Johnson government forced into new national lockdown, but schools, universities and factories must stay open

Robert Stevens

On Saturday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a limited nationwide lockdown in England that will come into operation Thursday. It is planned to last less than a month, ending on December 2, but the government has already indicated it might be extended.

As Johnson addressed Saturday night’s press conference, the number of cases passed 1 million in the UK. Another 326 deaths were announced bringing the total to 1,530 deaths in the week prior. The Office for National Statistics confirms at least 61,000 coronavirus related deaths across the UK, while other studies cite more than 65,000.

The lockdown was forced on Johnson because coronavirus has escalated out of control since the government reopened the economy from early May, threatening to swamp the National Health Service and result in deaths on a scale dwarfing the first phase of the pandemic. Even so, in announcing the new measures Johnson reassured the corporations, “We’re not going back to the full-scale lockdown of March and April, the measures I’ve outlined are less restrictive.”

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, right, looks at Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance who speaks during a press conference in 10 Downing Street, London, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)

Only non-essential shops will be required to shut, as will bars and restaurants, leisure centres, gyms, and sporting venues. Factories and construction sites are permitted to remain open, as are playgrounds, schools, nurseries, universities, courts, childcare providers, and other public services--meaning that millions of people will continue to contract and spread the deadly disease. Premier League football and other elite sport will continue behind closed doors.

Beyond December 2, the government intends to return to its current three-tier regional system of restrictions, pending a “review”.

In May and June, the Johnson government flung open the economy allowing the virus to spread. These measures, predicated on the homicidal policy of herd immunity, were fully backed by Labour and the trade unions, leading to a catastrophic rise in cases and deaths. This includes the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme offering subsidised food and non-alcoholic drinks at restaurants and pubs throughout August. Research published by University of Warwick economist Thiemo Fetzer found this policy may have directly caused almost one fifth of new coronavirus case clusters over the summer. Reopening the travel and tourism industry was also a disaster, with the vast majority of new infections coming from a new virus strain originating in Spain.

Johnson’s “rule of six” policy (introduced September 14) restricting gatherings of more than six people, and the localised three tier system (introduced October 12), did nothing to arrest the renewed spread of the virus created by the government’s own profit-driven policies.

Finally, the spread of COVID-19 was massively accelerated by the government’s reopening of schools, colleges, and universities from September.

For months, the government ignored every warning that a national lockdown was required including from its own Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), and dozens of epidemiologists, scientists, and public health experts, including those in the Independent SAGE group.

On September 21, SAGE called for an immediate two week national “circuit breaker” lockdown. No action was taken. In the weeks since, over 4,000 people have died, with at least 300,000 new cases of COVID-19.

On October 12, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty stated that putting areas of the country under even the highest “Tier 3” level was not enough to stop the spread. On October 14, scientists warned that the crisis was exceeding even the predicted worst case scenario. SAGE had estimated, according to a leaked document made public last August, that there would be 85,000 deaths from COVID-19 in a "reasonable worst case scenario" over winter. This equated to around 800 deaths a day.

In another SAGE document released Friday, but dated October 14, scientists estimated there were between 43,000 and 74,000 people being infected daily with coronavirus in England. The report warned, “This is significantly above the profile of the reasonable worst-case scenario, where the number of daily infections in England remained between 12,000-13,000 throughout October.” But again, the government failed to act.

Prior to his announcement, Johnson was shown new projections, estimating up to 4,000 deaths a day during the winter if no action was taken.

A slide presented by the UK's chief scientific officer on Saturday showing modelling estimating the number of deaths peaking at 4,000 deaths a day without intervention (credit: gov.uk)

SAGE’s estimates were exceeded by research from Imperial College London’s REACT-1 study. Released last week, the study, based on testing 85,000 people, showed an infection rate corresponding to 96,000 cases a day by October 25. It found that infections had increased across all age groups and areas of the country. The highest prevalence was among the 18-24 age group, with the steepest rise seen in adults aged 55-64.

An infection rate this high means that the UK already has infections almost at the level of the pandemic’s height in spring. Almost 11,000 people are being treated for COVID-19 in hospitals nationwide, with nearly 1,000 people on ventilators. Nineteen NHS Trusts in England are treating more coronavirus patients than during the first wave.

At his Downing Street press conference, the horrific consequences of Johnson’s herd immunity policy were illustrated in a series of graphs presented by Whitty and Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance. Describing one slide, Vallance said it showed that “50,000 plus was most likely the number” catching the virus each day “and perhaps half a million or more overall with the disease”.

The devastating public health impact of prematurely reopening the economy, without any systematic mass test, track and trace operation in place, despite the government having months to organise this, was revealed in a slide showing an upwards surge in the R (Reproduction) rate of the virus. Vallance said, “The R was relatively flat and below 1… You can see from August onwards [the government reopened most of the economy by July 4] the R went above 1, the epidemic grew and continues to grow… it’s still growing and that number from a high baseline gets very big quite quickly”.

A slide presented by the UK's chief scientific officer on Saturday showing the surge in the R rate of the virus since August as a result of the reopening of the economy by the Johnson government (credit: gov.uk)

Another slide showed modelling compiled by academic groups—commissioned by SAGE—based on a continued rise of R to 1.5 or above throughout winter. The groups came up with varying predictions of fatalities, explained Vallance, “but what is clear from all of them, in terms of deaths over the winter, there’s the potential for this to be twice as bad, or more, compared to the first wave.”

Since May, Johnson has repeatedly stated that the last thing he would consider was another national lockdown. Interviewed in the Sunday Telegraph in July, he described lockdown as equivalent to a “nuclear deterrent, I certainly don't want to use it.” Johnson added, “And nor do I think we will be in that position again.”

The government’s refusal to close school and other education settings will lead to thousands more deaths. Around 9 million people (15 percent) of the UK population attend or work in schools. According to the Tory Fibs Twitter group, 8,000 schools have already had coronavirus infections, with schools accounting for 29 percent of COVID-19 clusters. Last week, more than 600,000 pupils were forced to self-isolate at home. The infection rate among those aged 11-16 has climbed 2,000 percent since September 1.

Johnson has the backing of the Labour Party opposition in this policy, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer saying on Sunday that schools “must stay open but we've got to manage the risk”.

As part of the new nationwide lockdown, the government’s jobs furlough scheme—due to expire on Saturday--will be continued for one month. But under the reinstated furlough scheme, the self-employed will receive just 40 percent of their previous earnings. Businesses closed due to the new measurers will get grants of up to £3,000 per month.

White House attacks Fauci for suggesting Trump does not take pandemic “seriously”

Benjamin Mateus

On Saturday, the White House unloaded against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after the nation’s top infectious disease expert told the Washington Post that the US would surpass 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day and see rising death tolls unless there was an “abrupt change” in policy regarding the pandemic.

Fauci spoke as the US recorded a new daily record of 100,000 cases on Friday, along with soaring hospitalizations that threaten to overwhelm the health care system.

“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt,” Fauci told the newspaper. “It’s not a good situation. All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a House Subcommittee hearing on the Coronavirus crisis, Friday, July 31, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP)

Fauci directly criticized Trump’s chief adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Scott Atlas, who opposes mask wearing or any other measures to slow the virus. “I have real problems with that guy,” he said, adding that his approach to the pandemic “doesn’t make any sense.” Of White Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ recent statement that the administration is not seeking to control the pandemic, Fauci said, “I tip my hat to him for admitting the strategy.”

Fauci went on to compare the attitude of the Democratic Biden campaign favorably to Trump’s strident opposition to measures to contain the deadly virus. Biden, he said, “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective,” while Trump is “looking at it from a different perspective … the economy and reopening the country.”

In fact, Biden and the Democrats, while paying lip service to the advice of scientists to take measures to slow the spread of the virus, support the essence of Trump’s “herd immunity” policy—forcing workers back into the factories and teachers and students back into the schools in order to fully resume the flow of profits to the corporations and banks. The Democrats voted nearly unanimously for the multitrillion-dollar bailout of the corporate-financial elite last March, while allowing minimal aid to the millions laid off in the pandemic to expire so as to increase pressure on workers to return to unsafe workplaces. Going forward, Biden proposes little more than encouraging people to wear masks.

Trump, however, is doubling down in the final days of the election campaign on his open opposition to measures to contain the virus. He is seeking to whip up backward and far-right forces in a bid to hijack the election and remain in power regardless of the outcome of the vote. At his recent rallies—super-spreader events with thousands of mostly unmasked supporters standing shoulder to shoulder—he has repeated his claim that the country is “rounding the corner” on the pandemic. To this he has added the charge that doctors and hospitals are inflating the number of cases in order to make more money and denounced the media for focusing attention on the pandemic.

On Saturday, White House spokesman Judd Deere said it was “unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the president’s Coronavirus Task Force and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics.”

In a call with campaign staff last week, Trump said, “People are tired of COVID. I have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had, and we have COVID… People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.”

Meanwhile, a new study by Stanford University analyzing epidemiological data from Trump’s rallies has found that over 30,000 more infections and 700 deaths have resulted from them.

The past month has seen an explosion of new cases due to the back-to-work drive being carried out by both big-business parties. The first week in October saw a cumulative 329,797 cases, while in the last week of October, this figure had jumped to 571,416, a 73 percent increase.

Since the first reported case in the US of a person diagnosed with COVID-19, there are now over 9.4 million cases in little more than nine months. At the present rate, this figure will exceed 10 million by the end of the week.

With over 236,000 fatalities to date, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that more than 170,000 more people could die before February 1, bringing the total death toll to over 400,000. Dr. Michael Mina, a professor at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, told National Public Radio, “We are likely to see massive explosions of cases and outbreaks that could potentially make what we’ve seen so far look like it hasn’t been much.”

If he wins the election and succeeds in coming to power in January, Biden will do nothing to seriously address either the public health crisis or the social catastrophe resulting from the official response to the pandemic. The policy of a Biden administration will resemble that of European leaders such as Angela Merkel in Germany and Emmanuel Macron in France, who have been forced to impose partial lockdowns in the face of a massive surge in cases in their respective countries, while keeping open factories and schools, key vectors for the transmission of the virus.

On CNN’s State of the Union program on Sunday, the Democratic governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, gave a devastating assessment of the impact of the pandemic in his state over the last several weeks. When asked, however, if he would consider imposing another lockdown, he said, “No. I’m not considering a lockdown.”

On March 24, the World Socialist Web Site wrote of the CARES Act bailout then being finalized: “This massive boondoggle has nothing to do with helping people endangered either medically or financially by the epidemic and the economic dislocation it has caused. The financial aristocracy has seized on the public health crisis as an opportunity to raid the federal treasury, plundering the American people and grabbing whatever it can.”

This analysis has been fully confirmed by subsequent developments.

French students denounce inadequate partial lockdown

Samuel Tissot

On Thursday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron reluctantly placed university students and limited sections of non-essential production in lockdown. Without adequate financial support, learning resources, healthy living spaces and reliable internet access, France’s two-and-a-half million students face an uncertain future.

The measures ostensibly taken to combat the rapid rise of COVID-19 in France are far too little, far too late. The cynical decision to move student education online is in reality an attempt to maintain the fiction of a serious and scientific response to the pandemic. Macron, Prime Minister Jean Castex and Health Minister Olivier Véran are pursuing a murderous policy of herd immunity. Schools and workplaces remain open, and public transportation is running.

A French soldier patrols next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, October 30, 2020 (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

The tens of thousands of daily infections over the past two weeks will become thousands of deaths over the next month. The maintenance of open schools and workplaces, which ensure that the virus continues to propagate, is the precondition to continue the extraction of profits from the working class.

Facing months of isolation, online classes that are not adequately prepared, pitiful financial support in the most uncertain of times and the continued threat of catching the deadly virus, French students have taken to social media to express their anger and confusion over the latest set of lockdown measures.

Many pointed to the contradiction between the confinement and keeping schools and workplaces open. Paul tweeted, “Only the people who do not work and who are not in primary or secondary school are confined… it is a confinement, but on the other hand you can go busting your ass at work.”

Another student, Zahrla, added, “Explain to me how this is going to be a lockdown. Almost everyone is still working, very few schools and stores are closed, finally the only ones confined are university students?”

For many students, the new measures have only compounded their preexisting conditions of precarity. Samuel Demarche tweeted at CROUS Versailles, “I have been waiting for the re-examination of my [bursary]… I’m going to lose my student job with the confinement, I have no other income. I don’t know how I’m going to eat.”

Germain, a nurse and law student in Grenoble, said: “The situation is becoming very tense in my city. Our services are starting to be saturated and our caregivers are getting sick… The situation is deteriorating, and our doctors are warning us that our quality of care will be impacted. We will have to make choices regarding resuscitation.”

Student jobs and internships, which are often the only means for students to pay rent and feed themselves, have been cut immediately with the onset of the new pandemic. Mustafa asked the CROUS residence hall accountant, “Can’t you waive the rent for November? Many students have lost their student jobs because of the lockdown.” In fact, a major motivator for forcing a return to campus despite the inevitable spread of the virus was to maintain rental income for the state and private landlords across the country.

Many students also left their place of study to return home over the Toussaint holiday. This has caused confusion as students have been forced to scramble to pick up their belongings and textbooks in the 24-hour period between Macron’s announcement and Thursday evening’s 9 p.m. curfew. One mother commented, “It’s a big mess: my son is a student in Paris, he didn’t take all his stuff (notes + clothes) for his week of vacations, impossible to find a train ticket for tomorrow, his friends are in the same situation.”

Needless to say, the movement of hundreds of thousands of students between cities across France at this time will further accelerate the spread of the virus through the country.

Under these conditions, students’ mental health is also under increasing strain. Poor mental health is an ongoing issue that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Corentin, an L2 student in history, wrote, “[remote learning] will not only cause death in the soul. Precariousness will continue to increase. The State will do nothing. The mental health of students will continue to deteriorate.”

Many students who come from unstable family homes face an impossible choice between total isolation in tiny student dorm rooms or a return to a damaging home life.

After unclear instructions from the central government and universities, there is mounting confusion among students. On Thursday, Castex announced that practical classes at universities may be exempt from the lockdown. This has led many universities to try to work around rules to stay open. A student named Valentin tweeted: “The university is unbelievable to tell us to stay in our student housing while we find out if we have face-to-face classes and I’m already gone before the beginning of the confinement like EVERYBODY.”

As part of this campaign, some administrators still cling to the government’s claims that universities are not major propagators of the virus. The president of Paris Sorbonne, Thomas Clay, said: “The university is not a place of infection, it is outside that young people infect themselves. I was hoping for a lesser restriction.”

Opposing online learning, he continued, “if it’s just a matter of filming from a distance, it’s useless, and, above all, it’s going to cause a high dropout rate among students. You have to be able to adapt the pedagogy, there’s a whole course to be rethought in each case.” In other words, classes should continue in person, because the provision of online courses would require a major investment of resources.

International students have also been left isolated and without clear instructions. Without even a provisional timeline for the lockdown and the possibility that universities may start in person lectures at short notice, students are unsure whether a return home will affect their future studies.

The second lockdowns throughout Europe are themselves a product of the failure and refusal of the capitalist class to contain the virus. Faced with wildcat strikes in Italy, Spain and elsewhere demanding the idling of non-essential production to combat the virus, European governments imposed an initial lockdown in March, handing over hundreds of billions of euros to the banks and corporations. The initial confinement dramatically slowed the virus spread.

The reopening policy was aimed at ensuring that the massive corporate handouts would be repaid with profits extracted from the labor of the working class.

European governments ignored scientists’ warnings that the reopening would lead to a catastrophic second wave. Had containment measures been maintained, and non-essential production stopped, the present outbreak would not now be underway. As hundreds of people die each day, the deadly implications of this policy are only beginning to emerge. The very same disregard for the lives and well-being of students and educators that drove this initial crime is now leaving students without adequate food, internet access and housing.

At least 140 drown in refugee boat disaster off Senegal coast

Will Morrow

At least 140 people drowned last week when a boat carrying approximately 200 refugees bound for Europe exploded and sank off the coast of Senegal. The tragedy is the deadliest mass refugee drowning reported this year.

According to a statement by the International Organization of Migration published Thursday, the boat departed from Mbour, on the west coast of Senegal, on Oct. 24. It travelled northward in the Atlantic along the Senegalese coast toward the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands, where the hundreds of people aboard hoped to lodge their claims for asylum in Europe.

Over 100 migrants captured near Dakar and detained by the Senegalese military on on October 23 after attempting to travel by boat to Europe [Photo credit: Senegalese armed forces]

One of the survivors aboard the ship told the local Sene.news, “At some point, the motor caught fire. The crew were able to get control of the blaze, but the fire restarted and reached the jerrycans full of petrol. I jumped into the water, holding onto a can that floated in the water.”

M. Diéye, another survivor, described the scenes before the explosion. “When the fire started at the back of the boat, many passengers, particularly those who couldn’t swim, rushed to the front… When the explosion happened there was a general panic, and those who couldn’t swim hung on to those who could. They stayed there and went down with the boat. I can’t say how many there were.”

Fallou Samb, who had a minor in his care aboard the ship, said, “After the boat capsized, he panicked and cried my name. When I found him, I gave him a can so that he could stay above the surface. After two hours, he was exhausted, and couldn’t hold on any longer. He let go and went down in front of my eyes, without anything that I could do.” Another man, Demba Sow, told Radio France Internationale that his two daughters, aged 21 and 27, had been aboard the ship and were not rescued.

The total number of people who had been aboard the ship is unknown. The IOM stated that there were at least 200. Only 59 were saved. Several dozen at least came from the same community in Pikine, a suburb of the Senegalese town of Saint-Louis. “More than 20 youth from the quarter of Pikine had wanted to reach Europe on this trip,” wrote Sene.news. The Guardian reported that in this area, “entire streets were plunged into mourning by the tragedy.”

Just two days after the disaster, in the evening of October 25–26, another boat carrying an unknown number of refugees sank five kilometers off the coast of Dakar, the Senegalese capital. Thirty-nine people were saved, but the ship reportedly had between 60 and 70 people aboard.

The deaths of at least a dozen people were directly caused by the actions of the Senegalese and Spanish navies. One Spanish and another Senegalese ship had caught the refugee boat while it was en route and had sought to physically block it from passing. The refugee boat collided with the Senegalese navy boat, causing it to capsize. Senegalese journalist Babacar Fall told Bonjourdakar.com that the navy boat had deliberately rammed the small vessel carrying dozens of refugees.

More than 414 people are known to have died in 2020 on the route from western Africa to the Canary Islands. This is a more than 100 percent increase from the 210 fatalities in 2019. The real number is likely far higher. According to the IOM, there were 11,000 arrivals on the Canary Islands in 2020, up from 2,557 during the same period in 2019.

The increasing use of the dangerous route is the direct outcome of the criminal policies of the European powers, who adopted harsh policies leading thousands to drown in the Mediterranean, in order to prevent refugees from exercising their democratic right to claim asylum in Europe.

The European Union is collaborating with and funding governments across North Africa, from Morocco to Algeria to Libya, to prevent refugees from trying to cross the Mediterranean. It is funding Islamist militia forces in Libya and providing them with coast guard vessels to catch refugee boats attempting to reach Italy. From there thousands are imprisoned, sold into bondage, and held hostage for large ransom fees from their family members.

The EU has also ceased all rescue operations in the Mediterranean, and actively seeks to prevent NGOs from conducting search and rescue, by refusing to grant them sailing rights. According to the UNHCR, in 2018 and 2019 an average of 72 refugees died every day trying to reach Europe. This is the conscious and intended outcome of the European policy, which seeks to use the threat of likely death to deter refugees from claiming asylum in Europe.

This flow of thousands of desperate refugees from Africa is the outcome of decades of European and US imperialist policy in Africa, exacerbating the legacy of the colonial oppression of the continent. María Jesús Vega, the spokesman of the United National High Council of Refugees in Spain, told the Guardian that 30 percent of refugees traveling from Senegal to the Canary Islands come from Mali.

They are fleeing the outcome of the war in Mali led by France. The war was triggered by NATO’s war to overthrow the Libyan government in 2011 with the aid of Islamist militias. The resulting strengthening of Islamist forces in Mali allowed France to launch a military intervention to secure its domination over the geostrategically crucial Sahel, which includes important uranium and raw mineral resources, amid growing Chinese influence in the region.

There are documented reports of war crimes committed by the armed forces of the G5 with which France is collaborating, including the deliberate promotion of sectarian ethnic killings, to terrorize opposition to the European occupation and the puppet regime in Bamako. This has caused a social breakdown in Mali that is triggering a mass exodus. The social crisis and mass youth unemployment are exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

These are the social and political roots of the catastrophic drownings that occurred last week off the coast of Senegal.

Brazilian armed forces conduct unprecedented military exercises amid US threats to Venezuela

Gabriel Lemos

In recent months, Brazil has staged two unprecedented joint military exercises of its Armed Forces amid escalating US threats against the Maduro government in Venezuela. Since coming to power at the beginning of last year, the Brazilian government of fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro has aligned itself with the US regime-change operation in Venezuela, turning Brazil into one of the first countries to recognize the US puppet Juan Guaidó as “interim president.”

Astros. multiple rocket launcher (Credit: Brazilian Defense Ministry)

Between September 8 and 22, the Brazilian Army carried out a military exercise that simulated a war between two countries in the strategic region around the capital of the state of Amazonas, Manaus. Dubbed Operation Amazonia, it also included military exercises in the triple border region between Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, an important drug trafficking route in the Amazon’s far west and in Brazil’s northernmost state bordering Venezuela, Roraima, where the Brazilian Army has operated a center for Venezuelan refugees since 2018.

Although similar military exercises had been previously conducted in the region, Operation Amazonia had an unprecedented character due to its size and coordination between the three branches of the Brazilian Armed Forces. With the participation of 3,600 troops from six out of Brazil’s eight military commands, it was the largest military exercise ever held in the Amazon. It involved exercises by artillery, anti-aircraft units and paratroopers, in addition to launching missiles from the Astros system, which is considered the largest weapon of the Brazilian Army.

Operation Amazonia also took place amid the largest US military deployment in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama and increasing pressure from the Brazilian and US governments on Venezuela. Days before the military exercise began, the Bolsonaro government declared diplomats of Maduro’s government in Brazil “personae non grata” after the Supreme Court prevented their expulsion from the country.

Region invaded by the “red” country, with the so called “promised delta” in yellow. (Credit: TV Encontro das Águas)

The Brazilian government’s most provocative action against Venezuela, however, occurred during Operation Amazonia itself. On September 18, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in Roraima at the center for Venezuelan refugees with his Brazilian counterpart Ernesto Araújo, who called for the “end” of the “atrocious” and “drug trafficking” regime of Maduro. Pompeo then went to Colombia, where the US military was conducting joint exercises with the Colombian armed forces. Pompeo’s visit to Brazil before the US elections was declared a “provocation and harassment of a neighboring nation” by six former Brazilian foreign relations ministers.

Indeed, conducted under the pretext of defending national sovereignty against an enemy attack and protecting the region’s mineral resources, Operation Amazonia was full of references to Venezuela. The war simulation involved the “red” country’s attack on the “blue” country, which began in the Roraima city of Caburaí, on the border with Venezuela. The “red” country achieved control over the entire border region between Brazil and Venezuela and also Colombia, reaching near Manaus, in the region known as the “promised delta.”

This region has the largest reserves of rare earth elements in Brazil and one of the largest in the world. Production of these materials, which are vital for the electronics industry, is still almost entirely dominated by China. Among the strategic locations seized by the “red” country was the Urucu Region, site of the largest known onshore oil and natural gas reserves in Brazil. Local TV station Encontro das Águas reported that one of Operation Amazonia’s military exercises simulated retaking the infrastructure of the Urucu oil complex after it was seized and “nationalized” by the “red” country.

The silence of the bourgeois media in Brazil about Operation Amazonia was broken more than a month after the military exercise began. According to a report in the daily O Globo on October 15, the Defense Ministry initially refused to answer questions about the operation, which were later obtained through the freedom of information law.

O Globo and the daily Folha de S. Paulo reported that they also contacted the Foreign Relations Ministry via the freedom of information law about Pompeo’s visit to Brazil. After almost two months without any response, Folha reported last Friday that the ministry has classified diplomatic cables about Pompeo’s trip as “secret” until 2035. This decision, justified by the “risk to State security,” only reveals that the purpose of Pompeo’s visit was the elaboration of a thuggish plot.

Operation Amazonia was followed by another unprecedented joint military exercise of the Brazilian Armed Forces in early October along the coast of Rio de Janeiro. More than a thousand military personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force, including special forces troops, participated in Operation Poseidon, which involved helicopter landing and take-off exercises from the Brazilian Navy’s multipurpose helicopter carrier Atlântico, considered Latin America’s largest warship. Hailing the operation, Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva said, “today in modern conflicts, joint operation is fundamental.”

Atlântico helicopter carrier. (Credit: Brazilian Navy)

Both Operation Amazon and Operation Poseidon mark a turning point in the actions of the Brazilian Armed Forces and in their relation to US imperialism. They took place after the Bolsonaro government sent its new National Defense Strategy (NDS) to Congress on July 22. Undoubtedly, this strategy will lead to a resurgence of the Brazilian Armed Forces and a new arms race in the region.

Echoing the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, the Brazilian version says, “in recent years the specter of strategic military conflict between the major powers has grown and competition for global supremacy has reemerged.” Regionally, the NDS highlights that “one cannot ignore the possibility of tensions and crises in the strategic surroundings, with possible repercussions for Brazil.”

The NDS explains that the regional scope of the “strategic surroundings” includes “the South Atlantic, Antarctica, and the African countries bordering the South Atlantic [which] contain significant reserves of natural resources.” Among these resources, it highlights those found in the Amazon, such as “fresh water, food, mineral resources and biodiversity,” and in the South Atlantic, where the so-called “Blue Amazon” is located, with “the largest oil and gas reserves in Brazil.” The dispute for these resources, according to the NDS, “may lead to interference in internal affairs.”

As a consequence, according to NDS, there is a “need to expand military defense spending” for “the acquisition of Defense Products.” Today, Brazil spends 1.4 percent of its GDP on it military, a figure that the defense minister has advocated be raised to 2 percent by next year.

The historical change represented by the new NDS was stressed by armed forces specialist Lucas Rezende. Writing for Intercept Brasil, he said, “For the first time since the Paraguay War (1864-1870), Brazil is formally threatening to go to war against another neighboring country to defend its interests.”

This change is linked, on the one hand, to Washington’s offensive on the South American subcontinent, historically considered US imperialism’s “backyard.” As part of its “pivot to Asia,” it seeks to counter the growing Chinese presence in the region. Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s main trading partner. With Trump, this process has accelerated with the open resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine.

On the other hand, since the trumped-up impeachment of Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, Brazilian governments have sought to resolve the growing economic crisis, now intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, by moving closer to the US. With Bolsonaro and his fascistic ideological affinities with Trump, this rapprochement has increased, particularly in the military sphere.

On Bolsonaro’s first trip to the US in March of last year, he and President Trump signed a technological safeguard agreement for the US to use the Alcântara rocket launching base. In return, Trump announced that he intended to declare Brazil a major non-NATO ally, which was made official in August of last year. In 2018, Colombia, the main US ally in the region, became one of NATO’s “global partners.”

Brazil’s designation as a major non-NATO ally paved the way for Bolsonaro and Trump to sign in March of this year a Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation Agreement (RDT&E), hailed by Adm. Craig Faller, chief of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), as “historic.” Besides facilitating sales by the Brazilian arms industry to the US and NATO member countries, it will increase military exchanges and joint maneuvers and enable Brazil and the US to develop common defense projects.

Faller, who has made the most direct threats against Venezuela and is known for his anti-China tirades, visited Brazil in February 2019 to “discuss cooperation and bilateral partnerships in the areas of defense and security.” Most importantly, he announced the appointment of Brazilian Brigade General Alcides Valeriano de Faria Junior as SOUTHCOM’s interoperability sub commander. This appointment, which means the inclusion of a Brazilian general in the US chain of command, is unprecedented, and, in the event of a US invasion of Venezuela, could lead Brazil directly into conflict.

The latest episode of the growing US-Brazilian realignment took place on October 19, when US Security Advisor Robert O’Brien visited Brazil to sign an investment agreement involving several areas, including telecommunications. Denouncing China for cyber-attacks, he “strongly” recommended that Brazil adopt “reliable” suppliers in its 5G technology auction to be held next year. O’Brien recalled in a speech the historic partnership shared since 1822 under the Monroe Doctrine and said that Brazil and the US today “are closer than ever,” which includes a “commitment to free and fair democratic elections in Venezuela.”

This realignment has been criticized by sections of the Brazilian bourgeoisie whose interests are bound up with exports to China, such as agribusiness, and which have also been the target of tariff increases by the Trump administration. They consider “fighting with China bad business for Brazil,” as expressed by leading economic commentator Miriam Leitão, who also criticized the possibility of Brazil not adopting the 5G network of Huawei, which is already involved in 40 percent of Brazil’s telecommunications infrastructure.

The latest Brazilian trade figures reinforce these complaints. While Brazilian exports to China grew by 14 percent this year compared to last year, with a trade surplus of US$ 28 billion, Brazilian exports to the US fell 31 percent, with a trade deficit of US$ 3 billion.

With US imperialism escalating its aggressiveness in the region to compensate for its decades-long economic decline, these developments pose disastrous consequences for the Brazilian working class and youth and the threat that Latin America will become a battlefield in a regional or even world war.

Chinese Communist Party meets amid rising social and geo-political tensions

Peter Symonds

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its fifth plenum of the current central committee over four days last week, issuing a communiqué on Thursday outlining the general features of the new five-year plan [2021-26] and an associated set of long-term goals for 2035. Attended by 198 full members of the central committee and 166 alternates, the gathering was a highly stage-managed affair, with no hint of any disagreements with the policies set by President Xi Jinping.

The plenum took place on the eve of the US election in which both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden have signaled a continued ramping up of Washington’s confrontation with Beijing, initiated a decade ago with the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia.” The geo-political tensions with the US coincide with mounting domestic social tensions in China. A sharp economic decline as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the working class and rural poor the hardest.

The communiqué again paid lip-service to the CCP’s absurd claim of upholding “socialism with Chinese characteristics” under conditions where the capitalist market, private profit and foreign investment dominate the economy, and some of the country’s wealthiest private billionaires are counted as “communists” in the party’s ranks.

Chinese President Xi Jinping at a party function in 2018 (Crédit: Xinhua)

Behind the bland language lauding the CCP’s achievements, the communiqué point to the deepening crisis facing the regime, at home and abroad. Confronted by the Trump administration’s rapid escalation of US trade and economic warfare against China, the CCP is emphasising the need to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign technologies. Trump has implemented a series of bans aimed at choking off supplies of vital high-end semi-conductor chips to successful Chinese companies such as Huawei in a bid to prevent them challenging their American rivals in areas like 5-G technology.

Under Xi, China had already elaborated a “Made in China 2025” program to develop competitive hi-tech products, in a bid to reverse its economic slowdown and dependence on foreign investment. Facing US efforts to block China’s technological development and cripple companies like Huawei, the CCP is accelerating this drive.

“It is the first time ever in the history of our party’s five-year plans … that [China] is placing the plans on science, technology, and innovation before all other sectors,” Wang Zhigang, China’s minister of science and technology, told a press conference last Friday. “We need to improve our ability to create things independently because we cannot ask for or buy the core technologies from elsewhere.”

The ability of Chinese companies to do so is severely limited by the existing international division of labour, developed over decades and dominated by the US, which is seeking to block Chinese access not only to American technologies but also to those of its European and Asian allies. No nation, including one of China’s size, can compete in the globalised economy based on the resources and industry within its own borders. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe was the sharpest expression of the bankruptcy of a program of national autarchy. It appears that the CCP’s technology goals are no longer for 2025, but have been delayed until 2035.

As well as facing US economic and military threats, the Chinese leadership is deeply fearful of mounting social tensions at home. For the first time, no specific target has been set for economic growth, under conditions where the coronavirus pandemic has hit the Chinese economy hard. Despite claims of recovery, economic growth is well below last year’s figure of 6.1 percent. The questionable official growth figure for the third quarter [July-September] was 4.9 percent, up from 3.2 percent in the second quarter and a huge 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter when China was struggling to cope with COVID-19.

For years, CCP leaders set 8 percent growth as the bare minimum needed to ward off rising unemployment and social unrest. As the Stalinist regime abandoned its socialistic pretences, it relied more and more on its claims to be providing economic prosperity, as well as the promotion of Chinese nationalism, to try to create a base of political support in the emerging bourgeoisie and upper middle classes. In reality, its embrace of capitalist restoration has created one of the most socially unequal countries in the world, and the CCP is identified with rampant corruption, notwithstanding Xi’s anti-corruption drive, and police-state repression.

A Reuters survey of 37 economic analysts projected that the Chinese economy would grow by just 2.1 percent overall in 2020—the slowest growth rate since 1976. Already there are signs of social opposition, with reports of strikes by express delivery workers who are struggling to survive on much reduced wages or wages that have not been paid at all.

There are also indications that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the poorer layers of the population the hardest. Many of the country’s 290 million internal migrants from rural areas have been unable to return to jobs in the cities. According to Nomura, growth in average incomes for migrant workers for the second quarter was 6.7 percent less than the same period last year. A Gavekal Research analyst, Wei He, cited by the Wall Street Journal, estimates that the bottom 60 percent of households in China lost $200 billion in income during the first half of 2020.

At the same time, the wealth of the ultra-rich in China, like their counterparts internationally, has continued grow. A Hurun ranking of China’s richest individuals released last month contained 2,398 people with a wealth of over 2 billion yuan (about $US300 million)—up by 32 percent compared to 2019. This tiny, obscenely-rich layer gained more wealth this year than ever before in the 22-year history of the Hurun list—boosted by a booming stock market.

The CCP’s five-year plan again proclaims the need to boost domestic consumption as a means of offsetting an economic slowdown. President Xi has attempted to render the aim more profound by promoting a “dual circulation” strategy to focus on domestic production and consumption, supplemented by foreign trade and investment. Regardless of the terminology, the plan to increase domestic consumption confronts the major obstacles of rising unemployment, falling wages and a lack of basic social services that forces workers to save to provide for health care, loss of a job and retirement.

Supposedly 95 percent of the population is covered by various health care plans, but out-of-pocket health spending by individuals accounted for a huge 35.9 percent of total health spending in 2018. Similarly, in the midst of the pandemic only 2.3 million people were eligible for poverty-level unemployment benefits, leaving the remainder of the estimated 78 million unemployed to somehow fend for themselves.

The CCP plenum piously declared that it would reduce the gap between urban and rural earnings, lift living standards and end poverty. Xi’s anti-poverty drive is projected to end extreme poverty in China by the end of the year, but this only applies to about 5 million people who earn less than 92 cents a day. According to official figures, more than 40 percent of the population, or about 600 million people, lived on less than $5 a day last year.

Under these conditions, the plenum’s communiqué once again extolled Xi as “the core navigator and helmsman.” Since being installed as CCP general secretary in 2012 and as the country’s president in 2013, Xi has consolidated his grip over the key levers of state power and removed the nominal two-term limit on his term of office. Far from being a sign of political strength, however, Xi is presiding over a crisis-ridden regime and owes his position to the party’s need for a bonapartist figure to mediate internal factional brawling in the face of growing geo-political threats and mounting social tensions.

China in Africa: COVID-19 and the Politics of Largesse

Raj Lakshmi

China has recently announced multiple financial initiatives with the purported aim of providing relief to debt-laden African countries. The initiatives are in response to these countries calling for debt suspension to mitigate the pandemic’s adverse economic impact. This commentary explores the three major Chinese initiatives—two debt relief packages and one financial assistance commitment—announced between April and June 2020, and Beijing’s potential motivations in offering them.

Three Initiatives

In April, the Chinese foreign ministry affirmed its intention to participate in the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). The DSSI provides temporary debt suspension for eligible countries that would have been unable to meet their dues between May-December 2020. However, the programme covers debt suspension for bilateral loans only. This leaves out private bondholders that constitute one-third of the total African debt. Addressing this concern, China has “encouraged” its private financial institutions to hold consultations with African countries to work out arrangements for commercial loans on a case-by-case basis.

On 18 May, at the 73rd World Health Assembly, President Xi Jinping promised to commit US$ 2 billion over two years to assist with COVID-19 responses and socio-economic development in the affected developing countries. Beijing can be expected to undertake a mix of bilateral and multilateral engagements in meeting this pledge. Given the existing pattern of counting every penny spent in Africa towards the fulfilment of the Forum On China-Africa Cooperation’s (FOCAC) commitments, it seems likely that these two commitments—both the G-20 initiative and the US$ 2 billion commitment—are not mutually exclusive.

The most recent initiative was announced by President Xi on 17 June, as part of the ‘Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against COVID-19’. It entails the cancellation of interest-free loans to economically distressed African countries. The deferment of interest-free loans is not unusual for China. About US$ 3.4 billion worth of such loans were cancelled between 2000 and 2019, according to a recent report by the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. Interest-free loans constitute only about 9 per cent of the total percentage of Chinese loans to Africa. A majority of them are concessional and commercial loans whose maturity remains largely unhindered and unaddressed.

Strategic Significance

China has made several efforts, chiefly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to create an alternative economic architecture that attempts to undermine the primacy of existing infrastructure dominated by the US. The latest Chinese relief initiatives cannot be isolated from this bigger picture of great power strategic competition. Both relief initiatives announced between May-June have the potential to enhance China’s standing as a global provider of economic assistance in times of need—such as the ongoing pandemic.

China’s recent initiatives particularly appear to be directed towards reworking its image. Perception management is important to Beijing. It seeks to counter the unfavourable view of China’s debt-trap diplomacy among several countries and their policymaking elite. The international backlash against Beijing for its mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan has only exacerbated existing perception problems. A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center shows the historic rise in international negative perceptions of and distrust in the Chinese leadership. Together, they have likely led China to seriously consider the need to address misgivings about its intentions—particularly in Africa, where Beijing is deeply invested both economically and politically.

Further, Chinese financial assistance is aimed at securing support from recipient African countries at UN platforms. In recent months, China’s authoritarian moves across the various regions under its control—notably Hong Kong—have invited widespread international criticism. Beijing is wary of the possibility of a diplomatic offensive led by Washington at international forums. It could be thus be seeking to maximise African support should such an eventuality arise at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Press releases by countries that have received Chinese relief, which have recorded their confidence in Beijing with regard to Hong Kong, indicate this trend. 

Conclusion

China’s pandemic-time largesse provides limited, short-term relief to the larger challenge of the African debt crisis. A closer inspection of these three initiatives reveals some glaring blind spots—such as private, concessional, and commercial loans—that are as yet unaddressed. Beijing, nevertheless, has its own set of objectives in offering such relief within the broader context of its ongoing efforts to boost its global standing.

Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean… Seriously?

Robert Hunziker

For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks.

Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.

The problem: TEPCO is running out of storage space.

Government of Japan’s solution:  Dump it into the Pacific Ocean.

Third-party expert solutions:  Build more storage tanks.

Environmental groups insist there is no reason why additional storage tanks cannot be constructed outside the perimeter of the plant. They accuse the government of seeking the cheapest and quickest solution to the problem. All along, authorities have promised the site will be safe in 40 years. Really, only 40 years!

According to IAEA’s Director General Grossi, who visited Fukushima in February 2020, dumping radioactive water that is mainly contaminated with tritium meets global standards of practice. (Source: Michael Jacob in Tokyo, What! Is Japan Really Planning to Dump Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into the Ocean? Sweden-Science-Innovation, June 10, 2020)

In that regard, advocates of nuclear power utilize a subtle storyline that convinces, and deceives, the public into accepting nuclear power, however reluctantly. It goes something like this: “There’s nothing to worry about. Nuclear power plants routinely release tritium into the air and water. There is no economically feasible way to remove it. It’s normal, a standard operating procedure.” Nevertheless, as shall be explained in more detail forthwith, there is nothing positive about that posture, absolutely nothing!

According to TEPCO, all radioactive isotopes will be removed, except tritium, which is hard to separate. Still, similar to all radioactive substances, tritium is a carcinogen (causes cancer), a mutagen (causes genetic mutation), and a teratogen (causes malformation of an embryo).

The good news: Tritium is relatively weak beta radiation and does not have enough energy to penetrate human skin. The principal health risks are ingesting or breathing the tritium.

TEPCO has deployed an Advanced Liquid Processing System that purportedly removes 62 isotopes from the water, all except tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen and cannot easily be filtered out of water.

However, the filtration system has been plagued by malfunctions. According to Greenpeace International, within the past two years TEPCO admitted to failures to reduce radioactivity to levels below regulatory limits in more than 80% of the storage tanks. Reported levels of Strontium-90 (a deadly isotope) were more than 100 times regulatory standards with some tanks at 20,000 times.

“They have deliberately held back for years detailed information on the radioactive material in the contaminated water. They have failed to explain to the citizens of Fukushima, wider Japan and to neighboring countries such as S. Korea and China that the contaminated water to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean contains dangerous levels of carbon-14. These, together with other radionuclides in the water will remain hazardous for thousands of years with the potential to cause genetic damage. It’s one more reason why these plans have to be abandoned.” (Source: Fukushima Reactor Water Could Damage Human DNA if Released, Says Greenpeace, The Guardian, October 23, 2020)

Cancer is the main risk to humans ingesting tritium. When tritium decays it emits a low-energy electron (roughly 18,000 electron volts) that escapes and slams into DNA, a ribosome or some other biologically important molecule. And, unlike other radionuclides, tritium is usually part of water, so it ends up in all parts of the body and therefore, in theory, can promote any kind of cancer. But that also helps reduce the risk because tritiated water is typically excreted in less than a month. (Source: Is Radioactive Hydrogen in Drinking Water a Cancer Threat, Scientific American, Feb. 7, 2014)

Some evidence suggests beta particles emitted by tritium are more effective at causing cancer than the high-energy radiation such as gamma rays. Low-energy electrons produce a greater impact because it doesn’t have the energy to spread its impact. At the end of its atomic-scale trip it delivers most of its ionizing energy in one relatively confined track rather than shedding energy all along its path like a higher-energy particle. This is known as “density of ionization.” As such, scientists say any amount of radiation poses a health risk.

According to Ian Fairlie, Ph.D. (Imperial College/London and Princeton University), a radiation biologist and former member of the 3-person secretariat to Britain’s Committee Examining the Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters: “At the present time, over a million tonnes of tritium-contaminated water are being held in about a thousand tanks at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan.  This is being added to at the rate of ~300 tonnes a day from the water being pumped to keep cool the melted nuclear fuels from the three destroyed reactors at Fukushima. Therefore new tanks are having to be built each week to cope with the influx.” (Source: Ian Fairlie, The Hazards of Tritium, March 13, 2020)

Furthermore, radioactive contaminants in the tanks, such as nuclides like caesium-137 (an extremely deadly isotope) and strontium-90 (which is equally deadly) in reduced concentrations still exist in unacceptable high levels. According to Fairlie: “These problems constitute a sharp reminder to the world’s media that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima did not end in 2011 and is continuing with no end in sight.”

“There are no easy answers here. Barring a miraculous technical discovery which is unlikely, I think TEPCO/Japanese Gov’t will have to buy more land and keep on building more holding tanks to allow for tritium decay to take place. Ten half-lives for tritium is 123 years: that’s how long these tanks will have to last – at least. This will allow time not only for tritium to decay, but also for politicians to reflect on the wisdom of their support for nuclear power.” (Fairlie)

Meanwhile, over the course of seemingly endless years, Fukushima Daiichi remains “the world’s most dangerous active time bomb” for several reasons, and spent fuel rods are at the top of the list.

In addition to the 800 tons of lava-like molten fuel, aka: corium, (the big meltdown) in the three reactor containment vessels, the crippled reactor buildings contain more than 1,500 units of used nuclear fuel rods in open pools of water and must be kept cool at all times or all hell breaks loose. Loss of water from structural damage or another major earthquake (the structures are already seriously compromised) could expose the fuel rods, resulting in uncontrolled massive release of sizzling radiation that could be worse than the original meltdown, possibly exposing Tokyo to an emergency mass evacuation event with people running and screaming.

Tokyo Electric Power has plans for complete removal of the dangerous fuel rods by 2031. That work is being carried out remotely from a control room about 500 metres distance due to extraordinarily high radiation levels inside the reactor buildings.

Dismally, a perverse endlessness overhangs Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima Daiichi (2011), earmarking these nuclear power meltdowns as the worst industrial accidents in human history.

Yet, with 440 operating nuclear plants worldwide, and 50 new plants under construction, there are plans to build a few hundred more.