might soon also be dismissed.

These dismissals might just be the beginning. According to information relayed by an unnamed Russian government official to The Moscow Times, “by the end of the year, dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people of various ranks will be arrested in all units of the Defense Ministry.”

Already, the purge has begun to extend to high-ranking regional officials. The Deputy Governor of Tyumen Oblast, Vyacheslav Vakhrin, was arrested on June 9; leading regional officials of the Republic of Karelia, Oryol Oblast and the Krasnodar Krai have also been arrested, based on fraud and bribery charges. 

The Kremlin’s claim that this purge is bound up with a “fight against corruption” lacks any credibility. “Corruption” is the modus vivendi of the entire Russian oligarchy and capitalist state apparatus, which emerged out of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union and the plunder of state assets. The charge of “corruption” is routinely levelled by one faction of the oligarchy against another to cover up the real content of their infighting. 

Historically, conflicts between political and military authorities on the eve of major wars or in the context of wars have always had great political significance.

The current purge in Russia inevitably evokes the memory of Stalin's notorious massacre of the Red Army leadership in 1937, during the Great Terror, in which generations of socialists were murdered. The Red Army, which had been founded by Leon Trotsky, was a particular target of Stalin’s counterrevolutionary genocide. But there was also a geopolitical component to the purge: The mass murder of the generals took place in the context of Stalin’s preparations for a rapprochement with Hitler, which was sealed in the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939. It decapitated and demobilized the Red Army on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union just two years later, in June 1941.

There are, of course, fundamental differences between the nature of the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia. The USSR originated in the socialist 1917 revolution and remained a workers’ state, despite its severe degeneration under Stalinism. The terror against the Red Army by Stalin was part of a political counter-revolution against the traditions and cadre of the revolution. Today’s capitalist Russia and the Putin regime emerged out of that counterrevolution, which culminated in the destruction of the USSR in 1991. But precisely for that reason, the Putin regime has inherited definite methods and features of Stalinist policies.

Moreover, as was the case with the 1937 purge, the current purge is taking place in the context of the aggression of imperialism, which is intensifying tensions within the ruling stratum. In fact, a central component of the imperialist war against Russia has been the fostering of conflicts within the oligarchy and state apparatus, substantial sections of which have a pro-NATO orientation.

The purge occurs less than a year after billionaire-turned-mercenary leader Evgeny Prigozhin launched a coup attempt against the military leadership with an appeal to NATO. At the time, the coup attempt enjoyed significant support in sections of the military. It was followed by what amounted to only a minor purge within its ranks. The dismissal of Sergei Shoigu, in particular, had been one of the main demands of of Prigozhin’s coup attempt. Shoigu has been closely associated with Russia’s military strategy since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was long considered one of the figures closest to Putin.  

As a result of the purge, the position of the military within the state apparatus and the determination of the strategy in the war in Ukraine has been severely weakened. The top positions of the Russian Defense Ministry are now in the hands of economists with no background in the army. At the same time, in another parallel to 1937, the position of the secret service, the FSB—the direct successor of the Soviet NKVD which carried out the Great Terror—has been vastly strengthened. It is the FSB that is leading the investigation into “corruption” at the highest levels of the military. Capt John Foreman, the UK’s former defence attache to Moscow told the Guardian, “The FSB finally got their teeth in the defence ministry and general staff. Shoigu kept the FSB largely away from the ministry throughout his tenure.”

The purge occurs as the danger of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russian troops in Ukraine and a nuclear exchange is greater than ever before. After serious military setbacks by NATO’s proxy forces in Ukraine, which have claimed half a million or more lives, the Biden administration has now openly embraced the firing of US and NATO missiles far into Russian territory, risking, even more recklessly than before, a nuclear confrontation. And earlier, US Army Gen. Charles K. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that sending NATO trainers to Ukraine is inevitable, which effectively means that sending NATO troops is inevitable.

The Kremlin’s response has been a combination of nuclear saber rattling and military escalation, on the one hand, and renewed attempts to broker a deal with the imperialist powers, on the other. In May, Russia conducted military exercises for the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons and launched an offensive in the Kharkov (Kharkiv) region, simultaneously advancing along the entire front line. However, the offensive in the Kharkov region has remained relatively limited and does not require a second wave of mobilization, which the Kremlin has been eager to avoid, for fear of triggering an open eruption of social discontent.  

Shortly after the beginning of the offensive, media outlets have reported that the Russian government has made new advances to US and European imperialism. On June 14, Putin openly made a peace proposal to Ukraine and NATO, reiterating his earlier demands for the demilitarization of Ukraine, and the recognition of Crimea and Donbas as parts of Russia. Predictably, the Ukrainian authorities and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg rejected the proposal. The strategic goals of NATO imperialism in the war go far beyond the Ukraine and even Russia itself: From the standpoint of the imperialist powers, the complete subjugation of Russia and its raw material resources is a necessary component of the preparations for an all-out war with China.

The zig-zags by Moscow and the intense conflicts within the ruling class flow from the historical, social and political position of the Putin regime. Having emerged as a Bonapartist regime out of the restoration of capitalism, and overseeing extreme levels of social inequality, the Putin regime is desperately seeking to balance between different factions within the oligarchy, between the oligarchy and imperialism as well as between the oligarchy and the working class.

The main axis of the Kremlin’s war strategy has been to use limited military pressure to force the imperialist powers to the negotiating table. But the relentless escalation by NATO has undermined this strategy and fueled the infighting within the ruling class. No doubt, a major reason for the purge is that Putin is seeking to preempt a challenge from within the military to his political rule and conduct of the war. But much suggests that, far from consolidating the position of Putin, the purge will only further aggravate tensions within the ruling elites.

At the same time, discontent is growing within the working class, which is made to bear the brunt of the war. Already now, a growing proportion of the Russian population favor peace negotiations. According to estimates by the Levada Center, a think tank aligned with the NATO-backed opposition in the oligarchy, more than 51 percent of the population favor peace negotiations. A particularly large age group in favor of peace talks are young people aged 18-24. Among them, the think tank estimates that only 26 percent are in favor of continuing the war, compared to 61 percent who favor peace.

Political upheaval in Fiji after MPs vote themselves huge pay rises

John Braddock

After Fiji’s parliamentarians voted last month to give themselves huge pay rises, the main opposition FijiFirst, the largest party in parliament, is facing collapse. This follows the resignation of party founder and former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama and ex-Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in Sydney during an official visit to Australia, Oct. 16, 2023. [AP Photo/Rick Rycroft]

An overwhelming majority of MPs voted to accept a recommendation from the Special Committee on Emoluments for pay rises of 138 percent, as well as sharp increases for the prime minister (22 percent) and the president (42 percent). Fiji Village reported that 40 MPs voted for the increases—17 from FijiFirst—while seven were against and five abstained.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who heads a three-party coalition government, played down widespread criticism of the outrageous increases, telling Fiji Village that MPs dealt with “affairs of the state,” and they were currently paid “like a pretty junior military officer.”

An ordinary MP’s salary rises from $FJ50,000 ($US22,104) to $FJ100,000 ($US44,209), the president’s salary from $FJ130,000 ($US57,450, non-taxable) to $FJ185,000 ($US81,766) and the prime minister’s salary from $FJ263,000 ($US116,235) to $FJ320,000 ($US141,420). Large increases were approved for cabinet ministers, assistant ministers, the Speaker and the opposition leader.

The emoluments committee, made up of MPs from both sides of the House, also recommended the reinstatement of tax and duty-free vehicle purchases for cabinet ministers, increases in overseas travel allowances for the president and prime minister, an official residency for the Speaker and the opposition leader, plus medical and life insurance benefits for all MPs. All were approved.

Bainimarama—still leading FijiFirst while serving a one-year jail sentence for corruption—and acting secretary-general Fiayaz Koya responded by sacking all the party’s MPs who voted for the increase. They informed the Speaker the MPs had been expelled for not following a party directive to vote against or abstain. The vacant seats were to be filled by remaining FijiFirst candidates.

One of those sacked was FijiFirst’s parliamentary leader Inia Seruiratu, who declared that MPs had “wants” and “needs” and “church commitments” to justify the salary hike. Senior MP Jone Usamate said: “We are disputing the legality of the termination letter and as far as we are concerned we are still Members of Parliament.”

The largest salary and benefits boost ever for MPs received widespread criticism, including on social media. The Dialogue Fiji organisation described them as “out of touch with the economic realities faced by the majority of Fijians and their sentiment.” Director Nilesh Lal said they were “utterly insensitive and inappropriate” while ordinary people were “subjected to austerity measures and fiscal consolidation policies.”

The Registrar of Political Parties, Ana Mataiciwa, warned that FijiFirst must amend its constitution by June 28 or risk deregistration. She told local media the party’s constitution does not have guidelines on how internal party disputes are resolved, which breaches the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act.

Seeking to distance themselves, on June 7 Bainimarama and Sayed-Khaiyum suddenly announced their own resignations, along with most of FijiFirst’s senior officials. These included president Ratu Joji Satalaka, vice presidents Selai Adimaitoga and Ravindran Nair, acting general secretary Faiyaz Koya, treasurer Hem Chand and founding member Salesh Kumar.

The grubby affair further exposes the vast gulf that separates Fiji’s venal and corrupt ruling elite from the mass of ordinary people. Both current and former prime ministers are ex-military strong men, responsible for carrying out coups—Rabuka twice in 1987 and Bainimarama in 2006. Bainimarama established FijiFirst in 2014 to give himself a “democratic” façade for fraudulent elections that year and remained in power until defeated by Rabuka’s coalition in 2022.

Successive administrations have been anti-democratic and anti-working class, imposing harsh austerity measures while intimidating opposition parties with repressive media restrictions and violence by the police and military. Sedition provisions in Bainimarama’s Crimes Act and Public Order Act have repeatedly been used to target journalists and government critics.

Assemblies, protests and strikes have been routinely banned. In March 2019 a stoppage by 33 air traffic controllers at Fiji Airports was declared unlawful. Afterwards the government banned two May Day protests and arrested over 30 workers and trade union officials for breaches of “public order.” They included protesting workers who had been sacked and locked out by the Fiji Water Authority.

Bainimarama’s imprisonment is bound up with tactical disagreements within the ruling elite, which confronts a worsening economic and social crisis. The former PM was convicted in May for sidelining an investigation into graft at the University of South Pacific to protect pro-chancellor Winston Thompson, a former Fijian ambassador to the United States with close links to FijiFirst and the regime.

Amid an escalating cost-of-living crisis, thirty percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The COVID pandemic sharply exacerbated the social disaster: unemployment, around 6 percent before COVID, increased to 35 percent. The tourism industry, Fiji’s main foreign exchange earner, temporarily collapsed, sidelining 100,000 jobs. Half the country’s 880,000 population experienced extreme financial hardship and food shortages.

The tragedy is escalating amid a burgeoning methamphetamine epidemic. TVNZ Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has reported that Fiji is “awash with meth,” and the drugs trade threatens the country with “a major societal breakdown.”

Earlier this year nearly 5 tonnes of meth, worth $FJ1.6 billion, was found in two houses in Nadi. The size of the seizure would be enough to feed the Australian and New Zealand markets, where much of it goes, for a whole year.

With no drug rehabilitation program, the Women’s Crisis Centre is on the front line of the desperate social problem. Director Ilisapeci Veibuli said that with people living in extended families “it’s happening in the villages, it’s happening in the schools. Even children are using it.” Village structures are falling apart and children are being used as mules.

Dreaver reported that over 300 street kids in the capital, Suva are “fighting for their future” amid the squalor. The epidemic is also sparking an alarming surge in HIV and AIDS due to sharing of needles.

There is corruption among the police. More than a tonne of the Nadi meth seizure is currently missing. Dealers boast about having “our guys” in the police force who are bribed to interfere with evidence and lessen charges. Investigations are ongoing into former police commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho who was jailed along with Bainimarama for abuse of office. 

The ruling elite, meanwhile, is cementing itself as a collaborator in the US-led wars in the Middle East and Europe and mounting confrontation with China. 

As the second largest island country in the Pacific behind Papua New Guinea, Fiji is of vital strategic importance. While chairing the Pacific Islands Forum in 2021-22, Bainimarama operated as an ally of US imperialism, supporting the NATO confrontation with Russia in Ukraine and signing military agreements with Australia and New Zealand. 

The pro-war agenda is being advanced by the current regime. Last October Fiji joined other Pacific Island states to vote against a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In February this year, an attorney representing Palestine at the International Court of Justice revealed that Fiji and the United States were the only two countries to side with Israel at an ICJ hearing at the time.

Most recently Fiji’s President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky at last weekend’s fraudulent “Summit for Peace in Ukraine,” held in Switzerland. Katonivere noted Fiji had voted in support of UN resolutions calling for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops and highlighted that Fiji had “cooperated” with the US to seize a Russian super yacht linked to a sanctioned oligarch.

Moves to change Selective Service rules in the US prompt outpouring of opposition to reintroduction of the draft

Andre Damon

Last week, the House of Representatives voted to make enrollment in the US Selective Service database automatic, prompting a flood of worried statements by young people and parents on social media about the reimposition of the draft.

While all American men are required by law to sign up for the Selective Service, the bill passed by the House would make the process automatic. It would still need to pass the Senate to become law.

US Marine recruits on Parris Island, S.C.[Credit: US Navy]

The move comes against the backdrop of the war between Russia and NATO in Ukraine, the largest war in Europe since World War II, statements by US officials that American troops will be deployed to Ukraine, and US allies expanding or reintroducing the draft.

In this context, the bill, while publicly framed as a mere bookkeeping measure, was seen by significant sections of the population as preparatory toward an introduction of the draft.

In posts on TikTok and Instagram, young people and parents expressed their fears of being drafted into the military and their opposition to war.

“Y’all ain’t taking me,” said one woman in a video on TikTok that was liked over 26,000 times.

They’ve been able to get away with a whole lot of stuff. There hasn’t been a whole lot of uprising. But we are not going to let our young men fight a war that we don’t agree with and that we don’t want.

In a 2023 video that went viral last week following the House vote announcement, one young TikTok user asked, “What has my country ever done for me besides make it impossible to buy a house and give me any sort of student loan relief or affordable healthcare?”

The outpouring of concern, opposition and ridicule prompted local news coverage. In an article entitled “How do Metro Detroiters feel about the possible Selective Service mandate?,” local news station WXYZ encountered near-universal concern and opposition to the move.

When asked, “Are you scared?” about a potential reintroduction of the draft, Southfield resident Brandon Richards replied:

Very, very. Especially with everything going on in the world right now and the stuff that’s happening. I don’t think it’s fair that my son would have to go and fight for his country.

The response from the US national media, however, was to dismiss public concern over the expansion of the draft as the result of “misinformation.”

An article in Rolling Stone was headlined, “Gen Z Fears a Military Draft Because of TikTok Misinformation.” It stated:

TikTok is awash in warnings that young men in the US could soon be drafted into military service and panicked reactions to that prospect—but all of it is predicated on a misinterpretation of a bill currently making its way through Congress.

No, young people do not fear and oppose a military draft because of “misinformation.” They fear and oppose a military draft because they have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The war in Ukraine between Russia and NATO has already led to the deaths of over half a million people. Videos have circulated widely of Ukrainian conscription officers prowling the streets of Kiev and other cities and pulling young people off of public transit and out of workplaces.

Against the backdrop of this escalating war, US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was a warmongering rant, in which the president declared, “In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation. ... War was raging in Europe.” Biden made a parallel to the present, declaring, “My purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American people.”

Last month, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown told the New York Times that the NATO military alliance will “eventually” send significant numbers of active-duty NATO troops to Ukraine, which the newspaper said meant the deployment was “inevitable.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, has announced that he is working to form a “coalition” of countries to send troops to Ukraine.

Commenting on an article by the Times reporting the changes to the Selective Service, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North said on X:

This @nytimes article on reinstating the draft is an example of the way public opinion is prepared for major changes in military policy. By the time it is reported that a policy is being debated, one can reasonably assume that it is well on its way to being implemented.

This year, Latvia, a NATO member, reintroduced conscription, forcing all young people between the ages of 18 and 27 to enter the armed services for 11 months.

Meanwhile, Denmark, another NATO member, has announced that it will expand the draft to include women starting in 2026.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to reintroduce conscription if he wins the July 4 national election. Under his plan, at least 30,000 18-year-olds would be drafted into the military each year. He declared the move would “create a shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country.”

Last month, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, “I’m convinced that Germany needs some kind of military conscription.” He stated that the country’s decision to end the draft was a “mistake,” adding, “times have changed.”

The German military said the same month that it is actively considering the return of conscription. “The ministry is currently clarifying whether general compulsory service or military service makes sense,” it stated.

In March, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated:

[W]ar is no longer a concept from the past. It is real, and it started over two years ago. The most worrying thing at the moment is that literally any scenario is possible. ... I know it sounds devastating, especially for the younger generation, but we have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun: the pre-war era.

US budget office revises upwards growth of debt

Nick Beams

The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week issued an update to its forecast of the growth of public debt issued in February, which showed that the level of debt, already characterised by the Treasury and others as “unsustainable,” is rising faster than it had forecast just four months ago.

Phillip Swagel, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, testifies during a House Committee hearing on the Congressional Budget Office's budget and economic Outlook, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, on Capitol Hill, in Washington. [AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib]

According to the latest report, the national debt will rise from its present level, rapidly approaching $35 trillion, to $56 trillion over the next decade.

The CBO also revised upwards the estimate of the budget deficit for 2024 from $1.6 trillion to $1.9 trillion—an increase of more than 20 percent.

As a proportion of GDP, the debt will rise from almost 100 percent in 2024 to 122 percent in a decade’s time, meaning that the debt is growing at a much faster rate than real economic output. Interest rate costs to service the debt, now approaching $1 trillion, will rise to $1.7 trillion by 2034.

Commenting on the latest data to the New York Times, Michael Peterson of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a think tank which has been a long-time advocate of spending cuts, noted one of the immediate causes for the escalation.

“The harmful effects of higher interest rates fueling higher interest costs on a huge existing debt load are continuing, and leading to additional borrowing. It’s the definition of unsustainable,” he said.

In response to the initial report in February, CBO director Phillip Swagel told the Financial Times that US government debt was on an “unprecedented” trajectory and could lead to the type of crisis which engulfed the UK financial system in September-October 2022, when the short-lived Tory government of Liz Truss proposed major tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations to be financed by debt.

He said the US was “not there yet,” but bond markets could “snap back” as they had in Britain. That possibility has only increased in the three months since the interview.

The issue of the growing deficit will be the subject of a series of conflicts in Congress in the lead-up to the presidential election as the Democrats and Republicans seek to blame each other for the worsening situation while agreeing on the essential issue—that the working class should be made to pay.

The central plank of the Republican platform is that the tax cuts under the Trump administration in 2017, which massively benefited corporations and the wealthy, should be extended beyond their scheduled expiry date of 2025.

Their key argument—based on the so-called Laffer curve, reputedly first elaborated on the back of a restaurant napkin by Arthur Laffer in 1974 with then White House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Dick Cheney—is that tax cuts would generate economic growth and so pay for themselves as government revenue increased.

That theory was discredited during the Reagan administration, when tax cuts produced increased deficits, and in the recent period.

In 2018 the CBO estimated that the tax cuts would generate enough revenue via economic growth to cover just 20 percent of the costs. But last month CBO director Swagel said economic studies had shown their effect was even less.

Biden has already said he will extend some of the tax cuts, while Trump has said he will fully extend them with the cost to government revenue estimated to be $5 trillion over the next ten years.

While there may be differences over tax cuts, largely at the margin, there is basic agreement on the need to attack retirement benefits and health care.

The position of the entire political establishment was set out by the Times, which functions very much as a mouthpiece for the Democrats, in its article on the CBO’s revised estimate.

It said the mounting costs of Social Security and Medicare “continue to weigh heavily on the nation’s finances, along with rising interest rates, which have made it more costly for the federal government to borrow huge sums of money.”

And further on, just to make sure the point was not lost, it said the “fights over tax and spending will be taking place at a time when the country’s fiscal backdrop is increasingly grim. An aging population continues to weigh on America’s old-age and retirement programs, which are facing long-term shortfalls that could result in reduced retirement and medical benefits.”

Significantly, reflecting bipartisan agreement, there was not a word in the article about one of the main reasons for the escalation of the deficit—the raising of US military spending to record highs.

Such is the toxic state of what passes for official politics, the issue of the deficit will no doubt be clouded by claims that immigrants, including those who are undocumented and dubbed “illegal,” are somehow dragging down the US government finances.

The CBO assessment gave the lie to that poisonous assertion, pointing out that new immigrants are expected to pay almost $1 trillion in taxes more than they consume in federal government benefits.

The issue of the US deficit is by no means a domestic concern. It has major international ramifications because as it pursues its drive for global hegemony through war, the US dollar, the basis of the global financial system, is the national currency of what is essentially a bankrupt imperialist state.

Faced with what amounts to an existential crisis, the US state will seek to resolve it by a war on two fronts: against the working class at home and through the intensification of an already well-advanced global war – in the Middle East, against Russia and against what it considers to be its chief rival, China.

On the financial front, the rapid escalation of US debt has already led to alarm bells being sounded.

In its Fiscal Monitor Report issued in April, the International Monetary Fund said the massive US deficits had stoked inflation and posed “significant risks” for the global economy.

In his presentation of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report, its chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said that, as well as short-term risks for the disinflation process, the deficit raised “longer-term fiscal and financial stability risks for the global economy” and that “something will have to give.”

Back in February when the CBO issued its assessment of the budgetary position of the US, FT writer Chris Giles noted that across Europe and in the US, governments were running their budgets in a “fantasy world,” as if in a fairy tale where something magical turns up and everyone lives happily ever after.

He pointed out that prospective US borrowing was about “50 percent higher than that proposed by former British chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in his 2022 ‘mini’ budget which blew up the UK bond market.”

The CBO figures were worrying enough if taken at face value, but they could not because it had been “persistently too optimistic in recent years,” basing its projections on existing US policy, including the implausible assumption that the Trump tax cuts would expire at the end of 2025.

“But perhaps the biggest fantasy of all,” he concluded, “is the expectation that anything will happen to resolve unsustainable budgets without a crisis. We are much more likely to continue muddling along, pretending things are just about OK until something cracks. The trouble is that the fiscal system will break and there will be no happy ending.”

Growing COVID-19 hospitalisations in New Zealand

Tom Peters

A sixth wave of COVID-19, accompanied by other illnesses, including influenza and RSV, is placing immense pressure on New Zealand’s run-down public health system. Last Sunday, there were 279 people in hospital with COVID-19, which is about double the numbers recorded during March and April. 

Last week, 37 recent deaths were confirmed to be COVID-related, including one person aged in their twenties, bringing New Zealand’s total official COVID death toll since the pandemic began to 4,120. This is certainly an underestimate. 

New Zealand Minister of Health Shane Reti [Photo: Facebook/Shane Reti]

The Ministry of Health says another 1,907 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for COVID, but has claimed that these deaths were “not related” to the coronavirus. In the case of another 245 deaths, it is not confirmed whether COVID played a role.

Of the 4,788 cases reported last week, about two-thirds were repeat infections. This increases the likelihood of developing Long COVID, which can severely impact the brain, lungs, heart and other organs. The real case numbers are undoubtedly far higher; testing and reporting are no longer officially encouraged.

The pandemic, which has killed more than 27 million people worldwide, continues to exact a devastating toll because of deliberate policies adopted by capitalist governments that have placed corporate profit interests ahead of lives. 

New Zealand’s former Labour Party-led government of Jacinda Ardern ended its COVID elimination policy in October 2021 and removed all public health measures over the next year, ensuring the mass infection of the population. As well as causing thousands of deaths, this criminal policy has led to 40,816 hospitalisations for COVID-19.

The current surge is being fueled by new variants, particularly those known as KP.2 and KP.3, which are even more infectious than the JN.1 variant that was responsible for the previous wave earlier this year. Scientists have repeatedly warned that allowing the coronavirus to circulate would produce more immune-resistant strains, but these warnings have been ignored by governments.

In an attempt to cope with the influx of COVID patients, Wellington Regional Hospital recently reopened its dedicated COVID-19 ward from May 31 to June 11. It had been closed three years earlier. On June 14, Nelson Hospital reported that seven patients were being forced to wait in the emergency department, due to a surge in occupancy and a lack of beds.

Healthcare workers in Dunedin told the Otago Daily Times on June 11 that the overcrowding in the city’s emergency department meant that patients were being forced to wait in ambulances, potentially putting them at risk.

Public health experts continue to issue warnings calling on the public to wear masks and to remain at home and test if sick. Epidemiologist Michael Baker told Newshub on Tuesday: “The last three waves have been getting bigger, more cases, and… we’re quite complacent about this virus now, but we shouldn’t be.” He warned that COVID was the country’s most deadly infectious disease and “people of all ages are getting long-term effects—Long COVID.”

The government, however, has stopped virtually all public health messaging. There is no longer any requirement for people who test positive for COVID to self-isolate. At the end of June, rapid antigen tests will no longer be available for free anywhere. In another cost-cutting measure, the National Party-led government has scrapped free general practice consultations for people who are eligible to receive antiviral medication for COVID (the elderly and immunocompromised).

Despite the political establishment’s efforts to persuade the population to ignore COVID, it continues to cause major disruption to everyday life. Stuff reported on June 6: “Figures from the Ministry of Education showed estimated total teacher sick leave days nationwide increased to 401,832 in 2023, from 299,734 in 2018.” There have been several reports of school closures or partial closures due to staff illness since winter began.

The crisis in the health system is compounded by a shortage of thousands of nurses and doctors and intensified austerity measures. According to Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney, in the 2024/2025 budget announced last month, “Per capita operational expenditure on health fell by 1.3%, and real per capita expenditure (i.e., adjusted for inflation) fell by 4.5% on current population projections.”

Healthcare and other services are being starved while the government cuts taxes for the rich and diverts billions of dollars to expand the prison system, the police, and the military in preparation for war.

Healthcare workers have repeatedly taken strike action in an attempt to fight back. But these strikes are being kept isolated by the trade union bureaucracy, which is preventing any real fight against the healthcare crisis and government austerity. 

This includes the education unions, which enforced the full reopening of schools and workplaces in 2022 and the removal of masking and other measures to reduce the spread of COVID. The pandemic provided further proof that the unions are not workers’ organisations, but adjuncts of big business and the state, whose job is to protect corporate profits.

The public health measures taken in New Zealand, China and Australia early in the pandemic—when governments feared that letting the coronavirus spread would spark an uncontrollable rebellion in the working class—demonstrated that COVID-19 can be eliminated from the community. If implemented on a global scale, scientific policies—including quarantine, mass masking, social distancing and, where necessary, lockdowns—could have saved millions of lives.

Mass protests against Kenyan President Ruto’s IMF-dictated Finance Bill

Kipchumba Ochieng

Mass protests erupted yesterday against President William Ruto’s draconian Finance Bill 2024, introduced at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Bill proposes a new round of tax hikes and levies that will increase the price of basic goods.

In Nairobi, the capital, protests took place for a third day in a row, with demonstrators chanting “Ruto must go”. Anti-riot police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse tens of thousands, many young and protesting for the first time, gathering peacefully near the National Assembly. Live bullets have reportedly been used.

Demonstrators run from police during a protest over proposed tax hikes in a finance bill that is due to be tabled in parliament in Nairobi, Kenya, Thursday, June 20, 2024. [AP Photo/Andrew Kasuku]

Demonstrators were attempting to access parliament and were mobilised through social media like Instagram, Tik Tok and X/Twitter under the hashtags #OccupyParliament and #RejectFinanceBill2024.

Cutting across the tribal divides that the Kenyan ruling class systematically cultivates, tens of thousands demonstrated across the whole country. This includes Kisumu, the third largest city and an opposition stronghold; Nanyuki, where the largest British military base in East Africa is located; and Mombasa, home to the main port in East Africa. In Eldoret, a key stronghold of Ruto, hundreds of young people took to the streets and destroyed Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance party wheelbarrow symbols.

Protests also took place in Lodwar, Kakamega, Kisii, Nakuru, Edloret, Nyeri, Meru, and Kilifi.

The Finance Bill is a brutal attack on the working class and rural masses, already suffering a soaring cost of living worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic and NATO’s war on Russia in Ukraine. It is being forcefully imposed by a ruling elite serving as stooges of the IMF. In April 2021, Kenya entered into a $3.6 billion deal with the IMF in exchange for savage austerity.

According to a recent survey conducted by Infotrak, 87 percent of Kenyans are opposed to Ruto’s Bill. It includes hiking the road maintenance levy, which will lead to an increase in the cost of fuel and of transport, and the increase of Import Declaration Fee from 2.5 to 3.5 percent which will lead to higher prices of imported goods. The Ruto government is hoping to raise $2.7 billion, the largest amount of additional revenue extracted from the working class and rural masses in the history of Kenya’s Finance Bills.

Mass anger has forced the government to withdraw some of the most unpopular measures, including the 16 percent Value Added Tax on bread, introduction of a 2.5 percent motor vehicle tax, 25 percent excise duty on cooking oil, an eco-levy on products deemed harmful to the environment—including diapers, batteries, rubber tires, television sets and smartphones—and an excise duty on locally assembled motorbikes in a country with three million boda-boda (motorbike taxi) riders.

Ruto has made clear that despite this temporary setback he will continue to impose more tax hikes and levies. By the end of his term in 2027, he is committed to increasing taxes from the current 15 percent to at least 20 percent of GDP. Alternatives being discussed include further privatisations, cuts in healthcare and education expenditure and printing money to stoke inflation.

Yesterday, the Finance Bill passed the second reading in the National Assembly, by 204 votes to 115. The bill will now move to the committee stage and a third reading, before being sent to Ruto for assent.

Ruto accumulated most of his wealth from state sanctioned corruption, starting his political career over three decades ago as a thug employed by Western-backed dictator Daniel arap Moi to terrorise opposition. He won the August 2022 elections promising “bottom-up” economics and to defend the “hustlers”, the poor majority, against the “dynasties”, the wealthy and politically influential minority that have ruled since independence six decades ago.

Since he was elected president, Ruto’s government has imposed attacks including doubling VAT on fuels from 8 to 16 percent; raising taxes on food, mobile money transfers, digital content creation and salaries; increasing social security and health insurance contributions; and cutting public sector employment, as well as taking a levy from workers in formal employment to fund “affordable” housing—a new corruption scheme.

Ruto has defended these measures, stating “the remedy to solve the debt burden to pay taxes and become independent in developing the nation with our own money and even get to the point where instead of borrowing we will be lending to other nations. That is the trajectory we want to go”.

This is a fraud. The tax hikes are the pound of flesh demanded by the IMF, which backed the Finance Bill, stating that “the authorities have taken decisive steps towards fiscal consolidation”.

Ruto’s subservience to imperialism was on full display last month when he groveled to Washington to put Kenya at its service. US President Joe Biden named Kenya a major non-NATO ally, the first in sub-Saharan Africa, which will allow Nairobi to buy US military technologies and weapons in exchange for offering Kenyan soldiers as foot soldiers of US imperialism. Kenya is already sending US-trained anti-terror police to Haiti, funded to the tune of $300 million by Washington, tasked with terrorising the population and preventing refugee outflows to the US and Canada.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Kenyan President William Ruto, on the margins of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly High Level Week, in New York City on September 21, 2022. [Photo: Ron Przysucha]

The protests over the past days seem to have been largely spontaneous, organised through social media. No major party has backed them. This reflects widespread public hostility to all the major parties.

Figureheads include anti-corruption activist Boniface Mwangi, who has promoted the bankrupt perspective of petitioning MPs and boosting opposition leader of Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition, the millionaire Raila Odinga.

Defending him for not attending the demonstrations, Mwangi said, “Raila is also old. He has done this for over 40 years. We should be ashamed of ourselves for demanding more from Raila. He has given his best. If the Opposition has let us down, it is because they have no leader.”

Last year, Odinga corralled mass opposition to Ruto, intermittently calling for protests as a way of defusing opposition to Finance Bill 2023. Odinga, articulating the interests of the 0.1 percent of the Kenyan population (8,300 people) which according to Oxfam own more wealth than the bottom 99.9 percent (more than 48 million people), was terrified by developing working-class struggles, particularly civil servants, and called them off.

“It is better when it is known people, like Sifuna and Raila [Odinga], leading these demonstrations. The day Kenyans take this matter upon themselves, there will be no one to call to the table” said Edwin Sifuna, Secretary General of Odinga’s party at the height of last year’s protests.

Ruto’s savage police repression left over 75 people killed and hundreds injured, mostly from live ammunition.

Now the opposition has distanced themselves from the protests, although Odinga and some senior members have made tweets in support.

Francis Atwoli, the secretary general of the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU), consisting of 36 trade unions representing more than 1.5 million workers, has openly backed the Finance Bill. He cynically said “people are being taxed everywhere and indeed if we pay tax and the money is used properly we will evade the issue of borrowing money. Borrowing money becomes very difficult for any country to grow”.

Atwoli has attacked those trade unions within his umbrella organisation for opposing the Finance Bill. These include Kenya National Union of Teachers, Kenya University Staff Union, University Academic Staff Union, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Union, Kenya National Union of Nurses, Kenya Union of Clinical Officers and the Kenya Union of Journalists.

These unions, however, representing millions of workers, have refused to call strikes to stop the bill from passing. Over the past years, they have worked to isolate and wear down strikes and opposition, allowing Ruto and his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta to slash wages and benefits.