COVID-19 death toll continues climbing in the Pacific

John Braddock

The Pacific territory of French Polynesia, including Tahiti, continues to see the number of people infected by COVID-19 escalate. As of December 10, confirmed cases had risen to 15,332. More than 5,000 new cases were recorded in the past month alone, with 210 in 24 hours to last Saturday.

Seven deaths in the last four days has brought the total number of fatalities since the pandemic began to 86. There are 62 people currently in hospital with 28 of them in intensive care. All but 62 cases occurred after borders were reopened in July and mandatory quarantine requirements abolished. The virus had been halted from late March with a lockdown and border closures.

On July 15, in a desperate bid to resurrect the moribund tourism industry and reignite the economy, President Edouard Fritch re-opened the territory to international visitors. Flights from Los Angeles recommenced with US residents and others able to enter without needing to quarantine. Over 28,000 tourists have entered since the border’s reopening, 90 percent from the US and France. The French government briefly put restrictions on travellers from France last month, but flights are being resumed next week.

The virus has spread from the urban areas of Tahiti to the outer islands of Bora Bora, Raiatea, Huahine and Hao. Fritch initially acknowledged that the pandemic had worsened in the US, and would do so in the territory as well, but claimed that if French Polynesia failed to open up the economic consequences would be “catastrophic.” He falsely predicted that case numbers would plateau at about 200.

With the health situation out of control, Fritch has continued to insist it would have been “irresponsible” to keep the borders shut, claiming 20,000 workers would have been condemned to unemployment. He absurdly told the assembly that from late May the territory was “COVID-19-prepared.”

The territory’s administration is consciously pursuing the criminal policy of “herd immunity” demanded internationally by business interests. In late October a curfew was called over a weekend in Tahiti and Moorea, but then shortened for people to return to work. A previous curfew in May was lifted after judges described it as an attack on “individual liberty” and declared it illegal.

Noting that the infection rate was twice that of mainland France, a trade union leader, Patrick Galenon, last month called for a lockdown to be re-imposed. However, the unions dropped empty threats of a general strike in September after Fritch flatly refused to re-establish quarantine requirements for incoming travelers. School attendance has remained compulsory, despite calls by teachers for tougher containment measures, and fruitless appeals by teacher unions.

United States territories in the north and west Pacific have also seen a surge of COVID-19 cases. Guam, which is the site of a major American military base, has experienced a high rate of infections since August and is one of the worst hit parts of the US and the Pacific. Guam’s total number of confirmed cases is around 7,000, with 113 deaths—significant for a population of only 165,000.

In November, over 1,700 people on Guam tested positive for the virus, almost 60 each day. So far this month, cases have reduced to less than half that number, prompting Governor Lou Leon Guerrero to declare the territory has started to “turn a corner.”

With the US federal administration in control of Guam’s borders however, local officials have been limited in what they can do. According to the co-chair for the Independent Guam organisation, Michael Luhan Bevacqua, Guam’s dependent status has undermined its response to the pandemic in some key ways. Bevacqua told Radio NZ the US military had a habit of “doing its own thing,” despite local guidelines.

In the Northern Marianas (CNMI), four arrivals this past week tested positive for COVID-19, taking the total number of cases to 113, including two deaths. Out of the 111 cases in the CNMI, 87 are from incoming passengers including 45 from the US mainland, 30 from Guam and 11 from other countries.

The CNMI has now gone 112 days without any community transmission. Health authorities are pinning their hopes on obtaining COVID-19 vaccines soon.

American Samoa is the only US Pacific jurisdiction that remains COVID free. The local governor recently denied entry to three US Air Force planes with 30 personnel on a mission to Antarctica. They were prevented from stopping overnight, and sent on to Auckland. Unlike many Pacific countries, including Samoa, repatriation flights for residents trapped overseas have not yet begun.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the region’s largest and most populous country, an ongoing political crisis has been pitched into fresh confusion after three government MPs tested positive for COVID-19.

Responding to an application by the opposition, the Supreme Court has ordered parliament to sit next Monday, paving the way for a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister James Marape. Parliament’s speaker, Job Pomat, had been advised by health officials that the parliament would only be safe to sit again if testing cleared a majority of MPs.

PNG’s total number of cases is now 645, including seven known deaths. Of the country’s 22 provinces, 16 have had confirmed cases of the virus. This includes 12 new cases from a significant cluster in West New Britain province with 42 infections. The country’s testing regime remains woefully inadequate—only 30,000 people have been tested from the population of over eight million.

Fiji has 11 active cases of COVID-19. Two sailors who arrived on a freighter recently from Tonga have tested positive, joining two Fijians who travelled from New Zealand a week earlier and are now in border quarantine. Twenty-five locals including staff from the Biosecurity Authority, the Ports Authority and Customs were all in quarantine.

Before the arrival of the pandemic, the region was already facing a health crisis with rampant diseases such as diabetes, a deadly measles outbreak, polio, malaria and tuberculosis. According to a UN report last week, over a dozen Pacific countries have seen an increase in HIV/AIDS. PNG, which has some of the world’s worst health indicators, has an estimated 52,000 HIV cases while Fiji experienced 117 deaths from AIDS over the past year alone.

Pacific islands’ public health systems are fragile and already at or near full capacity. They face being overwhelmed if COVID-19 cases become more widespread. A study published in the Lancet in September warned that efforts to combat endemic diseases could be derailed if COVID-19 measures are forced to be prioritised, thus dramatically increasing deaths across the region.

Meanwhile aid funding to health programs from the main local imperialist power, Australia, have been slashed in favour of infrastructure spending, in order to compete with growing Chinese investment. While Canberra’s overall aid to the Pacific has increased over five years, it has reduced dedicated health funding to the Cook Islands by 75 percent, Fiji by 22 percent, the Solomon Islands by 13 percent and Samoa by 36 percent.

European Central Bank increases stimulus but markets want more

Nick Beams

The European Central Bank has expanded its bond-buying program by €500 billion, taking it to a total of €1.85 trillion, extended emergency measures from June next year until at least March 2022, and provided further cheap funding for major banks.

But because the increase in the stimulus package was largely expected, financial markets are looking for more.

In her introductory press conference statement on Thursday, ECB President Christine Lagarde said the extension of its pandemic emergency purchase program (PEPP) reflected “the prolonged fallout from the pandemic for the economy and inflation.”

Incoming data and projections by ECB staff, she said, “suggest a more pronounced near-term impact of the pandemic on the economy and a more protracted weakness in inflation than previously envisaged.”

The ECB has forecast that the euro zone economy will contract by 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter of this year, with the downturn to continue next year. It has cut its forecast for growth in 2021 to 3.9 percent compared to its previous projection of 5 percent.

Lagarde said the outlook for inflation—a sign of rising economic activity—remained “disappointingly” low. The ECB forecast that prices would rise by just 0.2 percent this year with inflation increasing to 1.4 percent per annum in 2023—well below its target rate of around 2 percent.

Lagarde said weaker balance sheets and uncertainty about the economic outlook were “weighing on business investment.” Overall the risks to euro area growth remained “tilted to the downside,” but had become less pronounced.

The general reaction in financial circles to the policy announcements was that they were the product of a compromise between the different factions on the governing council, with German representatives favouring less stimulus.

A comment on Bloomberg described the ECB package as “an uneasy compromise between different factions. The problem is, it falls short of matching the central bank’s dire economic outlook.”

Describing Lagarde’s outlook as “gloomy,” it said the pessimistic view would “call for extremely bold measures,” but in “trying to make too many different parties happy, the ECB shied away from doing all it could.”

These sentiments were reflected in other comments. Randall Kroszner, a former US Federal Reserve governor, told the Financial Times: “I understand what they are trying to do—giving the markets more confidence—but I don’t think it will be enough and it is quite likely they will have to come back and do more.”

Frederik Ducrozet, a wealth management strategist, said the decisions were “underwhelming” and a sign of “compromise between dovish and hawkish members of the governing council.”

“We can’t help but feel like the ECB should have delivered a bolder package… to make sure that they don’t need to do more next year in case something goes wrong again,” he said.

The extent to which the endless pumping of money into the financial system has been accepted as the “new normal,” had tended to obscure the vast transformation in the global financial system and the ever-increasing role of the central banks in propping it up.

While yesterday’s ECB decision was generally regarded by financial markets as not enough, it did represent a one-third increase in the size of the PEPP with Lagarde indicating it could be expanded further if required.

The latest measures mean that the ECB will continue to absorb around three-quarters of all the new debt issued by euro zone governments next year. In remarks to the Wall Street Journal Jörg Krämer, the chief economist at the Frankfurt-based Commerzbank, said it was “carte blanche” for finance ministers.

“The ECB is likely to finance de facto the entire 2021 budget deficits of the euro countries,” he said.

In other words, the situation is developing where one arm of the capitalist state, the government, issues debt and another arm, the central bank, buys it. This situation has only previously existed in time of war.

It is expected that with the increased debt resulting from the effects of the pandemic, euro zone government debt will rise by €1.5 trillion, taking total debt to more than 100 percent of the size of the euro zone economy.

The central purpose of these extraordinary measures is not to provide a boost to the real economy, but to ensure the continued supply of ultra-cheap money into the financial markets.

They have become completely dependent on this inflow to finance the speculative boom which has seen some $30 trillion added to the market capitalisation of global stock markets since they plunged in mid-March before being rescued by massive government and central bank intervention.

The next indication of the direction of central bank policy will come when the US Federal Reserve holds its final meeting for the year. Markets will be looking for signs of how the Fed intends to continue its asset-purchasing program that has played such a central role in sending Wall Street to record heights.

Croatian government and EU intensify violence against refugees

Branko Krasnic

Croatia’s border with Bosnia and Herzegovina has become a place notorious for violence against migrants and asylum seekers for years now as part of the EU’s policy of fortress Europe. While the Croatian authorities have categorically denied that this is taking place, particularly at the hands of their own police force, an investigative report by Der Spiegel magazine has now detailed migrants’ horrific accounts of being brutalized in the area.

The report outlines sadistic beatings, torture involving electric shocks, simultaneous kicks to the body by multiple officers, among other things. It also makes clear that not only the refugees themselves fear repercussions, but so do other witnesses who help them. There is video footage of the immigrants’ ordeal from when a migrant hid his cellphone in his clothes. Der Spiegel and the media group Lighthouse Reports verified its authenticity. The officers filmed are wearing black balaclavas on their faces and cannot be identified.

The article in Der Spiegel focuses on the story of a young Pakistani migrant Ibrahim. He suffered a number of serious beatings while trying desperately to escape into Italy with many others who shared a similar fate. They dubbed the bloody process of trying to outmaneuver the men at the Croatian border “the Game.” Ibrahim has tried to accomplish this dangerous task dozens of times, before being able to escape to Slovenia, where he and the others waited to no avail for smugglers to take them the rest of the way. Days went by without food or drink before they surrendered to Slovenian authorities. The migrants asked for asylum, but they were instead taken back to the Croatian officials, who tortured them again.

Ibrahim later managed to make it to Italy, but the many months on the Croatian border devastated him. He still has headaches and problems with his knee, but the psychological damage is far greater.

After these barbaric acts of violence against defenseless migrants became public, the EU felt obliged to criticize the Croatian authorities. European Union commissioner Ylva Johansson has reportedly sent a letter to the Croatian Interior Ministry, in which she pressed it to investigate the allegations made by the migrants. She added publicly that “the violence at the border cannot continue” and that “this will not help Croatia in its efforts to join the Schengen area.”

This is just hypocrisy. As much as they continue to deny it publicly, the European ruling elite in Brussels, Berlin and elsewhere is directly responsible for not only the violence at the Croatian border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the countless migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. This is the true EU policy toward the refugee crisis. It is also their policy towards the working class as a whole.

Croatia, a member of the European Union since 2013, is a key country in the EU’s “fortress Europe” policy. The violence against refugees has been organized at the direct behest of the EU, which pays the Croatian security forces well for this inhumane service. “Over the years, Amnesty International and other organizations have documented numerous violations, including beatings and torture of migrants and asylum-seekers by Croatian police, whose salaries may have been paid for by EU funds,” the director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office Eve Geddie said.

The EU’s weak public attempts at feigning concern will only further embolden ruling circles in Zagreb to continue to give their border police a free reign to commit these violent acts. It is certainly meant to be understood that way as well. In other words, all parties involved know that there will be no real consequences for the Croatian government once the bad publicity from this story has died off.

While Croatia’s police chief and Interior Minister, the Social Democrat Ranko Ostojić, believes that retired officers currently part of the reserve are to blame for the so-called push backs, high-ranking officials of the Croatian government, such as Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman, continue to vehemently deny any wrongdoing by their men at the border. As for the Interior Ministry, it issued a statement responding to the report. It claimed that migrants either have accidents that cause their documented injuries, or even more outrageously, they accuse the migrants of harming themselves, in order to blame Croatian border police.

The country has a long and dark history of extreme right-wing politics. During World War II, (long before the current nation gained its independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991), the Ustaše led by Ante Pavelić, formed the fascist puppet regime known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

After the war, Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia was formed using the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union as a model. During that time, the regime crushed any pro-Ustaše sentiments. But after the violent and bloody breakup of Yugoslavia and Croatian independence, these fascist tendencies resurfaced and have been prominent ever since.

Franjo Tuđman, the most prominent figure of Croatian independence and its first president, started his political career in Tito’s Communist Party, like many other reactionaries in the region. Later, he founded the right-wing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which has been in power once again since 2016 under Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.

In Croatia, much like the rest of the Balkans and indeed beyond, the political establishment has moved sharply to the right after the restoration of capitalism. Various governments have pushed though brutal austerity measures and privatizations for years, causing unemployment and suffering which is now intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. As with their Western European counterparts, the Croatian government and other Eastern European regimes have refused to take serious measures to contain the virus and kept schools and factories open. As a consequence, infections and deaths are mounting. In Croatia, a country with a population of just over four million, over 163.000 people have been infected with COVID-19, and 2,420 people have died so far.

In the final analysis, the war against refugees at Europe’s external borders is part of the deadly offensive against the entire working class. In order to defend its interests and wealth the ruling class is resorting more and more openly to fascist violence and dictatorship.

Canada’s military seeks to cover its tracks following damning report on Australian war crimes in Afghanistan

Penny Smith

In response to the release of a report exposing Australian military atrocities in Afghanistan, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has doubled down on its long-running efforts to cover up its own war crimes in the region.

Released in mid-November by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the report found there is “credible evidence” that Australian Special Forces murdered at least 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners between 2009 and 2013, and committed torture and other abuses, such as desecrating victims’ bodies. While the report was heavily redacted to cover up the details of these crimes, it did emerge that Special Forces units had a “blooding ritual,” in which newly deployed members shot and killed prisoners, then planted weapons on them to make it look like the victim was an enemy combatant.

Canadian troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan (Wikipedia)

The report also points to a history of military atrocities and coverups committed by the Australian Special Forces, from the Boer War at the beginning of the 20th century to the Vietnam War. At the same time, it absurdly claims that nothing was known about the systematic war crimes they carried out in Afghanistan above the unit commander level.

Upon the report’s public release, the Canadian military immediately sought to distance itself from its Australian allies. When pressed by the media on the nature of its collaboration and joint actions with Australian Special Forces units mentioned in the report, the CAF Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) conceded that its members did conduct missions with Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan—some of whom are now accused of war crimes. But it insisted that “no concerns were raised” by CAF personnel about the conduct of their Australian colleagues. “CANSOFCOM was not aware of these allegations until this inquiry was launched,” Major Amber Bineau told Global News.

The CAF’s attempt to whitewash Canada’s role in the military occupation of Afghanistan enjoys the full backing of the state and all parliamentary parties. Its goal is to gloss over Canada’s long-and well-documented record of complicity in torture and abuses during its decade-long (2001-2011) direct role in the neocolonial Afghan war.

Extensive evidence of Canadian war crimes

During the Canadian military’s Afghan intervention, evidence repeatedly surfaced of CAF complicity in torture. The CAF routinely and willfully handed over Afghan detainees to the Afghanistan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the national secret service, although top-ranking Canadian military and government officials knew that it systematically employed torture.

The Liberal government of Paul Martin negotiated in 2005 an agreement with the Afghan government to transfer prisoners to its control, ignoring warnings raised by former diplomat Eileen Olexiuk that they would be at risk of torture. Her warnings were confirmed the following year, when the US State Department admitted that torture was widely used in Afghan prisons.

In 2009, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission office in Kandahar estimated that about one in three prisoners handed over by Canadians were “beaten or even tortured in local jails.” This was followed by the testimony of Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin, who told a parliamentary committee that it was likely that all the Afghans handed over to the NDS by the CAF “were tortured, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, denied sleep, and raped or otherwise sexually abused.” Colvin added, “Many were just local people—farmers, truck drivers, tailors, peasants; random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time; young men in their fields and villages who were completely innocent but were nevertheless rounded up.”

The following year, Canadian Armed Forces’ interpreter Ahmadshah Malgarai testified before a parliamentary committee that the Canadian military “used the NDS as subcontractors for abuse and torture.”

If the Canadian military can continue to claim in the face of this mountain of evidence that they were not involved in war crimes in Afghanistan, it is due to the criminal role played by all of the parliamentary parties, from the Conservatives and Liberals to the New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois.

As popular anger grew following Colvin’s devastating testimony, Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued parliament for two months in December 2009 in order to shut down a parliamentary committee looking into the Afghan detainee issue.

When a Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry was initiated, the Conservative government used every tool in the box to obstruct the inquiry, which ultimately never heard a single witness. Harper and his ministers also refused to turn over documents relating to the Afghan detainee issue to the House of Commons, resulting in his minority government being found in contempt of parliament—the first time parliament had passed such a motion in almost a century.

Facing the prospect of a federal election in which the Canadian military’s crimes in Afghanistan would potentially loom large, which nobody within the political establishment wanted, the opposition Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois connived with the Tories to censor discussion of the issue. An agreement was reached for a tiny committee made up of two MPs from each party to review tens of thousands of documents related to the Afghan intervention under strict conditions and the threat of criminal prosecution if anything was publicly revealed without the approval of hand-picked jurists and the military. As the World Socialist Web Site noted at the time, “By negotiating a deal with the government that largely removes the Afghan detainee issue from public debate and allows the government, bureaucracy and military to exert decisive influence over what the public learns about Canada’s involvement in war crimes, the opposition parties have become a party to the government-led cover-up.”

Less than a year later, after securing a parliamentary majority in the 2011 federal election, the Harper government shut the inquiry down, with barely a whimper of protest from the opposition.

In June 2016, a group of military police officers went public with accusations that high-ranking military police officers had ordered the abuse of innocent Afghan detainees—“husbands, fathers, farmers”—and that the CAF had systematically covered up their actions. The previous November, the Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada (MPCC) had launched an inquiry into their allegations, but the top brass of the military police refused to cooperate with the inquiry, including by denying the MPCC access to vital documents and recordings. Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government responded by spurning calls for a public inquiry. Leading the government effort to cover up CAF war crimes, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, who had himself served as a CAF intelligence officer in Afghanistan, declared, “Throughout military operations in Afghanistan, the government of Canada ensured individuals detained by the Canadian Armed Forces were treated humanely and handled, transferred or released in accordance with our obligations under international law.”

At this time the NDP joined in the calls for a public inquiry into the detainee issue. But it supported Canada’s role in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan—including agreeing under its 2008 coalition agreement with the Liberals to serve in a government pledged to waging war there till 2011. Moreover, just like their ostensible Liberal and Conservative opponents, the NDP backs Canada’s continued participation in US military-strategic offensives around the globe.

The criminality of Canadian imperialism

The latest denial by the Canadian military of its involvement in war crimes, which has gone unchallenged within the political establishment, underscores that the entire political elite supports predatory imperialist wars and has no commitment to basic democratic rights.

Former Canadian Defence Minister David Collenette recently told the Guardian that the war crimes committed by the Canadian Airborne Regiment while stationed in Somalia during 1992-93, including the torture and murder of Somali teenager Shidane Arone, “revealed a systemic problem with the institution from which the individuals came.”

Since then, ruling elites in Canada and the other major imperialist powers have undertaken a pronounced turn toward militarism, vastly expanded the power and reach of the national-security apparatus, criminalized social opposition, and eviscerated democratic rights.

The Canadian military and government’s involvement in war crimes is not an aberration of an otherwise humanitarian foreign policy. Rather, it is an inevitable outcome of the neocolonial and imperialist character of the wars that Canada waged in Afghanistan, continues to wage in the Middle East, and is preparing for with a more than 70 percent 10-year hike in military spending.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan was the opening volley in the “war on terror”—a phoney war that for the next 15 years or more would serve as the pretext for Washington to wage an endless series of wars, aimed at offsetting its global economic decline, that have killed 12 million people and displaced 59 million.

Canada’s ruling elite was quick to embrace the “war on terror.” It did so with the triple aim of advancing its own predatory global interests; strengthening its alliance with Washington under conditions where Canada’s role as America’s principal economic partner was being undermined by China and Mexico; and justifying increased repressive powers for the state. The military and political establishment also welcomed the Afghan war as the opportunity to jettison once and for all the liberal nationalist myth of Canada as a “peace keeper”—a myth that served to bolster popular support for the Canadian state, but became an encumbrance to pursuing the more aggressive foreign policy demanded by Canadian capital.

Since participating in the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Canada has been engaged in almost perpetual war in alliance with Washington. This includes the Canadian Armed Forces’ decade-long leading role in the Afghan counter-insurgency war, its participation in the 2004 overthrow of Haiti’s elected president and the 2011 “regime-change” war in Libya, and its operations, ongoing since 2014, in Iraq and Syria. Canada is also deeply integrated into the US military-strategic offensives against Russia and China.

At the same time, core democratic rights, including the right to remain silent and the presumption of innocence, have been grossly undermined, while the national security apparatus has been handed extraordinary powers of surveillance and intimidation with the support of the entire ruling elite.

Canada has become the second biggest arms exporter to the Middle East, where Canadian-made armoured vehicles had been used by the despotic Saudi regime to violently suppress domestic protests and fuel its war with Yemen. In October, news broke that Canadian defence contractors manufactured components for Turkish drones used in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

As the pandemic accelerates and the economic crisis and social misery deepen, due to the government’s homicidal back-to-work and back-to-school policies and bailout of the financial elite, the ruling class fears social revolt. Consequently, it is turning more and more toward authoritarian forms of rule.

Under these conditions, the military is emerging as an increasingly significant and repressive force in Canadian society. In August, a leaked document revealed that the military responded to the pandemic by initiating information operations” based on methods the CAF had developed during the Afghan war. Draft proposals, subsequently withdrawn, called for soldiers to broadcast government-approved propaganda on social media and hastily established radio stations with the aim of “shaping” public opinion. The order also called for “exploiting information,” i.e., mass surveillance, to detect possible indications of civil unrest.

It should come as no surprise in this context that no major political figure in Canada from any party has challenged the Canadian military’s outrageous and demonstrably false claim that its personnel were not involved in war crimes in Afghanistan, or demanded an inquiry into the actions of Canada’s Special Forces there. As loyal defenders of Canadian imperialism and the capitalist state, the political establishment, from the right-wing Tories to the nominally “left” New Democrats and Greens, have no interest in exposing the atrocities and war crimes of the Canadian military.

Amazon Web Services offers companies new tools for spying on workers

Erik Schreiber

Earlier this month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced five services that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to monitor industrial processes and personnel. The company is promoting these services, which incorporate sensors and computer vision technology, as tools that enable manufacturers and warehouses to improve efficiency, maintain security and ensure workplace safety. But the danger is very real that these services will be used to identify, monitor and retaliate against workers who attempt to organize industrial actions in the workplace.

Amazon Web Services Office in Houston, Texas (Wikipedia)

AWS, a subsidiary of the e-commerce behemoth Amazon, offers cloud computing platforms and application programming interfaces to businesses and governments. The company reported revenue of $35.03 billion in 2019.

Two of the new services, Amazon Monitron and Amazon Lookout for Equipment, focus on machinery. Amazon Monitron is designed to detect equipment anomalies and predict when maintenance will be needed. Amazon Lookout for Equipment allows users to send sensor data to AWS for analysis and predictions of equipment failure.

The more insidious services are the AWS Panorama Appliance, the AWS Panorama Software Development Kit (SDK) and Amazon Lookout for Vision. Customers can install the AWS Panorama Appliance to add computer vision capabilities to their existing camera systems. The appliance interacts with the customer’s cameras and analyzes video feeds for unusual activity. To perform this analysis, the appliance uses computer vision models that previously have been trained for analyzing manufacturing, construction and other industries, according to an AWS press release.

The company says that the appliance can ensure workplace safety by monitoring social distancing and enforcing the use of personal protective equipment. But companies will use the AWS Panorama Appliance to safeguard their profits. The computer vision models that the appliance uses can undoubtedly be “trained,” if they have not been already, to detect workers doing “suspicious” things such as talking together discreetly or passing literature to each other.

The AWS SDK allows manufacturers to build their own cameras and train their own computer vision models. Amazon Lookout for Vision analyzes images that customers send to it and alerts them about defects in products or machine parts. Although promoted as a quality control service, it conceivably could likewise be directed toward identifying “unusual” worker behavior.

Management at Amazon is aware that the company’s well-deserved reputation for workplace surveillance and retaliation could contribute to a public backlash against its new services, and the company is anxious to dispel such concerns. “AWS Panorama does not include any pre-packaged facial recognition capabilities,” an Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider. Even if this statement is true, it provides no reassurance to workers. Indeed, even if a computer does not recognize a worker on camera, his or her supervisor will.

Amazon itself has an entire division, the Global Security Operations Center (GSOC), that is tasked with spying on its workers in every country and thwarting their efforts to oppose unsafe and grueling conditions. Among GSOC’s managers are John A. Barrios, an 11-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Nathan Nguyen, a former US Army intelligence analyst. Leaked documents show that GSOC is tracking very carefully the time, location, and number of participants in organizing efforts and industrial actions by Amazon workers.

Amazon does not limit itself to physical surveillance of its employees. It also spies on communications between its workers on company listservs. Amazon has also been exposed for monitoring for communications related to labor organizing efforts at its facilities and its Whole Foods Market grocery stores, according to a report in Vice News .

Nor does Amazon limit its surveillance to internal communications. The company monitors its workers’ posts on social media platforms such as Facebook. It scrutinizes these posts for any signs of an attempt by workers to organize or to plan a strike. One example is the company’s elaborate spying on Amazon Flex Drivers, who work as independent contractors. Amazon created a special Advocacy Operations Social Media Listening Team to monitor drivers’ interactions with journalists and conversations about potential strikes.

Other leaked documents show that Amazon has developed ties with the notorious Pinkerton detective agency, which has physically attacked workers and broken up strikes for more than a century. Documents from November 2019 show that Amazon sent Pinkerton spies into a company warehouse in Wroclaw, Poland. More recently, the Spanish newspaper El Diario reported that Amazon had hired Pinkerton to spy on a strike near an Amazon warehouse not far from Barcelona.

These surveillance methods constitute only what is known publicly about Amazon’s practices.

Since mid-March, the approximate beginning of the pandemic in the United States, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has increased his wealth by tens of billions of dollars. Bezos has gained this windfall while keeping workers at their posts in warehouses and fulfillment centers where social distancing is impossible. He initially told employees that they would have to wait their turn for masks and allowed weeks to pass before he implemented even cosmetic safety measures. In all, 19,816 Amazon employees in the US had become infected with COVID-19 by early October, according to company figures.

Amazon workers are speaking out on social media and have organized walkouts. They are joining auto workers, teachers and other workers who have begun to fight back against the criminal response to the pandemic perpetrated by all the major employers together with the entire political establishment. In the face of these looming struggles, Amazon has recognized a business opportunity in this situation—and has offered its specialized industrial surveillance tools to companies facing similar dangers of a workers’ insurrection.

EU Summit: billions for the banks, nothing for workers

Peter Schwarz

The European Union (EU) summit on December 10–11 resembled a besieged fortress. It took place in the midst of the deepest social and economic crisis the EU has faced since its foundation.

The coronavirus pandemic is spinning out of control. Every day, more than 5,000 people die from the virus in Europe and more than 200,000 are newly infected—with the figures rising. Anger, indignation, and resistance are growing against the irresponsible policies of governments across the continent, which ignore all scientific warnings and sacrifice indispensable protective measures to the profit interests of big business.

The heads of state and government met in person in Brussels for the first time after the previous meetings of the European Council had been held online. They opted for this risky approach because the differences and tensions had reached a level that could no longer be overcome through video conferencing.

An image from the EU Summit (Twitter/@EUCouncil)

In hours of negotiations that lasted the entire night from Thursday to Friday, they finally succeeded in defusing the fierce conflicts. This does not mean, however, that the differences have been overcome. What currently holds the European Union together is, above all, the fear by the ruling class of the working class. When it comes to suppressing social opposition, building up a police state, pursuing a militaristic foreign policy and making new multibillion-euro gifts to the banks and corporations, they all agree.

It is significant that the European Council only discussed the pandemic peripherally and did not decide on any measures to contain it. Instead, the Council expressly welcomed “the coordination of efforts at EU level so far” and committed itself to “strengthening this coordination, in particular in preparing for a gradual lifting of restrictions and a return to normal travel, including cross-border tourism.”

This means that European governments will continue their current policies, which have led to the greatest health disaster since the Spanish flu a hundred years ago, and will do everything possible to quickly remove the completely inadequate protective measures.

The European Council’s most important decision was the adoption of the EU budget for the next seven years and the release of the €750 billion economic stimulus package, upon which the EU had already agreed in the summer. The EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen thus has the gigantic sum of €1.8 trillion at its disposal in the coming years to enrich the banks and corporations, bribe politicians and bring recalcitrant governments into line.

European Central Bank (ECB) boss Christine Lagarde supplemented this sum on Thursday with a very special Christmas gift. The ECB extended its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme until the end of March 2022 and expanded it by €500 billion. The cost of the junk bonds the ECB will purchase from banks and speculators thus increases to an incredible €1.85 trillion.

This is the greatest redistribution of wealth in history, for the huge sums of money will ultimately have to be paid back by the working class in the form of cuts in social programmes and wages. The stock exchanges are jubilant. Despite the coronavirus crisis, European stock prices are approaching historic highs. Never has money-making been so completely disconnected from real economic development. If proof of the parasitic, antisocial character of the capitalist profit drive were needed, there could have been nothing more conclusive.

The EU budget and stimulus package were on the brink of collapse before the summit. Both Poland and Hungary had threatened vetos. In doing so, they wanted to bring down the so-called “rule of law” mechanism. In October, the European Parliament and the EU Commission had agreed on a regulation allowing the EU to suspend payments to member states that violate the rule of law principles of the EU Treaty. This was directed against Hungary and Poland, whose governments have largely undermined the independence of the judiciary and media.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened personally before the summit to reach an agreement with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, which was then confirmed by the European Council. The rule of law mechanism remains in place and will be solemnly invoked again in the “conclusions” of the summit. However, it is now festooned with so many preconditions that it will never be applied in practice. Orbán and Morawiecki celebrated the agreement as a victory.

In any case, the EU was never concerned with democratic principles. The slide of Hungary and Poland into dictatorial forms of rule was, above all, an obstacle to the EU’s aggressive foreign policy, which it likes to cloak with phrases about “Western values” and “democracy.” Indeed, all European governments are increasingly open in their resort to dictatorial and fascist methods to suppress the growing resistance of the working class.

For example, 10 days before the summit, the French National Assembly passed a “global security law” against which hundreds of thousands took to the streets. Among other things, it prohibits the filming of violent police officers and severely restricts press freedom. An anti-Islam law, which the government of Emmanuel Macron is currently discussing, bears openly racist features and tramples on basic democratic rights. The final declaration of the European Council does not mention this law directly, but it does support its content.

The topic of “security” occupies twice as much space in the “conclusions” of the EU summit as COVID-19. The “recent terrorist attacks in Europe” serve as a pretext. While the European Council expressed not a word of regret for the 450,000 European victims of the coronavirus pandemic, it exudes hypocritical condolences for the victims of these reactionary attacks—and derives from them a comprehensive programme of mass surveillance, censorship and increased police powers.

It is “extremely important to prevent radicalisation and to take action against the ideologies underlying terrorism and violent extremism, including on the Internet,” the final declaration states.

The European Council calls for “stepping up the fight against illegal content online” and “ensuring that religious education and training are in line with European fundamental rights and values.” It was “essential that law enforcement and judicial authorities are able to exercise their lawful powers both online and offline to combat serious crime.” Police and judicial cooperation and coordination “should be strengthened”.

The EU summit took the longest time to define a common climate change target. It was finally agreed that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels and that public and private capital should be mobilised to this end.

But how this goal is to be achieved was not specified, and there are considerable differences over this. Some eastern European countries and France, for example, want to push ahead with the expansion of nuclear energy, which others strictly reject. Moreover, this goal is to be achieved only in net terms; reforestation and other nature conservation measures can be offset against it.

On foreign policy, the summit reaffirmed the imperialist claims of the EU in the “Eastern Mediterranean” and the “southern neighbourhood”—i.e., in North and Central Africa. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the EU “remains committed to defending its interests and those of its Member States as well as to upholding regional stability,” the final declaration states.

Strong differences over Turkey were bypassed. On the one hand, the country was strongly condemned; on the other hand, the European Council reaffirmed “the EU’s strategic interest in the development of a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey.” Greece, Cyprus, and France were unable to assert themselves by demanding tough sanctions against Ankara.

Overall, the European summit was characterised by fierce national conflicts, which will continue to intensify. In the face of a deep economic crisis and growing social conflicts, Europe’s ruling classes are ruthlessly defending their own interests and fuelling nationalism.

This was most evident in the question that hovered over the entire summit but was not discussed there: Brexit.

The evening before the summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had met with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for dinner in Brussels, but no agreement was reached. The probability of a hard Brexit with corresponding shock waves on December 31 has thus increased considerably.

Johnson has long since become a prisoner of the right-wing Brexit supporters, whom he encouraged. The EU is not prepared to make concessions because it fears that other countries will then demand concessions, undermining Franco–German dominance and causing the EU to disintegrate for good. “Because one thing is clear: the integrity of the internal market must be preserved,” said Chancellor Merkel, explaining the EU’s tough stance.

The unity of Europe, which is indispensable to advance the continent economically and raise the general standard of living, is not possible on a capitalist basis. The EU does not embody the unity of Europe; it is an instrument of powerful capitalist interests to oppress the working class and pursue imperialist goals. It is throwing the continent back into the same national conflicts that sparked two world wars in the last century.

Hospital capacity in the US severely strained as coronavirus infections continue to surge

Benjamin Mateus

As the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has formally recommended that the Pfizer vaccine be given emergency use authorization, approximately 125 people are dying from COVID-19 every hour in the United States. The level of testing continues to lag as the national positivity rate has climbed over 11 percent.

The approval of the life-saving vaccine will have little impact on the current pace of fatalities raging through community after community across the nation over the next several months. “The reality is the vaccine approval this week’s not going to really impact that I think to any degree for the next 60 days,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said Thursday. If projections hold, more than 500,000 Americans will have died from COVID-19 by the end of March.

The statistics are staggering.

Registered nurse with marks on her face as she removes her mask after performing rounds in a COVID-19 unit at Scotland County Hospital in Memphis, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

There have been 16.2 million people in the US confirmed infected with COVID-19, 5.5 million in just the last 30 days. Over 300,000 have succumbed to this deadly disease. The seven-day average of deaths has reached 2,425 per day. The last three days running, COVID-19 deaths have hovered near or exceeded 3,000. On Friday, six states had more than 10,000 new cases, with California registering a one-day high of 37,143 cases with an exponentially accelerating trajectory.

The COVID Tracking Project reported that there are currently 108,044 people hospitalized with COVID-19. Almost one in two patients admitted to the ICU is for COVID-19. This is up from one in 10 in September. A recent report by the US Department of Health and Human Services showed that as many as 200 hospitals had reached full capacity last week. One-third of all hospitals reported their ICU occupancy was above 90 percent.

Repeatedly, public health officials and epidemiologists have sounded the alarm. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told CNN, “What we have seen over the last few weeks is a sharp rise in infections. And what we know—from the beginning of this pandemic—is infections are followed by hospitalizations, which are then followed by death.”

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, warned Thursday that the surge in cases would continue through January. “However, it’s likely that until we see substantial rates of vaccination, high numbers of cases and deaths will occur for at least the next 5 to 6 months,” Osterholm tweeted.

Neither scientist followed up their dire warnings with a call for a lockdown of nonessential production, even to provide health systems breathing room. While Congress has been able to approve a record $740 billion budget for the military, a billion-dollar emergency program to build a national public health infrastructure with an adequate number of tests and contact tracers is inconceivable.

The situation is particularly severe in California, with more than 1.5 million cases and nearly 21,000 deaths. Hospitalizations across the state are at record levels. ICU admissions are up 70 percent from two weeks prior. As in the spring, elective surgeries are being canceled to make room for COVID-19 patients. Jan Emerson-Shea, the vice-president of the California Hospital Association, told the Associated Press on Thursday, “Canceling elective procedures [like heart valve replacements or removal of tumors] really is a last-resort option. However, in the midst of this current surge, which is the largest to date, some hospitals may have no choice.”

Los Angeles County reported an alarming 13,718 new cases on Friday. Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, called it the most dangerous time for the region. San Gabriel Valley, South Bay, the Westside, and central Los Angeles have seen more than 200 percent increase in infections since late September. The ICU availability in Southern California is down to 7.7 percent. In the San Joaquin Valley region, hospitals are reporting only 1.9 percent availability in ICUs.

US hospitals are facing severe staff shortages. Traveling intensive care nurses are seeing their pay double or even quadruple. Despite finding ways to expand hospital capacity, such as in Reno, Nevada, where the parking garage of Renown Regional Medical Center was turned into a 700-patient COVID unit, staff shortages are straining health care systems’ ability to treat patients.

Parth Bhakta, chief executive of NurseFly, told the Financial Times, “Major health systems in all 50 states are scrambling to figure out how to cope with the surge in cases to all-time highs. We’re seeing the situation significantly more dire than what it was in April.” Many nurses are quitting their positions to pursue these lucrative temporary traveling positions. More impoverished hospitals and those in rural areas face the brunt of this exodus as they are unable to afford the higher rates.

However, many health care workers are leaving their positions due to exhaustion and PTSD, traumatized by the repeated waves of COVID-19 patients and deaths. This is not dissimilar to the phenomenon suffered by soldiers deployed to war zones.

As deaths mount, morgues throughout the country are reaching capacity as they had in New York City and El Paso, Texas. For instance, Idaho Governor Brad Little stated that COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the state. Little reported, “In multiple counties, the morgues are full, and they are starting to ask for refrigerated trailers to hold the bodies.” Yet, with the Christmas holidays in less than two weeks, things are expected to turn for the worse.

In Springfield, Missouri, Mercy Hospital is putting to use a mobile morgue used in 2011 after a deadly tornado killed more than 160 people in the city of Joplin. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis noted that there had been a 40 percent increase in “the number of pages dedicated to paid obituaries in November.” Peoria County, Iowa, coroners have reported that morgue capacity is at a critical stage. The National Guard has set up a 250-bed field hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Cleveland-Cliffs and US Steel announce major acquisitions

Jessica Goldstein

The two largest US-based raw steel producers, US Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs, made significant announcements this week of large acquisitions.

US Steel announced Tuesday that it will move forward to acquire the remaining stake of Osceola, Arkansas-based recycled steel manufacturer Big River Steel for $774 million. US Steel purchased a 49.9 percent stake in Big River last year with the option to buy up the remaining 50.1 percent of company ownership within four years.

Big River began operations in 2017 and had billed itself as a technology company that makes steel and uses artificial intelligence in its production processes. In addition it uses electric furnaces that melt scrap to produce steel rather than the traditional blast furnace method of combining the raw materials of iron ore, carbon and other elements.

US Steel Indiana Harbor (Image Credit: M. Walters)

US Steel CEO David Burritt hailed the company’s entry into recycled steelmaking through the integration of electric furnaces and mills into its processes as part of its “Best of Both” strategy. The aim is to cut costs and increase production in an increasingly competitive global steel market that is experiencing significant upheavals in the face of the economic shocks produced by the pandemic.

World Steel Association remarked in a Dec. 1 blog post, “Potential impact of COVID-19 on steel industry trends,” that due to the accelerated speed of change demanded by the world economic crisis, “Investments in energy efficiency, electrification and higher scrap use, and efforts towards the development of breakthrough low CO2 emission steelmaking technology are likely to be accelerated.”

Cleveland-Cliffs, which announced its plans to acquire steel giant ArcelorMittal’s US operations in September, announced Wednesday that it completed the purchase of substantially all of ArcelorMittal’s former US operations for approximately $1.4 billion. The takeover of ArcelorMittal’s US operations comes after it also took over AK Steel earlier this year. The Cleveland-Cliffs acquisition of ArcelorMittal USA now positions it as the largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America.

The steelmaker is also the top producer of iron ore pellets in North America. Its entry into the steelmaking market positions it strategically with its control over a significant section of its own raw material supply chain.

The ArcelorMittal USA acquisition includes the buyout of its interests of 60 percent in I/N Tek and 50 percent in I/N Kote, the Luxembourg-based corporation’s joint venture with Tokyo-based steelmaker Nippon. I/N Tek and I/N Kote produce cold-rolled sheet steel and are located in New Carlisle, Indiana, about 60 miles west of the Indiana Harbor mill, formerly ArcelorMittal’s largest US operation. Along with that, Cleveland-Cliffs also bought out Nippon Steel Corporation’s remaining interests of 50 percent in I/N Kote and 40 percent in I/N Tek, making Cleveland-Cliffs the sole owner of all assets of the former joint venture.

Since the announcements, US Steel’s stock price had risen by about $1.20 per share and Cleveland-Cliffs’s by $0.55 as of the end of the trading day Friday.

Both US Steel and Cleveland Cliffs are racing to corner the market in the context of predictions of growing steel demand worldwide. Meanwhile lockdown measures are being eased up despite the rising death toll due to the pandemic throughout the US and Europe in order to ensure the flow of profits to the major corporations.

S&P Global Platts noted on Oct. 15 that, “In 2020, worldsteel forecasts that steel demand will contract by 2.4 percent from last year, dropping to 1,725.1 million metric tons, rather than by 6.4 percent , as it forecasted in June. In 2021 steel demand is now expected to recover to 1,795.1 million metric tons, with an increase of 4.1 percent over 2020, while in June the association expected an increase of 3.8 percent year on year… The forecast assumes that despite the current resurgence in infections in many parts of the world, nationwide lockdowns will not be repeated.”

Both US Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs supply much of their product to the automotive industry, which is seeing an increase in demand under conditions where hundreds of thousands of autoworkers across the world have been forced back into auto plants under deadly conditions.

The reaction of US Steel CEO David Burritt to the economic plans of US President-elect Joe Biden should serve as a warning to workers that a Biden administration will be no less ruthless in its attacks on the working class than the present Trump administration. In the wake of US Steel’s announced takeover of Big River, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted that while Burritt praised the Trump administration’s 25 percent tariffs on imported steel, “he does not expect them to be eliminated immediately upon Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House next month” and “was generally hopeful about the incoming administration’s promises on infrastructure,” of which no details have emerged.

The sentiments of the representatives of the corporate ruling elite are echoed by the United Steelworkers (USW), which supposedly “represents” thousands of workers in the US employed by US Steel and Cleveland Cliffs.

On Nov. 7, USW International President Tom Conway proclaimed on the union’s website that the USW was eager to work with the incoming Biden-Harris administration. “The President-elect ran on a platform, which the USW supported, of containing the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring access to quality health care, getting our economy back on track and putting millions of Americans back to work… In particular, the USW looks forward to working with the Biden-Harris administration on their plan to invest $1.3 trillion over 10 years to rebuild and modernize our crumbling infrastructure using American-made products.”

These words come from a union that also vociferously backed and eagerly worked with the Trump administration to endorse trade war measures as part of a nationalist “America First” agenda, which has cost workers thousands of jobs and cuts to wages, benefits and safety measures.

Before ascending to his current post, Conway held the position of USW International Vice President and lead negotiator in the 2018 contract negotiations with Cleveland-Cliffs, ArcelorMittal and US Steel. The USW worked to isolated workers at the different corporations, using nationalist denunciations of China to justify sellout contracts containing significant concessions that resulted in thousands of layoffs in subsequent years.

In its latest act of treachery, the USW, along with the Teamsters and other unions, in August shut down and betrayed a nearly 10-month strike by 1,800 Asarco copper miners in Arizona and Texas, forcing workers to return to work on management terms.

The USW has not written a single word about the announced acquisitions by Cleveland-Cliffs and US Steel and threats posed to workers by these consolidations. After laying off thousands and closing mills over the past two years, US Steel has made no announcements of additional hiring to meet increased demand. This means squeezing more production out of the existing workforce by imposing longer hours, speedup and the evisceration of health and safety standards in the face of an out of control pandemic.

To protect their jobs, wages, and the health and safety of themselves and their families, steelworkers need new organizations of struggle, independent of the pro-corporate unions.

Workers must follow the lead of teachers and autoworkers worldwide who have built rank-and-file safety committees to fight against unsafe working conditions, including the shutdown of non-essential production until the pandemic is contained. These committees will serve to link up the struggles of steel workers with other sections of workers worldwide in a common struggle to prevent the needless sacrifice of workers’ lives and livelihoods for the sake of private profit.