COVID-19 Vaccines, Access and the Intellectual Property Wars

Binoy Kampmark

By now, anybody speaking about vaccine equality and equity of access must surely be coming across as slightly deranged.  In the field of COVID-19, traditional proprietorial instincts remain.  Add to this the disparity in terms of manufacture, bureaucracy and the nasty flavour of politics, and we would all be entitled to long draughts of cynicism.

The COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility) scheme, supposedly a levelling measure in ensuring global equitable and cheap access to vaccines, risks looking like a rhetorical bauble.  Co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO), these collaborators seek to “accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world.”  The aim of the group is to supply 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.  Last month, the WTO reported that 130 countries, comprising 2.5 billion people, had yet to receive a single dose.

The project has hit a rather large snag.  Many countries are not willing to play along.  If they do, they are doing so in two-timing fashion.  WHO senior adviser, Bryce Aylward, is worried that “some countries are still pursuing deals that will compromise the COVAX supply.”  This lack of fidelity to the cause is also of concern to the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.  “We can’t beat COVID without vaccine equity. Our world will not recover fast enough without vaccine equity, this is clear.”

A suggestion of dealing with the problems of accessing COVID-19 vaccines has been put forth by several states and international bodies.  Last Friday, the WHO called for an agreement dealing with the waiver of intellectual property rights to vaccines. “If not now, when?” asked Ghebreyesus.

In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted a proposal for waiving “certain provisions of the TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19.”  The waiver would be granted to WTO members so that they would not have to apply or enforce certain provisions under Part II of the TRIPS Agreement, namely section 1 (copyrights and related rights), 4 (industrial design), 5 (patents), and 7 (protection of undisclosed information).  The waiver would be in place for a duration agreed to by the General Council and till widespread global vaccination had taken place, with the majority of the world’s population rendered immune.

A briefing document on the proposal, authored by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), merely confirms that the proposed waiver was specific, applicable only to COVID-19 and not “all TRIPS obligations, nor does it suggest a waiver beyond what is needed for COVID-19 prevention, containment and treatment.”  Were the waiver to be granted, patents would not be enforced or granted on “all COVID-19 drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and other technologies, including masks and ventilators, for the duration of the pandemic.”  Collaboration in research and development (R&D), manufacturing, scaling up and supplying COVID-19 tools could also take place.

In discussions held by WTO members at the TRIPS Council over October 15-16 last year, the opponents nailed their colours to the mast.  Australia, Brazil, Canada, EU, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States were either formally opposed to the measure, or not in support of it. The COVID-19 vaccine world had been clearly demarcated: the wealthy and the rest.

The justifications from such states do not make for pretty reading.  All centre on one essential theme: the importance of maintaining an ironclad IP system in the name of innovative practice.  An EU spokesman suggested somewhat speciously that no evident nexus could be shown between access to vaccines and IP barriers. “There is no evidence that IP rights in any way hamper access to COVID-19 related medicines and technologies.”  The UK government decided to upend the cart with its reasoning, underlining the importance of having strict IP rules if access to new products to battle the pandemic were to be made available. The chair of the WHO Solidarity Trial of COVID-19, John-Arne Røttingen insists that “IP is the least of the barriers” relative to necessary facilities for production, knowledge and infrastructure.

South Africa sought to address such claims on October 16 at the TRIPS Council meeting and again at the Council Meeting on November 20.  Examples included the manufacturers of monoclonal antibody therapeutics, such as Regeneron and Eli Lilly, which had restricted their capacity via bilateral arrangements.  Specifically on vaccines, South Africa could point to the struggle between MSF and Pfizer being waged in India over the pneumococcal vaccine, protected by a patent effectively blocking the development of alternatives.

As if further proof was needed about efforts by pharmaceutical behemoths to freeze and halt both innovation and access in the field of vaccines with generous IP shields, one need look no further than the case of South Korea’s SK Bioscience. The company was embroiled in patent litigation with Pfizer in developing a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PVC) by the name of Skypheumo.  SK Bioscience lost the suit, with the Supreme Court ruling that it could not sell Skypheumo until 2026, when Pfizer’s composition patent for Prevenar 13 expires.

Given that WTO decisions tend to be made through consensus, the waiver proposal has been stuck in diplomatic purgatory in the TRIPS Council.  Requests from Chile, Australia and Canada for evidence that the waiver would achieve increased capacity for vaccine manufacturing and assist ameliorate shortages have not helped.  Burcu Kilic, research director for access to medicines at Public Citizen sees the unfolding of a crude agenda.  “What [high-income countries] are hoping is that they can discuss and drag the issue out that things will be OK by the summer.”

The WTO General Council meeting held at the start of this month did not see a change of heart from high-income countries towards the South African-Indian proposal.  Neither the US nor EU wished to even discuss it.  What instead kept delegates busy was the proposal by WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to pursue a meek third way alternative.  That option would involve, according to Okonjo-Iweala, the licensing of manufacturing to countries ensuring “adequate supplies while still making sure that intellectual property issues are taken care off”.

Ahead of officially commencing her duties as Director-General, she reiterated the idea that there was a way of increasing access “through facilitating technology transfer within the framework of multilateral rules” and for pharmaceutical giants to make licensing arrangements permitting other manufacturers to produce vaccines.  Music, no doubt, to representatives of Big Pharma.

To date, the doses-ordered per capita read as a comparison of states looks stark.  The US has 10.2 doses per person, the UK 7.6, the EU 6.5, and Australia 5.  David Legge and Sun Kim, both of the People’s Health Movement, note that the African Union (AU), in sharp contrast, has deals covering a mere 970 million doses for 1.34 billion people.  Vaccine coverage, at this point, looks meagre.

Some 115 European Parliamentary members, on February 24, issued a declaration pleading for the European Commission, and the European Council to review their opposition to the TRIPS waiver proposal. Certain EU member states and the European Commission had spoken about COVID-19 medical products “as global goods” but there were no “actionable realities.”   A waiver, the members urged, would not only cast aside onerous legal barriers to production but enable “the sharing of know-how and technologies with GMP manufacturers from third countries”.  EU strategy had, however, been tribal, emphasising domestic production with the potential to exacerbate “a dangerous North-South divide when it comes to affordable COVID-19 diagnostics, personal protective equipment, treatment and vaccines.”

The vaccine fault lines suggest different timetables and differently filled pockets.  Regions of the world risk remaining unvaccinated, with infections and deaths set to continue.  Legge and Kim rightly see this as an abandonment by wealthier countries to chance, death and despair in favour of self-interest.  Should low- and middle-income countries have to wait another year or two in the face of wealthier states “commandeering the vaccines, there will be about 40-50 million more cases of infections and perhaps 2 to 3 million additional deaths.”  A good number on those charts of mortality will be health workers.

The Horrible Dowry System and Its Wider Manifestation in India

Bharat Dogra

Nearly 60 years have passed since the dowry abolition system legislation was passed in India but we still have the cruel reality of 20 dowry deaths a day in the country ( dowry killings, or women pushed by dowry related cruelty towards suicide). Each one of these deaths is a hugely tragic story, and it is being repeated 7000 times in a year.

Yet this is only  one aspect of the many sides of the wider manifestation of the dowry problem in India. In a narrow sense dowry refers to the gifts or cash a bride is supposed to bring to her husband’s home ( or to her in-laws) at the time of marriage. That this should be considered an essential part of marriage is bad enough. But the reality is worse because in practical terms the manifestation is much wider. It is more realistic to consider all the financial implications and burdens of marriage of a daughter. The gifts, material goods and cash constitute only one aspect. But in addition there is the ever-increasing burden of the other grand and expensive arrangements the bride’s side have to make to welcome the barraat or the bridegroom party. The total number of guests may be in hundreds. There is increasing pressure to arrange the grand party in a banquet hall or hotel or other expensive place on a lavish scale. This is not all. The financial burden on the bride side does not end with marriage. Often financial and other demands continue much after the marriage, and the treatment the bride gets related to the extent these demands are fulfilled. If she is working, often almost her entire salary may be grabbed.

Now consider all this from the point of view of honest, hard working, ordinary  parents having three daughters. How are they to provide for this wider dowry system for three daughters ( or even one or two daughters)? If they are farmers will they have to sell their land? If they are petty salary earners, will they have to incur heavy debts? It is worries like these which needlessly become the main worry for many households. And if despite their best efforts of arranging the wider dowry, the daughters are mistreated then this again becomes an abiding source of distress in old age. To avoid this distress to parents, the daughters facing cruelty may hide this, eventually perhaps being driven to a cruel death at a relatively young age.

All this completely avoidable distress can be traced to the deadly combination of two sources—gender injustices of traditional society to which the relentless consumerism and shameless greed of capitalism and neo-liberalism are added.  As these  trends have accentuated, the dowry system in its wider manifestation went on becoming more cruel and shameless despite the passing of dowry abolition legislation.

What is worse and even more worrying is that the entire fervor , the entire zeal of social reform is gone along with the strengthening of the shameless consumerism and greed of capitalism and neo-liberalism. So we no longer have a social reform movement for curbing this growing wider manifestation of the dowry system. I have visited many villages during drought years and found that even in times of hunger there is even greater distress and stress regarding marriages that may have to be postponed if not cancelled altogether.

Somehow the social reformist zeal of our society has to be revived and recreated as without this rapidly growing serious social problems like this wider manifestation of the dowry system cannot be resolved. How can there be equality for women when the cruel dowry system continues to flourish? There is even evidence of more adverse sex ratio in those states where dowry system is worse.

Unequal Britain: An academic defence of social inequality

Julie Hyland

The report Unequal Britain: attitudes to inequalities after COVID-19 by the Policy Institute at King's College London is indicative of the hostility of an upper middle-class layer in academia to the class issues posed starkly by the pandemic.

That COVID-19 is a “poor man's disease” which has hit the working class hardest—driven into unsafe workplaces under the policy of herd immunity—is a verifiable fact.

It led the British Medical Journal to accuse the world's governments of “social murder” in their response to the pandemic. Its editorial, “Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant”, drew attention to the phrase’s origin with Friedrich Engels, the lifelong collaborator of Karl Marx.

The report, "Unequal Britain: attitudes to inequalities after COVID-19" by the Policy Institute at King's College London

Describing the “political and social power held by the ruling elite over the working classes in 19th century England”, the BMJ wrote, Engels' “argument was that the conditions created by privileged classes inevitably led to premature and 'unnatural' death among the poorest classes.” Social murder was “very real today, exposed and magnified by COVID-19. It cannot be ignored or spun away.”

Ignored was exactly the response of the media to the BMJ's damning indictment. Unequal Britain is an attempt to spin away the class causes and implications.

The study was based on an online questionnaire of 2,226 adults who had registered specifically to participate in such surveys. It divides those participating by support for either Conservative or Labour and those voting for Leave or Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum. This is supposedly to provide balance.

It notes that the pandemic has “ruthlessly exposed how our vulnerability to shocks varies hugely, determined by a complex web of existing inequalities, across genders, age groups, races, income levels, social classes and places.”

But social classes do not feature in the report. In fact, “class” only appears once in its 88-pages. Its central thrust is against arguments that “Greater action on inequality” is a “logical progression from the unprecedented state intervention that’s been required to weather the COVID-19 crisis”. Rather “the crisis has, for the most part, not bridged political divides in support for action on inequality, and there is only a limited consensus on what the country’s most pressing inequalities are,” it asserts.

Even if one puts to one side such critical matters as the fact that we are not “after Covid-19” but still very much in it, and that the “unprecedented state intervention” has largely consisted of massive bailouts for the super-rich, the authors assertions are not supported by their own findings.

The report begins by noting there is “significant agreement” that the most serious inequalities are geographical (61 percent) and the outcome of “disparities in income and wealth” (60 percent).

Six in 10 (62 percent) believe Britain was somewhat or very unequal before the pandemic, with just 12 percent believing it was “relatively equal”. More than eight in 10 (81 percent) believe the gap between high and low incomes is too large, compared to 1 percent who say it’s too small.

Questioned as to the impact of the pandemic, 84 percent believed inequality between more and less deprived areas would widen, and 81 percent that this would be the case as regards income and wealth. Three-quarters considered widening geographical/income inequality to be a very big, or fairly big problem.

These are extraordinary majorities. However, the report dismisses the concerns expressed on income inequality specifically, complaining that “public perceptions of the extent of economic inequality often diverge from reality.” People “significantly overestimate” the concentration of wealth amongst the rich, showing that “the public” have only a “general, 'ordinal' sense of the extent of wealth inequalities...”

Far more time is spent assessing the apparent failure of people to place racial and gender inequalities on a par with income. One result that especially exercised the authors, and the Guardian newspaper, was that 4 percent believe black people earn less or are more likely to be unemployed because they have a “less in-born ability to learn”.

That the question was posed in this way is extraordinary on its face and, as would have been expected, it solicited a racist response from a tiny minority. But the entire questionnaire is loaded along these lines. Much is also made of the fact that, when asked what role “luck” played in people losing their jobs during the pandemic, 31 percent said it was very or fairly important. When asked to choose whether individual performance played a role in job losses, 47 percent selected very, or fairly likely.

The report concludes that such answers show the British population have strong “meritocratic and individualistic tendencies”, which “temper calls for action on inequality.”

No objective observer, even considering the skewed and limited nature of the survey, could draw such a conclusion. While the authors assert that it proves most people believe “hard work and ambition remain key drivers of success”, the findings again and again show a majority believe socio-economic factors, in particular wealth—for which read class—inequalities, are the major drivers.

With regards to the impact of the pandemic on education, health and income, the overwhelming majority responded that the low-paid and poor, especially those living in deprived areas/conditions, would suffer most.

Racial and gender inequalities were similarly identified with social circumstances/context. 67 percent considered rising income inequality between ethnic minorities and white people a “big issue” and (65 percent as regards rising income inequality between men and women).

Asked to what extent they agree or disagree that the pandemic proves the need to redistribute income away from the rich, 51 percent agreed (18 percent opposed), while 55 percent supported government measures “to reduce differences in income levels”, (15 percent against).

Despite this, the report concludes that there is “no widespread appetite for change” regarding government action on inequality. According to one of the authors, Professor Bobby Duffy, this is because Britain “starts from a relatively individualistic worldview” and that “our perspectives on these issues [inequality] are deeply divided and tied up with our underlying values and identity.”

He would make such an assertion. Director of the Policy Institute, he was previously “seconded to the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit.” At first glance this appears a strange place for an apparent progressive. But then Duffy is part of the Progress Network, launched last year, by its parent, New America.

Headed by Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former high-ranking State Department official and close associate of Hillary Clinton, the New America think tank produces policy papers in line with the interests of the US military and intelligence agencies and the corporate establishment. Its Progress Network spin off is aimed at challenging “the inevitability of chaos and collapse by connecting and amplifying prominent voices pointing our world in a more positive direction…”

The survey is part of the institute for Fiscal Studies Deaton Review of Inequalities, which is studying “inequality not just of income, but of health, wealth, political participation, and opportunity; and not just between rich and poor but by gender, ethnicity, geography, age and education.”

“This will give the UK government, and those in other developed countries, a far clearer and more holistic view of the effectiveness of available policy options, how they can best work alongside each other and the trade-offs between them.”

The IFS is a pro-market research foundation, specialising in UK tax and public policy to shape fiscal decisions in the interests of the wealthy. The “trade-off” means finding academic justifications to oppose any redistributive measures in favour of working people.

True to form, the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee was on message. Invoking Tony Blair’s refusal to talk about inequality, she suggested current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was justified for his “caution” on the issue. The report meant “those on the left are forced to confront some dismal realities about British public attitudes”. “Tackling inequality” may be a “rebarbative word with too many voters”, she wrote.

As US states reopen businesses and schools, experts warn of “hurricane” surge of COVID-19

Patrick Martin

With states throughout the US reopening businesses and schools, health experts are warning of a surge of COVID-19 cases in the coming months as new variants take hold across the country.

Epidemiologists and other health care experts warned Sunday that the current plateau in the number of coronavirus infections in the United States is only temporary and could be followed by a new and more terrible upsurge, particularly if the American population follows the lead of state governments that are ending mask mandates and other restrictions.

The starkest warning came from Dr. Michael Osterholm, a former coronavirus adviser to the Biden transition and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He appeared on the NBC program “Meet the Press” and declared, “we are in the eye of the hurricane right now. It appears that things are going very well. You can see blue skies.” But the reality was a new storm coming, he said.

COVID-19 patients lie on beds at a field hospital built inside a sports coliseum in Santo Andre, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, March 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

He cited the upsurge in B117, the so-called UK variant, which has gone from one to four percent of the viruses analyzed four weeks ago to 30-40 percent today. “And what we’ve seen in Europe, when we hit that 50 percent mark, you see cases surge. So right now, we do have to keep America as safe as we can from this virus by not letting up on any of the public health measures we’ve taken. And we need to get people vaccinated as quickly as we can.”

While congratulating the Biden administration on speeding up vaccine distribution, he pointed out that more than half of American seniors, the most vulnerable age group in terms of coronavirus deaths, have still not been vaccinated, including large numbers living in long-term care facilities.

Dr. Osterholm added a warning about school reopenings, pointing out that the B117 variant is especially infectious in school settings and that large clusters of infections have been found in his home state of Minnesota, connected with the resumption of high school sports. At this point his host Chuck Todd hurriedly ended the interview.

On other Sunday programs, experts linked more closely to the Biden administration limited their comments to warning about the impact of lifting of mask mandates. Seventeen US states have either lifted mandates or never had them in the first place, with Texas becoming the first state with a large urban population to do so.

Dr. Anthony Fauci told the CBS program “Face the Nation” that the recent decline in cases is starting to plateau, and that “plateauing at a level of 60,000-70,000 new cases per day is not an acceptable level. That is really very high.” Judging from the example of Europe, where the plateau several weeks ago was followed by an increase in cases, he warned that this was a real danger. “It really would be risky to have yet again another surge,” he concluded.

On ABC News, Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University, another former Biden transition adviser, tried to put a more favorable spin on the figures but admitted the utter waste in new deaths caused by relaxation of restrictions and mask mandates. “Anybody who gets infected today and dies in three or four weeks is somebody who would have gotten vaccinated a month from now,” he said. “This is why it’s urgent to just keep going for a little bit longer.”

All these warnings came as news programs showed scenes of thousands of unmasked and undistanced revelers on Florida beaches during spring break, encouraged by Governor Ron DeSantis and other state officials who have portrayed the “right” to infect others and to become infected as the essence of “freedom.” This under conditions where young people in the 17-25 age bracket can contract COVID-19 and spread it just as easily as any other age group.

At a press conference on Friday in Geneva, the top officials of the World Health Organization made even more dire warnings. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed especially to the huge upsurge in cases in Brazil, which has gone from 114,000 cases a week in November to 374,000 cases a week in February, and from 2,500 deaths a week to 8,000 deaths a week over the same period. During this period, Brazil has become the launching pad for many new variants of the virus, some more infectious or more resistant to antibodies.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO director for health emergencies, said that “exiting” from social measures imposed to limit the pandemic had to be carried out with great care and required resuming strong contact tracing and other preventive measures which have been largely abandoned in the worst hit countries. He was particularly concerned about the abandonment of mask wearing and social distancing. “I understand what’s driving this. We think we’re out of this, but we’re not,” he warned. “We should not waste the hope that vaccines bring by dropping our guard in other areas.”

These warnings, whether open and direct or hedged about with considerations of a political and diplomatic character, are consistent in their thrust: the apparent success of vaccinations, at least in a few countries, does not alter the reality of a global pandemic. The most rigorous protective measures are still required, both in countries where vaccination has had some impact, as in the United States and parts of Europe, and in those, like most of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where mass vaccination is still an empty promise.

The lifting of protective measures in many American states and the outright repudiation of them by heads of state like Brazil’s fascist President Jair Bolsonaro are crimes against humanity. This label applies as well to the back-to-school drive embraced by the Biden administration and enforced by state and local governments headed by the Democratic Party.

Earlier this week, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, ordered all elementary schools to offer in-person education, which will be followed by middle and high schools.

Areas controlled by Democrats are likewise moving ahead with school reopenings. Chicago will allow high school students to return to class starting today, while the San Francisco School District said Friday it will reopen schools starting April 12. On Friday, the Massachusetts Education Board pushed ahead with the reopening of schools by granting the state education commissioner control over when in-person education can resume, in defiance of local authorities.

The reality of the policy being carried by the American ruling class was stated most brutally by Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi, speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “Our objective in Mississippi has never been to rid ourselves of the virus or make sure that no Mississippian actually gets the virus,” he said, “because we don’t think that’s a realistic goal.” He added, “our approach has been to not only protect lives, but to also protect livelihoods. We have to get our economy rolling, so that individuals can get back to work.”

Whether enunciated with the Southern drawl of Reeves, the incoherent bromides of Joe Biden or the fascistic rants of Bolsonaro, the policy of the financial aristocracy is the same. Coronavirus policy is subordinated to the defense of the capitalist system. The profit requirements of the corporations and banks take precedence over the health of workers and their families.

Number of super-rich individuals grew worldwide during the pandemic

Kevin Reed

The global real estate consultancy Knight Frank published its “Wealth Report” for 2020 on March 1. The 15th annual report shows that the number of Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI) around the world grew by 2.4 percent over the past year to more than 520,000 people.

As always, Knight Frank enthusiastically defines UHNWI as “someone with a net worth of

over US$30 million including their primary residence.” Knight Frank sees no problem whatsoever in celebrating the expansion of the number and wealth of the richest people in the world during a year dominated by the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic.

Credit: The Wealth Report

Like the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans or the Institutional Investor ’ s “Rich List,” Knight Frank’s wealth report hails the unprecedented expanding economic inequality that is a primary characteristic of the world capitalism in the 21st century. This celebration took on a particularly ghastly shade during 2020 when COVID-19 infected 100 million, killed more than 2 million and—due to the drive by the capitalist elite to take advantage of the public health emergency to increase its wealth—has plunged hundreds of millions of people around the world into the greatest social crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Knight Frank is marking its 125th anniversary this year. Dealing in residential, commercial and agricultural real estate since 1896, the agency currently has more 500 offices in 60 countries and is involved in nearly $1 trillion in property asset transactions on behalf of its ultra-rich clientele each year.

The report contains a Wealth Sizing Model that predicts an increase by 27 percent in the number of UHNWIs over the next five years to 663,483. Significantly, the report also contains information about High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI)—also known as millionaires—and points out that the number of these individuals declined over the past year.

Although the report does not make the point, the separation of the ultrawealthy from the “merely” wealthy is the material basis for much of the conflict within bourgeois politics including that within the US between the Republicans and the Democrats. As has been analyzed by the World Socialist Web Site, the identity politics of the Democrats is an expression of the desire by better-off layers of the middle class to gain entry into the upper echelons of the financial elite.

The 88-page wealth report is introduced by Rory Penn, Head of the Knight Frank Private Office in London. Penn says he is “delighted” to present the report and makes a passing reference to the pandemic, “I can honestly say that during my career in property, I have never seen things changing as quickly as they are now. ... Some of the long-term trends that we examined last year, such as the changing role of the office, have been supercharged by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Penn concludes that his firm will help its customers to “capitalize on the opportunities that are being created by this acceleration of trends,” that have taken place during the pandemic. If he were honest, Penn would say that the global wealth gap has been “supercharged” by the trillions in government and central bank funds that have been poured into the financial markets for plundering by the super-rich under the guise of “stimulus.”

Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s Global Head of Research, reviews the key findings of the wealth report. Bailey writes that the objective of the Knight Frank report is “to assess how the fortunes of UHNWIs are changing, where they spend time, what they invest in and what they are likely to do next. From policymakers to investors, a lack of insight into the behaviour and attitudes of the ‘1%’ risks a serious misreading of economic trends. This is the knowledge gap we fill.”

In other words, according to Bailey, Knight Frank has its finger on the pulse of the financial oligarchy that controls world capitalism. The wealth report, based upon an Attitudes Survey, declares itself a guide for governments and hedge fund and institutional investors because it knows what makes the ultrawealthy tick.

The report explains, “The 2021 instalment is based on responses provided during October and November 2020 by over 600 private bankers, wealth advisers, intermediaries and family offices who between them manage over US$3.3 trillion of wealth for UHNWI clients.”

There are 11 wealth trends that Knight Frank analyzed, the primary of which is that “the global response to the pandemic supported the wealthy.” The report says, “With lower interest rates and more fiscal stimulus, asset prices have surged” and this was a major factor in the 2.4 percent growth in the number of UHNWIs in the past year.

A section of the report called “Wealth: resilience through turmoil” explains further “why wealth populations kept growing despite the last year’s economic turmoil” and there were “winners and losers” in 2020 among the ultrawealthy. The report’s findings show that half of UHNWIs increased their wealth in the past year.

Noting that these differences were regionally based, “The expansion in wealth was not universal, with a fall in the number of UHNWIs in Latin America, Russia and the Middle East as currency shifts and the pandemic undermined local economies.”

Another identified trend is the rise of UHNWIs in Asia, “The US is, and will remain, the world’s dominant wealth hub over our forecast period, but Asia will see the fastest growth in UHNWIs over the next five years.” The report then goes on to point out that Asia is home to 36 percent of the world’s billionaires and that “The Chinese Mainland is the key to this phenomenon, with 246 percent forecast growth in very wealthy residents in the decade to 2025.”

That these international and regional differences in wealth accumulation indicate anything significant or fundamental about the direction of geopolitical conflict and the intensification of national antagonisms is glossed over by the researchers as Knight Frank. Although geopolitics and trade war are included as a topic in the Attitudes Survey, it comes in at number four in the top “wealth worries” among the wealthy elite behind concerns about COVID-19, domestic government policy and taxes.

The same subjective approach is taken to all of the major objective economic, social and political trends in 2020. The fact that outgoing US President Donald Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 elections through a fascist coup is given exactly one sentence in the wealth report, noting, “with the democratic process being called into question, by the then sitting US president no less, we could see populism come to the fore once more.”

It is clear from this that the Knight Frank real estate investment advisers see the emergence of fascism in the United States and elsewhere in the world as a potentially beneficial wealth generating opportunity for the superrich.

In a section entitled, “New social order,” the wealth report addresses the growth of extreme wealth inequality, which came in seventh out of the nine items on the “wealth worry” list. The report states, “While only 8 percent of our respondents cite inequality as a direct issue affecting their clients’ wealth, it could have an impact on domestic government policy and tax issues, which 49 percent and 42 percent respectively of them do cite as a concern.”

According Filippo Noseda, a private client lawyer at Mishcon de Reya cited by Knight Frank, “We could see a shift to more wealth taxes as governments scramble to cover the huge costs of the pandemic, and targeting the wealthy tends to be uncontroversial with voters.” The coming revolutionary confrontation of the working class that will be “targeting the wealthy” is not something that the advisers at Knight Frank care to admit or discuss.

Myanmar military unleashes bloodiest crackdown since coup

Owen Howell

The military regime in Myanmar is escalating its use of lethal force and unrestrained violence against protesters, after launching a deadly crackdown last Wednesday that killed at least 38 people and wounded many more, according to the United Nations. Implementing a variety of methods, the junta’s repression is aimed at intimidating protesters and halting the nationwide movement against the February 1 military coup.

Mass arrests, night time raids, and brutal assaults on protests have become more frequent over recent days in the lead-up to a planned general strike today. An alliance of nine major trade unions called on members and “all Myanmar people” to participate in a “full extended shutdown” of economic activity, the Straits Times reported.

Wednesday’s bloodshed surpassed the vicious crackdown on February 28, only three days earlier, which resulted in the deaths of at least 18 protesters. As previously, riot police and combat troops armed with assault rifles mounted a coordinated offensive early Wednesday morning in towns and cities across the country, firing live rounds on peaceful demonstrators with little warning.

Protesters shout slogans during a protest against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021. Police fired tear gas and water cannons and there were reports of gunfire Sunday in Myanmar's largest city Yangon where another anti-coup protest was underway with scores of students and other demonstrators hauled away in police trucks. (AP Photo)

In Mandalay, the second-largest city, three protesters were shot dead as police and soldiers broke up a rally of around 1,000 teachers and students. One of the victims, Ma Kyal Sin, 19, was reportedly shot in the head by a rooftop sniper after she busted a water pipe so that protesters affected by tear gas could wash their eyes. Before attending Wednesday’s demonstration, Kyal Sin posted on Facebook her blood type, a contact number, and a request to donate her body for medical science, prepared to risk possible death at the hands of the military.

According to data compiled by an analyst who spoke anonymously to Associated Press, two deaths were also reported in the town of Salin, Magwe Region, while Mawlamyine, Myingyan, and Kalay each had one death. In the central city of Monywa, the scene of several large protests, eight protesters were killed and at least 30 injured. Moreover, multiple medics claimed to have seen two other bodies dragged away by security forces, but could not confirm if they had died.

Yangon, the country’s largest city and centre of anti-coup protests and strikes, saw the worst of the violence with an estimated 18 people killed. In response to a recent wave of state crackdowns across the city, protesters have erected barricades from tyres and barbed wire to block major roads.

In Yangon’s North Okkalapa Township, a morning march of over 1,000 people was quickly targeted by security forces, who chased and detained hundreds. Protesters hiding in nearby residences could hear continuous gunfire. Myanmar Now news agency reported that one protester heard conversations between soldiers and police outside: “We heard them saying, ‘Can’t you shoot? What are you afraid of? Shoot them all! Kill them all!’”

Social media footage showed lines of young men, hands on heads, filing into army trucks as soldiers stood guard. Video taken by North Okkalapa locals, observing from above, showed a man who was pulled out of a building by police and executed on the spot before his body being dragged away.

That afternoon, residents gathered together and urged police to release the numerous wounded detainees inside prison trucks. Soldiers armed with semi-automatic machine guns turned on the crowd and fired non-stop for around five minutes, witnesses said. Stun grenades and tear gas were also used amid the chaos before the trucks finally left.

Outrage erupted on social media after a widely circulated video taken from CCTV footage was published by Radio Free Asia, showing a mob of police officers brutally kicking and thrashing three ambulance crew members with rifle butts—in retaliation for providing medical aid to injured protesters. In general, police appear to be singling out medical workers for arrest because the healthcare sector was among the first to resist the military junta and establish the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) of strikes and work stoppages over a month ago.

Later that night, soldiers continued to terrorise residents as 20 military trucks entered the township and started firing indiscriminately. Eight people were confirmed dead from the North Okkalapa crackdown, while another 73 sustained serious injuries, some of them life-threatening.

“It’s horrific, it’s a massacre. No words can describe the situation and our feelings,” young protester Thinzar Shunlei Yi told Reuters of the military’s assault in Yangon.

Aid agency Save the Children said that four children were among Wednesday’s fatalities, including a 14-year-old boy who was reportedly shot dead by a soldier on a passing military convoy. The troops loaded his body onto a truck and left the scene.

Nearly 1,700 people have been arrested since the coup, according to UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, among them 29 journalists. In reality, the number is far higher, as state-run media previously said 1,300 people had been detained on February 28 alone.

Despite the dramatic intensification of the military’s crackdown on protesters, continued have continued undeterred around Myanmar every day since Wednesday.

On Thursday, police dispersed gatherings with tear gas and gunfire in several cities, but their repression was more restrained than the day before. More protesters came equipped with hard hats, motorbike helmets, facemasks, and makeshift shields. The CDM’s Twitter account released a video of young protesters conducting drills with shields, in anticipation of future military onslaughts.

A crowd of thousands of engineering students marched through Mandalay on Friday, the day after Kyal Sin’s funeral drew tens of thousands from around the city. The crowd chanted, “We’re not scared because you threaten us.” Police opened fire on the protesters and then on nearby houses with guns and slingshots.

One resident, Ko Zaw Myo, 26, who attempted with fellow neighbours to block a road and protect protesters from police, was shot in the throat and died, leaving behind his pregnant wife and son. His death brings the number of those killed by security forces—as currently indicated by domestic media outlets—to at least 60, although this figure likely underestimates the real death toll.

The situation in North Okkalapa remains tense, as internet connections were shut down Saturday night and police set barricades and residences on fire. Meanwhile, police are regularly making late night arrests around Yangon, raiding homes and using stun grenades.

Ahead of Monday’s general strike, some of the biggest protests in recent weeks were held on Sunday. Tens of thousands joined mass sit-in protests in Yangon’s Thanlyin Township and in Mandalay, where thousands of doctors, engineers, and teachers went on a joint strike. Military repression continued as live ammunition was fired on protests in the ancient temple city of Bagan, leaving a young man badly wounded.

According to reports and witness accounts on social media, police and soldiers performed a raid on Monywa University, arresting lecturers and students and causing a large crowd of concerned locals to assemble around the campus in protest. Similar operations are being undertaken to occupy 52 universities across Myanmar with the aim of both repressing students—a key component of the protest movement—and establishing temporary bases for security personnel. Soldiers have currently set up camp at five universities and two public hospitals.

Australian government releases refugees on limited bridging visas

Max Boddy

Since January 20, the Liberal-National Coalition government has released into the community approximately 120 refugees who were imprisoned in cramped hotels across Australia. Around 100 remain detained.

After years of incarceration in the government’s “offshore” detention camps on remote Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, these asylum seekers were transferred to Australia for urgent medical treatment under the later-repealed February 2019 “medevac” bill. They had been locked in the hotels for up to two years.

Those released have not been granted permanent visas. Instead, they have been placed on six-month bridging visas, so the threat of deportation looms over their heads. The government has provided virtually no support for those released, only in some cases paying for three or six weeks of temporary accommodation.

Balcony protest by refugees detained at Kangaroo Point Central Hotel (Credit: Facebook - Refugee Solidarity Meanjin)

The refugees now have to rely on volunteer groups and charities for accommodation, food and clothing. They are expected to find work in order to survive. Under conditions of ongoing mass unemployment due the coronavirus pandemic, many face the risk of homelessness, extreme poverty and/or exploitation by ruthless employers.

While the releases end the immediate suffering of incarceration, they constitute a temporary manoeuvre that maintains the political establishment’s bipartisan “border protection” regime, under which no asylum seeker who tries to reach Australia by boat is permitted to settle in the country.

There are also still more than 1,500 refugees in onshore immigration prisons and approximately 300 in “offshore” detention.

The opposition Labor Party and the Greens hailed the “medevac” bill as permitting a more “humane” treatment of refugees, but it did nothing to stop their indefinite imprisonment. Instead, it allowed for doctors to apply for their transfer to Australia for medical treatment under narrow and specific circumstances.

The bill was repealed in December 2019, leaving about 200 refugees stranded. In February 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government began forcing them into hotels. Photos soon emerged of the squalid conditions they faced, including dirty rooms and bedbugs.

Typical of those released is a family of four who were imprisoned for more than a year in a hotel in Darwin, the Northern Territory capital. Originally fleeing from Iran, the family was first imprisoned on Nauru for more than seven years.

Reza Golmohamadian and his family were recently accepted for resettlement in Canada but had been waiting in Darwin as Reza’s wife and daughter both needed medical treatment. The room in which they were imprisoned was roughly 3x3 metres with bunk beds. Reza’s wife, due to her medical conditions, could not climb up the bunk bed and so had to sleep on the floor.

With their release the refugees face a new form of detention. The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) interviewed Ethiopian refugee Betelhem Tebubu, who has been living on six-month bridging visas for four years. She told SBS that every six months the immigration department would remind her of the visa’s limitation by temporarily detaining her.

“They used to send us a message saying bring your medication, food, and water because you are [going to be] detained all day.” She would be forced into the office “for eight hours, because they locked the door. Even if we wanted to go to the toilet, we had to go with security.”

Tebubu commented: “We are free, but we are in a big detention on a bridging visa. I can walk, but my mind is not free... I never ever buy something for my house, because I don’t know what they’re going to do tomorrow. My mind never settles.”

The limited releases cut across several court cases filed by the refugees alleging that their detention is unlawful and that instead of receiving adequate medical treatment, their health has worsened. In many cases, they are seeking immediate release and damages for the months of unlawful detention.

The asylum seekers’ incarceration has been so traumatic that some have applied to be flown back to Nauru or Papua New Guinea, despite the poor conditions there.

A federal court judge, Geoffrey Flick, said the situation was “disturbing.” A “picture” was emerging in which Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was “not taking any steps at all to give effect to a request made by someone in detention for removal until this court intervenes.” Flick said the government should consider compensation.

Dutton has declared that the releases are for financial reasons. Speaking to 2GB radio in January, Dutton said: “It’s cheaper for people to be in the community than it is to be at a hotel or for us to be paying for them to be in detention.”

Various Labor and Greens politicians have made statements welcoming the releases, while criticising the Coalition government. Queensland state Labor Multicultural Affairs Minister Leanne Linard said releasing people “into the community with the current lack of support verges on cruelty.”

Such posturing by Labor and the Greens cannot hide their own roles in the criminal persecution of refugees. It was the Keating Labor government that, in 1992, first introduced the regime of mandatory detention for all asylum seekers arriving by boat.

In 2012, the Gillard Labor government, which was propped up in office by the Greens, reopened the offshore facilities on Nauru and Manus, thus creating the conditions for the cruelty inflicted on tens of thousands of refugees ever since.

All refugees and workers internationally should have the basic right to live and work wherever they want. They should be provided with the highest possible medical treatment. This is an essential part of the fight for a unified struggle by the working class worldwide against capitalism and for the socialist reorganisation of society. Those refugees still imprisoned, in Australia, in offshore detention or on temporary bridging visas in community detention, should be released immediately and afforded full citizenship rights.

US Senate passes pared-back COVID relief bill

Barry Grey

On Saturday, the US Senate passed the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, following two days of Republican stalling and negotiations between the Democratic leadership and right-wing Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia), which resulted in further cuts in proposed government aid.

The so-called “American Rescue Plan” was adopted by a strict 50-49 party-line vote, setting the stage for the expected passage of the pared-back measure by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, followed shortly thereafter by President Joe Biden’s signing the measure into law.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York speaking to the media in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin]

The major provisions of the Senate bill include:

* $400 billion for $1,400 per person stipends

* $350 billion for state and local governments, which have already laid off tens of thousands of educators and other public service workers

* $300 billion for the $300-a-week supplemental unemployment benefit through September 6 and a tax exemption for the first $10,200 in 2020 benefits for unemployed workers

* $160 billion for vaccinations, testing and other direct COVID-19 measures

* $150 billion to expand child and dependent care tax credits and the earned income tax credit

* $126 billion for school reopenings

* $86 billion for underfunded pension plans through the PBGC (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation)

* $45 billion for mortgage and rental assistance

* $28.6 billion for restaurants

* $1.25 billion for music venues

* $3 billion for aviation manufacturers

Last week, the House passed the package as initially announced by the White House, including a gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, a one-time cash stipend for all adults earning less than $100,000 a year and all couples earning less than $200,000, and an increase in the weekly supplemental unemployment benefit from $300 to $400. The one-time cash payment is set at $1,400 for individuals making less than $75,000 and $2,800 for couples earning less than $150,000, with additional cash aid for families with children.

However, Biden and the Senate Democratic leadership agreed to drop the minimum wage increase—the most significant concession to working people included in the package—in compliance with an advisory ruling by the Senate parliamentarian. The unelected official said the minimum wage hike could not be passed under the budget reconciliation process used by the Democrats in order to prevent a filibuster, which would require 60 votes to break, and obtain passage of the relief bill with a simple majority in the evenly divided chamber.

Manchin, who had already declared his opposition to the proposed minimum wage increase, used the threat of withholding his vote to demand as well a lower eligibility cap on the cash stipend—from $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for couples to $80,000 and $160,000, respectively, a cut that will exclude an estimated 17 million people from receiving the benefit. He then obtained a cut in the weekly jobless benefit from $400 to the current level of $300, itself a 50 percent reduction from the supplemental jobless pay enacted under the CARES Act passed in March 2020.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced over the weekend that the House would vote Tuesday on the version of the bill passed by the Senate.

The right-wing character of the Biden administration and the further shift to the right of the Democratic Party as a whole are exemplified in the emergence of Manchin as the dominant figure, exercising virtual veto power of the policies of the government. While Sanders and the so-called “progressives” are relegated to the role of rubber-stamping Biden’s pro-Wall Street and militaristic policies, Manchin and other conservatives are brought forward, as part of the administration’s efforts to reopen the economy and suppress the opposition among workers. It is noteworthy that the senator from West Virginia appeared on virtually all of the Sunday morning interview programs yesterday.

Following the Senate vote, Biden hailed the bill’s passage in remarks from the White House. He downplayed the concessions to the right wing, citing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who called the Senate bill “the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families in the modern history of this country.”

Sanders’ hyping of the scaled-back bill followed his token effort on Friday to override the parliamentarian’s ruling on the minimum wage. His proposal fell far short of the required 60 votes, as eight members of the Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republicans to vote it down.

The falling into line of the Democratic “progressives” was underscored by the remarks of Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, who said, “Despite the fact that we believe any weakening of the House provisions were bad policy and bad politics, the reality is that the final amendments were relatively minor concessions.”

In his remarks on Saturday, Biden continued to plead for unity and bipartisanship with the Republicans, saying, “There’s a lot of Republicans that came very close, they’ve got a lot of pressure on them and I still haven’t given up on getting their support.” This is despite the fact that not a single Republican in either the House or the Senate voted for his bill. Even more significantly, the Republican Party overwhelmingly continues to back Donald Trump and lend credibility to his lie of a “stolen election,” which provided the political pretext for his attempted coup d’etat on January 6.

In the course of his remarks, Biden once again linked the passage of the relief bill to what he called “safely” reopening the schools, claiming falsely that the $126 billion allotted to school districts will make it possible to safely resume in-person instruction five days a week in the midst of a deadly pandemic that is far from under control.

While the package provides a measure of desperately needed aid to millions of families facing long-term unemployment, hunger and the threat of eviction, it falls far short of the resources needed to rationally and humanely address the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and overcome the pandemic, while providing full income support for affected workers.

Biden unwittingly shed light on the gap between the massive scale of the crisis and the aid on offer. He noted that the US death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 520,000 and climbing, food bank lines continue to stretch for miles, thousands of families are being evicted, over 400,000 small businesses have closed, and “24 million adults and 11 million children, as I speak, in the United States suffer from food insecurity.”

In reality, the Democrats’ relief bill is seen as a necessary measure to provide political cover at the least possible expense for the brutal herd immunity policy in relation to the pandemic that is, in all essentials, being continued by the Biden administration. The Democratic Party and its faction within the ruling class are acutely aware of mounting anger and opposition in the working class, as they step up the drive to force workers back into unsafe workplaces for the sake of corporate profit. They hope the limited measures in the “American Rescue Plan” will buy them time and stave off a social explosion.

Another side of the same policy is Biden’s unprecedented public call for Amazon workers to back the unionization drive at the company’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. The administration is seeking to integrate the trade union apparatus more directly into corporate management and the state in order to suppress the class struggle and block any independent movement of the working class, which they correctly fear will assume an anti-capitalist direction.