Several European countries suspend COVID vaccinations

Benjamin Mateus

Many countries across Europe and into Asia are suspending their COVID-19 vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. These moves come on concerns over the formation of blood clots in some people soon after being inoculated. Several people have developed pulmonary embolism, where the blood clot in the legs has broken off and traveled into the lungs, and a few have died.

A vial of AstraZeneca vaccine is pictured in a pharmacy in Boulogne Billancourt, outside Paris, Monday, March 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

On Monday, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain were the latest nations that suspended the vaccine’s use, deciding to rely solely on Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Last week Denmark, Norway and Iceland, followed by Ireland, paused their vaccination programs. In Denmark, a 60-year-old woman, according to health authorities, died after a blood clot led to a pulmonary embolism. A woman in Bulgaria died after her vaccination. However, her autopsy didn’t reveal blood clots. She did have a history of heart disease, which may have contributed to her death. But any causal relationship to the vaccine has yet to be determined.

According to the pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca reported that there had been 37 reports of blood clots out of more than 17 million people who have been administered the vaccine across 27 countries and Britain. The company assured governments that there was no evidence that their vaccine increased the risk of such complications.

On Sunday, the company released a statement, “A careful review of all available safety data of more than 17 million people vaccinated in the European Union and the UK with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia [elevated platelet count—a blood component], in any defined age group, gender, batch or in a particular country.” A review of its published efficacy trial in the Lancet comparing the efficacy of the vaccine versus placebo revealed no difference in adverse events between the two. No mention was made of blood clots occurring in study participants.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, said at yesterday’s press brief, “Since our last press conference on Friday, several more countries have suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccine as a precautionary measure after reports of blood clots in people who had received the vaccine from two batches produced in Europe. This does not necessarily mean that these events are linked to the vaccination, but it is routine practice to investigate them. And it shows that the surveillance system works, and effective controls are in place.”

The WHO advisory committee on vaccine safety has been reviewing the available data and is in contact with the European Medicines Agency.

The European Medicines Agency said they hope to finish their investigations by Thursday and will determine if any further actions are required. It was in their view that “the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19, with its associated risk of hospitalization and death” outweighed the rare adverse events.

AstraZeneca has been embroiled in controversy from its inception when press reports confused efficacy results (the results from test trials among selected individuals) with actual effectiveness (in use by large populations). Additionally, a small trial on its efficacy in South Africa and the variant that emerged there further eroded confidence in the vaccine. As well, bitter battles over delivery shortfalls to the EU in January led to political attacks on the company by several European governments. These developments do not offset the more pressing issue that effective vaccines are urgently needed to protect the population, especially as the UK’s more virulent strain is threatening a spring surge throughout Europe.

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, told the Financial Times the move to suspend vaccinating people with the AstraZeneca vaccine arose out of an abundance of caution. “We are all aware of the implications of this decision, and we didn’t take it lightly. It was a technical decision, not a political one. [In order] to maintain trust in the vaccine, we have to give our experts in Germany and the EU time to check the recent incidents.” Approximately 1.6 million people in Germany have received the AstraZeneca vaccine, and there have been seven cases of blood clots in the brain, known as cerebral venous thrombosis.

On Friday, the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH) released a statement urging all eligible adults to continue receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations, despite the recent decisions by various national health agencies suspending use on the reports of these blood clots. They wrote, “At this time, the small number of reported thrombotic events relative to the millions of administered COVID-19 vaccinations does not suggest a direct link. Thrombotic events are common in the general population and have not previously been associated with vaccinations.”

The annual incidence of these blood clotting events stands around 1 per 1,000. These rates rise sharply after age 45, approaching five to six per 1,000 annually by age 80. Immobility, obesity, and various health conditions further contribute to these risks in the general population. In the context of the reported number of blood clots reported in vaccinated individuals among the 17 million doses administered, this places the risk of a blood clot far below the background rate for this complication.

Though there haven’t been any similar concerns raised about blood clots with Moderna and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines, in an online forum sponsored by the North America Thrombosis Forum titled “COVID-19 Vaccine and Blood Clots,” several US participants provided their experiences with such adverse events after their vaccinations. Dr. Samuel Goldhaber, Associate Chief and Clinical Director for the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Harvard Medical School, raised the more important concerns of blood clots associated with COVID-19 itself and urged continued vaccination.

Causal relationships between vaccination and the development of blood clots are an urgent and pressing issue with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in light of the need to vaccinate the population. Any such risks must be balanced against the benefit of the impact COVID-19 has on the population.

It becomes all the more imperative that measures are taken to halt the community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus through sound and effective public health mitigation measures, rather than the reckless reopening that has been undertaken by virtually every capitalist government in Europe and the Americas.

Duke undergraduates ordered to shelter in place amid rapid spike in COVID-19 cases

James Langley

On Saturday, Duke University in Durham, North Carolina issued an order for all undergraduate students to shelter in place, citing a recent spike in positive COVID-19 cases. “Effective at midnight, Saturday, March 13, all Duke undergraduate students are required to stay-in-place until 9 a.m., Sunday, March 21,” wrote three administrators in the initial email to students Saturday.

“If this feels serious, it’s because it is,” they added later on in the same email.

Perkins Library, Duke University (Photo: Wikipedia)

The order follows the largest one-week rise on campus since the beginning of the pandemic last March, with 180 students in isolation from a positive test, and 200 students in quarantine as a result of contact tracing measures. According to the university’s COVID Dashboard, over 300 students have tested positive this semester, more than twice the total of positive test results from the entire fall semester.

For a week, all in person classes, including labs, have been shifted online, and on-campus students are required to remain in their residence halls at all times, except for essential activities related to food, health, or safety. Students living off campus will not be permitted on university grounds, except to participate in testing or to visit the Student Health Center.

The administration is attempting to shift the blame for the outbreak squarely on the students. The email sent to students announcing the shelter-in-place order explicitly says that the recent case spike is tied to “students attending recruitment parties for selective living groups.” Previously, the university said many new cases were tied to events organized by fraternities that had disaffiliated from the university, the Duke Chronicle reported.

Despite the role celebrations or other social campus activities play in the spread of the virus, the attempt to scapegoat students for the outbreak is a dishonest effort to cover over the culpability of the university administration itself. The conditions in student dormitories, classrooms, labs, and even off campus housing, are simply not conducive to proper social distancing measures.

School administrations are fully aware of the devastating impact that school reopenings had on students, teachers and staff, along with the broader community in college towns throughout the country, during the fall semester. Towns and cities with colleges that reopened for in-person learning, or which, for one reason or another, allowed large numbers of students to return to their dorms, quickly become some of the worst hot spots in the country.

In fact, recent research published in the science journalism website Science News, “How 5 Universities tried to handle COVID-19 on campus: Fall semester was the start of a big experiment,” shows that in-person education remains a breeding ground for the spread of the pandemic.

With campuses reopening and bringing students back, Science News writer Betsy Ladyzhets found a 56 percent increase in COVID-19 cases during the three-week period of in-person instructions in comparison to the three weeks before, when the universities offered remote learning. The piece also found that in the same counties where universities offered remote learning, COVID-19 cases dropped by almost 18 percent.

Despite the dire state of the pandemic, the deadly experience of the fall semester, and the immense amount of scientific evidence advising against reopening, Duke, along with dozens of other campuses, went ahead with their spring reopening plans.

Universities are hoping the invocation of “personal responsibility” of students will be sufficient to contain outbreaks. It should go without saying that the task of keeping campuses safe is not primarily, let alone solely, the responsibility of students.

In continuing to keep the university open, gathering over 15,000 students into a concentrated area, the Duke administration is following the lead of the entire American bourgeois political establishment in allowing the virus to rip through the population, come what may.

Even as the scientific community is raising the alarm on the catastrophic threat that newly emerging variants of the virus pose to public health, federal and state governments are intensifying the drive-back-to-work campaign and the full-scale reopening of schools. All policies to control and contain the pandemic are pushed aside in the interests of the profit motive of the elite, even while countless students, teachers, and workers throughout the community die from the virus.

The reopening of campuses now is all the more criminal when one considers that coronavirus vaccines are expected to be widely available around the time of the end of the spring semester. In other words, with a medical solution to the pandemic in sight, colleges and universities are taking action that will serve to maximize the number of deaths before it can be realized.

In opposition to these policies, teachers, students and other workers across the US and internationally have been at the forefront of the fight for safe conditions and a rational, scientifically guided public health policy to control the pandemic.

In September, over 1200 University of Michigan graduate students went on strike for 9 days against the unsafe reopening of campus, though their struggle was betrayed by the American Federation of Teachers union. Just this week, graduate students at Columbia University have begun striking for better working and living conditions, while graduate students and New York University are threatening similar actions.

Teachers, particularly at K-12 schools, have conducted sickouts, work stoppages, and strikes against the unsafe reopening plans since the beginning of the pandemic last March.

To organize this struggle, the World Socialist Web Site has facilitated the creation of rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the corporate-controlled trade unions, in dozens of cities and states across the country and internationally.

The way forward for workers, students and teachers alike in their struggle against the back-to-work and back-to-school campaign must be based on an understanding of the class forces at play which have shaped the murderous policies that have been implemented so far. The spread of the COVID-19 virus is not the fault of a small section of students but is the outcome of a deliberate policy being pursued by the ruling class.

We urge students and workers to draw the necessary conclusions from the last year of the pandemic: If there is going to be opposition to the policy of the ruling class it will only come from the working class, organized independently with its own socialist program.

Former Australian finance minister to head OECD

Nick Beams

After an intense international political battle running over many months and a government-backed campaign, possibly costing several million dollars, former Australian Liberal finance minister Mathias Cormann last week secured the position of secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Mathias Cormann with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Wikipedia)

Cormann won his selection when he defeated the last remaining candidate for the post, former Swedish European Union trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, in the final ballot.

Besides the considerable effort devoted to his campaign by the Australian Liberal-National Coalition government, backed by the opposition Labor party, the main factor in Cormann’s success was the support he received from both the Biden administration in the US and the Johnson government in the UK.

Both governments supported Cormann amid strident criticisms of his record on climate change as a member of successive Liberal Coalition governments from 2013 to 2020 when he quit parliament.

While the back-room negotiations, conflicts and deals are not in the public domain, it is likely that one of the key factors in the US decision not to endorse the EU candidate was its concern that the head of the OECD should be closely aligned with attempts to organise a multi-lateral push against China.

There was considerable annoyance in the Biden team over the EU decision late last year to go ahead with an investment agreement with China before the new US administration took office.

The Johnson government played a particularly underhanded role as it lived up to the reputation of Britain as “perfidious Albion.”

Officially, the UK maintained that it had a strictly neutral position since the British ambassador to the OECD was the chair of the selection process. But according to a report in the Guardian last week, there had been “strong suggestions from within the OECD secretariat” that Boris Johnson told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Cormann had the UK’s backing, in a call between the two on October 27.

The significance of the China question is indicated in remarks by Cormann both before and after his appointment.

In his campaign material he said that “strategic competition in the [Asia-Pacific] region” was having global consequences. While it was “in everyone’s interests to have the best possible relationship with China… we also have to be clear-eyed about some of the pressure points to be worked through.”

The Australian government has been at the centre of the US drive against China, calling for an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus (the clear implication being that China was somehow responsible), introducing sweeping new foreign interference laws and imposing a ban on the use of Chinese technology in the new 5G network in 2018.

In his remarks on receiving the appointment, Cormann became more explicit. He said it was a “privilege and honour” to head the OECD because it provided a great platform for international co-operation “from the foundation of a shared commitment to democracy, human rights, the rule of law, market-based principles and a rules-based international order.”

In the language of diplomatese, these are all code words for support for the US agenda directed against China.

The China question, however, was not the basis of his public campaign. It was directed to the claim that as OECD secretary-general, he would work to “deploy every policy and analytical capability through the OECD to help economies around the world achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.” The organisation, Cormann stated, “can and must provide important global leadership to drive ambitious and effective action on climate change.”

Opponents of Cormann’s appointment had little difficulty in contrasting these statements with his actual track record in Australian politics. This spanned from the time he campaigned for the repeal of what he called the previous Labor government’s “job destroying carbon tax” in 2014, to his role in the ousting of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over what has been described as a “very modest reform to the electricity sector.”

In an act of political revenge, showing that while he may be out of parliament he is certainly not out of politics, the Australian Financial Review reported that Turnbull made efforts to discredit Cormann and torpedo his candidacy, which “were widely known.”

That opposition may even have extended to the outgoing OECD secretary-general Ángel Gurría. In one of his last public statements he urged countries to “put a big fat price on carbon,” in contrast to Cormann who has maintained that such a measure is a “job-destroying” tax and “an act of economic self-destruction which does nothing to help reduce global emissions.”

In the lead up to the final decision, a letter, signed by 29 climate change experts and environmental groups—including Greenpeace International, Oxfam Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Professor Rachel Kyte, a former special envoy on climate for the World Bank—was sent to Christopher Sharrock, chair of the OECD’s selection committee, saying that Cormann should be ruled out.

“As the world begins the monumental task of recovering from COVID-19 in the context of systemic action to avoid a climate catastrophe that will further entrench poverty and inequality, we firmly believe that the public record of Mathias Cormann should preclude him from being selected as the OECD’s new secretary-general,” it said.

According to the signatories, the OECD needed to be a leader in tackling climate change, but Cormann had been part of a government that had abolished a carbon pricing scheme, had persistently failed to take effective action to cut emissions and had “acted as a blocker” within international forums.

The OECD itself had criticised the Australian government, of which Cormann was a leading member, in 2018. It said Australia had made “little progress in reducing its environmental footprint in large part because frequent changes in core climate-change instruments have created uncertainty for emitters, which has also discouraged energy sector investment.”

The condemnations came thick and fast following the announcement of Cormann’s appointment.

Saleem Huq, the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, said: “The appointment of a climate change sceptic from Australia to head the OECD is very disappointing and will reduce the credibility of the OECD as an institution in the eyes of developing countries.”

Comments from other organisations were on the same lines. The executive director of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan, said she had little confidence in Cormann’s ability to tackle the climate crisis “when he has such an atrocious record on the issue.”

Climate economist Nicholas Stern, who back in 2006 described global warming as the “greatest market failure the world has seen,” noted that Cormann came from a government that has “often been at best ambiguous in its commitment to tackling climate change.”

Many of the condemnations had a hypocritical character.

Those who led the charge against Cormann support governments that have themselves done nothing of substance to address the climate crisis. Far from leading to a major reduction in emissions, the various carbon trading schemes have created lucrative financial markets characterised by dubious and speculative practices. The concern of many of Cormann’s opponents was that his prominent role in a government associated with outright climate-change denial would cut across these business interests.

The push to have Cormann appointed was heavily backed by the Morrison government. He was provided with the use of a VIP jet, supplied by the air force at a cost of $4300 per flying hour, to take him back and forth across Europe and to Latin America as he sought to gain support from OECD member states.

In addition, a “campaign task force,” numbering at least eight people, was provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

In conditions of rising economic and political tensions, Morrison made clear the reasons for this extraordinary effort. Welcoming Cormann’s appointment, he said it was “recognition of Australia’s global agency” and that as a successful trading nation “what happens in the rest of the world matters to Australia.”

This nationalist agenda was fully supported by the Labor Party. Labor spokesman Tony Burke, manager of opposition business in the House of Representatives, put aside all the supposed differences with Cormann—such as climate policy and the massive $80 billion worth of cuts he attempted to introduce in the 2014 Abbott government budget—to welcome the decision.

Speaking to reporters last Thursday, he said: “Labor has had a very simple view that it’s in Australia’s interests to have Australians in international roles.” That is, support for “the nation”—the economic and geo-political interests of the ruling elite—is the real foundation of its policy on this and every other issue.

Indian farmers’ agitation against Modi’s pro-agribusiness laws continues for fourth month

Wasantha Rupasinghe

The agitation by hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers against the pro-agribusiness laws adopted by Narendra Modi’s Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) government is now well into its fourth month.

Tens of thousands of farmers and their supporters remain camped on the outskirts of the national capital Delhi, as they have been since a massive government-ordered security operation blocked their entry into the city at the beginning of their “Delhi Chalo” (Let’s go to Delhi) protest in late November.

Toyota workers and Karnataka farmers stage joint procession in Bengaluru (Credit: WSWS)

The Modi government has laid the groundwork for a violent crackdown aimed at breaking up the farmers’ protest. Seizing on clashes between protesting farmers and police during a tractor rally in Delhi on Republic Day, January 26, the government ordered Delhi police to erect war zone-style barricades around the farmers’ encampments, virtually imprisoning the protesters. The Delhi police are under the direct authority of Amit Shah, the Home Minister and Modi’s chief henchman.

The three laws open India’s agricultural sector to domination by giant multinational and domestic agribusiness concerns. Farmers worry that the legislation will enable international investors and powerful corporate interests to seize control of their land and dictate production and prices. In addition to the laws’ repeal, the farmers are demanding legal guarantees that the minimum support pricing (MSP) system will not be dismantled. The MSP gives farmers a guaranteed minimum price for certain staple crops.

Modi and Shah are anxious to bring a quick end to the farmers’ agitation, which has served as a rallying point for mass opposition to the government and done much to shatter its corporate media–concocted myth of invincibility. But for the moment they have opted to try to wear the farmers down rather than order a violent security crackdown that could have explosive consequences.

One consideration is the impact a clash between security forces and farmers would have on the state assembly elections being held in five states, including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, next month. However, the government’s biggest fear is that a state security crackdown on the protesting farmers would serve to galvanise mass social anger within the working class and escape the control of the bourgeois opposition parties and trade unions.

This fear has been fueled by a recent upsurge of protests and strikes by workers against the Modi government’s pro-investor reforms, of which the farm laws are a part. About 1 million bank employees throughout India began a two-day strike yesterday against the Modi government’s plans to privatise public sector banks. On two occasions during 2020, on January 8 and November 26, tens of millions of workers participated in one-day general strikes against the BJP government’s pro-investor reforms and austerity measures. The second national strike also demanded emergency assistance for the hundreds of millions whom the government left to fend for themselves during its ill-prepared COVID-19 lockdown.

Recent months have also seen a series of strikes and protests involving workers in the public and private sectors, including coal miners, health care staff, and Toyota car assembly and auto parts workers.

But the working class has been prevented from intervening independently in the current political situation and providing leadership to the struggles of poor farmers and agricultural labourers by the treacherous policies of the Indian Stalinists and their affiliated unions. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI) are endeavouring to keep the working class on the sidelines, while urging the farmers to place their hopes in the Congress Party, till recently the Indian ruling class’s preferred party of government, and other right-wing parties.

Over the past two months, the BJP government has repeatedly said it is open to further talks with farm union representatives, but only if they drop their demand that the three pro-agribusiness laws adopted last September be repealed. That is, only if they agree to no more than minor amendments to the laws, which Modi and his minions continue to promote as a great boon to India’s farmers.

The last round of talks between the farmer unions and the government took place on January 20. The only concession the government has made to date is to agree that the implementation of the laws will be delayed by 18 months. However, this is far less than meets the eye. The Supreme Court, which has greenlighted numerous anti-democratic and authoritarian acts by the BJP government, had already ordered the laws’ application suspended, because it feared the swelling protest movement was becoming a threat to the stability of Indian capitalism.

To discredit the agitating farmers and their supporters, Amit Shah and other leading BJP figures, supported by pro-government media outlets, have hurled communalist slurs against the protesting farmers. They have accused them of acting under the influence of “Khalistanis” or Sikh separatists, “anti-nationalists,” and “Leftist and Maoist” forces.

The authorities have combined this stoking of communal animosities and political reaction with coercive measures designed to compel the farmers to end their protests. These have included the cutting of electricity, running water and, at times, even phone and Internet services to the camps, and the disruption of food, water supplies and the use of toilets. As of March 6, at least 248 farmers had died at the Delhi border from heart attacks and serious health conditions related to cold weather and other difficulties. Others have lost their lives to suicide or in road accidents.

The government has filed multiple legal cases against farmers and farm union leaders, and keeps harassing and arresting activists who have extended support to the farm protests. One example of this was the February 13 arrest by Delhi police of the young climate change activist Disha Ravi. She was threatened with sedition charges for allegedly helping create an online toolkit to support the farm protest movement.

While the government has had to temporarily put off application of its new pro-agribusiness laws, the Modi government is pushing ahead with several other crucial pro-investor “reform” measures. These include a privatisation drive and changes to labour laws that will expand the use of contract labour, allow employers to hire workers at will and make most worker job actions illegal. The Modi government is also working to further develop India’s military-strategic partnership with the US, assisting Washington in its drive to strategically isolate, encircle and prepare for war with China.

The farmers’ persistence in continuing their struggle for months despite their ruthless treatment by the government underscores their determination to overturn the agribusiness laws. But the farmers’ unions, which are led by better-off farmers with connections to the political establishment, and the Stalinist parties have led the protest into a political blind alley. They continue to claim that the Modi government can be pressured into changing course, while simultaneously working to channel social opposition, whether from the farmers or the working class, behind the big business Congress Party and various regional and caste-ist parties.

On March 3, the Samyuktha Kisan Morcha (SMK) or United Farmers’ Front, the coalition of farmers unions that has been leading the protest, announced that its leaders would visit the states where elections will take place next month to call on voters to reject the BJP. While the farm unions have avoided declaring support for any single party, their initiative will inevitably play into the hands of Congress and its regional allies.

Since the launch of the farmers’ agitation, the Stalinist CPM and CPI have closely coordinated their response to it with the Congress Party. Now, with the approach of the state elections, they are becoming ever more explicit in their attempts to transform the farmers’ agitation into an adjunct to their efforts to defeat the BJP in the state polls.

The CPM and CPI have for decades served as an integral part of the political establishment, propping up governments at the centre that have implemented neo-liberal reforms and pursued ever-closer ties with Washington and implementing what they themselves term as “pro-investor reforms” in the states where they have led the government.

Now under conditions where the ruling class has turned to the Hindu-supremacist BJP to dramatically intensify the assault on India’s workers and toilers, they are striving might and main to contain and politically suppress the mounting social opposition by tying it to the opposition. This includes their providing a “left” cover for the Congress Party, which is on political life-support having been widely discredited by its leading role over decades in implementing deregulation, privatisation, and other pro-market policies and in forging the Indo–US “global strategic partnership.”

In West Bengal, the most populous state that will be going to the polls next month, the CPM and CPI are sharing platforms with the Congress Party, and have announced that their alliance is not just a temporary arrangement for the coming state elections, but will be followed by joint campaigns over social and political issues in the months and years ahead.

Kroger closes more Los Angeles grocery stores in response to “Hero Pay”

Adam Mclean

The grocery store giant Kroger is planning to close three of its stores in Los Angeles, two Ralphs and one Food 4 Less, after the passing of a local “Hero Pay” ordinance that would grant grocery and pharmacy workers a $5 raise for the duration of the pandemic.

These “Hero Pay” laws, which have been adopted by a number of cities around the country now, have met with obstinate resistance from the employers. The California Grocers Association has initiated lawsuits against several cities in the state for passing these laws.

A worker stocks produce at a market in San Francisco. (Image Credit: Ben Margot/AP)

The reaction from Kroger to this temporary raise, granted under the conditions of a pandemic in which tens of thousands have died in Los Angeles alone, has been hysterical. From the beginning, Kroger made threats to close stores if the ordinance were passed, and has already made good on them. Kroger first announced the closure of several other underperforming locations in neighboring Long Beach in early February in response to the Hero Pay ordinance which was passed there.

While the working class has borne the brunt of the pandemic, the financial elite has seen its wealth explode. With the passing of the CARES Act, which allowed for an unprecedented flow of cash to the major corporations, a whole layer of “pandemic profiteers” was created. The large retail conglomerates received their share. Kroger’s year-on-year profits increased a massive 90 percent in the first half of last year, from $1.06 billion in 2019, to $2.03 billion in 2020. Other retail giants like Walmart tailed behind, reporting a mere 45 percent increase in the same period.

In their statement announcing the closing, Kroger said “when you factor in the increased costs of operating during COVID-19, consistent financial losses at these three locations, and an extra pay mandate that will cost nearly $20 million over the next 120 days, it becomes impossible to operate these three stores.”

In Los Angeles, Kroger boasts that they pay their workers $18 an hour. In a city where the average rent for a two bedroom apartment is well over $2,000, these are starvation wages. Among grocery store and retail workers, it is not uncommon for more than half of wages to go towards rent. Hero Pay, were it to pass unimpeded, would barely bring average rent under half of average wages.

While it is difficult to pin down national figures, some 5 percent of all COVID-19 infections happen in grocery stores according to data gathered in Illinois and New York. This means that workers are forced to accept a real risk to their health and well-being, as well as to their families, every time they clock into their shift. In Los Angeles County over 10 percent of the population has already been infected with COVID-19.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, (UFCW) which represents Kroger employees, has supported Hero Pay along with the Democratic Party, but has not taken up any real fight to prevent store closures. Small protests by workers broke at some of the locations slated to close, but there has been no coordinated action by the union to fight the closures, let alone talk of a strike.

Bernie Sanders has supported the UFCW in this, and has joined it in promoting Hero Pay, going so far as to send a letter to Kroger’s CEO begging him “to take the necessary and responsible steps to improve stores’ safety and compensate Kroger essential workers fairly by immediately reinstating hero pay ($2/hour) to all workers across the country.”

Over the last twenty years there have been major struggles by workers in the food supply chain. In 2004 the union accepted a concession contract replete with cuts to health care, pay and a number of other benefits after a major struggle. More recently during the Hunts Point strike in New York, in which 1,400 workers organized in the Teamsters struck for pay raises, the UFCW did not move to mobilize its own members in a united struggle, despite representing butchers at the market.

Bloodiest crackdown yet on Myanmar protests

Owen Howell

Myanmar’s military regime launched a vicious crackdown on unarmed protesters on Sunday, in which at least 63 people were killed and hundreds injured by security forces firing live ammunition, making it by far the bloodiest day since the February 1 military coup.

Doctors and rescue workers fear that the present toll of over 150 deaths will continue to rise as many of the wounded victims are in critical condition. Reports are also surfacing of dead bodies seized by police, after protesters were unable to retrieve them.

Residents march around their neighborhood despite an overnight curfew in an anti-coup night rally at the Myaynigone area of Sanchaung township in Yangon, Myanmar Monday, March 15, 2021. (AP Photo)

As previously, demonstrations in towns and cities across the country were confronted early in the day by a massive show of force by riot police and soldiers. One protester was shot dead in Mandalay, the second largest city, and another in Hpakant in Kachin State. Two were found dead after gunfire dispersed a mass student rally in Bago: a young boy and a woman whose body was dumped in a drain by security forces.

However, the most shocking display of violence was in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, where at least 59 people so far have been reported dead. Military assaults were largely focused on the city’s poor industrial suburbs, including Hlaingthaya, Thingangyun, Shwepyitha, Kyimyindaing, and South Dagon townships. Local hospitals were still filling with dead or seriously wounded protesters late Sunday night and Monday morning.

Health workers spoke to the independent news agency Myanmar Now of the devastation. A senior official at Yangon General Hospital claimed that seven of 56 people brought to hospital were pronounced dead on arrival, while Thingangyun Sanpya Hospital received around 18 dead and 70 injured, according to a striking doctor. In Hlaingthaya, which witnessed the bulk of the violence, 34 dead protesters were brought to the main hospital and 40 others admitted with serious gunshot wounds.

The killing in Hlaingthaya Township, a working-class district on the western outskirts of Yangon, reportedly began after fires broke out at two separate garment factories early Sunday afternoon. Hlaingthaya is home to a large population of impoverished migrant workers from rural areas across the country.

The circumstances surrounding the factory fires remain murky. An official from the industrial zone explained that the factories, Global Fashion and Tsang Yih, were owned by Chinese and Taiwanese investors, and that the cause of the fires is still under investigation. No group has claimed responsibility.

Nevertheless, military-run Myawaddy TV stated that protesters, whom the junta is labelling “criminals,” had set four factories and a fertiliser plant ablaze and stopped fire engines from reaching them. Additionally, the Chinese embassy said many Chinese staff were injured and trapped in the arson attacks, with Beijing-based CGTN later claiming people armed with iron bars, axes, and petrol attacked 10 factories in Hlaingthaya. In response, protest leader Ei Thinzar Maung has insisted on Facebook that only two factories were found burnt.

Military trucks swiftly rolled into the streets at around 1p.m. when soldiers opened fire on gatherings of peaceful protesters. The shooting continued all day and raged on into the night, residents said. Witnesses observed that troops used the nearby Aung Zeya bridge as a vantage point to fire on fleeing protesters, injuring dozens in the neighbouring Insein Township with sustained bursts of gunfire and rubber bullets.

Retreating protesters carried injured people where they could. Footage from the Democratic Voice of Burma showed some attempting to revive dying victims. Billows of black smoke covered much of the district as police set fire to roadblocks constructed by protesters.

A Hlaingthaya protester told the Irrawaddy newspaper, “These shootings are totally unacceptable. They are not dispersing the protests. They are just murdering the people with violence.”

Video on social media showed that protesters demonstrated considerable courage, reconvening throughout the day. Mostly wearing hard hats and gas masks, protesters sprayed fire extinguishers as they fled, in order to smother tear gas and create a screen between them and police.

Atrocities also occurred elsewhere in Yangon. In Tamwe Township, police dragged the wounded body of a junior medical student lying in a pool of blood while kicking and beating a woman trying to save him. Hours-long shooting was also reported in South Dagon Township, where around 50 were injured and three confirmed dead, including a 15-year-old girl who was shot in the head and abdomen.

Martial law was later imposed on numerous Yangon townships where protests had been the largest: Hlaingthaya and Shwepyitha on Sunday night, and South Dagon, North Dagon, Dagon Seikkan, and North Okkalapa on Monday morning. More direct military control of security, instead of police, was also declared in several parts of Mandalay.

The announcement, broadcast on state-owned MRTV, said the junta was enhancing security to restore “law and order,” entrusting Yangon’s regional commander with administrative and judicial powers in the area under his command. Moreover, in an apparent bid to suppress news of Sunday’s turmoil, telecoms service providers were ordered to block all mobile data nationwide, two sources told Reuters, leaving all mobile internet inaccessible.

The bloodshed followed a week of heightened state repression. After the violence unleashed on March 3, authorities have relentlessly terrorised neighbourhoods in Yangon, conducting mass arbitrary arrests and nighttime police raids, during which they have beaten civilians with impunity, fired gunshots at buildings, set off stun grenades, and damaged cars and shopfronts.

In particular, these actions have targeted sections of workers who have played pivotal roles in the widespread strikes and work stoppages known as the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), such as doctors, civil servants, and railway workers. Thailand-based monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners confirmed that at least 2,150 people had been detained by Saturday, the vast majority of them workers associated with the CDM.

An onslaught of soldiers and police on Saturday killed 13 protesters, meaning the weekend toll is as many as 72 dead. Five were shot dead in Mandalay, two in the central town of Pyay, and a truck driver in Chauk, Magway Region died after being shot in the chest.

In Yangon, where five were killed and dozens more injured, soldiers occupied hospitals and prevented families from collecting their relatives’ bodies. The killings did not stop the mostly young demonstrators who crowded into a downtown commercial area intersection past the official 8 p.m. curfew to hold a mass candlelight vigil. Similar after-dark rallies were held in Mandalay.

Saturday’s protests were called online to commemorate victims of the 1988 uprising against military rule, which was crushed by the armed forces in a brutal crackdown that killed an estimated 3,000 people. It has become clearer after last week that the military is fully prepared to ramp up repression even further and oversee a crackdown on the scale of the 1988 massacre.

The junta’s use of violence has greatly intensified since February 20, when security personnel attacked striking shipyard workers in Mandalay, deliberately firing live rounds on protesters for the first time.

The mounting pressure caused by the nationwide strike movement—which has persisted for six weeks and paralysed major sectors of the economy—is also driving the military to adopt more drastic political measures.

Quad summit consolidates US-led military bloc to prepare for war against China

Peter Symonds

The first leaders’ summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad, which took place online last Friday, has dramatically raised the stakes in the accelerating US-led war drive against China. While the Quad is not yet a formal military alliance, the Biden administration clearly views the consolidation of the partnership as a central element in its efforts to undermine, encircle and prepare for military conflict against China.

Scott Morrison (left) participates in the inaugural Quad leaders meeting with the Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in a virtual meeting in Sydney, March 13, 2021 (Credit: Dean Lewins/Pool via AP)

The summit not only issued a formal statement. Unusually also, Biden and the prime ministers of India, Australia and Japan—Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga respectively—put their names to an opinion piece published prominently in the Washington Post on Sunday. The comment is replete with cynical motherhood statements about their advocacy of democracy, action on climate change and COVID-19 vaccines, and commitment to “an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, secure and prosperous.”

However, while China is not mentioned, it dominated the discussion at the summit. The pledges by the four leaders to pursue regional co-operation, partnership and engagement do not, of course, extend to Beijing. Buried in the various public statements were thinly-veiled references to Chinese coercion—from the US that has routinely waged war and ousted governments to advance its imperialist interests—and the need to uphold “freedom of navigation”—that is, for the US Navy to provocatively intrude into waters around Chinese-controlled islets in the South China Sea.

The Washington Post comment includes a fanciful history of the Quad—supposedly borne out of the cooperation of the four countries in response to the catastrophic 2004 tsunami in Asia. “Our cooperation, known as the Quad, was born in crisis. It became a diplomatic dialogue in 2007 and was reborn in 2017,” the leaders write. How and why it mysteriously disappeared, and reappeared a decade later, is left unexplained.

Yet the genesis of the Quad is very revealing. It did not begin with the tsunami but with the election of the right-wing Japanese politician Shinzo Abe as prime minister in 2006. He called for enhancing the US-Japan military alliance by forging close partnerships with India and Australia. The plan was driven by growing concerns in the Japanese ruling class about China, which was about to overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy. The Bush administration, under fire from the Democrats for inaction over China, seized on the proposal and the first official meeting took place in May 2007. Its military purpose was underscored in September 2007 by the expansion of the annual US-India Malabar naval war games to include the navies of Australia and Japan.

Beijing protested against the formation of what was emerging as a military alliance in the Indo-Pacific targeting China. The Quad ignominiously collapsed months later in February 2008 when the newly-elected Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, concerned about relations with Australia’s largest trading partner and the danger of war, abruptly withdrew from the dialogue. Foreign Minister Steven Smith underscored the Canberra’s determination not to join a grouping that could be construed as anti-Chinese by making the announcement while standing alongside Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard with then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 (Wikipedia)

Rudd’s withdrawal from the Quad was just one of the “crimes” for which he was ousted in a US-orchestrated regime-change operation in June 2010. While he was fully committed to the US-Australian alliance, Rudd’s advocacy of the US making compromises with China to avert war came into conflict with the thrust of the Obama administration’s policy to confront China. Rudd was summarily removed as prime minister by four key Labor powerbrokers, later revealed by WikiLeaks to be “protected sources” of the US embassy in Canberra, in an operation that kept, not only the public, but Labor ministers and party members in the dark.

The following year, in November 2011, Obama, who had twice called off visits to Australia when Rudd was in office, announced his “pivot to Asia” strategy directed against China. Unveiled by Obama in the Australian parliament, the “pivot” involved comprehensive diplomatic, economic and strategic plans to undermine and encircle China throughout the region. Militarily, the Pentagon foreshadowed the restructuring of US bases in the region, the strengthening of alliances and strategic partnerships and the transfer of 60 percent of its naval and air assets to Asia. While in Australia, Obama and a fawning Prime Minister Julia Gillard signed an agreement to station US Marines in the country’s north.

Biden, as vice president under Obama and former chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was closely involved in all these machinations. By convening last Friday’s summit, he elevated the Quad to a new level, demonstrating that his administration will intensify the aggressive anti-China stance of the Obama and Trump administrations. The Quad, which was revived under Trump, is about to play a far more prominent role, with regular ministerial-level meetings, a face-to-face summit later this year, and a further expansion of joint military exercises.

None of the strategic commentators on the Quad is under any misapprehension that it is targeting China. It is already a quasi-military alliance engaged in a range of annual war games. Australia and Japan are longstanding military allies of the US, while India has forged intimate ties through a strategic partnership that includes comprehensive basing arrangements and technological assistance.

In the lead-up to the Quad summit, Trump’s former Defence Secretary James “mad-dog” Mattis and two other military analysts wrote a comment for Foreign Policy entitled “Getting the Quad right is Biden’s most important job.” It said “the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is the best hope for standing up to China.” It declared that Biden faced “a resurgent China, more confident than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic” and praised him for continuing Trump’s initiative in reviving the Quad.

The comment identified four areas where the Quad had to take action: to counter China in the South China and East China Seas; to ensure “supply-chain security”—that is, to guarantee access to vital imports necessary to fight a war; to maintain the technological edge over China particularly in crucial hi-tech areas; and to enhance diplomatic ties throughout Asia, “in ways not possible for Washington alone.” All four areas were referred to, if only obliquely, in the joint statement issued by the Quad leaders. Each item has been a preoccupation of the US military as it prepares to fight what would be a war between nuclear-armed powers with incalculable consequences.

Over the past decade, the US plans for war against China have been more and more evident: from the steady military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific, including anti-ballistic systems designed for fighting a nuclear war, to the increasingly strident and bellicose anti-Chinese propaganda, featuring fraudulent “human rights” campaigns over Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia, Hong Kong and Taiwan aimed, above all, at weakening and fracturing China.

In the lead-up to the Quad summit, the head of the US Indo-Pacific command, Admiral Philip Davidson testified to the US Congress. He called for a doubling of the Pentagon’s budget for the region and predicted that the US could face war with China within five years. The headlong plunge toward war by US imperialism is driven by the fear in Washington that China is overtaking it economically and technologically, as well as by the need to direct the tensions fueled by the profound political and social crisis at home outward against an external enemy.

Growing anger against Biden administration’s mandate for standardized tests during pandemic

Phyllis Steele

Last month, President Biden’s Acting Assistant Education Secretary Ian Rosenblum sent a letter to state education administrators instructing them that standardized tests had to be administered to students in some form this spring, summer or fall.

Rosenblum—whose previous job was executive director of the Education Trust-New York, a pro-standardized testing and pro-business organization—said states could delay the tests but they could not be canceled like last spring and they have to be conducted as soon as possible. The spring testing window for state tests, including the PSAT and SAT, typically given to high school juniors and seniors preparing for college, has already started in the United States.

The states of Michigan, California, Illinois, Georgia, New Jersey and New York requested testing waivers for the 2020-2021 school year in December and January. Others, such as Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Indiana, are testing students regardless of the Biden administration’s decision.

Rosenblum, who currently heads the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, claimed the tests were needed to “address the educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, including by using student learning data to enable states, school districts, and schools to target resources and supports to the students with the greatest needs.”

This is nothing but a political cover. Testing is being tied to school reopenings, with the push for standardized testing coinciding with the Biden administration’s plans to open up all K-8 schools by the end of April.

“President Biden’s first priority is to safely re-open schools and get students back in classrooms, learning face-to-face from teachers with their fellow students,” Rosenblum wrote. “To be successful once schools have re-opened, we need to understand the impact COVID-19 has had on learning and identify what resources and supports students need.”

He added, “We must also specifically be prepared to address the educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, including by using student learning data to enable states, school districts, and schools to target resources and supports to the students with the greatest needs.”

Standardized tests have been among the greatest stressors to the nation’s children, teachers and families since they were aggressively scaled up under the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB). These tests have been used to systematically defund public schools for the past two decades, and mandating them during a pandemic should be deemed cruel and unusual punishment.

At a December 2019 Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh, Biden promised that he would end the federal mandate on standardized testing. Instead, his Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is a fierce advocate of standardized testing and school reopening who provoked widespread anger among teachers when he served as Connecticut’s commissioner of education.

During his confirmation hearing, Cardona reiterated his insistence on standardized testing, stating, “If we don’t assess where our students are and their level of performance, it’s going to be difficult for us to provide some targeted support and a resource allocation in the manner that can best support the closing of the gaps.”

In an effort to posture as teachers’ allies and cultivate illusions that Cardona and Biden can be pushed to the left, the heads of the national teachers unions and various Democrats have publicly opposed the Biden administration’s mandate on standardized testing. National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle stated her opposition shortly after Rosenblum’s memo was circulated.

Last week, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten—who has played the central role in facilitating Biden’s homicidal campaign to reopen schools—co-authored an article for NBC News with New York representative Jamaal Bowman, in which they only oppose standardized testing this spring. While stating that they “understand why [standardized tests] exist,” their only objection is that “standardized testing this year will not reliably gauge student performance or identify areas in need of growth.”

Bowman, who is a member of the pseudo-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), also recently co-wrote a letter to Cardona opposing testing with five Democratic members of Congress, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rep. Thomas Suozzi of New York and Rep. Mark Takano of California. Omar and Bowman are part of the DSA’s congressional “squad” and promote identity politics to confuse workers and keep them tied to the Democratic Party.

Their letter endorses the reckless campaign to reopen schools, writing, “we must dedicate all of our efforts to a return to safe, in person learning, and we cannot divert our time and expenses to ‘teaching to,’ implementing and administering federally mandated testing.”

The manner in which this year’s tests take place is being left to the states, with each one determining testing dates and whether they will be done virtually or in-person. Cardona claims that students should not be asked to go into buildings in areas where cases are high to take tests, which begs the question why any students are going into buildings at present, as COVID-19 continues to run rampant throughout the country. According to Burbio’s K-12 School Opening Tracker, only 53.7 percent of schools are open at some capacity, with many of those only in a hybrid form.

According to a Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) study, 25 percent of students were missing for fall assessments. More broadly, there has been a loss of an estimated 3 million children from public school rolls during the pandemic. Students are missing due to loss of family members, caregivers’ loss of jobs, unstable housing, and the inability of parents to get childcare assistance for those forced to work.

Among educators, parents and students, there is widespread opposition to the continuation of standardized testing during the pandemic. A Michigan teacher commented to the World Socialist Web Site, “In mid-October, my students, now 9th graders, were given the PSAT, after over two months of virtual learning, and three months of summer where no learning took place. These scores could potentially be used for my evaluation. Students should not have been given this test. The country is in the middle of a pandemic and these students have over five months not receiving normal instruction or had accessibility issues with technology.”

A kindergarten teacher from Utah spoke about the standardized test for identifying letters and sounds, known as the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). She said, “Here’s the thing about DIBELS: it doesn’t really give us that much information we don’t know or can’t get other ways, especially the Beginning of Year test. It takes money from the district to hire the testers and have them travel around the various schools.

“The kids take their masks off for the DIBELS testing and the testers just wear face shields. Same thing for ELL testing. It’s about 5 minutes per kid but the testers are in the same poorly ventilated room for hours at a time. And they travel between different schools. We also have standardized benchmark tests in Math and Reading given to us by the district.

“We are hanging on by the skin of our teeth. I am so burnt out. Every Friday I feel like I’m going to fall apart and every Monday I wake up dreading going to school. And I LOVE teaching!! This is just exhausting and it’s so hard to teach kindergartners and kindergarten content with the masks and attempts at distancing and extra stress all the teachers and kids are under. It’s just a lot.”

The entrenchment of standardized testing under Bush, which was escalated under Obama, followed decades of bipartisan budget cutting and the systematic destruction of working class living standards. Predictably poor results on tests were exploited to persecute teachers and close “failing schools,” which were either left to rot or converted into privately-run charter schools. Teacher evaluations and pay were also aligned with test results, further undermining a wide-ranging curriculum and converting it into mind-numbing “teaching to the test,” largely tailored to the needs of big business.

Throughout this process, there has been a continual funneling of public resources to for-profit charter schools and other school privatization schemes, which will only deepen under Biden. Significantly, at the last minute, Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (NY) inserted $2.75 billion in funding for private schools into the COVID-19 stimulus package passed last week. This reactionary and unprecedented move was endorsed by Weingarten.

The pandemic has been exploited to accelerate the attack on teachers and public education, with massive budget cuts implemented in states across the US and masses of educators leaving the profession early in response to the demand that they return to deadly classrooms for in-person learning.

Among educators, parents and students, there is enormous opposition to testing and the reckless reopening of schools. This must be combined with a political struggle against the further starvation of public education and for a radical redistribution of wealth to greatly improve the quality of public education. Until the population in inoculated and the pandemic contained, all learning must remain fully remote.

Only after a massive infusion of funds to vastly improve education should tests, designed and overseen by educators themselves, be conducted to see where improvements and more resources should be allocated.