German political establishment demands foreign policy “sovereignty” after US elections

Johannes Stern

Germany’s ruling elite has responded to the US presidential election with a mixture of shock, anger, and aggression. The political establishment and media are warning that the election, whose outcome remains unclear, and Trump’s attempt to prematurely declare victory will further destabilise the United States and plunge it into a deep domestic and foreign policy crisis. At the same time, representatives of all parties are demanding a more aggressive foreign and military policy that is also more independent of the United States.

“The real message of the developments over recent years is a wake-up call for Europe,” stated the parliamentary group leader of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) Manfred Weber, in an interview with the radio channel Deutschlandfunk. “We must finally develop self-confidence. Europe must finally develop autonomy.” Europe, he said, is “precisely on the issue of military capacity…currently largely dependent on NATO cooperation with the United States, and that cannot remain so permanently.”

Weber called for “an independent military pillar of the European Union, which projects self-confidence and sovereignty, especially with the insecurity surrounding us.”

Weber made clear that the European ruling elites view Trump’s fascistic tirades and plans for a coup above all as a threat to the Europeans’ propaganda, which seeks to sell imperialist wars as a struggle for democracy. “Under conditions in which there is (again) global competition between the systems in particular it is necessary to jointly advocate our values, our beliefs and project them throughout the world as the correct model,” he said. If “this is now being questioned” or “called into doubt,” this makes him “very, very concerned.”

Leading representatives of the German government spoke along similar lines. “We have to acknowledge–and I think this is the real task we confront–that Europe has to become more sovereign, regardless of who wins, we have to do our own homework and make an attempt to place these relations on a new basis,” stated Deputy Foreign Minister Nils Annen (Social Democrats). He said, “the Trump presidency was a wake-up call, and now it is up to us to formulate concrete policies in response.”

Annen spelt out what he meant by this. “We cannot afford sluggishness, because it isn’t just about the United States of America,” he said. There is a danger of “not being perceived or taken seriously enough as a global actor” by China “and other regions in the world, where an incredible dynamic has developed over recent years.” This has “a direct impact on our capacities to realise our own interests.” It is necessary to “sharpen our teeth, and that is precisely what we are trying to do, especially during our presidency of the European Union“.

The opposition parties in parliament also support this agenda. In the Deutschlandfunk interview already cited, the Green Party’s Jürgen Trittin, who sits on the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, agreed with Weber. He said, “That means we have to get used to the fact that over the next two years (until the mid-term elections), we will be dealing with a United States that will be much more focused on itself and will act much less as a global player. And that also means for us that we must take care of politics in our own neighbourhood.”

A joint interview on public broadcaster ARD with the Left Party’s foreign policy spokesman, Gregor Gysi, and the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) leader Jörg Meuthen underscored how closely all establishment parties collaborate with the far-right to impose a foreign policy offensive despite mounting opposition from the population. “If the US pulls back militarily to some extent,” Meuthen said he would support “that which many people, including Mr. Gysi from the Left Party, have been calling for: We must ensure that we are capable of defending ourselves independently as a sovereign state.”

However, Meuthen complained that the German army’s condition can be “politely summarised as woeful.” Perhaps it would “even be good if we were freed a little from the overbearing mothering of the United States so that we can further develop our own sovereignty,” Meuthen cynically added.

In a separate interview, Gysi demanded that Germany must learn “for geostrategic reasons…to sometimes say ‘No’ to the United States.”

Reports published by think tanks on the eve of the election underscore the vast scale of the rearmament plans being plotted by the ruling class behind the backs of the population. In a document entitled “Which reforms does the German army need today–Food for thought,” the former parliamentary commissioner for the army, Social Democrat Hans-Peter Bartels, and the former commander of the army’s operational central command, Rainer Glatz, urged Germany to prepare once again for major wars.

“The future structure of the army should further increase the number of soldiers (at the expense of redundant and ‘tiers of equity-oriented’ command structures), and create organic units capable of sustained resistance,” the paper states. “The forces trained for the most demanding central tasks of alliance and national defence must also be able to carry out worldwide operations to intervene in crises. This double role requires comprehensive equipment in materiel to ensure a high degree of operational readiness at all times.”

A recent publication by the Munich Security Conference entitled “Zeitenwende/Wendezeiten“ (End of an era–changing times) demanded that the return of Germany to an aggressive imperialist foreign policy, publicly announced in 2014, be implemented “much more quickly” than up to now.

The goal is no longer the NATO target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product of the military as demanded by Trump, but much more: “In line with a comprehensive concept of security, a broader target in the sense of a three-percent goal—acknowledging the role of the military but also assigning other expenditures adequate importance—seems appropriate.”

The ruling elite also intends to enforce these plans if the Democrat Biden takes office. In an interview on ARD’s “Brennpunkt” (Focus) programme, Wolfgang Ischinger, head of the Munich Security Conference and former German ambassador to the United States, warned against illusions in a Biden administration.

“The worst thing” that Germany and the EU could do, he said, would be to hope “that the horror is over with a Biden electoral victory” and Germany can “return to its hibernation.” The Trump presidency will hopefully “even if it ends now, be understood as a wake-up call for Europe.” Germany must “do its homework” and “take much more responsibility for its security and European future.”

Prior to the US elections, the World Socialist Web Site repeatedly stressed that the danger is posed not only by Trump, but the ruling class as a whole, which is responding to the deepest crisis of world capitalism since the 1930s with militarism, fascism, and war. This is shown in Germany in particular. The planned rearmament offensive—the “3 percent goal,” which amounts to an annual military budget of over €100 billion—is the largest rearmament since that of Hitler’s Wehrmacht prior to World War II.

Domestically, the ruling elite is also resorting to authoritarianism and dictatorship to impose its policies of militarism, social spending cuts, and “herd immunity” in response to the pandemic. “The ability to act externally requires stability on the inside: The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically highlighted the importance of resilience”, states the paper from the Munich Security Conference. “Resilience” is a euphemism for the systematic surveillance and repression of the population.

Following the US elections, the most urgent task on this side of the Atlantic as well as in the United States is the arming of the working class with an internationalist and socialist programme directed against all of the bourgeois parties and the capitalist system as a whole.

French teachers’ strikes mount against school openings as pandemic surges

Will Morrow

Strikes and protests by French teachers and students are expanding against the Macron government’s policy of keeping schools open with no effective protections, allowing coronavirus to spread unhindered among students, teachers and their families.

Teachers across France are continuing to organise strike action at local school meetings. They are faced with conditions that are catastrophic. Social distancing measures are essentially non-existent. More than 30 children are commonly crammed into classrooms with little to no ventilation. Images continue to be shared on social media showing hundreds of students sitting side-by-side in cafeterias and walking in hallways.

Students leave their school in Cambo les Bains, southwestern France, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020 (AP Photo/Bob Edme)

Students are organising protests at school entrances to demand social distancing measures and the closure of their schools, fearful that they will be responsible for the deaths of loved ones.

The pandemic in France has surged out of control. Another 394 people died on Wednesday, 854 on Tuesday, and 416 on Monday. Another 540 people were admitted to urgent care beds in the past 24 hours, with the total now at 4,080, and over 40,000 people were infected.

Yesterday in Paris, teachers at the Collège Guillaume Budé published a statement announcing a strike vote of 75 percent in the school to demand social distancing measures be put in place to prevent the spread of the virus. On Wednesday, 20 teachers at the Mozart high school in Le Blanc-Mesnil continued strike action from the day before. In Montpellier, the teachers voted for indefinite strike action on Tuesday until a safe health care protocol has been put in place.

Sara, who has taught Italian for five years, and is now teaching at three different schools located an hour outside Paris, described the situation there to the World Socialist Web Site yesterday. “Since September there has been no health protocol at all. In one school they now clean more often and we have gel and masks in the class. Otherwise everything is the same: no social distancing, the canteen is open and crammed full, the corridors are full, public transport is packed.

“When students contract coronavirus they stay home for one or two weeks, but often we are not told. I find that there are absences in my class, and only later after asking do I find out it was COVID-19. In general, only the school directors know the reason that students are absent. And everything just continues as if nothing was happening. Normally after three students in the same class get coronavirus, it is supposed to close. But this way, it’s hard to know.”

“A student of my colleague with comorbidities got coronavirus and ended up in the hospital,” she continued. “But no one knew—only the head principal. My colleague kept setting the child homework. He only found out by chance when the parents wrote to him to ask for the homework. That’s how we find out.”

Asked what measures ought to be taken to address this situation, Sara said: “the problem is that measures should have been taken from the beginning of the reopening in September. The students should have been divided in groups and attended school in alternating blocks. In my [Italian] classes, students come from different levels. And that is the case for every language. That means there’s a continuous mixing of students. There should have been no more than 10 to 15 students per class or less and a strict social distancing. Now, students are on top of each other the whole day!”

“It was an obvious measure,” she said, “but it was not done. A system of ventilation was needed in the classes. This is completely absent. We know now how important that is. In my class I cannot even open the windows. In many schools they’ve been sealed to prevent suicides.”

Sara said she saw many principal factors driving the school opening policy of the Macron administration. “First of all,” she said, “at the beginning of September there were many ‘doctors’ who were saying that it could be a ‘strategy’ to make the virus spread among the youngest group of the population in order to attain herd immunity. This, I believe, is one of the motivations, because, even if the schools were opened just so the parents could go to work, that does not explain the complete absence of any protective measures. The cotton masks that have been distributed, the only ‘real’ measure, are not effective.”

“Then there is the economic motivation. The parents must go to work and we can’t leave the children at home. It’s obvious that in primary and middle school we are baby-sitters. In May [after the first lockdown] the schools were reopened for three weeks before the holiday break: what could be the pedagogical use of this?”

Responsibility lay with both the government, the media and the trade unions, Sara said. “Before the holidays, despite the numerous hospital alerts, the message on the TV was: Go enjoy your holidays, everything is under control. … The trade unions knew very well that a second wave was possible. But there was no initiative. Nothing. A complete silence about the coronavirus.”

The trade unions insisted that they were not calling for teachers to strike, but that teachers should individually use their legally protected right to withdraw their labour if placed in a dangerous situation. This was consciously aimed at isolating and smothering the opposition among teachers to the government’s policy.

“In fact the right to withdraw your labour is very complicated,” Sara explained. “You risk a lot, and of course, you are an individual. To invoke this right there must be conditions. In September it was practically impossible, because the schools just applied the (non-existent) rules of the health protocol.

“Now it is necessary to close schools, resume online learning, which is not a long-term solution but a measure for transition, in order to get control of the epidemic and work on real concrete measures for allowing classes,” Sara said. “This must be organised from below, with the teachers who are on the ground.”

The trade unions are actively working to suppress the growing struggle by teachers. Yesterday, the national education union SUD published a statement calling for a national one-day strike next Tuesday, November 10. This is under conditions where teachers are already organising strike action in schools and when the virus is spreading by tens of thousands every day.

In reality, the unions have supported the school reopening policy of the government from the beginning. They are collaborating with Macron to ensure that schools can remain open, that parents can remain at work, and that profits can continue to flow, no matter how many people die. The latest strike call is aimed at maintaining control over the growing action of teachers, in order the better to smother it.

Teachers must instead strike out on a different basis. Independent committees of action must be formed in every school, composed of educators themselves. A strike must be organised to demand the immediate closure of schools while the pandemic is stopped. Full pay must be granted to teachers as well as at least one parent for those who are forced to remain at home to mind their child. Massive resources must be invested into the education system to provide high quality learning, including online and in small groups, as determined by the committees of educators themselves.

The Macron administration has made clear its hostility to any measures to stop the virus’ spread in the schools. On Wednesday, the government announced that it would consider a reduction of class sizes, but this only on a case-by-case basis, and only for the most senior students.

It is responding to student protests for the closure of schools with riot police and tear gas. It is determined to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands for the profits of the capitalist class. Against the ruling class’ homicidal policy, the working class must advance its own independent political perspective to save lives, based on the fight for a workers government and socialism.

US schools intensify student surveillance in the COVID-19 era

Kylie Rose

Millions of students participating in online learning are gravely concerned about how schools are monitoring their activity on and off campus and using their data. As technology continues to advance by leaps and bounds, critical issues of privacy, data use and basic democratic rights are being brought to the fore.

Just last month, the University of Miami was caught using facial recognition technology to track down students who attended a protest opposing the university’s reckless reopening plans.

The university emailed nine students who went to the protest to tell them the dean of students wanted to discuss the “incident” which they had participated in, referring to the small protest. When the students questioned the university dean, Ryan Holmes, as to how the university knew the identity of those involved in the peaceful demonstration, he told them the University of Miami Police Department (UMPD) had helped identify the students via surveillance footage.

Students and instructors gather on a video call on June 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)

After a slew of bad press, the university released a short statement denying it uses facial recognition technology. While the university itself may not use the technology, it is evident that the campus police do. In the sheriff’s résumé, he states the school utilizes an advanced camera system with sophisticated algorithms for “motion detection, facial recognition, object detection and much more.”

This chilling incident raises serious questions regarding the basic democratic rights of students everywhere.

The incident in Miami is not an isolated event. Rather, it is part of a broad trend at K-12 schools as well as university campuses throughout the country. In many cases, schools have used the transition to online learning, brought on in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to intensify the surveillance of students.

How widespread is student surveillance?

For years, schools have been using surveillance technologies to monitor their students through social media, facial recognition cameras, device usage, location data and more. As the technology has advanced over the years, the scope and depth of the surveillance and data collection has vastly expanded, with very little oversight or regulation.

It is no exaggeration to say that millions of students are monitored daily by private corporations contracted by schools. Gaggle, a leading provider of school email and shared document monitoring, says its technology is currently used to monitor a staggering 4.5 million students across 1,400 school districts.

This trend intensified after the 2018 Parkland shooting. Schools across the United States have since invested a substantial amount of funds toward student surveillance methods. The “school security industry” rakes in nearly $3 billion a year in the United States.

The recent shift to online learning in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic has prompted another wave of increased student surveillance. Over the last school year alone, school systems in more than 100 cities have started partnerships with Gaggle.

Businesses like Gaggle, Bark and GoGuardian are often hired to implement 24/7 monitoring of students on the premise that it “protects students’ safety.” There is, however, no factual basis to support the claim that these surveillance methods keep students safe.

Surveillance companies are able to monitor everything from professional emails to personal chat messages, without permission from the students themselves.

Bark for Schools, for instances, has a frighteningly long list of all things they are able to monitor online. Through Google Suite and Office 365 they are able to monitor videos, pictures, documents, emails, Google Chat messages and more. They also provide a monitoring extension on Chromebook that allows them to collect data on students’ web searches, visited URLs and page titles.

In 2017, GoGuardian, a web-filtering and monitoring company, upgraded its technology to scan through every page a student accesses on school devices.

There is virtually no end to the data being collected.

Bark’s surveillance is also not limited to school-provided devices. If a student is on a personal computer or phone, surveillance still occurs through the student’s Google Suite account. Schools are thus able to enact 24/7 surveillance of students’ personal information through personal devices, with no acceptance by parents of students needed.

Under the rhetoric of “protective measures” schools and private businesses can see every single thing being said between students. There is no way of being assured that school administrators are not retrieving data about private information separate from school safety.

Furthermore, as the most recent exposure at the University of Miami demonstrates, there is immense potential for this data to be harnessed to politically intimidate and punish students for speaking out against campus policies or political issues.

The giant corporations behind student surveillance

The private corporations behind student surveillance have deep ties to some of the largest corporations on the planet.

Bark, like many other private surveillance companies, partners with large corporations to store and encrypt the vast sums of data collected.

Bark for Schools, one of the fastest growing student surveillance businesses, is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) EdStart member and uses Amazon DynamoDB, a key-value and document database by Amazon, to organize and store students’ data. Bark states that Amazon is a “trusted partner in the cybersecurity industry, and they handle all of our database encryption needs.” It is unclear exactly if and how Amazon uses the data collected. However, since businesses like Bark offer surveillance technologies to schools free of cost, one can safely assume that corporate giant Amazon is getting something in return for this partnership.

AWS EdStart works with many other educational technology startups like Bark. Amazon states they work as a “mentor” for these businesses and offers benefits like promotional credit, access to Amazon Cloud Drive, help with campus management and more. Amazon is offering these services to businesses across the world, making it easier for the billion-dollar corporation to have access to student data.

The nature of these businesses and their deep ties to corporations have immense implications for students. The data being retrieved from student surveillance is not only in the hands of the school. It is also in the hands of the big businesses that have these schools as clients, their partners, and perhaps, behind the scenes, even more dubious actors.

In fact, most of the companies offering spying services to schools hold or have previously held contracts with police departments. Many have direct ties to the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. In 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) exposed one of the companies, Media Sonar, for recommending that police officers follow hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, #DontShoot, and #ImUnarmed during the 2014 protests against the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. In late 2015, Media Sonar also worked with the Ferguson-Florissant School District, which asked for alerts on the terms “protest” and “walkout.”

These companies are often contracted without notifying students or parents.

Funding surveillance while defunding basic elements of education

The amount of money being spent by school districts on surveillance is staggering.

According to a report from New York’s Lockport City School District, the district has used $3.8 million in public funds to buy facial recognition security systems to identify individuals who “don’t belong on campus.”

This year, a Minneapolis school spent over $350,000 on a partnership with student surveillance company Gaggle, that uses artificial intelligence and moderators to scan students’ private emails, messages and more. School districts in Texas, Illinois, California and Florida spent, from 2012-2018, a combined total of almost $1.5 million, allegedly to detect potential social media threats from well over a million students.

These high-tech surveillance methods are being prioritized over funding in other necessary sectors, like school infrastructure or hiring school social workers.

Just to give a sense of the scope of money spent: In New York, the average school social worker makes an annual salary of around $56,000. If the Lockport City School district shifted their funds from expensive student surveillance systems to employing social workers, they could hire 67 new workers trained in aiding students.

Over the last few decades there have been major slashes in public education funding. According to a report from the Department of Labor, employment in local, state and private education fell by a total of 350,000 this past September.

There has been an overall 20 percent decrease in state funding for higher education since 2008. Under conditions of a deepening pandemic, which is exacerbating the broader economic and social crisis for the working class and poor, the bipartisan gutting of school district budgets across the US is projected to reach an unprecedented scale.

According to a recent Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study, K-12 districts across the US are facing a $1 trillion shortfall by the end of 2021. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced a $355 million budget cut from K-12 schools, Georgia officials have begun discussing a $1.4 billion slash in K-12 spending and many other states are proposing massive education budget cuts.

What is driving student surveillance?

According to an article published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “There is no evidence that surveilling students will lead to better safety outcomes in general. In fact, the few studies that exist show that more cameras inside school buildings decrease students’ perceptions of safety, equity, and support .”

The fact of the matter is that implementing high level monitoring is not being done for students' wellbeing.

Fundamental issues being faced by youth are being ignored, while millions are being spent on jeopardizing young people’s privacy for profit. Issues of poverty, mental health and access to resources are being denied while great sums of money are being directed to private businesses to enact more surveillance of students, increasing the policing of schools.

The ruling class, Democrat and Republican alike, is terrified of the coming upheavals of the population. Recent years have seen nationwide protests and walkouts by hundreds of thousands of students motivated by the issues of police violence, school shootings and climate change. The surveillance of students is part of a broader campaign to prepare for mass demonstrations. They are preparing for massive repression.

The University of Miami’s surveillance of student protests poses a serious threat to student security—this high level of monitoring is pressuring students to not attend protests or voice their political opinions. Self-censorship as a result of surveillance is being pushed on young people by their government, schools and campus police.

This effort to monitor all student activities is one aspect of a wider process of militarization taking place on campuses throughout the country. It poses immense dangers to the democratic rights of youth, students, and workers everywhere.

The intensification of state oppression, especially as it connects to police violence, is being heightened by this technology. The police are already utilizing these surveillance methods to intimidate students becoming politically active, as seen with the University of Miami’s campus police. This oppression will only grow as more schools partner with these surveillance companies and escalate the monitoring of student activity.

The extraordinary social and political situation in the United States—raised to new heights by the coronavirus pandemic—is having a significant impact on the lives of millions of youth and students. The crisis confronting young people needs to be combated with the aim of improving the general wellbeing of students and providing them the best resources possible to meet their physical and mental health needs, which is impossible under capitalism.

Neither the Democrats nor Republicans will wage a struggle against student monitoring—workers and youth must fight this issue together. The fight for student privacy against surveillance companies must ultimately be tied to the fight for socialism.

Perpetrator of terror attack in Vienna was under state surveillance

Peter Schwarz

Reactions to Monday’s brutal terrorist attack in Vienna, which claimed four lives and injured 22, have followed a well-known pattern. Politicians around the world express their horror, pay their condolences and then, in the same breath, demand further powers for the police and secret services along with tougher action against immigrants.

“We will fight terrorism together with determination,” said European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, announcing a new EU counterterrorism agenda for next year. “Islamist terrorism is our common enemy. The fight against these murderers and those encouraging them is our common fight,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn called for “a strategy against Islamism.” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer promised to make Europe’s security situation the main topic of the next meeting of EU interior ministers on November 13. “We can only stop the terrorists and their backers together,” he said.

The perpetrator, Kujtim Fejzulai, posted this picture on his Instagram account

Stephan Mayer (Christian Social Union, CSU), state secretary in the German Interior Ministry, demanded that every avenue be used to deport allegedly dangerous persons and serious criminals to their country of origin. Andrea Lindholz (CSU), chair of the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag, demanded “modern powers to monitor encrypted messenger services in justified cases of suspicion.”

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in an interview with the daily Die Welt: “The EU must in future focus much more on the problem of political Islam. I expect an end to falsely understood notions of tolerance and at last an awareness in all European countries of just how dangerous the ideology of political Islam is for our freedom and the European way of life.”

The president of the EU Parliament, Antonio Tajani, called for the establishment of a European FBI to coordinate the work of the police and secret services throughout Europe.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted in flawed German: “We, the French, share the shock and grief of Austrians after an attack in Vienna. ... This is our Europe. Our enemies must know who they are dealing with. We will not give in.”

US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter: “After another heinous act of terrorism in Europe, our prayers are with the people of Vienna.” He accused his challenger Joe Biden of wanting to increase the number of refugees from terrorist nations by 700 percent and “turn the entire [US] Midwest into a refugee camp.”

The mantra that protection against terrorist attacks requires an upgrade of the security services and tougher measures against immigrants deliberately hides the real background to such attacks, in particular the role played by the secret services. In reality, the terrorist attack in Vienna—like similar attacks in France, Britain and Germany before it—serves as a welcome pretext for governments to create police states aimed, not at protecting the population from terrorist attacks, but rather the ruling classes from popular anger and discontent.

The world’s ruling elites anticipate fierce class struggles resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, which has already claimed 280,000 lives in Europe alone due to the criminal policies of European governments, combined with the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s. Former reformist parties and unions have moved so far to the right that they are no longer able to control and direct such struggles into harmless channels. This is why state surveillance and forms of state repression are being systematically expanded.

What is strikingly characteristic about the Vienna attack is that it took place literally under the eyes of the police. Twenty-year-old Kujtim Fejzulai, who roamed through downtown Vienna armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, a handgun and a machete, shooting and stabbing passers-by indiscriminately, was well known to the authorities.

Born and raised in Vienna, Fejzulai had Austrian and North Macedonian citizenship. In September 2018, he was arrested in Turkey and sentenced to 22 months prison in Austria for attempting to join the Islamic State in Afghanistan and Syria. After eight months in prison he was released on probation in December 2019.

Following the terror attack on Monday, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (Austrian Peoples Party, ÖVP) claimed the terrorist had managed to “deceive the judiciary.” The Derad association, which specialises in the deradicalization of Islamist offenders and was taking care of Fejzulai, contradicted this statement, reporting that he had never been considered “deradicalized” and was subject to strict conditions of parole.

This did not prevent him from travelling to Slovakia in July 2020 to buy ammunition for his AK-47 assault rifle. As the Slovakian newspaper Denník N reports, citing security circles, he did not receive the ammunition because he could not present a firearms license. Instead, the Slovak authorities informed their Austrian colleagues about his visit and attempt to buy ammunition. The Austrian Interior Ministry has confirmed this information following a request from the German news outlets the Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR and NDR.

The Austrian authorities were therefore warned of the danger but decided to let him roam freely although they could have immediately arrested Fejzulai on the basis of violating his probation. Whether elements in the Austrian security apparatus, which was under the control of the extreme right-wing Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) from 2017 to 2019, were involved in the attack, or whether they just looked the other way, remains unclear. But to claim that the attack took place merely due to unfortunate “mishaps” is untenable. The assassin himself can no longer be interrogated—he was shot by police.

In the meantime, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack and the IS-related propaganda channel Amaq has published a video in which Fejzulai confesses to the crime. The Austrian authorities have arrested a number of persons and are investigating at least 14 people from the killer’s circle. Two young men have also been arrested in Switzerland in connection with the Vienna attack. It is not yet known whether they are part of any organisation or were merely in loose contact with Fejzulai.

In almost all of the major terrorist attacks in recent years, the perpetrators were under surveillance by the security authorities. For example, Anis Amri, who drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market on December 19, 2016, killing 12 people, was being monitored by the state criminal investigation departments of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and Berlin and also by the German intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz. On at least one occasion, Amri was personally driven from the Ruhr area (NRW) to Berlin by an undercover secret service agent. Cherif and Said Kouachi, who committed a massacre six years ago in the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, were also known to the French authorities for more than 10 years and were under surveillance.

Islamist terrorist organisations such as the IS, along with Al Qaeda, which was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, owe their origins to the imperialist wars conducted in the Middle East and often maintained relations with imperialist intelligence agencies. Al Qaeda was originally backed by the CIA to recruit Islamist fighters against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. IS-related groups were then deployed in Libya and Syria to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad before they developed into an independent entity in Iraq.

Australian report reveals widespread food insecurity

John Harris

Foodbank, one of Australia’s largest providers to relief charities, released a report last month on the growth of food insecurity across the country amid the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.

The report was based on a survey of 1001 people who had experienced food insecurity in the past 12 months, conducted between June 25 and July 15. All of the respondents had answered in the affirmative to the question: “In the past 12 months, were there any times that you ran out of food and couldn’t afford to buy any more?”

Currently, 43 percent of all food insecure people are going a whole day without eating at least once a week, compared to 30 percent in 2019. Last year, 15 percent of Australians experiencing food insecurity were seeking food relief at least once a week. In 2020, this has doubled to 31 percent. Some 28 percent of Australians experiencing food insecurity in 2020 had never done so before.

Hundreds of international students lining up to collect food vouchers in Melbourne, June 1 [Credit: @BeauNewham, Twitter]

Charities have seen the demand for food relief increase by some 47 percent since March. This has largely been driven by emergency assistance requests from international students, visa holders and casual workers, more than two million of whom continue to be denied wage subsidies or welfare payments by the government.

The most acute economic and social impact of the pandemic is being felt by youth who are far more likely to be working in insecure casual employment. Approximately “65 percent of food insecure Gen Zs (aged 18-25) are going hungry at least once a week compared to 25 percent of food insecure Baby Boomers (56-74) and 25 percent of Builders (Age 75+)” the report stated.

It highlighted the significant impact the pandemic has had on Australia’s labor market. According to official figures, between March and July, the number of employed Australians decreased by 556,800 people and the unemployment rate increased from 5.2 percent to 7.5 percent.

These employment figures cover over the true extent of the social crisis. According to Roy Morgan, the levels of unemployment and underemployment across Australia reached 22.3 percent in September, down from a high of 27.4 percent in March (approximately 2.4 million people), in the midst of lockdowns. Anglicare’s recent Job Snapshot report revealed there are eight Jobseekers for every entry-level position, but the charity stated that even this could be an underestimation.

A Good Shepherd study reported that “two in five Australians have experienced negative employment changes since April this year.” This included reduced pay and hours, being temporarily stood down, taking leave to avoid loss of pay or being sacked, along with many other changes to employment.

The mass job cull by major companies, enforced by the trade unions, has left many casual workers on the precipice of a disaster. One of the most exploited sections of the working class, they have no guaranteed hours of work and are vulnerable to being underpaid or dismissed by their employers at a moment’s notice.

Many of the industries hardest hit by COVID-19, such as hospitality, retail, tourism and accommodation, account for a large proportion of casual workers across Australia.

Jodie, whose story was featured in the Foodbank report, explained that she lost her job as a casual worker at a motor vehicle repair shop in New South Wales (NSW) when the pandemic began.

“It was very sudden,” she said. “I’d never had to worry about food before this year. Even though I was a casual, I was still working six times a week. So I went from earning $1,100 a week down to a carers pension which I’m still a few weeks off being approved for.” She reported that her partner also lost some 50 percent of his income when the coronavirus crisis struck.

Demonstrating the breadth of similar experiences, some 69 percent of charities have seen an increase in the number of newly unemployed people seeking food relief.

Cost of living has consistently been cited as the main reason many have reported experiencing food insecurity with unexpected expenses or large bills (41 percent) and rent and mortgage payments (35 percent) as the most common reasons.

Since the pandemic began, only 61 percent of those who have experienced food insecurity have accessed food relief. Those who have not sought assistance cite concerns that other people need help more than they do (33 percent), embarrassment (33 percent) and shame (30 percent).

The report states that those “who were already struggling before the coronavirus hit felt the effects more quickly and more seriously.” Prior to the pandemic, those accessing food relief were overwhelmingly low income families, the unemployed, single-parent families, the homeless and people with mental illness. Since March, they have been forced to access food relief more frequently.

Many live payday to payday and therefore cannot adequately safeguard against sudden emergency situations. In March, when panic buying and stockpiling began, the most vulnerable confronted increased food scarcity, as many of the basic essentials (like pasta, toilet paper, rice, canned goods and long-life milk) disappeared from supermarket shelves.

The additional government assistance programs introduced in March alleviated some of the difficulties for those relying on welfare payments. According to a survey conducted by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), 80 percent of respondents said that they were eating better and more regularly due to the increased payments.

In September, the federal Liberal-National Coalition government began to roll back the additional subsidies. The JobSeeker welfare payment has now been reduced from an extra $550 a fortnight to only $250, with further reductions scheduled. JobKeeper wage subsidy payments have also been brought down from $750 a week to only $500. Foodbank reported that charities have seen an additional 25 percent increase in food demand since these payments were first reduced.

The charity stated that “35 percent receiving assistance don’t know how they will cope.” Some 80 percent expect the cuts mean they will definitely have to skip meals and further reduce the amount of food that they purchase.

Maria, a founder of Survivors R Us, a charity that assists those who have suffered domestic violence, told Foodbank: “I have never seen the line as long as it was just to come and get some food… My ordering has gone up twofold to try and keep up with the demand… We probably had around 100-150 people a week before the pandemic and this has gone up to about 500 people a week… My only fear is when [government assistance] is rolled back… I think we’ll actually increase again because [people] are not going to be coping.”

Currently, Australia has far fewer COVID-19 cases than the Americas, Europe and India. However, the pandemic has exposed the real state of class relations, by accelerating and deepening the existing social, political and economic crisis. According to an earlier 2019 Foodbank report produced, prior to the pandemic, approximately 21 percent of all Australian’s were food insecure, slightly above one in five people.

The widespread poverty is the result of a decades-long assault on social spending by governments, Coalition and Labor alike, and a protracted offensive against jobs, wages and conditions, enforced by the trade unions. Amid the deepest global crisis since the 1930s, these attacks against the working class have only escalated over the past year.

Israel demolishes Palestinian village in occupied West Bank

Bill Van Auken

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops and police stormed a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, using bulldozers and backhoes to destroy the homes of 11 families and leaving 74 people, including 41 children, without shelter in the rain and in the midst of a new upsurge in the coronavirus pandemic.

The demolition of the village of Khirbet Humsah, located in the north of the Jordan Valley, was the largest such action in nearly a decade. It was carried out under the pretext that the dwellings had been erected on land reserved for Israeli military exercises.

The residents, who raise livestock, said that they have lived there since 1967, when Israel illegally occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Israeli security forces demolishing homes in Khirbet Humsah (Credit: Sarit Michaeli, B'Tselem)

“This is a great injustice,” Khirbet Humsah resident Harb Abu al-Kabash told the Israeli daily Haaretz. “We didn’t know they were coming and we didn’t prepare, and now we are facing rain.” A father of eight, Abu al-Kabash, added that “they came in the past to demolish a few structures, but this was the largest demolition so far, it’s the entire village.”

B’Tselem, the anti-occupation Israeli NGO, provided a grim account of the scope and criminality of the IDF demolition: “The forces demolished 18 tents and sheds that housed 11 families, numbering 74 people in total, 41 of them minors. The forces also demolished 29 tents and sheds used as livestock enclosures, three storage sheds, nine tents used as kitchens, 10 portable toilets, 10 livestock pens, 23 water containers, two solar panels, and feeding and watering troughs for livestock. They also destroyed more than 30 tons of fodder for livestock and confiscated a vehicle and two tractors belonging to three residents.”

Yvonne Helle, a UN humanitarian coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territories, said that Israeli forces had destroyed 76 structures in Khirbet Humsah, “more than in any other single demolition in the past decade.”

Residents of the village had filed petitions over the course of years with the Israeli High Court against the threat to evict them, all of them denied.

The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammed Shtayyeh, denounced the demolition and charged that Israel “chose this evening to commit another crime” because it knew that world attention would be focused on the US elections.

Peter Santo, the spokesman for the European Union, which had provided assistance to the demolished Palestinian community in Khirbet Humsah, condemned the action by Israel, while urging it to halt all such demolitions, particularly in the face of the threat from COVID-19. Santo also pointed out that 52 Palestinian schools are currently slated for demolition, denying the right of children to an education.

The EU’s statements of regret over Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian population and laments that they impede the already stone-dead “two-state solution” are never translated into any action.

Unsurprisingly, Washington, in the throes of an unprecedented election crisis, said nothing about the latest Israeli war crime. The Trump administration, in any case, has declared its support for Israel’s settlement policy, while the Democrats and their presidential candidate Joe Biden have provided unstinting support for Israel.

According to data compiled by B’Tselem, more than 800 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have lost their homes to demolitions so far this year, more than half of them children. This number is higher than that for any full year since 2016. Israeli forces also demolished 301 Palestinian non-residential structures in the first ten months of this year, including humanitarian infrastructure such as water cisterns and electricity grids, denying the Palestinian population vitally needed resources to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The patent aim of this campaign of demolitions and destruction—justified in the name of building regulations and military necessity—is to make life for Palestinians unbearable so that Israel can seize more and more of their land.

The latest brutal destruction and eviction was carried out in what is designated as Area C under the 1993 Oslo Accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. It remains under Israel’s military control, as opposed to Areas A, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority, and B, which is administered jointly by the PA and Israel.

Area C, which occupies three-fifths of the West Bank, includes 135 settlements housing some 390,000 Israelis, along with 532 villages and communities that are home to 150,000 Palestinians. While Area C comprises a contiguous territory that includes virtually all of the West Bank’s natural resources, Areas A and B are made up of 165 separate pieces of land, divided by settlements, security roads and military checkpoints and virtually surrounded by Area C.

Palestinians in Area C are barred from building any homes or digging wells or erecting any other kind of infrastructure without securing military permits, which are almost invariably denied. According to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, less than 2 percent of permit applications were approved between 2009 and 2016.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had signaled earlier this year his intention of annexing the bulk of Area C, including the Jordan Valley, as part of a “Greater Israel” policy. To the extent that the Palestinian population would not be expelled from these territories, they would be subjected to apartheid-style oppression, backed by the “Nation State Law” enacted under Netanyahu, which establishes Jewish supremacy as the foundation of the state.

While Netanyahu formally agreed to postpone the annexation as part of the US-brokered “peace” deal with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (in reality a deal to solidify an anti-Iranian bloc in preparation for region-wide war), de facto annexation continues uninterruptedly.

With the prospect that Trump will be removed from the White House in January, there have been growing demands for Netanyahu to push ahead with annexation.

Yossi Dagan, the head of the Settlements Council in the northern West Bank, told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu must proceed to an immediate implementation of the Israeli annexation plan, “because with each passing day, things become more difficult.” Similarly, Knesset Member Bezalel Smotrich of the extreme right-wing Tkuma party said that if Trump loses the US elections, “we will have to pressure Netanyahu to implement and establish sovereignty before Joe Biden becomes president.”

These hysterical demands aside, there is no reason to believe that a Biden administration will do anything to hinder Israel’s annexation policy.

The Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly, which is dedicated to political and decolonization affairs, voted by an overwhelming majority Wednesday for a resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlement policy. Its resolution charged that Israel is guilty of “the transfer of nationals of the occupying Power into the occupied territories, the confiscation of land, the forced transfer of Palestinian civilians, including Bedouin families, the exploitation of natural resources, the fragmentation of territory and other actions against the Palestinian civilian population and the civilian population in the occupied Syrian Golan that are contrary to international law,” i.e., the Geneva Conventions, which were enacted in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany’s Nazi regime.

Global coronavirus death toll reaches daily record of over 9,000

Benjamin Mateus

While the world remained riveted to their social media devices and news channels waiting on any decisive results that would determine a hotly contested election in the United States between fascistic Donald Trump and his right-wing Democratic opponent Joe Biden, almost silently and inconspicuously the global death toll from COVID-19 reached a harrowing record daily figure of 9,057, shattering the previous high set on April 17.

By every prediction, this is only a prelude to a catastrophic health crisis that threatens to make the last 10 months of the pandemic appear as a dress rehearsal and mere child’s play. The ruling class remains indifferent to the plight of those who, after several days to weeks of struggling for their breath, have perished, their memory blotted out of existence.

Nurse performs a coronavirus test outside the Salt Lake County Health Department Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In the face of over 9,000 deaths, the Dow Jones soared 542 points on Thursday to close at 28,390, ensuring the best week since April when the policy of herd immunity was inaugurated with the opening of commerce and the drive back to work. Despite a record 113,000-plus COVID-19 cases Thursday, the Wall Street Journal hailed the drop in jobless benefits.

Meanwhile, Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, has pledged to keep interest rates at near-zero for at least three more years. Such developments hark back to the insistence by the White House that there would be no future lockdowns, emboldening the markets.

The Worldometer COVID-19 dashboard estimates total deaths to date attributable to COVID-19 at 1,238,375. The seven-day moving average has edged up to 7,110, exceeding the peak reached in mid-April with 7,047 deaths per day. With an astounding 3,916 deaths on Wednesday, Europe accounted for 43 percent of all the deaths in 24 hours, with infections spreading throughout the continent and eastward. The United States has consistently led in the death counts, now with over 1,000 daily.

The world is fast approaching 50 million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. With each passing month, the rate of daily cases has been climbing. There were 569,546 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, a single-day high. The seven-day moving average has risen from 400,000 cases per day to over 500,000 per day in less than two weeks. In other words, the rate of new cases will see 15 million added to the overall total each month. Yesterday saw more than 600,000 infections in just one day.

Health authorities have repeatedly been warning that the virus is highly contagious and deadly. If it is allowed to spread uncontained, hospitals will reach overcapacity, and intensive care facilities will quickly be overwhelmed. There is a direct correlation between the state of national health care systems and deaths from COVID-19.

As cases across Europe have exploded, nation after nation has been forced to reimpose some form of lockdown or restrictions in hopes of containing the transmission while sustaining commerce through half-measures such as curfews, restricted hours and the closing of bars and restaurants. The continent posted a single-day high of over 310,000 cases Wednesday.

Greece has joined the UK, France and Germany in imposing a three-week nationwide lockdown. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis admitted that without these restrictions, he feared the health system would rapidly collapse. Greece has seen an exponential rise in cases, now approaching 3,000 per day, a nearly tenfold increase from the same time a month ago. The country has the lowest intensive case unit (ICU) beds per capita in Europe.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has issued a nationwide overnight curfew and imposed tighter restrictions in regions where infections are surging and available hospital beds are running short. With a single-day high of 34,505 cases Wednesday, Italy had 428 deaths. The highest death count, on March 27, was 921.

With hospitals and ICUs reaching capacity, countries like Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK have attempted to introduce half-measures to check the population’s movement. Frustrations are mounting. Protesters in Spain clashed with police over the weekend against the restrictions. Health Minister Roberto Speranza, a proponent of a national lockdown, said, “The epidemiologic curve is still very high. What worries me is the absolute figure, which shows a terrifying curve. Either we bend it, or we are in trouble.”

In France, students and teachers are organizing strikes protesting Macron’s policy to keep schools open, which places them in danger from the ever-prevalent virus. France saw close to 60,000 new cases, with 363 deaths reported Wednesday. Despite having increased its ICU capacity by 25 percent, Germany fears that its ability will hit a watershed moment in December. France and Switzerland fear this moment will come sooner, over the next two weeks. With Europe’s worst COVID-19 infection rate of 1,735 cases per 100,000, Belgium’s hospital system is at the breaking point.

Even Sweden has changed its tune by imposing new restrictions, as cases have suddenly climbed. The government has forecasted that the winter will be brutal and grim. Stefan Lofven, Sweden’s prime minister, told reporters on Tuesday, “How we act now will determine what kind of Christmas we will be able to celebrate, and who will be able to take part.” Even their state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, has had to profess that “overall, the development is moving in the wrong direction in many different ways.”

The situation is most dire in the United States, with deaths approaching a quarter million before this month’s end and every effort being made by the political establishment to oppose any form of lockdown to contain the pandemic.

Meanwhile, field hospitals have been opened again in Wisconsin and Texas as hospitals have reached breaking points. Texas is the first state to surpass 1 million COVID-19 cases. Though much has been said about the virus driving deeper into rural communities, it is reemerging in the densely populated Northeast. Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut have seen record cases. By December, projections show that the US death rate will climb to 1,700 per day.

Hospitals are turning to short-term traveling nurses to fill in vacancies. Many clinical staff are quitting, burnt out by months of difficult and emotionally wrecking work. Rural regions suffering from a chronic shortage of medical staff face catastrophe as hospitals are going into financial insolvency. Many of their patients, in critical condition, are being transferred to larger centers for intensive care, creating gridlock within the health care infrastructure, adding a new level of chaos to the national response.