World coronavirus cases to soar past 50 million

Bryan Dyne

On Saturday, the number of confirmed global cases of the coronavirus pandemic will rocket past the grim milestone of 50 million. One in every 156 people on the planet have so far caught the disease, with no end in sight. Of those who contracted it, more than 1.2 million have lost their lives to the deadly contagion, including more 9,000 Friday alone.

It was barely two months ago that the world witnessed its 25 millionth case, on August 28. Daily new cases regularly exceed 500,000 and are well on their way to three-quarters of a million. New deaths have exceeded their April highs despite the advances made in treating COVID-19 these past 10 months, a further indication of how entrenched the pandemic has become.

Healthcare workers move a COVID-19 patient to the Motol hospital in Prague, Czech Republic, November 6, 2020 [Credit: AP Photo/Petr David Josek]

Such figures are only a prelude of what is to come. If these trends are allowed to continue, there may be 100 million cases by the end of the year, surging at a rate of 1 million cases each day. As Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently told the Washington Post, “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.”

One of the sharpest dangers is that hospitals become too overwhelmed to treat all of their patients, such as in El Paso, Texas and in various locations across Europe. As was witnessed in Wuhan, China, Lombardy, Italy and, to a lesser extent, New York City in the early days of the pandemic, the death rate skyrockets when there are not enough supplies and medical personnel to properly treat every patient. While the rate of new deaths to new cases is currently at just above 1 percent, it is possible and likely for that number to spike if the coronavirus continues its essentially uncontrolled spread.

The United States alone has recorded more than 10 million instances of infection, along with 242,000 deaths. The state of Texas surpassed the 1 million mark on Friday, placing it after the nation of Colombia as the tenth most infected region in the world. It is closely followed by California, which has more than 960,000 cases. Combined they have more than 37,000 deaths, more than all but eight other countries (excluding the US as a whole).

Amid such calamitous numbers in the US and internationally, President Donald Trump’s fascistic former adviser Steve Bannon called for Dr. Fauci’s beheading. During his podcast Thursday, which has since been taken down by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, Bannon declared that Trump should start his second term, “firing Wray, firing Fauci” (Wray, referring to FBI Director Christopher Wray).

President Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon leaves federal court, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, after pleading not guilty to charges that he ripped off donors to an online fundraising scheme to build a southern border wall. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

He continued, in openly medieval fashion, “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put their heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the program or you’re gone.”

Fauci is widely recognized as one of the foremost authorities on infectious diseases, who rose to national prominence in the 1980s for his work combating the HIV/AIDS outbreaks in the United States. He has come under increasingly right-wing attacks over the past several weeks over his criticisms of Trump’s policy, or rather lack thereof, in handling the pandemic in the lead up to the recent and as of yet still undecided presidential election.

In particular, Fauci recently advocated for a nationwide mask mandate in the face of surging cases. At the time, there were 8.8 million cases in the US, more than 1 million less than now. This sparked another round of calls by right-wing figures such as Alex Jones to “fire Fauci” on Twitter and at Trump’s in-person rallies. Trump himself has called Fauci a “disaster” and other leading medical officials “idiots” for suggesting even basic measures to combat and contain the deadly pandemic.

The necessity of both basic and far-reaching actions to end the ongoing surge in coronavirus infections was highlighted in a recent study published in the Lancet, showing that the rate at which the disease spreads increases by an average of 24 percent when schools reopen. The research, led by You Li at the University of Edinburgh, also noted that the only other increase more significant occurred after bans on in-person gatherings, including in workplaces, were lifted.

The study used reopening data from 131 countries, including the United States and several countries in Western Europe. They found that “following the relaxation of school closure, bans on public events, bans on public gatherings of more than ten people, requirements to stay at home, and internal movement limits,” new cases increased consistent with models of how the coronavirus spreads when there are no such restrictions, peaking four weeks after restrictions are lifted. While they did not comment on the rate of deaths in the wake of rising cases, that is known to rise two to four weeks after infections increase.

Conversely, the researchers found that broad restrictions on mobility, including banning public events, closing down workplaces, shutting down schools and general stay-at-home orders reduced COVID-19 transmission by an average of 52 percent within four weeks. The reduction in transmission is even more pronounced when combined with other public health measures, including robust coronavirus testing, contact tracing and any necessary isolation of infected individuals.

A further threat from the pandemic was highlighted in Denmark this past week. Danish health authorities reported 12 people infected by a mutated strain of coronavirus that came from the country’s 17 million-strong mink population. In response, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen ordered all mink killed in an effort to stop the spread of a new strain of the pandemic virus.

“Due to the discovery of a mutated infection in mink, which weakens the ability to form antibodies, resolute action is needed,” Frederiksen said on Wednesday. She continued, “The mutated virus carries the risk that a future vaccine will not work as it should.” These comments were echoed by Kaare Molbak, Denmark’s top epidemiologist, who warned that in the “worst-case scenario, the pandemic will restart, this time in Denmark.”

That such a possibility is even posed speaks to the inability of the current social order to deal with the pandemic. It is an unanswerable indictment of capitalism that the worst outbreaks of the pandemic have occurred in the most “advanced” capitalist countries, supposedly with the most resources to fight the disease. Instead, their ruling elites have closed ranks to protect the profits of banks and corporations, not human lives. Such actions make clear that the solution to the coronavirus pandemic will not merely be medical and scientific but political as the working class fights to overthrow this outmoded and disastrous system and replace it with socialism.

More than just James Bond: Sean Connery (1930-2020)

Paul Bond

The Scottish actor Sean Connery died in the Bahamas October 31 at the age of 90. He had been unwell for some time.

There was more to him than James Bond, but Connery will forever be identified with the spy. Connery cannot be held responsible for the Bond phenomenon, but the film franchise’s initial success and subsequent durability owes much to the actor. Strikingly attractive and hard-edged, Connery’s suave and imposing presence gave the character much of its authority. He chafed against overidentification with Bond, but the role continued to define him throughout his lengthy career.

Connery was notably blunt and hard-nosed, qualities which owed much to his working-class background. Born in Edinburgh, the son of Effie, a cleaner, and Joseph, a lorry driver and factory worker, he left school at 14, and took a job at a local milk co-operative. After three years he joined the navy.

Invalided out of the navy in 1949, aged 19, he returned to the co-op, then worked a round of manual jobs, driving lorries and labouring on building sites. He later said there was “nothing special about being an actor. It’s a job like being a bricklayer.”

Connery was also training with a former army gym instructor and competing in bodybuilding contests. A tall man, 6’2”, he acquired a reputation as a tough individual who refused to be cowed by local thugs.

The serious attitude to his impressive physique led to him modelling at the Edinburgh College of Art, where artist Richard Demarco described him as “a virtual Adonis.”

He went to London in 1953 for a bodybuilding competition. Learning that there were parts available, he joined the chorus line in a production of South Pacific. A year later he was playing the role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams.

Encouraged by American actor Robert Henderson, Connery educated himself in the theatrical classics, reading Shakespeare, Ibsen and Shaw. He also took elocution lessons to refine his accent into what would become one of cinema’s most distinctive voices.

Connery quickly started to get work. It is hardly surprising that this tall, muscular man with a regional accent found work playing gangsters, in films like Hell Drivers (Cy Endfield, 1957) and Frightened City (John Lemont, 1961), but there were also signs of the positive impact of his self-education.

British television’s production of serious drama throughout the 1960s, both in new writing and classical productions, encouraged Connery’s scope as an actor. He appeared in substantial work by John Millington Synge, Jean Anouilh, Arthur Miller (John Proctor in The Crucible), and Leo Tolstoy (Vronsky in Anna Karenina). There were also forays into Shakespeare, playing Macbeth for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation production, and, most successfully, playing Hotspur in the BBC’s cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays.

What changed everything, for better or worse, was getting the part of Bond in the first picture based on Ian Fleming’s novels, Dr No (Terence Young, 1962), which also featured Ursula Andress.

Connery’s working-class muscularity and bluntness were not the sophisticated ruling-class hero envisaged by Fleming, who was playing out his Cold War chauvinist and triumphalist fantasies and thinking ideally of David Niven: “I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stuntman.”

Producer Albert R. Broccoli saw Connery’s physicality as key. “I wanted a ballsy guy… Put a bit of veneer over that tough Scottish hide and you’ve got Fleming’s Bond.” Young took responsibility for that veneer, with actress Lois Maxwell saying the director “took [Connery] to dinner, showed him how to walk, how to talk, even how to eat.”

Sean Connery in Dr. No (1962)

Dr No was a popular success, although critical reactions were not so enthusiastic. Director François Truffaut, for example, thought the film “marked the beginning of the period of decadence in cinema… For the first time throughout the world, mass audiences were exposed to a type of cinema that relates neither to life nor to any romantic tradition but only to other films and always by sending them up.”

That became more pronounced as the series progressed, building on what Connery had brought to the role. Connery made the first five Bond films— From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) being the others—but they were becoming increasingly formulaic and repetitive.

Connery found the attentions of overnight superstardom unwelcome, and was reluctant to accept the stereotyping, as his non-Bond work during this period indicates. Among the more interesting pieces were Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964), one of the director’s better late films (Truffaut described it as “the last picture to reveal Hitchcock’s deepest emotions”), and The Hill (1965), the first of five films with Sidney Lumet. In The Hill, Connery played a mutinous inmate of a brutal British military prison camp in wartime north Africa.

Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery in Marnie (1964)

The other four Lumet-Connery collaborations were The Anderson Tapes (1971), The Offence (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Family Business (1989). A commentator at Film Stories recently asserted that “Lumet fulfilled Connery’s desire to be challenged and treated seriously as an actor. In return, Connery afforded Lumet creative freedom from financiers by putting his star power behind his projects, even if their commercial prospects were mixed.”

Woman of Straw (Basil Dearden, 1964) and A Fine Madness (Irvin Kershner, 1966) were also worthwhile efforts featuring Connery in the 1960s.

There was also evidence of a rebellious—or at least critical—streak in the actor. In 1967 he made his only directorial venture, a documentary on attempts to introduce new managerial practices on the Clydeside shipyards. In Martin Ritt’s The Molly Maguires (1970) he played an Irish immigrant miner in Pennsylvania taking retaliatory action against the exploitative coal company.

Richard Harris and Sean Connery in The Molly Maguires (1970)

That film’s box office failure was one factor in Connery’s agreement to return as Bond when Peter R. Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) was unable to prevent the franchise’s developing trend towards gimmicky flash. Diamonds Are Forever (Guy Hamilton, 1971) marks a further decline towards the lightweight nonsense of the later films, but Connery had already stamped his mark. Critic Roger Ebert said “Basically, you have Connery, and then you have all the rest.”

Connery, however, demonstrated his independence, if not any critical acumen. He was given upfront a US $1 million fee, which he donated to an educational charity he had established to help deprived Scottish children, paid a weekly salary of US $10,000 and given a promise of financing for two films of his choice.

One was Lumet’s The Offence (1973), although its box office failure meant no second film was made. Here he played a brutal policeman undergoing a nervous breakdown after a suspect dies from a police beating.

Connery had some depth, and sometimes seemed fascinated by the psychological and emotional impact of violence. This is not always healthy. In 1964 Connery’s then wife Diane Cilento encouraged him to visit controversial psychologist R.D. Laing in an effort to deal with the demands of his stardom. Laing’s session involved giving Connery a tab of LSD and trying to probe childhood traumas.

Cilento later said she thought that “with his enormous reserves and physical armouring, Sean resisted the drug,” but he was deeply affected by the session. Cilento claimed that Connery beat her on several occasions. He denied this strongly, although he also told interviewers he thought it was acceptable to slap a woman to “keep her in line.”

This provocative and backward remark has occasioned numerous media denunciations following his death: “Don't canonise Sean Connery–he was a coward and a bully,” “Have we all forgotten the dark side of Sean Connery?” Connery is not around to defend himself, but even if it happened that he was not always a pleasant person and could even be a “bully,” this does not justify the Independent’s stupid, self-serving column, “Johnny Depp, Sean Connery, Oscar Pistorius—why our attachment to ‘brilliant’ men is so dangerous for women.” The article, in the #MeToo vein, irresponsibly amalgamates Pistorius, who shot his girlfriend four times, with Depp, embroiled in bitter court battles with his former wife, Amber Heard, and Connery.

Whatever Connery’s failings, as an artist he deserves to be judged by artistic standards.

In any event, leaving Bond behind did allow Connery to take more mature roles. Connery made some genuinely valuable films in this period, including John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975) alongside Michael Caine, and Robin and Marian (Richard Lester, 1976) as an aging Robin Hood renewing his love for Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn). Visually arresting and deeply eccentric, John Boorman’s Zardoz (1974) is not a particularly good film, but compelling in some ways.

Sean Connery and Michael Caine in The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

After this, his film choices sometimes looked to be driven solely by mercenary calculations, as with his final return as Bond. The very title Never Say Never Again (Irvin Kershner, 1983) seemed an astutely cynical comment on his decision.

These films only sometimes paid off for the viewer, although Connery was usually worth watching. He was well cast as Major General Roy Urquhart in Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977), his cameo in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits (1981) is charming and he lends pleasing authority (and uncertain Irish accent) to Brian de Palma’s The Untouchables (1987). There were interesting performances as the defecting Soviet submarine commander in The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990) and William de Baskerville in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s adaptation of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1986), amongst others.

Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in Robin and Marian (1976)

He finally decided to retire after the dreadful The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Stephen Norrington, 2003), which he called “a nightmare.” He later said he was “sick of the idiots now making films in Hollywood.”

All too often his resolute independence looked more like a purely business consideration. He had a reputation for hard bargaining, and a history of litigation against studios and former accountants. There was something bitter and misanthropic at work here, as in his view “to get anywhere in life you have to be antisocial. Otherwise you’ll end up being devoured.”

In politics he gave this commercial hardness a romantic veneer, supporting Scottish independence and the pro-business Scottish National Party (SNP). Notwithstanding the SNP’s ostensible republicanism, Connery accepted a knighthood in 2000.

Australia’s first “foreign interference” arrest targets Liberal Party figure accused of links to China

Mike Head

This week, a prominent Vietnamese-Chinese member of Australia’s ruling Liberal Party became the first person to be charged under the “foreign interference” laws, introduced in 2018 as part of the intensifying US-led confrontation against China.

In a Melbourne magistrate’s court on Thursday, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) charged 65-year-old Duong Di Sanh, also known as Sunny Duong, on the vague charge of “preparing to commit foreign interference.” Duong, a former Liberal Party election candidate, could face 10 years in prison as a result, although he was released on bail until his next court appearance in March.

Duong Di Sanh [Credit: ABC News]

The AFP issued a brief statement declaring that the charge followed a year-long joint investigation with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). No details whatever were provided, nor was China named as the alleged source of the supposed foreign interference.

Nevertheless, all the circumstances point to a high-level decision, by the US-linked security agencies, to step up the official and media accusations against China, amid rising trade tensions fueled by the US conflict with China. By targeting a prominent figure within the Liberal-National Coalition of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the arrest also sends a threatening message to anyone, even within the political elite, who does not line up sufficiently with Washington.

Duong’s prosecution is regarded by the corporate media, in both Australia and the United States, as a test case for the “anti-influence” legislation, which Washington sees as a model for its drive to economically and militarily prevent China from challenging the post-World War II hegemony of the US, across the Asia-Pacific and globally.

The Melbourne Age reported: “The arrest will have international reverberations, after other countries have eagerly awaited to see how Australian authorities would prosecute the nation’s foreign interference laws passed in 2018.”

Despite the arrest occurring amid the political crisis in the United States, triggered by the presidential election, key US media outlets closely followed the news. The New York Times, in particular, gave favourable coverage to Duong’s arrest, saying it “follows a breakdown in the relationship between China and Australia.”

The New York Times claimed to be well informed about the arrest, saying it related to alleged attempted influence of a federal government minister. Citing an anonymous source, it reported: “A person familiar with the details of those raids said the police were investigating whether Mr. Duong had sought to influence the acting federal immigration minister, Alan Tudge, and whether the conduct was on behalf of or in collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Duong, a business owner, is a high-profile member of the Southeast Asian Chinese community in the state of Victoria. He is the deputy chairperson of the Museum of Chinese Australian History in Melbourne, and president of the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos Inc.

Duong has long been publicly identified with the Liberal Party, and stood as the party’s candidate for the inner-Melbourne electorate of Richmond in a state election in 1996. He wrote in an autobiography last year, that he had been a member of the party since 1992 and had helped establish a local branch, of which he had been chairman.

Duong’s most recent public appearance was in June. He stood next to Acting Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Minister Tudge at a media conference, where Duong handed over a cheque for more than $37,000 to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to help with coronavirus research and preparation.

In front of reporters and cameras, Tudge said at the event: “I would give you a big hug, but I’m not allowed to in these pandemic days, Sunny.” Tudge continued: “I want to say a very big thank you to you directly, Sunny Duong and your organisation.”

Whether or not Duong’s supposed connection to Tudge is the alleged offence, it is clear that any and all such relations are now under close surveillance by the AFP and ASIO—Australia’s political spy agency—and their US counterparts.

AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw recently revealed, for the first time, that a 65-strong specialist AFP unit, established last December to counter “foreign interference,” has been trained by officials from the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

Little is being said by the AFP, the Morrison government or the media about Duong’s arrest, although it is part of an anti-China witchhunt.

Last month, ASIO’s annual report declared that Australia was under threat from “espionage and foreign interference.” Without providing any evidence, or naming China, it claimed it had foiled a far-reaching operation by a foreign intelligence service.

In its statement on Duong’s arrest, the AFP used similar language. “Foreign interference is contrary to Australia’s national interest, it goes to the heart of our democracy,” it said. “It is corrupting and deceptive, and goes beyond routine diplomatic influence practiced by governments.”

These assertions serve also to blacken Duong’s name, and prejudice his chances of a fair trial, despite the lack of any information about the allegations against him. Moreover, according to the police, his alleged conduct was only “preparatory.” AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said: “The CFI [Counter Foreign Interference] Taskforce has taken preventative action to disrupt this individual at an early stage.”

McCartney’s comment underscores how far the foreign interference laws can extend into so-called “early stage” conduct. Offences such as “preparing,” “attempting” and “conspiring” can be used to incriminate people for supposedly intending to do something, not for any actual activities or links to “foreign” entities.

As the WSWS has documented and explained, the “foreign interference” laws do not only target China and its alleged local sympathisers. They can be used to outlaw political opposition, anti-war dissent and social protests by alleging that these are connected to “foreign” or international campaigns.

For the first time, criminal offences, which carry up to 20 years’ imprisonment, now apply to simply undertaking political activity in partnership with an overseas organisation. The outlawed activities could extend to anyone opposing Australian involvement in a US-led military conflict with China.

The aggressive police methods used against Duong—despite his long-time establishment credentials—are also a warning of the type of police-state measures that can and will be used against targeted opponents of the US-led war drive.

The AFP said it had raided several Melbourne properties in relation to the alleged offences on October 16. Huong’s neighbours told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that police were at his house for seven hours on that day. They said multiple AFP cars and officers descended on the house, at around 7am.

“At least 12 officers minimum went in,” they said. “They came in with equipment for asking questions, they were checking computers, coming and going for hours.” On the day of Duong’s arrest last Thursday, two police cars and a number of officers spent around one hour at the house.

Similar AFP-ASIO raids were conducted against the home and parliamentary office of New South Wales state Labor Party parliamentarian Shaoquett Moselmane in June, accompanied by lurid media headlines accusing him of being a Chinese Communist Party agent.

Labor’s state and federal leadership immediately supported the raids and forced Moselmane to take indefinite leave from parliament. Yet no charges have been laid. The only publicly-released evidence against Moselmane was that he had visited China, and had made statements praising the Chinese response to the coronavirus, and criticising US provocations targeting Beijing.

It later emerged that this ongoing AFP investigation is aimed at John Zhang, who worked as a part-time staffer in Moselmane’s office. This is also on the basis of threadbare accusations of associations with Chinese community organisations, and membership of a private WeChat group with Moselmane. Zhang has launched a Supreme Court challenge, maintaining that the accusations against him are an attack on the implied right to freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution.

In September, it was belatedly revealed that, on the same day that Moselmane was raided, so were four journalists employed by Chinese state-media in Australia. Their laptops and devices were taken, reportedly in order to seize Chinese consular correspondence, in violation of international diplomatic law. The journalists felt compelled to leave Australia, a fact that was not reported by the corporate media until the Australian embassy in Beijing advised two Australian journalists to leave China.

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the Morrison government has ramped up its provocations against China, including by joining the US and Japan in sending warships close to Chinese-occupied islets in the South China Sea. But the Duong arrest is another signal that Washington is demanding much more, and wants to silence anyone, including within the Coalition and Labor parties, who is not unconditionally committed to taking a frontline role in the US preparations for a war against China. Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is in the White House, this US “interference” will only intensify.

Kosovo’s President Thaçi charged with war crimes

Peter Schwarz

Hashim Thaçi, who resigned this week as president of Kosovo, will appear before a special tribunal in The Hague on charges of war crimes. Together with nine other defendants, he is accused of hundreds of murders as well as persecution and torture during the war with Serbia between 1998 and 1999.

The prosecutor’s charges, which were presented in June, were confirmed this week by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office. Thaçi, whose regime is dependent on the Western powers for financial and military support, responded by resigning his post. He rejected all accusations and denounced the prosecution, but declared his willingness to appear in court.

Hashim Thaçi [Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

The remarkable thing is not that Thaçi is being taken to court, but that it is only happening now. It has been long known that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which counted Thaçi as one of its leaders, was involved in political murders, ethnic cleansing and mafia-style criminality. Thaçi’s subsequent political career was also accompanied by criminal activities. But he enjoyed the support of the United States and European powers because he supported their efforts to subordinate the Balkans to their imperialist interests.

Therefore, along with Thaçi and his KLA accomplices, the Western politicians who used and promoted him also deserve to be in the dock. First place among these are Joschka Fischer and Madeleine Albright, the German foreign minister and US secretary of state at the time of the war, respectively. They also include presumptive president elect Joseph Biden, who praised Thaçi during a 2010 visit to the White House as the “George Washington of Kosovo.”

During the 1990s, the KLA, which organised attacks from exile on Serbian military units and police stations in Kosovo, was designated by the CIA as a terrorist organisation. But this rapidly changed when the US and Germany needed a pretext to attack Serbia, which was an obstacle to their drive to fully carve up Yugoslavia and subordinate the Balkans to their interests.

Thaçi, the political spokesperson of the KLA, was invited by Fischer and Albright in February 1998 to the Rambouillet talks as Kosovo’s representative. The conference issued an unacceptable ultimatum that served as the pretext for the bombardment of Yugoslavia. The KLA emerged as NATO’s official foot soldiers in the war against Yugoslavia and it was in this function that the crimes were committed for which Thaçi is now being held responsible.

After the violent partition of Kosovo from Serbia, several political parties emerged from the KLA. Thaçi became the dominant political figure in Kosovo: he served as foreign minister, prime minister on several occasions, and president from 2016. Under the protection of the United Nations’ UNIMIK mission, Thaçi and other former KLA commanders continued the forced displacement of Serbs, Roma and other minorities, spreading fear and terror. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia with US and German support.

All attempts to uncover the KLA’s war crimes failed. Anyone who dared to testify paid with their life. Inexplicable car accidents, alleged suicides and deadly shootings were the result.

Ramush Haradinaj, a former KLA leader, was brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in 2005, when he was prime minister of Kosovo. He was charged with 37 war crimes, including crimes against humanity, murder and rape. But he was cleared of all charges in 2008 due to a lack of evidence, by which time only one of the original 10 witnesses was still alive. The final witness agreed to withdraw his testimony after narrowly surviving an attack.

Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia between 1999 and 2007, wrote in her memoirs published in 2008, “Witnesses were so afraid and intimidated that they even feared to talk about the presence of the KLA in certain areas, never mind actual crimes. … Those who wanted to testify had to be brought with their entire family to other countries, and many states were not prepared to accept them.” Even members of NATO’s Kfor force and judges at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague feared for their lives.

Del Ponte also reported the suspicion that the KLA kidnapped 300 Serbians in 1999 and removed their organs for sale, which the International Red Cross first heard about in 2000. Although sufficient evidence was available, an investigation by the International Criminal Court was “snuffed out.”

In April 2009, the BBC broadcast a documentary in which several witnesses spoke about the KLA’s bestial crimes, including the removal and trading of prisoners’ organs. The author, Michael Montgomery, had been researching the whereabouts of thousands of Albanians, Serbians and Roma who had disappeared in Kosovo without a trace and stumbled across unspeakable crimes.

In response to Del Ponte’s book, the European Council commissioned European Council deputy Dick Marty to conduct a two-year investigation. Marty’s report appeared in 2010. He described Kosovo as a country with “Mafia-like structures of organised crime” and accused former KLA leaders as well as Thaçi, who was prime minister at the time, of leading a criminal network involved in contract killings, drug dealing, prostitution and the illegal trade in organs.

The American jurist John C. Williamson, who jointly authored the charge sheet against former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and was appointed as a special investigator by the European Union, came to the conclusion after a review lasting more than two years that the Marty report was based on solid evidence and would justify criminal proceedings. But nothing of the sort occurred and Thaçi was elected president in 2016.

However, one year earlier, Kosovo’s parliament decided under international pressure to establish a special tribunal financed by the EU. It is formally part of Kosovo’s judicial system but is based in the Netherlands and staffed by foreign judges and prosecutors.

The Europeans’ pursuit of Thaçi is bound up with mounting tensions between Europe and the United States. The charges were announced just a few days before a scheduled summit between Thaçi and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksander Vuči in Washington. The meeting was subsequently cancelled. Prior to this, Thaçi said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the US role was “indispensable” and criticised the EU. The Americans are showing “once again that they can act more quickly, accurately, and efficiently than the Europeans,” he added.

Even if Thaçi is convicted by the court, the EU will do everything it can to suppress the role of the NATO powers in the KLA’s war crimes. Given that the court cannot conduct its own investigations, it is dependent on witness testimony. In late September, internal court documents containing the secret names of witnesses appeared at the KLA veterans association in Pristina. They must now fear for their lives and those of their loved ones if they go ahead with their testimony.

Protests in Inner Mongolia over Chinese government language policy

Jerry Zhang

Protests have been underway in recent months in Inner Mongolia over the Chinese government’s new education policy, which mandates a transition to the use of the “national common language,” that is, Mandarin Chinese, in local schools that teach in the Mongolian language. The new policy, which commenced at the beginning of the new semester in September, has provoked considerable dissatisfaction in what is an autonomous region of China.

Map showing Inner Mongolia highlighted in red [Credit: Amicus.com]

On August 26, the Inner Mongolia Education Bureau issued anotice requesting that some subjects in elementary and middle schools (at present Chinese, politics, and history) be taught in Mandarin Chinese using Chinese textbooks. According to official reports, this policy was formulated in accordance with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s instructions that “minorities should learn the national common language.”

On August 31, a protest broke out in Tongliao City. The police responded with a notice stating that more than 100 participants were wanted, and warning that all crowds gathering in public places would be thoroughly investigated. The Associated Press quoted a participant as saying that similar protests occurred in many cities in Inner Mongolia. Citing other participants, Agence France-Presse reported that demonstrations of more than 10,000 people took place in some cities, making it the largest protest movement in the region since 2011.

Videos show students and parents taking part in school strikes. Some clashed with the police and guards. According to the BBC, a school with more than 1,000 students had less than ten students left in class. More recently, local governments and education bureaus in Inner Mongolia issued notices calling on students to return to school. The government reportedly is trying to force students on strike to return to school, including by threats and arrests.

Inner Mongolia is not a special case. Previously, similar policies have been implemented in Tibet and Xinjiang. After the change in Inner Mongolia, other regions have promulgated the same policy. Starting this year, all high school freshmen across the country are obligated to use Chinese textbooks, and minority schools are required to teach in Chinese, generating hostility among other ethnic minorities.

The Chinese Communist Party regime in Beijing is certainly riding roughshod over the democratic rights of ethnic majorities, further tightening longstanding policies that paid lip service to their cultural sensitivities. Since the restoration of capitalism in the 1980s, the government has increasingly relied on whipping up Chinese nationalism to divide the working class and consolidate its shaky social foundation. Like other capitalist regimes, China is being hit hard by the global capitalist crisis, leading to mounting unemployment and deteriorating wages and conditions, and brewing opposition among Chinese workers and youth.

Ethnic minorities are commonly found in economically underdeveloped areas. An influx of investment is often accompanied by the immigration of large numbers of Han Chinese workers, aggravating unemployment and the relative poverty of local ethnic minorities. Incapable of providing any progressive response to the discontent, the Stalinist CCP is resorting to police-state measures and the promotion of Han Chinese chauvinism. This only deepens the divide and plays into the hands of separatist tendencies among ethnic minorities, as well as US imperialism.

Just as it has latched onto “human rights” in Tibet and among the Uighur population in Xinjiang, so Washington has sought to exploit discontent in Inner Mongolia. The CCP regime, in turn, seizes on the activities of the US to justify its own crackdown, attributing all protests and opposition to “incitement by foreign forces,” and ignoring the genuine grievances among ethnic minorities over the trampling of their democratic rights.

While “human rights” in Inner Mongolia is not, as yet, as central to American propaganda as in Xinjiang for instance, the US media has seized on the protests. The reports frequently quote the dubious Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, which is based in New York. Its official webpage notes that it has been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is notorious as a front for the CIA and US State Department. The NED is closely involved with exile Tibetan and Uighur organisations, as a means of promoting separatist groups inside China.

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center founder, Enghebatu Togochog, who is proclaimed in the Western media as “a representative figure,” accuses the Chinese government, without substantiation, of a “genocidal policy.” Since July, the organisation has given interviews to the right-wing, anti-communist journal Bitter Winter, which is notorious for its anti-Chinese propaganda and promotion of separatism.

As early as 2016, an organization calling itself the Southern Mongolian Congress was formed in Japan. In the same year, it participated in a leadership meeting sponsored by the Chinese exile and separatist groups in Dharamsala, India—the base of the so-called Tibetan government in exile. The Southern Mongolian Congress claims to be an organisation of independent activists and political parties, but it is a mouthpiece for US propaganda and has promoted rallies around the world to highlight the protests inside Inner Mongolia.

The use of the term “southern Mongolian” is significant. It is based on the idea that Inner Mongolia should separate from China and integrate into the existing country of Mongolia. The promotion of Mongolian nationalism does not serve the interests of the working people of Inner Mongolia or Mongolia but the ambitions of a small capitalist elite that seeks the “right” to exploit its own working class.

The efforts of these “Southern Mongolian” organisations also serve the strategic interests of US imperialism, which cynically and selectively exploits “human rights,” in this case to undermine the Chinese regime. For more than a decade, under presidents Obama and Trump, the US has recklessly ratcheted up its economic and military confrontation with China, seeking to prevent it from threatening American global hegemony. Its promotion of separatist organisations in Tibet, Xinjiang and now Inner Mongolia—all crucial strategic areas—is clearly aimed at weakening and ultimately fragmenting its rival.

At the same time, Washington is developing closer ties with Mongolia—on China’s sensitive northern border. In July last year, the Trump administration invited the president of Mongolia, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, to the US. In a bid to undermine China’s near monopoly of the world’s supply of rare earths, the US has signed an agreement for large investments in mining in Mongolia, which has rich reserves of rare earths. After the visit, the White House said the US and Mongolia shared a close security partnership, and reported that Mongolia has pledged to commit troops in Afghanistan, at least through 2021, and has supported US sanctions on North Korea.

Just weeks later, Donald Trump Jr. made a trip to Mongolia, supposedly “in his own name.” This “personal trip” was warmly welcomed by the Mongolian government with President Battulga warmly receiving the US President’s son. Mongolia refers to the US as its “third neighbour,” as it relies on American economic and security support.

Significantly, the US media and political establishment is increasingly vocal and strident about the Chinese government’s “human rights” abuses of Uighurs, Tibetans and now Mongolians, but rarely even mentions the repressive measures being used to suppress the opposition of the Chinese working class as a whole. Washington is clearly fearful of any movement of workers in China, as this would threaten the profits and investments of major American corporations. For all its crocodile tears in 1989, over the brutal crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests—directed above all against Chinese workers—the US political establishment saw these “human rights” abuses as vital to its economic interests.

The only way that the democratic rights of ethnic minorities in China can be defended is precisely by turning to the working class in China and internationally—in opposition both to the CCP regime in Beijing, and to the intrigues of US imperialism and the separatist organisations that it promotes.

US jobless rates falls but long-term unemployment up sharply as millions remain out of work

Shannon Jones

The US unemployment rate fell to 6.9 percent in October, a one percentage point drop, even as the number of long term unemployed, those out of work 27 weeks or longer, increased by 1.2 million to 3.6 million.

More than seven months since the start of the pandemic, the economy has added only a little more than one half of the 22 million jobs that were initially lost. There were some 638,000 new jobs added in October, but that marks a decline in new jobs over previous months, indicating that the pace of the recovery is slowing. There were 672,000 new jobs in September, 1.5 million in August and 1.8 million in July.

While service industry jobs in areas like restaurants and retail trade rose in October, there was a sharp drop in government jobs as states and localities faced severe revenue and budget issues. Manufacturing gained just 38,000 jobs and is still down by 621,000 jobs since February. Health and social assistance added 79,000 jobs and is still down 950,000 since February. In another sign of distress, overall employment at small businesses is reported to be falling.

A store for rent sign hangs in the window of an empty storefront on Broadway in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan in New York [Credit: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer]

Reflecting the irrationality and anti-social character of the capitalist profit system, hospital employment is down nearly 2 percent since last year in the midst of the pandemic. It fell by nearly 4 percent between May and September. Employment at nursing and residential care fell by almost 88 percent in the same period.

At the same time, the labor force participation rate, a measure of the total population that is employed, rose only slightly, 0.3 percentage points, to 61.7 percent. The number of those working part time, rather than full time, rose 383,000, to 6.7 million. Total US output is down 3.5 percent since the end of last year.

As the pandemic resurges in the United States, setting new records for the number of daily new infections, job growth is sure to slow or reverse even without new lockdowns. Many of the new jobs being added have been restaurant or retail jobs, likely to be hammered as the winter season approaches and virus cases explode. While restaurant hiring represented one of the largest jobs gains last month, the end of outdoor dining throughout much of the country with the approach of the winter season could lead to more job cuts.

Adding to the hardship facing the unemployed or those on part time the US Congress has blocked the reinstatement of the $600 weekly supplemental that expired at the end of July or any aid to the unemployed or small business, with neither Republicans nor Democrats indicating any sense of urgency. Nor has Congress acted on an extension of the moratorium on evictions, set to expire at the end of the year.

At the same time, a $300 weekly supplement initiated by the Trump administration out of federal disaster relief funds has also been exhausted. Despite the rise in jobs, personal income in the third quarter fell $636.7 billion, or 13.2 percent, largely due to the ending of government social benefits.

There are indications that the Democrats will wait until the installation of a presumptive Biden administration in late January to consider any new relief measures.

There are still 21.5 million people collecting some form of government unemployment assistance compared to 1.44 million in a comparable week in 2019. Millions more have exhausted benefits and dropped out of the labor force and are not counted in official statistics. Some 54 million people are going hungry and millions more face evictions or utility shutoffs. Some 8 million have fallen into poverty since the start of the pandemic.

In Pennsylvania, tens of thousands face the threat of utility shutoffs as a statewide moratorium put into effect in March expired this week. According to data from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, the money owed to utility companies in the state has gone from $432 million last year to $721 million as of September.

The financial aristocracy has utilized the pandemic to leverage a massive increase in its wealth, shifting the entire cost of the economic disaster precipitated by the pandemic onto the shoulders of the working population.

The stock market has continued to rise, celebrating death amidst the upsurge of the pandemic. Consequently, the wealth of the 643 US billionaires continues to increase, having already risen $845 billion in the period mid-March through September.

Many of the jobs destroyed by the pandemic are likely to never return as companies use the crisis to engineer major restructurings. Even if job growth continues at the current pace, which is unlikely, it would take 16 more months for employment to reach pre-pandemic levels. The leisure and hospitality industry, including restaurants, travel and entertainment, is still down 3.5 million jobs. Retail trade is down about 500,000 and health care and social assistance is down 950,000 since February.

There is currently a greater jobs deficit, 11 million, than at the worst point of every previous postwar recession, including the Great Recession of 2008. New weekly claims for unemployment are still at four times the pre-pandemic level.

An economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Kate Bahn, told the Washington Post that the modest job gains in sectors that were vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic was a concern.

“These gains are really limited as the pandemic is surging and we’re heading into winter,” she said. “It’s better than expected, but there’s a lot of evidence that it’s still a limited recovery, that is really uneven and has exacerbated a lot of inequality that existed before the crisis.”

Gregory Daco, the chief economist at Oxford Economics warned in the Wall Street Journal that a full recovery is long in the making. “In normal times getting 600,000 jobs on a monthly basis would be great,” Daco said. “But in this environment, you’re still looking at a recovery that’s going to take a couple of years to get us back out of this hole. If job growth moderates further then we’re talking about three or four years, and that’s a very long time.”

According to the Conference Board, one in ten employers plan to cut jobs during the final quarter of 2020. Eleven percent said they plan to reduce bonuses, eight percent say they plan to defer bonuses or raises, and eleven percent plan to freeze hiring.

Almost one third of industries have reduced hours since the start of the pandemic. Mining and logging are the worst impacted, showing a 2-hour per week decline. Construction work hours fell by nearly one hour per week while durable goods, wholesale trade and manufacturing also showed declines.

FBI seizes internet domain names it claims are part of Iranian influence campaign

Kevin Reed

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized 27 domain names the agency claimed were used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for the purpose of a “global covert influence campaign.”

Notice posted by the Department of Justice on website domains that were seized by the FBI on November 4

The DoJ public affairs statement said, “all 27 domains were being used in violation of U.S. sanctions targeting both the Government of Iran and the IRGC.” It also said that four of the domains “purported to be genuine news outlets but were actually controlled by the IRGC and targeted audiences in the United States, to covertly influence United States policy and public opinion, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).”

The four domains specifically mentioned for violating FARA are “rpfront.com” (Real Progressive Front), “ahtribune.com” (American Herald Tribune), “awdnews.com” (Another Western Dawn News) and “criticalstudies.org” (Critical Studies) and each of these internet locations now hosts a graphic which displays the DoJ and FBI seals and a red headline that that states, “THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN SEIZED.” The latest seizures follow by less than one month an earlier seizure of 92 domains the FBI claimed were used by IRGC for similar purposes.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act is a US law passed in 1938 that requires agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a “political or quasi-political capacity,” to disclose their relationship and provide information about their activities and finances.

The DoJ statement says the FARA law establishes a “registration, reporting, and disclosure regime for agents … so that the U.S. government and the people of the United States are informed of the source of information and the identity of persons attempting to influence US public opinion, policy, and law.”

While the DoJ lists the domain names, it does not name the individuals who allegedly violated the FARA registration and reporting requirements. The statements says that the four domains, “purported to be independent news outlets, but they were actually operated by or on behalf of the IRGC to target the United States with pro-Iranian propaganda in an attempt to covertly influence the American people to change United States policy concerning Iran and the Middle East.”

However, other than the above assertions of “covert influence” and “pro-Iranian propaganda,” no detailed evidence or examples of these activities have been presented by the DoJ. Neither was any evidence presented that the domains were controlled by Iranian officials, the Tehran regime in or the IRGC.

The DoJ statement also says that the domains were in violation of the International Emergency and Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), which prohibit US persons from providing services to the Government of Iran without a license.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers revealed the geopolitical motivation behind the action when he explained the domain seizures were part of a broad initiative over the last month against, “Iran’s weapons, fuel, and covert influence infrastructure.” Speaking as a representative of US imperialism—the number one purveyor of foreign influence, information manipulation, torture and assassination in the world—Demers went on to accuse Iran of destabilizing the world “through state-sponsored terrorism and the taking of hostages.”

Significantly, FBI Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair said that the agencies aggressive actions against “foreign influence” and “unlawful spread of disinformation by hostile nations” was carried out with the collaboration of the leading social media platforms. Fair said, “Thanks to our ongoing collaboration with Google, Facebook and Twitter, the FBI was able to disrupt this Iranian propaganda campaign and we will continue to pursue any attempts by foreign actors to spread disinformation in our country.”

Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

The FBI’s warrant—provided as a PDF download by DoJ—was issued on election day November 3 and outlines the “probable cause” argument for the seizures. The 67-page affidavit submitted by Special Agent Aaron Stewart of the San Francisco Division of the FBI states that, “there is probable cause to believe that the Target Domains constitute property used, or intended to be used, to commit or facilitate violations” of several US laws “and are accordingly subject to seizure and forfeiture.”

The affidavit shows that the FBI worked with the cybersecurity firm FireEye and the social media companies to develop the justification for the seizure of the domains. The document contains some details of about the publishing activities by the four domains that were charged with violating FARA.

For example, the American Herald Tribune featured content on the US 2020 elections that “insinuates that particular candidates for U.S. President and U.S. Vice President were pro-Zionist; that mail-in voting could lead to violence; and that the U.S. election is susceptible to foreign interference.”

The affidavit goes on, “The FBI assesses that these articles constitute political activities, as defined by FARA, as they are designed to influence any section of the public within the United States with reference to formulating, adopting or changing the domestic or foreign policies of the United States, or with reference to the political or public interests, policies, or relations of Iran.” A description such as this would place a majority of US-based news sites on the FBI’s seizure list.

The US charges of Iranian ties to the American Herald Tribune have been developing going back to 2018 when Facebook, in collaboration with FireEye, removed the website’s page from its platform. Google also took down the Gmail and advertising accounts associated with the publication based on FireEye’s assessment “with moderate confidence” that the website was an Iranian operation.

Twitter removed the account of the publication last January after it was contacted by CNN Business based on information provided by “independent researcher and social media sleuth” Josh Russell—who is also a regular talking head on NBC, NPR and CNN—of links with Iran.

The FBI affidavit contains a direct reference, without mentioning the source by name, to the CNN Business report that “genuine journalists that have contributed to American Herald Tribune may be unwitting and unaware of the true nature and origins of the inauthentic news site.” However, the CNN Business report contains an interview with a journalist who wrote for the publication and “is a critic of American foreign policy and US ally Saudi Arabia. He says that Iran is ‘misunderstood’ in the US.”

The latest seizure of domain names is reminiscent of previous allegations of Russian and Iranian influence campaigns within the US that are devoid of any proof and assert that “foreign agents” are stoking unrest within the country which have been used to justify social media censorship. In this particular case, the actions of the DoJ and the FBI were taken on election day amidst an anticipated political crisis and potential for civil unrest within the US. This fact suggests that the seizure of domain names was something a trial balloon by the state apparatus to assert its ability to shut down all left-wing and socialist websites critical of US government policies.