China experiencing torrential rain and major floods

Ben McGrath

Since the beginning of the rainy season on April 1, China has experienced heavy rainfall, causing 20 floods in major rivers around the country. Dozens have been killed, tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate, and countless more have been impacted. These types of extreme weather events and floods have become the annual norm in recent years amid ongoing climate change.

Flooding in Meizhou, Guangdong, China, June 20, 2024 [Photo by China News Service / CC BY 3.0]

As of Sunday night, 31 rivers had surpassed their warning levels with flooding expected to continue into August. The Ministry of Water Resources and the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) expect significant mountain flooding near the cities of Bazhong and Guangyuan in Sichuan Province on Sunday and Monday.

Also on Sunday, China’s National Meteorological Center (NMC), a subordinate body of the CMA, re-issued a “yellow” alert for rainstorms for the province-level administrations of Shaanxi, Sichuan, Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Inner Mongolia. On Sunday and Monday, the regions were expected to experience torrential rains of up to 80mm an hour as well as thunderstorms and gales. China uses a four-tier colour warning system starting with blue and rising in severity to yellow, orange and red.

Beijing’s Ministry of Water Resources has also issued a warning for flooding at Lake Tai as water levels rose to 3.9 metres on Saturday, 0.1 meters above the warning level. The lake is located in the Yangtze River Delta in Jiangsu Province and is one of the largest lakes in the country. It experienced its first flood of the year on June 30.

The Yangtze River and its tributaries are particularly prone to flooding. Last Wednesday, the flood discharge gates on the Three Gorges Dam were opened for the first time this year as continuous rain was expected for the next week and a half in Sichuan Province and the city of Chongqing, which sit further upriver along the Yangtze. The NMC predicted that some areas of the Sichuan Basin would receive 50 to 90 percent more rain than usual for this time of year while the Three Gorges Reservoir had risen to 161.1 meters, or more than 15 metres above its usual level. It is a record high for July.

Last week, major flooding took place in Chongqing’s Dianjiang county, which received 269.2mm of rain in a single day alone, setting a record for the county. As a result, at least six people were killed. Chongqing is a direct-administered municipality in southwestern China with a population of 32 million people. The rains also damaged 1,800 hectares of crops and has so far caused an estimated 82 million yuan ($US11.3 million) in damages. The rain caused a highway to collapse in the city’s Kaizhou district.

Public anger over the government’s response to the flooding could develop into broader social unrest, particularly when combined with other issues such as workers’ declining economic conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic. Aware of this, Chongqing’s Mayor Hu Henghua said last Thursday, “As flood preparedness and response enter a critical period, we should strengthen warnings and monitoring, and timely evacuate people in areas at risk of geological disasters. It’s better to be extra careful to prevent any potential losses.”

President Xi Jinping has also emphasized this point, telling rescue workers in June that they should “guarantee the security of people’s lives and property, and overall social stability.”

China is no stranger to flooding. Following the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) drew legitimacy from the ability to mitigate the damage from floods that the previous Kuomintang government was unable to address as a result of corruption and indifference. For many people, the memories of massive floods in 1931, for example, that killed as many as two million people, were still fresh in people’s minds. The party began a campaign to build dams and other flood prevention measures throughout the country while also prominently celebrating its achievements.

Today, there are approximately 98,000 dams in China as well as 320,000km of dykes. However, many dams were built between the 1950s and 1970s, and due to poor upkeep, are at risk of collapsing. In 2020, Beijing stated it would spend $US15 billion to fix 200 large dams and 8,000 smaller dams that were described as “sick and dangerous.” Dykes are in equally bad condition. A report released in April of last year stated that 70 percent of dykes in just the Hai River Basin, which includes Beijing, were in danger of collapse.

Now, under the impact of climate change, extreme weather events are growing in intensity. Higher temperatures increase evaporation and the moisture in the air, which leads to more intense rain storms. At the same time, areas that typically receive less precipitation face the increasing likelihood of heatwaves and droughts.

The NMC on Sunday also issued a heat warning, raising its warning level within its three-tier temperature warning system to yellow, with orange and red more severe levels. Some regions of China are expected to see temperatures as high as 39 degrees Celsius.

On July 5, the CMA introduced its new blue book on climate change in China, writing, “Extreme weather and climate events tend to be more frequent and severe. In China, extreme high temperatures and heavy precipitation events tend to be more frequent and severe while extreme low-temperature events have generally declined… And the average intensity of typhoons that have made landfall in China has fluctuated and strengthened since the late 1990s.”

The first serious flood this year occurred on April 7 in the Bei River in the Pearl River Basin. It was the earliest since 1998 when Beijing began numbering floods. Later that month, Guangdong, which is located in the basin, began receiving a large amount of rain and flooding, leading to 52 deaths. Another 47 people died in Guangdong in June from continued flooding.

At the end of June, Pingjiang County in Hunan Province experienced some of the worst flooding since 1954. The Miluo River, which runs through the county and joins with the Yangtze River, reached 77.7 meters, exceeding the alert level by seven metres. One-third of Pingjiang’s old town and one-half of its new town were under water by July 2 and more than 5,300 people were forced to evacuate. Pingjiang is a county in the city of Yueyang, a city in Hunan’s northeast. It is home to 1.15 million people.

Torrential rains caused a dyke along the Miluo River to burst. Pingjiang received 759.6mm of rain between June 18 and July 2, the most since 1961 when recordkeeping began. The county’s Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters compared it to a “wartime” situation.

Boeing near-disasters continue to pile up in wake of sweetheart plea deal

Bryan Dyne

A plea agreement was reached between Boeing and the US federal government on Sunday in which the aerospace corporation would plead guilty to fraud in order to avoid further charges stemming from the two 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 passengers and crew.

A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner

Under the agreement, Boeing will pay $698.6 million, including a minimum of $455 million in “safety and compliance” programs and a $243.6 million in fines. The totals are barely a slap on the wrist for the aerospace giant, which made $7.7 billion in 2023. They are also an insult to the families of those who died after the company knowingly put the faulty 737 MAX 8 into service. Moreover, nothing is being put into place to force Boeing to change its practices.

The current plea deal only came about after an investigation by the Department of Justice began this year in the wake of the near-fatal door blowout in January on a 737 MAX 9 shortly after take-off. Dozens were injured and it was only luck that the blowout occurred so soon after takeoff, and not while the plane was cruising and tens of thousands of feet higher in altitude, which would have resulted in the death of all on board.

All that emerged from the government’s investigation is that Boeing had not developed its internal quality control methods as much as previously agreed, thus violating a deferred prosecution agreement from 2021. The only people being held accountable are two employees who lied to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the risks of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, the immediate cause of the two MAX 8 crashes.

The executives who pushed for the system in the pursuit of faster production over airplane safety, including ex-CEO Dennis Muilenburg and current Boeing head David Calhoun, have gotten off scot-free. Numerous testimonies, including at Congressional hearings, show Boeing’s management was aware of the dangers of MCAS and proceeded with making the MAX 8 anyway in order to keep Boeing’s profits and stock prices high.

None of them have faced charges for the manslaughter, much less murder, of passengers and crew caused by crashes that were a known inevitability.

Nor have any of them faced charges related to the numerous other serious quality control problems at Boeing that have come to light this year. In the wake of the January door blowout, dozens of whistleblowers have come forth exposing the fact that management at the airplane company and its supplier, Spirit AeroSystems (recently re-acquired by Boeing), were not only aware of but encouraged shortcuts in production at the expense of the safety of the flying public.

In the words of Joe Jacobson, a technical adviser to the Foundation for Aviation Safety and former FAA engineer who testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee in April, all Boeing was concerned about was “trying to maximize profits.”

Among the most significant whistleblowers at Bowing have been John “Mitch” Barnett and Joshua Dean. Barnett was a quality manager at the company for three decades who attempted repeatedly to bring to management’s attention serious issues in the production of Boeing’s 787 “Dreamliner” at the company’s facility in South Carolina.

Boeing Whistleblowers John Barnett (left) and Joshua Dean [Photo: Facebook]

Joshua Dean worked at Spirit AeroSystems and gave a deposition against his former employer that alleged “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line.”

Both faced repeated retaliation from their respective companies while still working for them, and were both forced out, Barnett in 2017 and Dean in 2020 and then again, after being rehired, in 2023. Both died earlier this year under suspicious circumstances. Barnett in particular told a family friend, “If anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.”

Alongside the whistleblower comments, Boeing has continued to face a deluge of accidents on its planes, further exposing the lack of quality and safety controls inside the company.

On Sunday, a Boeing 737-700 operated by Air Do traveling to Tokyo had a hydraulic failure during its approach for landing to Kushiro Airport. As a result of the fault and adverse weather conditions, the aircraft was forced to divert north to Nakashibetsu Airport, where it landed successfully before becoming disabled on the taxiway.

On Monday, the FAA revealed it has ordered an inspection of 2,600 Boeing 737 MAX and Next Generation airplanes after reports came in that, in the event an airplane depressurizes, oxygen masks might not supply oxygen to passengers.

That same day, a Boeing 757 traveling from Los Angeles to Denver lost one of its tires for its main landing gear during takeoff. The flight proceeded and landed successfully with no injuries during takeoff, flight or landing.

On Tuesday, a Boeing 777 scraped its tail along the runway for hundreds of meters while attempting to takeoff. The jetliner is from the Chilean airline Latam and was attempting to takeoff from Italy’s Milan Malpensa Airport. The plane, which can carry more than 500 passengers, was “packed” and only barely averted a disaster that could have killed everyone on board.

On Wednesday, a tire caught fire during the takeoff of an American Airlines flight of a Boeing 737-800. The 180 passengers were “safely deplaned,” according to airline spokesman Alfredo Garduño in a comment to the USA Today.

And on Friday, the pilot of a Boeing 757-23N declared a “squawking 7700” emergency after reportedly losing control of their plane as a result of leaked hydraulic fluid, according to FlightRadar24. The flight, which was headed from Spain to England, was successfully rerouted and landed safely at Manchester Airport.

The numerous ongoing and potentially fatal problems make the plea deal all the more egregious. Every sign points to serious and systemic problems with Boeing’s quality control and safety measures that are driven by management solely for corporate profits and stockholder dividends. The same issues that caused the MAX 8 crashes persist and will inevitably lead to the further loss of human life.

Workers and youth are increasingly aware of these dangers. In a poll taken in April, more than 50 percent of US flyers said they would pay $50-$150 more for flights not on Boeing aircraft. Nearly 24 percent said they would pay up to $50 to avoid Boeing and more than 19 percent said they would pay $151-$250 to stay away from the dangerous planes. And nearly 37 percent of respondents said that, if they could, they would avoid flying on Boeing aircraft altogether.

Yet nothing substantial will come from the federal government. Last year, Boeing earned 37 percent of its $78 billion revenue from government contracts, primarily in defense. It is a key part of the US-backed genocide in Gaza and NATO’s war drive against Russia and China. The lives lost on commercial airlines barely register on the war plans of the imperialist powers.

Indonesian government attacks wages through phony public housing scheme

Aditya Syed

The Indonesian government under out-going president Joko Widodo is expanding its Public Housing Savings program, known as Tapera, a scheme ostensibly meant to alleviate the country’s growing housing crisis. While the program is already in effect for civil servants, participation will become mandatory for almost all workers by 2027.

Temporary housing in Indonesia, April 2019 [AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana]

Under the Tapera program, workers will be forced to contribute 2.5 percent of their salaries that will be automatically deducted, while employers must supply only an additional 0.5 percent. Self-employed people are also being required to participate, contributing the full 3 percent on their own. Workers will then supposedly be able to use the fund for financial assistance when buying or renovating a house in the form of reduced interest rates on loans.

In other words, money is being funneled from the working class to boost government finances and the banks in return for limited financial help. Supposedly, workers will receive a lump sum after reaching the retirement age of 58, but there is no guarantee this will take place amid growing financial instability internationally.

There is a serious shortage of housing in Indonesia, which has the fourth largest population in the world, with 280 million people. Approximately 26 million houses in the country do not meet standards for habitation and there is a backlog of almost 10 million dwellings that need to be built. The Indonesian government would need to construct about 800,000 homes annually to meet the needs of the population. Yet only 229,000 homes were built using state funds in 2023 and the figure is set to be even lower this year at fewer than 200,000.

The Widodo administration claims that the cause of this shortage is financial constraint, and that the expansion of the Tapera program will lessen the severity of the housing shortage by gathering funds from a greater proportion of workers.

However, the staggering wealth of the Indonesian elite would be more than enough to fund social housing to match the country’s needs. In the last year, ten of the largest companies and banks in Indonesia accumulated combined profits of over $US28 billion, or about 463 trillion rupiah. In comparison, the amount of money put towards subsidizing housing in 2024 is projected to be approximately 9 trillion rupiah ($US550 million), or about one fiftieth of these massive profits. The government is forcing the working class to pay to fix the housing crisis, while the wealth of the financial elite will only be enhanced.

Indonesian workers, like their class brothers and sisters internationally, are finding the rising costs of living intolerable. The minimum monthly wage in Indonesia varies widely, from about 2 million rupiah ($US123) to as high as 5 million rupiah ($US306), depending on the province. The average salary also falls within these amounts, at about 3 million rupiah ($US183). The Tapera program will be a significant cut to workers’ real wages.

Housing is also costly. In the capital of Jakarta, the monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment can range from 3 to 9 million rupiah. The monthly cost of living for an average household can range from 10 to 15 million rupiah ($US611 to $US917) in metropolitan areas.

Workers, particularly youth, are also struggling to find work. The official unemployment rate in Indonesia was 5.3 percent in 2023, totaling 7.9 million people. The real scale of unemployment in the country is undoubtedly higher, as this figure does not include people who are in insecure work, underemployed, or counted as “not actively looking for work.” For young people aged 15 to 24, the unemployment rate was 19.4 percent last year.

Now, through the Tapera program, the Indonesian elite is demanding that more money be squeezed from workers facing these crippling financial conditions and having difficulty finding and holding on to employment. Despite claims to the contrary, the real reason for the government to enforce this measure is that the fund would serve as increased state revenue.

Saiful Islam, a member of the Ministry of Finance, stated that the Tapera fund would not be included in the state budget and would be used solely and directly to subsidize housing prices and interest rates. However, the Center for Economics and Law Studies in Jakarta cast doubt on this claim, saying Tapera “won’t only be used to fund housing, but also government programs from the new capital city [being built in Nusantara] to the free lunch program in the future.”

Given these conditions, workers have responded to the announcement of the expansion of Tapera with anger. Thousands of workers protested outside the presidential palace in Jakarta on June 6 to denounce the government’s agenda. Elza Yulianti, a 30-year-old freelance worker, criticized the lack of clarity about the program. She told Australia’s ABC News, “At a time when income is uncertain—when workers can get fired anytime—the Tapera obligation would reduce our income. My income is just around $AUD500 ($US334) per month and the price of land in Jakarta is very, very expensive.”

Elvia Shauki, who has worked as a civil servant for nearly 30 years and therefore is already a part of Tapera, stated at the protest that she had been unaware money was being taken from her pay and that when she checked her fund, she only had 4.5 million rupiah ($US275), which would not be enough to purchase a doll house. “The issue with this is the visibility, transparency and the fact that we had been robbed. The civil servants had suffered enough… I think it’s just a trickery on how they can raise funds cheaply on a massive scale,” she said.

Zelensky government prepares further social cuts ahead of new debt negotiations

Jason Melanovski

The far-right, crisis-plagued government of President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to renegotiate its $20 billion debt with Eurobond holders as the pause on its payments following the outbreak of the NATO proxy war against Russia in February 2022 is set to end on August 1.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. [AP Photo/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office]

As the Kyiv Post reported, initial negotiations already took place June 3-14 between the Ukrainian government and its creditors, but they did not go well. Bondholders were reportedly unhappy with a cut of up to 60 percent of the original agreement. Should negotiations fail, after August 1, Ukraine will be forced to pay $3.75 billion by the end of 2024.

The various major bondholders are using the name Ad Hoc Creditor Committee during negotiations. The Committee consists of Amundi, BlackRock and Amia Capital, according to Bloomberg. PJT Partners Ltd. and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP are participating as the group’s financial and legal advisors. These giant hedge funds as well as banks like JP Morgan Chase are deeply involved in the so called “reconstruction” effort in Ukraine, whose fundamental aim is to subordinate the economy and its working class directly to the predatory interests of finance capital. 

If negotiations do not end in Ukraine’s favor, the impoverished country of 32 million will greatly increase its chances of defaulting on foreign debt, threatening both the continuation of the imperialist-provoked war with Russia and the Zelensky government itself whose popularity ratings are already tanking due to a highly unpopular mobilization law passed earlier this year. As the Wilson Center think tank noted, while default is not certain “it is obvious that the longer the war drags on, the closer Ukraine will come to defaulting. Already in 2025, the national debt is projected to exceed 100 percent of Ukraine’s GDP.”

As a result of previous loan agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Zelensky government is unable to offer any more favorable terms to its creditors, “otherwise International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt sustainability targets risk not being reached” the Kyiv Post reported. As a result, the government has been forced into a corner during negotiations as it must pay interest on its Eurobonds for three years all at once.

Last week, Ukraine received another $2.2 billion from the IMF as part of its participation in the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program which lasts 48 months and will loan the country approximately $16 billion. Ukraine is now the second largest debtor to the IMF after Egypt. 

These agreements entail mass privatizations, further reductions in already minimal social spending and various anti-corruption “reforms” demanded by Western imperialism. Despite their title, such “anti-corruption” efforts are essentially a means to insert Western elites into dictating the social and economic decisions of the indebted governments.

The severity of the debt crisis is shaking up the already crisis-ridden NATO-backed Zelensky government and threatens to undermine the war effort. For the past year, the Zelensky regime has been dealing with a severe manpower and ammunition shortage at the front as it continues to lose territory to Russia.

Earlier this week, the Ukrainska Pravda reported that Zelensky would soon replace the country’s Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, who had taken a leading role in negotiating with the IMF and assuring Ukraine’s compliance with its various agreements.

The longest-serving Prime Minister in post-Soviet Ukraine, Shmigal was first appointed Prime Minister in 2020 following the resignation of Oleksiy Honcharuk, who made international news in October 2019 when he attended a neo-Nazi rock concert in Kiev.

While much of the article attributed Shmigal’s potential dismissal to mere personality and power conflicts between him and Zelensky, it also cited a sense of great nervousness within the Zelensky regime over the implications of a number of “reform” agreements with both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States.

According to Ukrainska Pravda, it was Shmigal’s “government that signed memorandums of commitment with the IMF and other international structures. And what’s bad is that the government was the addressee of the so-called ‘reform plan’ that the White House sent to donors and the government of Ukraine.”

It went on to add that by sacrificing Shmigal, the Zelensky government hopes its foreign creditors will be more open to new negotiations.

Shmigal is likely to be replaced by First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko who is reportedly close to Zelensky’s wife. Sviridenko is also viewed as “100 percent loyal” by Zelensky’s powerful aide Andriy Yermak. Reports suggested that Yermak already played a major role in forcing out the former Ukrainian commander in chief, Valery Zaluzhny in February.

The infighting within the Zelensky regime is fundamentally a symptom of the ongoing NATO proxy war in Ukraine, which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and created over 6 million refugees, while devastating the economy already ranked as Europe’s poorest prior to the war.

The extent to which the war has further impoverished Ukrainian society was underlined last week by the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s Committee on Social Policy and Veterans’ Rights, Galyna Tretiakova.

In a rare official acknowledgement of the social disaster in Ukraine, Tretiakova stated, “We have a catastrophic ratio of people who are considered poor. In fact, the war has thrown us back 16 years in terms of overcoming the problem of poverty.” A World Bank report released last month indicated that the number of people living in poverty in Ukraine had grown by about 1.8 million since 2020, increasing to almost a third of the entire population at 29 percent.

In total, 9 million Ukrainians were living in poverty as of last year, while the country’s overall population has dropped precipitously from 40 million to 32 million. These figures do not take into account the immense loss of life among Ukrainian soldiers, which is estimated at well over half a million now.

The report also showed that the increase in poverty was driven by skyrocketing unemployment. A fifth of working adults have lost their jobs following the outbreak of full-scale war in February 2022. One in four Ukrainians surveyed did not have enough money to buy food at some point in June 2023, according to the World Bank report.

Amidst this social disaster, the Zelensky government, seeking to both finance the war effort and placate its international creditors, is preparing further cuts to social spending. Ukraine’s Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych declared last week, “We have taken on an excessive number of social obligations, social payments, which cannot always be supported by financial resources. And this imbalance entails a huge number of judgments that cannot be fulfilled in terms of the economy’s ability to cover such expenses.”

Already, Ukraine spends more on its military than on social spending, but, according to Zholnovych, the government now has to further “revise the philosophy of social payments” and “optimize” them. 

While it is as yet unclear exactly how the Zelensky regime plans to cut social spending further, Zholnovych told UNN that a draft law had already been prepared to revise social payments as Ukraine continues its necessary “reforms” to fulfill its obligations to the IMF and Western imperialism.

Australia: Rental pain sharpest in working-class suburbs

Vicki Mylonas

Almost three-quarters of Australian suburbs are in “extreme rental pain,” according to a recent report. The crisis of housing affordability and availability is most acute in working-class areas.

Suburban housing in Hobart, the Tasmanian capital, Australia. [Photo by Graeme Bartlett / CC BY-SA 3.0]

The June Rental Pain Index (RPI) report, by property data and analytics firm Suburbtrends, takes into account rent increases over the past year, vacancy rates, availability and proportion of income dedicated to rent. It synthesises these factors and produces a score from 1–100 for each region, where a higher score signifies more severe rental challenges.

The state of New South Wales (NSW) has an overall average RPI of 79.91, with rent costing an average of 33.41 percent of household income. Of the 17 locations in the state with an RPI of 100 (“extreme rental pain”), five are in Sydney’s working-class southwest and west (Belmore–Belfield, South Greenacre, South Wentworthville, Panania and Macquarie Fields), two each in the ailing coal and steel centres of Newcastle (Redhead and Beresfield) and Wollongong (Berkeley and Shellharbour–Oak Flats).

More than half of the 25 least affordable suburbs in the state are in Sydney’s southwest, with Greenacre and Bass Hill–Georges Hall, where rent accounts for more than half of household income, topping the list.

Of the 25 suburbs, rent prices rose most sharply in Lakemba (31 percent increase in the past year) and Belmore - Belfield (27 percent), but rises of 18 percent or more were common to all the southwest Sydney suburbs.

Across Victoria, rent increased by an average of 12.26 percent. Doncaster–East, Thomastown and Lalor, in north/northeast Melbourne all scored 100 in RPI. Of the 25 least affordable suburbs in the state, a great majority are in working-class areas (including Pakenham, Balwyn, Campbellfield, Frankston and Noble Park) and all have rent-to-income ratios of over 30 percent.

Working class suburbs such as Thomastown, Lalor and Campbellfield have been heavily impacted by the destruction of manufacturing jobs over the years. A South Pacific Tyres factory located in Thomastown closed in 2002, part of a wave of closures in the local automotive industry, most notably the 2016 shutdown of Ford’s nearby Broadmeadows Assembly Plant.

Entire working-class suburbs have been transformed into industrial wastelands as companies shut down or downsize. These major closures have ramifications for smaller related businesses and have led to high unemployment in the area.

At the time of the 2021 Census, the highest rates of unemployment for the state of Victoria were in Melbourne’s North, with more than 10 percent of the working-aged population out of work.

In Queensland, residents are compelled to spend more than 40 percent of their income on rent in the working-class Brisbane suburbs of Inala–Richlands and Mount Warren Park. Rent prices in the latter soared 30 percent over the past 12 months. Inala has some of the lowest income levels, highest unemployment rates and most acute housing shortages in Queensland.

Six of the Queensland suburbs with rent-to-income ratios over 40 percent are on the Gold Coast (Mermaid Waters, Robina–West, Varsity Lake, Arundel, Reedy Creek and Nerang). Median rents in the area have risen to $680 per week, among the highest in the country, and there is a stark contrast between the tourist town’s “glitter” image and the grim reality confronting working-class residents. Mermaid Waters is the least affordable area in the country, with residents paying on average a shocking 61 percent of their income in rent.

In South Australia, three of the four areas with an RPI of 100—Smithfield, Elizabeth North, and Salisbury East—are in Adelaide’s working-class northern suburbs, where rent has increased by an average of 15 percent over the past year.

The destruction of manufacturing jobs, including the closure of the Elizabeth General Motors-Holden plant in 2017, has led to high unemployment and suburbs mired in social crisis. Many of these former car workers have been unable to find alternative full-time employment with decent wages and conditions, and the destruction of jobs has created a generation of working-class youth with dim prospects.

The largest increase in rents was in Western Australia, where average prices rose 16.79 percent over the past year, placing 83.74 percent of the state in “extreme rental pain.”

The Suburbtrends report highlights the multiple contributing factors to the housing affordability crisis confronting the Australian working class, which is not simply a matter of a lack of availability, but a product of the growing discrepancy between housing prices and income.

According to data from property analytics firm CoreLogic, rents across Australia surged 8.5 percent in the 12 months to May. This is almost double the nominal increase in wages, which rose just 4.1 percent in the 12 months to March.

Australia is one of only 16 OECD countries where wages have fallen compared with inflation since 2019, declining 4.8 percent in real terms. Over the same period, asking rents across the country have risen 51.2 percent.

The result of this is demonstrated by the 2024 Anglicare Australia Rental Affordability Snapshot, which confirms that rental affordability is in a particular state of crisis for those on low incomes and welfare payments. Out of the 45,115 rental listings surveyed in the Snapshot, only 289 (0.6 percent) were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage. Even couples with both partners working full-time, on the minimum wage, were unable to afford almost 90 percent of rentals.

Labor governments at the federal and state level, despite phoney claims to be addressing the cost-of-living crisis, are in fact spearheading both the decline in real wages and the soaring price of housing.

The sharpest decline in real wages over recent years has been in the public sector, where (primarily Labor) governments have enforced punitive pay caps against health workers, educators and others, keeping nominal pay rises below the official rate of inflation.

Since taking office in May 2022, Anthony Albanese’s federal Labor government has overseen 13 interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of Australia, adding hundreds or even thousands of dollars to monthly mortgage repayments, putting more pressure on the rental market.

This is not aimed at lowering inflation, but at driving up unemployment to put even further downward pressure on wages, in order to serve the profit demands of big business and the escalating military budget.

The federal Labor government claimed to be addressing the housing crisis in its budget, with Prime Minister Albanese stating that the budget would mean “less talk and more homes.” Labor has established a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), which aims to build 30,000 new “affordable” homes by 2029—a single-digit percentage of the estimated shortfall.

Starmer’s UK Labour government escalates offensive against immigrants and asylum seekers

Robert Stevens

Within 48 hours of Labour coming to power, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the creation of a Gestapo-like Border Security Command (BSC).

Labour committed to more tightly policing the UK borders in its manifesto, along with setting up a Returns and Enforcement Unit to swiftly deport anyone deemed a “failed” asylum seeker. Making his first speech as prime minister on the steps of Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer emphasised that his programme for “secure borders” would be enacted immediately.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper at the National Police Chiefs' Council gathering, July 11, 2024 [Photo by Andy Taylor - Home Office/Flickr / CC BY 2.0]

The manifesto pledged, under the guise of breaking up the “criminal gangs who trade in driving this crisis” of desperate people trying to reach the UK via the perilous English Channel route, that Labour would create “a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers.” It added, “This new Command will work internationally and be supported by new counter-terrorism style powers”.

On mass deportations, the manifesto stated, “Labour will set up a new returns and enforcement unit, with an additional 1,000 staff, to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay here. We will negotiate additional returns arrangements to speed up returns and increase the number of safe countries that failed asylum seekers can swiftly be sent back to.”

A Home Office announcement made July 7 states that “the process of recruiting an exceptional [Border Command] leader used to working in complex and challenging environments, for example, at senior levels of policing, intelligence or the military, will kick off tomorrow.”

Reporting to Cooper, the “Border Security Commander will provide strategic direction to work across agencies, drawing together the work of the National Crime Agency (NCA), intelligence agencies, police, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force, to better protect our borders and go after the smuggling gangs facilitating small boat crossings.”

The Border Command is modelled on the government. The unit’s website states, “Our unique position means we are responsible for both counter terrorism and national level security and protection.”

Border Command officers will be handed extraordinary powers, to be announced as part of the government’s legislative programme for the year in next week’s King’s Speech. A mini British Gestapo will be handed enhanced stop-and-search powers and be allowed to examine and seize mobile phones and copy any data held on the devices.

Labour’s anti-immigration offensive includes its scrapping of the previous Conservative government plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda—a policy which has already cost £240 million and was set to cost more than £500 million had it remained in place beyond April 2027.

But Labour’s differences with the Tories are purely tactical, with the former preferring to collaborate more closely with France and the European Union to “Stop the Boats” and to deport asylum seekers to other countries. Labour’s main complaint with the Rwanda policy was that it was an expensive and inefficient “gimmick” which only dealt with 1 percent of the asylum seekers arriving in Britain and diverted the resources needed to seal the border.

Starmer has declared the Rwanda policy “dead and buried”, with Cooper stating that Border Command will be funded in the first year from the £75 million due to go to the Rwanda scheme. She complained, “The Conservatives ran this Rwanda scheme for two and a half years and sent simply four volunteers [to Rwanda], as well as hundreds of millions of pounds.”

Cooper added that the government would seek to recoup money handed to Rwanda, but the government has been told by the African nation it will get nothing back.

Labour MP Stephen Kinnock declared in the run up to the election that a Starmer government “will repurpose that money to smash the criminal smuggler gangs with our new cross-border police unit and a security partnership with Europol.” Deportations flights wouldn’t be going to Rwanda, but would instead be going to many other countries. “Crucially, our new returns and enforcement unit will ensure that more flights take off to other countries, which will remove foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and visa overstayers…” said Kinnock.

The Financial Times, which like the Sun and the Times backed Labour in the election, reported that 1,000 extra staff will form “a new Returns Unit that will rapidly review people who arrive from ‘safe’ countries like Albania and India, so they can be swiftly sent back.

“The [Labour] party has also said it will form bilateral returns agreements with countries not ravaged by war, like Vietnam, Turkey and Kurdistan, as well as forge a new returns deal with the EU. So far in 2024, Vietnamese migrants have topped the list of arrivals.” The paper cited a “Labour insider” who commented, “Returns is resource-heavy work but it’s not impossible, we’re not chasing a pipe dream.”

Migrants disembark from a British Border Force patrol boat after being picked up from a dingy in the English Channel in Dover harbour, England, September 16, 2021. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

Labour’s policies are a declaration of war against the working class, centred on the stepped-up persecution of the most desperate people fleeing their homelands devastated by war and poverty arising from British-backed imperialist wars and oppression. They build on the battery of fascistic measures already imposed on tens of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers: the product of years of the Tories and Labour—egged on by a xenophobic media—competing over who has the most right-wing immigration policies.

The Independent reported this week that the brutal policies in place have led to five United Nations special rapporteurs raising concerns that Britain is possibly breaching international law, following revelations that child asylum seekers are being locked up in adult detention centres after crossing the Channel on small boats.

“At least 1,300 child refugees who arrived alone in the UK were wrongly identified as adults by border officials in the 18 months from January 2022, with nearly 500 placed in adult detention or unsupervised accommodation, a report by the Refugee Council and other charities found.”

The special rapporteurs sent their letter in April, urging the then Tory government to take “all necessary interim measures” to “halt the alleged violations and prevent their re-occurrence”. All such brutal policies remain in place under Labour.

Report reveals nearly one quarter of Canadians are living in poverty

Dylan Lubao

Around one quarter of all Canadians are living in poverty, according to a new report authored by several non-governmental organizations. The report comes in the midst of a historic cost of living crisis for working class Canadians and bumper profits for big business, the Bay Street banks and war profiteers.

The Toronto city skyline [Photo by Maksim Sokolov / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Titled “Measuring Poverty In Canada Through a Deprivation Lens,” the report is a joint project by Food Banks Canada, the Maple Leaf Centre for Food Security, and the Maytree foundation. It follows closely on the heels of a Statistics Canada report published in April that revealed 23 percent of the Canadian population experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022. 

Another survey by real estate company Royal LePage found that over half of Canadian renters spend more than 30 percent of their net income on rent. Some housing markets see a large proportion of renters spending more than 50 percent of their income on rent, such as British Columbia (25 percent), Atlantic Canada (24 percent) and Ontario (18 percent).

The Measuring Poverty report takes a novel approach to defining poverty and determining what percentage of the population experiences it. Rather than relying on the traditional Market Basket Measure (MBM), an income-based poverty line, the authors of the report utilize the Material Deprivation Index (MDI) to measure the extent of poverty in Canada.

In contrast to the MBM, the MDI assesses whether a household experiences poverty by counting how many goods and services, or social activities, it is deprived of. Some of the 11 categories include access to sufficient protein in the diet, being able to pay bills on time, and the ability to keep the home at a comfortable temperature year-round.

The report makes the case that a household that is deprived of two or more of these items experiences poverty, regardless of income level. According to the report’s authors, this measuring stick appears to be “more consistent with the current experiences of food banks, the reported incidence of hunger, and other symptoms of economic distress.”

Using the MDI, the authors conducted a survey of 4,625 Canadian residents. They found that about 25 percent of respondents experienced at least two deprivation items, and 17 percent of respondents experienced three or more deprivation items. Out of a population of approximately 41 million, this would translate to around 10.25 million Canadians living in poverty.

Only 62.6 percent of respondents reported having zero deprivation items. Extrapolated to the entire population, 37 percent of Canadians go without at least one core necessity. This is a significant indicator of social distress and echoes numerous reports over the past several years showing that half of all Canadians live paycheck to paycheck.

By comparison, Statistics Canada’s poverty figures in 2021 using the MBM model found that 7.4 percent of the population experienced poverty. Government figures show the prevalence of poverty at 10.3 percent in 2019, dropping to 6.4 percent in 2020 as a result of the limited government financial aid made available during the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic, before rising again as aid was pulled back and inflation surged.

The government stimulus payments were cut off as early as possible and remained inadequate to providing recipients a decent standard of living. The fact that they nonetheless reduced official poverty figures underlines just how little millions of Canadians have to live on at the best of times. Governments at every level wasted no time in dismantling life-saving pandemic safety measures, railroading millions of workers back to work, where millions caught and continue to be infected with the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The Measuring Poverty report notes that the number of visitors to food banks spiked dramatically during the pandemic and continues to climb, writing bitterly, “The MBM notwithstanding, can a household that cannot afford to eat be anything other than poor?”

Excerpts from the report’s findings reveal that the Canadian working class, especially its most vulnerable and disenfranchised sections, is living through a social crisis unprecedented since the Great Depression.

Between 55 and 60 percent of those living in poverty have employment income. This underscores the extent to which wages have been completely decoupled from productivity gains over the past several decades and failed to keep pace with the skyrocketing cost of living. 

The highest incidence rates of poverty are among those aged 18 to 30 (30.2 percent), 31 to 44 (29.3 percent), and 45 to 64 (27.7 percent). Single-person households under age 65 have a poverty rate of 34.6 percent.

Black and indigenous respondents experienced poverty at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population (34.4 percent and 37.4 percent, respectively). Roughly corresponding to social class, poverty hits those with a high school education harder (36 percent), as well as those with a trade school or partial college education (29.3 percent).

While a growing number of workers are falling into poverty, corporate profits and the wealth of the top 10 percent of society have surged. Average corporate profit margins jumped from 9 percent between 2002 and 2019, to 16 percent in 2021. The top 1 percent captured 10.4 percent of all income in 2021, rising to 34.5 percent of all income for the top 10 percent of society. The top 10 percent controls 57.6 percent of all wealth, while the bottom 90 percent splits the remaining 42.4 percent.

Rampant corporate profiteering plays a major role in the cost of living crisis, exemplified by multi-billion-dollar grocery chain Loblaws’ 30 percent year-on-year profit increase in 2023. More broadly, the ongoing push by central banks to hike interest rates has caused the price of housing and necessities to soar, while simultaneously prompting mass layoffs of tens of thousands of workers.

The growth of poverty, and the staggering fortunes of the corporations and the rich are not unrelated processes. They arise out of the inner workings of the capitalist system, and political decisions made by all of Canada’s major parties, including the Liberals and NDP.

At the same time as the Canadian working class is being made destitute, the Trudeau Liberal government, backed by its union allies and the New Democratic Party (NDP), has made available tens of billions of dollars for war and genocide. More than $13.3 billion has been funneled to the fascist-riddled Ukrainian regime since the US-incited Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, including $4 billion in direct military support. The federal Liberal government in Ottawa fully supports the Zionist regime’s genocide of the Palestinian population of Gaza. 

Canada’s military spending, at $36.3 billion in 2022-2023, is projected to rise to $51 billion in 2026-2027, as Canadian imperialism prepares to wage war with its US ally against its rivals, chiefly Russia and China. This represents 6.1 percent of fiscal spending. These decisions take place behind the backs and against the wishes of the Canadian population, and all to further the geopolitical interests of the ruling elite.

The inability of a growing number of workers to pay for basic necessities is a direct result of the betrayal of countless workers’ struggles over the past several decades, overseen by the trade union bureaucracy and their allies in the NDP. As part of the corporatist Liberal-NDP-union alliance, the unions and NDP mouth empty “progressive” slogans, while selling out workers in struggle and endorsing Canadian imperialism’s warmongering. The net result is a decades-long suppression of the class struggle and a surge in inequality and poverty.

The pro-capitalist union bureaucrats and the NDP, with their supporters in the middle class pseudo-left parties, politically disarm any opposition within the working class that could pose a direct challenge to the capitalist system. When the Liberals move to criminalize strikes or protests that could snowball into a mass movement against capitalism, these organizations feign sympathy for the working class, while instructing them to back down and place their faith in the courts and other institutions of the same capitalist state used to oppress them. This was made evident earlier this year, when the unions endorsed a Liberal-NDP “anti-scab” bill that in reality places ever greater restrictions on workers’ right to strike.

The NDP managed to strike a particularly cynical pose in response to the latest poverty report. NDP Food Price Inflation critic Alistair MacGregor declared, “Things have become very discouraging for Canadians – costs are up, and we’ve got a Liberal government that would rather protect CEO profits over people. And Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives, who want to make it easier for rich grocery CEOs get richer at your expense.”

Nobody can take this bluster seriously, directed as it is against the very same government being propped up by MacGregor and his fellow NDP MPs. The so-called “confidence and supply” agreement in place since 2022 secures the NDP’s backing for the Liberals’ massive military spending increases, attacks on public spending, and corporate handouts.

New Caledonia sees surge in pro-independence vote in French election

John Braddock

Citizens in the Pacific colony of New Caledonia went to the polls in large numbers on July 7 to vote in the second round of elections for the French National Assembly. Polling for the territory’s two constituencies was held under tight security after almost eight weeks of violent unrest and rioting.

Demonstrators hold Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) flags in Paris, Thursday May.16, 2024 [AP Photo/Thomas Padilla]

The snap election was a debacle for President Emmanuel Macron, whose Ensemble coalition came in second place behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Front (NFP). Voters mobilised against both Macron, the “president of the rich,” and the far-right National Rally (RN), testifying to broad left-wing sentiment and a rejection of neo-fascism among workers and youth.

In New Caledonia, the election saw a surge in support for pro-independence candidates against Macron’s move to push through the French parliament a change to eligibility rules for the territory’s local elections. The Kanak independence movement claims it would further marginalise indigenous votes.

The poll took place amid a brutal police-military crackdown in which a French occupying force of 3,700 security personnel have been deployed to suppress political unrest. Five pro-independence leaders who were arrested on June 22 and deported to jails in mainland France will remain there pending trial, a Nouméa court ruled on Friday.

For the National Assembly, Emmanuel Tjibaou won the predominantly indigenous Kanak Northern constituency while Omayra Naisseline fell short in the electorate covering Nouméa and the Loyalty Islands. Tjibaou becomes only the second pro-independence Kanak, and the first since 1986, to enter the National Assembly.

Tjibaou, of the Union Calédonienne (UC), decisively defeated Alcide Ponga, president of the anti-independence, right-wing Rassemblement-LR, by 57.01 to 42.99 percent. A high turnout ensured overwhelming support for Tjibaou in the main island’s independence strongholds of Thio, Pouebo and Poum. Ponga took the conservative rural towns, but by much smaller margins.

In the second constituency, sitting MP Nicolas Metzdorf (Loyalistes-Rassemblement) retained his seat with 52.41 percent of the vote. However, this result was closer with Naisseline receiving 47.59 percent. While Metzdorf’s support came mainly from the wealthy areas around Nouméa, Naisseline carried the Loyalty Islands, her home.

With a high voter turnout of 69 percent (72 percent in the Northern constituency) the pro-independence bloc won 9,366 more votes than the pro-France right, marking a substantial setback to the Loyalists which previously held both seats in the French Lower House.

Tjibaou is the son of the late Jean-Marie Tjibaou, founder of the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS). He signed the “power sharing” 1988 Matignon Accord with Paris, bringing to an end the civil war conditions that prevailed throughout the 1980s. Tjibaou was gunned down a year later by a “hard-line” member of the pro-independence movement. Emmanuel’s brother, Joël Tjibaou, has been indicted over the riots and is currently incarcerated in Nouméa’s Camp-Est prison.

Tjibaou’s candidacy, marking his entry from community organising into official politics, was part of the efforts of the four-party FLNKS leadership to bring the ongoing unrest under control and confine opposition to the dead-end of parliamentary politics.

Tjibaou told public broadcaster NC la 1ère that as an elected official he has a “responsibility” in the current crisis and deplored the “dramatic situation” of the riots. He declared that there is a need to urgently “restore the conditions” for a “dialogue” to resume between the pro-independence and pro-France parties.

Tjibaou claimed that the election was “a proof that democracy is alive” and that this should be the “only way” for people to express themselves. “We all have to offer a framework for discussions to resume, between the three partners which are France, the FLNKS and the Loyalists... We have to capitalise on this,” he said.

Metzdorf welcomed Tjibaou’s statement, saying “we should, all of us, go back to the table... [Tjibaou] is someone we can talk to, a democrat... Now it remains to be seen whether Mr Tjibaou will be able to make his moderate stance heard by his political structure at large.”

The rioting that erupted on May 13 broke out largely among alienated Kanak youth, outside the control of the official pro-independence leadership, and reflected widespread anger over poverty, inequality and social exclusion. Nine people have been killed while Nouméa and surrounding districts remain devastated. Hundreds have been injured and over 1,200 arrested. Damage of €1.5 billion is estimated, with up to 500 businesses and stores looted or destroyed by arson.

Despite the massive police-military operation and political pressure by Macron, the rebellion has not been ended. The FLNKS admitted last month that it had failed to persuade protesters to remove roadblocks because they were not convinced Macron would drop the electoral reform. Macron announced on June 12 he had “suspended,” but not withdrawn, the contentious amendment.

In France, the far-right Rassemblement National gave its backing to Macron’s constitutional reform and demanded the “restoration of order” and continued French colonial domination of New Caledonia. RN leader Marine Le Pen bluntly declared that the colony could not expect to see independence for “30 or 40 years.”

France Unbowed (LFI) and NPF alliance leader Mélenchon accused Macron of responsiblity for the unrest in the territory. He also declared the transfer of leading activist Christian Tein to a French prison as “an alienation of his rights and a gross and dramatic political mistake.” The NPF’s joint election statement called for the constitutional reforms to be abandoned as a “gesture of appeasement” and a return to “the path of dialogue and a search for consensus.”

While there is no formal alliance between the NPF and New Caledonia’s FLNKS, Tjibaou will enter the French parliament seeking the support of these forces for a negotiated “solution” to the question of independence. Nothing will be done to alleviate the underlying social crisis that fueled the rebellion.

The limited criticisms Mélenchon made during the campaign about the situation in New Caledonia and his vague calls for “dialogue” and “consensus” are worthless. The NPF is preparing to make far-reaching concessions to Macron in order to forge a right-wing government.

The NPF supports Macron’s reactionary policies, including measures for police-state rule and, above all, the escalation of NATO’s war with Russia. It also supports France’s continued military presence in the Pacific region, where the imperialist powers, led by the US, are preparing for war with China.