UK Delta variant surges with cases rising fastest among schoolchildren

Margot Miller

Governments around the world are using the far from complete vaccination programmes as justification for letting coronavirus rip through their populations.

As well as putting at risk the huge numbers of people still unvaccinated, and those for whom the vaccine has not produced a robust response, this policy is submitting millions of children to a programme of unmitigated herd immunity.

Alex Dickerson the reception class teacher, left leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Monday, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

COVID-19 infection can have serious consequences for young people. It has resulted in thousands of children’s deaths in countries like Brazil. Just yesterday in India, three children had eyes removed after developing the Black Fungus infection having fallen ill with coronavirus. Around 8 percent of children infected in the UK go on to develop long-COVID symptoms. Much remains unknown about the longer-term consequences of COVID-19 in children—a small number of studies have drawn a link between the virus and the development of diabetic conditions.

Moreover, allowing the virus to circulate in any significant section of the population gives it an opportunity to develop new variants which threaten the whole vaccination programme.

The speed with which coronavirus spreads through the young population when public health restrictions are withdrawn is being demonstrated in the UK. COVID-19 infections, driven by the more transmissible and deadly Delta variant, are rising exponentially in Britain, with over 11,000 cases reported on Thursday.

Ten days ago, Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted that a “huge proportion of the latest cases are in children”. Infections in schools have risen even more since. The latest Office for National Statistics data show the highest infection rates are in secondary schools. Pupils in years 7 to 11 had the highest rate of any age group, with one case in every 210 on June 2.

Thursday’s REACT-1 study from Imperial College London indicated that the prevalence of COVID-19 is highest among those aged five to 12, as well as younger adults aged 18 to 24.

How dangerous the new variant may prove to be for children is clear in the number of hospitalisations. Ten children—from babies up to age nine—were admitted to hospital in Scotland during the last week of May alone.

Instead of closing schools immediately and returning to remote learning until the virus is suppressed, the Department for Education (DfE) emailed school leaders to “encourage staff, and students… to continue to test twice weekly”, stating that “student bubbles… should stay in place.”

On May 27, the DfE reported 4,000 COVID-19 cases in children. The estimated absence rate in England’s state schools was 1.8 per cent—the highest since summer term began. The number of children self-isolating surged from 60,000 to 90,000 in a week. This week, Public Health England data (PHE) confirmed 149 school outbreaks have been linked to the Delta variant since April 26—with 136 of them coming in the four weeks up to 6 June.

Up to the start of half-term, the proportion of pupils in England absent from school because of COVID-19 nearly doubled from 1 to 1.8 percent. According to official data, this amounted to more than 140,000 pupils.

A June 11 article by five experts in the BMJ, (formerly, British Medical Journal) condemned the government for leaving “children, staff, and communities exposed to the rapid spread of a new and more transmissible variant, and at risk of long covid.” Absent in schools were “basic mitigations of face coverings, space, and fresh air.”

Such is the spread since the government almost fully reopened the economy on May 17 that, as the school summer term resumed, many schools reintroduced mask-wearing. This was against government advice, which insisted any mask-wearing could be relaxed in schools and other education settings.

Speaking to Sky News on June 7, Sir David King, chair of Independent SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), and former chief government scientific adviser said mandatory face coverings in schools should be enforced. King questioned whether the government actually believed “in herd immunity amongst school children? Is that why they are saying take masks off, so that the disease spreads rapidly and that they all become immune by having had the disease?”

The government decided to lift mask-wearing despite knowing the Delta variant was spreading in schools. Advocacy group The Citizens and data rights firm AWO have sent a pre-action legal letter to PHE accusing the government body of withholding vital data regarding outbreaks of the variant in schools. A report was due to be published last month.

The fact that COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire through schools is nonetheless impossible to hide.

Last week, 15 schools across all 10 areas of Greater Manchester confirmed cases of the Delta variant. Almost one in three children were absent in Bolton schools in the last week of May due to the variant.

In nearby Liverpool, the Bluecoat school sent 180 pupils home after positive cases were confirmed.

Downend School had to resume remote learning in Gloucestershire after 31 cases were confirmed.

In the London borough of Bromley, health chiefs wrote to parents in Ealing, Hillingdon, Brent, Harrow, and Hounslow advising mask-wearing continue “until further notice”. With 58 confirmed cases, Bromley is the eighth-worst affected borough in London with the new strain.

Bristol, which reported 25 schools with outbreaks of the variant, has also reintroduced face coverings.

In Yorkshire, Sandal Castle Primary School in Wakefield and Outwood Academy Hemsworth reported Delta cases as term began. Tadcaster Grammar school reverted to remote learning after positive cases were identified.

Haslingden High School, in Rossendale, Lancashire had no cases in the run-up to half term. As school resumed on Monday, two students tested positive, by Friday there were 35 and by the weekend, 70.

Students at Wilmington Grammar Schools for Girls and Boys, Kent are being tested after outbreaks at the University of Kent and King’s School, Canterbury.

Hertfordshire County Council issued a Covid warning in the Three Rivers district—with a population of 93,323—as a cluster of coronavirus cases was found May 27-29 in children aged 10 to 14. Children aged five to nine tested positive.

In Watford, Cherry Tree Primary closed before half-term after cases were confirmed.

In Wales, children at Goitre Primary School in Merthyr Tydfil went home for a week after a school visitor tested positive. An outbreak of the Delta variant involving schools was reported in Denbighshire. Basseleg school in Newport sent 300 children home after 100 tested positive.

In Scotland, 316 children in Perth and Kinross self-isolated after pupils tested positive in five schools. St John’s RC Academy reported nine cases between May 26 and June 1. Positive tests were identified in students at Balhousie Primary School, Inch View Primary School, Kinross High School and Perth Grammar School.

Relying on scientifically discredited lateral flow testing in schools to control the spread has utterly failed. The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is expected not to recommend vaccinating most all under-18s.

The response from the education trade unions to this unfolding disaster is only to call on the government to reintroduce mandatory mask-wearing. Joint NEU general secretary Mary Bousted said lamely, “We advised the government it was premature to be taking the masks away”.

The NEU has consistently refused to mobilise its membership of 450,000 to keep schools closed during the pandemic. Along with the other education unions, it suppressed opposition by parents and teachers, who wanted face-to-face learning replaced with remote teaching until it was safe to return to the classroom. So opposed is the NEU to closing school sites that the union’s joint leader, Kevin Courtney, tweeted last week that “Outdoor lessons should be encouraged wherever possible.”

General Secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT Paul Whiteman said complacently, “the number of children not attending school due to Covid is low overall” while noting a “distinct rise… in some areas.”

The virus was able to spread and mutate because the Labour Party and unions agreed schools and the economy must reopen. Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham backed the government’s roadmap to reopening the economy. Before Monday’s announcement of a four-week delay in ending all restrictions on social distancing (originally scheduled for June 21), he said, “I want to try and stick to the 21st June … but it's got to be done safely.”

Without the introduction of the most stringent public health measures, until the whole population is vaccinated, more cases and deaths will follow.

Peru ending second week since presidential election with no declared winner

Bill Van Auken

Peru is gripped by sharp political tensions, as the country is set to complete a second week since the June 6 presidential election without a winner being officially declared.

With 100 percent of the ballots counted, Pedro Castillo, the former teachers’ strike leader and candidate of the Peru Libre party, leads the right-wing Fuerza Popular candidate Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, who is imprisoned for 25 years for crimes against humanity, by a margin of 50.12 percent to 49.87. Just 43,000 votes out of the more than seventeen and a half million cast separate the two candidates, but it is clear that Castillo has won.

Supporters of Fujimori (left) and Castillo (right) demonstrating in Lima (Credit: Andina)

A declaration that Castillo has won, however, has been blocked by the Fujimori camp, which has mounted a legal offensive based on spurious claims of election fraud, seeking to overturn the results from hundreds of polling stations in the Andean highlands and Amazonian regions where Castillo won by overwhelming margins.

As of Wednesday, the National Election Board (JNE) announced that of the 942 challenges brought by the Fujimori camp, 792 have been resolved, without one of them establishing electoral fraud of any kind. Most of the claims had been brought after a June 9 cutoff for making such challenges.

While the challenges have no basis in either fact or law, they have been brought by an army of high-powered lawyers drawn from Lima’s top law firm, with the aim of delaying confirmation of the election results as long as possible. The Fujimori camp is playing for time, with the intention that its challenges and ceaseless claims of fraud will create the conditions for overturning the election by extra-constitutional means, up to and including a military coup.

This conspiracy enjoys the support of the corporate media, the bulk of the country’s financial oligarchy and sections of the military.

The similarities between the tactics pursued by Fujimori and those employed by Trump in the 2020 US presidential election do not stop at the use of fabricated charges of electoral fraud to overturn the election or, at the very least, delegitimize the incoming government. Like Trump, Fujimori, along with other members of her family and top aides, face the prospect of criminal conviction and imprisonment if they fail to seize the presidency.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has asked that Keiko Fujimori be returned to pre-trial detention on charges of money laundering connected to political bribes, including from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. She is also charged with heading a criminal organization, i.e., her own party, Fuerza Popular.

The threat of political violence or even a military coup is real. Fujimori’s followers have staged fascistic demonstrations, replete with torches and the singing of the national anthem while giving the Nazi salute.

Castillo’s supporters, including many who have come to Lima from the interior, have also demonstrated in the capital demanding that their candidate be officially declared the winner.

Meanwhile, 63 retired generals and other high-ranking officers issued a communique demanding the resignation of the head of the election board, warning of the danger of a Castillo victory and calling for the “strengthening of confidence in the armed forces and the police.” The Defense Ministry felt compelled to issue a statement in response deploring the use of official military symbols in the communique.

Ever since Castillo emerged with the highest number of votes in the first round, and Fujimori with the second highest—each of them with less than 20 percent—the Peruvian right and the media have conducted a rabid campaign branding Castillo a “communist” and a “terrorist,” charging that he would turn Peru into another Venezuela.

Since winning the second round, Castillo and his backers have sought to disassociate themselves from radical policies, including the nationalization of mining industries called for in Peru Libre’s platform, while drawing in a group of moderate “advisers.” The most prominent among them is Pedro Francke, a Catholic University economist and former official at the World Bank and Peru’s central bank. Francke had served as a chief adviser to Veronika Mendoza, the candidate of the pseudo-left Juntos por el Perú party, who placed a distant sixth in the first round of the presidential elections.

The increasing role of Mendoza’s advisers is politically significant. In the 2016 presidential election, Mendoza threw her support to the ex-Wall Street financier Pedro Pablo Kuczynski as the “lesser evil” in his successful second round run-off with Keiko Fujimori, making clear Mendoza’s “responsible” approach to the interests of Peruvian and international capital.

At a press conference in Lima Tuesday, Francke reassured the Peruvian and international bourgeoisie: “There will not be expropriations, there will not be nationalizations. Nor confiscations, nor anything.” It is widely expected that Francke will be tapped as Castillo’s economy minister.

Earlier in the week, Scotiabank Peru, the country’s third-largest financial institution, issued a statement declaring its approval of Francke’s role and of a document issued in Castillo’s name “suggesting a softer, more pro-market (or at least, less radical) stance on issues such as property rights, respect for economic institutions, the relationship with private business, price controls and other concerns.” It concluded that rather than being a “radical leftist,” Castillo’s chief economic adviser is a “Keynesian.”

Both Castillo and Francke have carried out a whirlwind of meetings with big business figures. As a result of these meetings, Roque Benavides, head of the Buenaventura mining company, which for decades has extracted billions of dollars’ worth of minerals at the cost of the destruction of Peru’s rivers and valleys, and also president of the main business organization, Confiep, declared that he would accept proposals for tax increases, but he would not tolerate nationalizations.

Castillo’s program has been whittled down to tax reform, renegotiation of royalties from the transnational mining corporations and an agrarian reform that forswears any expropriation of redistribution of land.

The corporate media and the Peruvian political establishment have demanded that Castillo prove his reliability by breaking with the founder of Peru Libre, Vladimir Cerrón, the ex-governor of the central department of Junín. Combining pseudo-Marxist rhetoric, populist demagoguery and extreme right-wing social policies—embraced by Castillo—on issues such as abortion and “gender politics,” Cerrón was criminally convicted on corruption charges.

The official declaration of Castillo’s victory will hardly resolve Peru’s deep-going political, social and economic crisis. The country is among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, registering the highest per capita death toll in the world. The effects on the economic conditions of the working class and oppressed masses have been catastrophic, with an estimated nine million jobs wiped out, poverty increasing by 10 percent and soaring prices of basic commodities.

The real fear of the Peruvian bourgeoisie is not of Castillo, who is already making clear that he is someone with whom they can do business, but of an eruption of class struggle driven by declining living standards and a dramatic increase in social inequality as those at the top have enriched themselves, while working people have faced death, disease, unemployment and impoverishment.

Indian chemical factory explosion and fire kill 18

Yuan Darwin

As many as 18 people have died from a June 7 fire at an SVS Aqua Technologies chemical plant located in the Pirangut industrial zone, some 40 kilometres from Pune, the second largest city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The plant produces chlorine dioxide for water purification.

“The fire broke out during plastic packing,” said Devendra Potphode, the chief fire officer for the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority Fire Services. “Smoke was so much that female workers could not find an escape. We have recovered 17 bodies—15 women and 2 men.” The fire was punctuated by two powerful explosions. It took several hours for the bodies of the victims, all charred beyond recognition, to be located and sent to Sassoon General Hospital for identification and post-mortems.

The fire at a factory at Ghotawade Phata in Pune on June 7, 2021. (Photo: NDTV)

Under conditions of mounting anger among the plant’s workers and the families of the dead, the local police filed a FIR (First Investigation Report) against the CEO of the company on June 7 and arrested its owner Nikunj Shah the following day on charges of culpable homicide. Preliminary investigations have pointed to criminal negligence on the part of management, with flammable materials stored without following prescribed safety norms.

The Maharashtra state government—which is a three-party coalition led by the fascistic Shiv Sena and that includes the Congress Party and a regional off-shoot from it, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)—has announced an ex gratia payment of 500,000 rupees ($US 6,828) to the families of each of the deceased. In announcing the payment, the state’s Deputy Chief Minister, Ajit Pawar of the NCP, said an expert committee has been designated to ascertain the cause of the fire and assign any responsibility for it.

India’s far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government has announced 200,000 rupees compensation for the kin of each of the deceased and 50,000 rupees for the injured. “Pained by the loss of lives due to a fire at a factory in Pune, Maharashtra. Condolences to the bereaved families,” tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

These are crocodile tears. The tragic loss of life and terrible injuries among the SVS Aqua Technologies workers are a direct result of the callous indifference of company management and both state and central governments to worker safety.

Modi’s government, in which the Shiv Sena served as a junior partner until November 2019, has relentlessly attacked workers’ rights, including by further weakening India’s notoriously lax environmental and occupational health and safety laws.

The loss of life from the Pune factory fire comes on top of the deaths of thousands on a daily basis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which, fueled by the highly contagious and more lethal Delta variant, continues to rage across India.

Although the authorities are now reporting less than 100,000 new infections per day, India is still recording nearly 4,000 deaths daily, even according to the official figures, which are almost universally acknowledged to be a vast undercount. Maharashtra reported a seven-day average of over 11,000 new COVID-19 cases per day last week with a 1.7 percent case fatality rate.

Modi’s real concern is that the factory fire disaster will undermine his government’s demand that workers return to their jobs amid a still raging pandemic, risking their lives and those of their loved ones.

Even when India was averaging more than 400,000 new cases daily in the second week of May, the Hindu supremacist BJP government was adamant that it would fulfill Modi’s April 20 vow to “save India from lockdown,” not the pandemic. Citing the recent fall in cases, Modi, for several weeks now, has been urging those state governments that did enact partial lockdown measures, while leaving most industrial production to continue operating at full tilt, to quickly remove them.

The Pune factory explosion and fire is just one of many thousands of examples of major capitalist corporations sacrificing workers’ lives and forcing them to use hazardous materials and dilapidated machinery with little to no safety equipment or training, so as to maintain production and maximize profits.

Last year, as India reopened from the Modi government’s ruinous, ill-prepared COVID-19 lockdown, there was a series of major industrial accidents, due to companies’ failure to carry out proper inspection and maintenance before resuming or accelerating the pace of their operations. These include: a toxic gas leak at an LG Polymers plant in Andhra Pradesh on May 7, 2020, which killed 11 and made more than 1000 sick; a June 3 boiler explosion at Yashashvi Raasayan Private Limited’s Dahej, Gujarat facility that killed at least eight people and injured some 40; and boiler explosions at Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s thermal power plant in Tamil Nadu on May 7, and again on July 1, that killed at least 20 workers.

According to Labour and Employment Ministry data, 3,562 workers died in factory accidents in India between 2014 and 2016, and more than 51,000 were injured during the same period—an average of three deaths and 47 injuries every single day. A 2017 study by the British Safety Council painted a far bleaker picture, reporting that 48,000 workers die of occupational accidents in India every year.

Successive Indian governments have worked to transform the country into a cheap labor haven for giant multinational corporations and international investors, who have systematically neglected workers’ health and safety while reaping billions in profits.

Although central and state government authorities have worked with employers to cover up the number of COVID-19 workplace infections and deaths during India’s devastating second wave of the pandemic, reports suggest that the deaths number in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

Late last month, major automakers in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, including Ford India, Hyundai, and Renault-Nissan, were forced to idle their operations in the face of protests and strikes by workers outraged over the lack of protection from COVID-19.

US states press reopening amid mounting dangers from COVID variants

Patrick Martin

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 600,000 people in the United States, according to the semi-official tabulation by Johns Hopkins University. But while more people have been killed in the US by coronavirus than in any other country, American state governments are moving pell mell to drop all public health protection against the deadly virus, while the Biden administration points to a July 4 reopening of the entire country.

Medical staff wearing protective equipment attend to patients affected by the COVID-19, at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Machakos County Level-5 hospital in Machakos, Kenya, Thursday June 17, 2021. Africa, whose 1.3 billion people account for 18% of the global population, has received only 2% of all vaccine doses administered globally. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga).

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced Thursday that all the state’s restrictions on social distancing, indoor gatherings and mask-wearing will be lifted next Tuesday, ending 15 months of state-mandated public health requirements.

All capacity limits will be removed for bars, restaurants, arenas, churches and other indoor venues, and the state’s mask mandate will end 10 days earlier than the previous goal of July 1. Limits on entry into most health care and juvenile facilities will end, remaining only for visits to prison inmates and individuals living in long-term care facilities.

Whitmer crassly acknowledged that her administration was now focused on boosting corporate and business profits, declaring, “Our top priority going forward is utilizing the federal relief funding in a smart, sustainable way as we put Michigan back to work and jump-start our economy.”

State health officials justified the lifting of restrictions based on the level of vaccination and the return of warmer weather as summer approaches. About 50 percent of the adult population of the state is fully vaccinated, while 61 percent has received at least one shot.

Whitmer had said in April that she would lift restrictions only when 70 percent of the population had received at least one shot. That promise has been unceremoniously discarded in a capitulation to right-wing opposition, which reached the point that ultra-right gunmen linked to the Republican Party were arrested last year in the midst of a plot to kidnap and murder the Democratic governor for her actions in enforcing a limited lockdown.

The figures on vaccination mask significant regional disparities. Better-off suburban areas are more vaccinated than impoverished cities like Detroit and Flint and far more heavily vaccinated than the predominately rural northern half of the state, where economic dislocation and the domination of fundamentalist religion and the Republican Party play a pernicious role.

The same disparities exist on a national scale. The vaccination rate in the Northeast and West Coast states is over 70 percent, while in many of the poorer states of the South and Mountain West the vaccination rate is as low as 35 percent. Midwest industrialized states like Michigan fall somewhere in between.

Some inner-city areas in the Northeast have low adult vaccination rates: only 38 percent of adults in the Bronx and 41 percent in Brooklyn, two of the boroughs that comprise New York City, have been fully vaccinated.

From May to June, the vaccination rate has slowed sharply in the United States, down at least two-thirds from the April peak, according to a survey by the Washington Post. In 12 states, mainly in the South and Mountain West, daily vaccination rates have fallen below 15 shots per 10,000 residents. In Alabama last week, it was only four per 10,000.

The Post study found that until about 10 days ago, the rate of vaccination was not highly correlated with the rate of new infections, but this has begun to change. Counties with low vaccination rates (fewer than 20 percent vaccinated) have seen rising rates of infection. Counties with higher vaccination rates (at least 40 percent) have seen rates of infection declining.

Under these conditions, with as many as 100 million US adults not vaccinated, as well as nearly all children, there is a vast pool of vulnerable people unprotected from the new variants of coronavirus now spreading rapidly throughout the world.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared this week that the Delta variant, first observed in India, is now a “variant of concern,” making it a serious threat to those who are not vaccinated. The CDC estimated that the Delta variant accounts for as many as 10 percent of all new COVID-19 infections in the US, up from 2.7 percent two weeks ago, and as many as 20 percent in the Western states.

The Delta variant is far more infectious than the Alpha or UK variant, which became dominant worldwide during the winter and was in turn far more infectious than the original, or “wild,” form of coronavirus that emerged in China in December 2019.

In an interview with National Public Radio Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, “If you are not vaccinated, you are at risk of getting infected with the virus that now spreads more rapidly and gives more serious disease.”

Fauci pointed to the mounting crisis in Britain, even though a higher proportion of the population is vaccinated than in the US, because the Delta variant has swept rapidly through the large remainder of the population that is still unvaccinated. He warned that US states with a much lower vaccination rate than Britain’s could be in great danger.

Similarly, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told CNN, “I’m worried about those who are unvaccinated,” because the Delta variant “is rapidly increasing here in the United States.”

Epidemiologists not constrained by working for the Biden administration have been sharper in their warnings against complacency. Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, pointed to the danger of regional variations in the US.

“The variants continue to spin out of infections around the world and have gotten more complicated and more dangerous,” he said. “We have a mistaken belief [the pandemic] is over here, but there are over 100 counties where less than 20 percent of the people have one dose of vaccine,” Osterholm continued. He added, “The challenge is what is the next variant going to look like.”

Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, expressed concern about the impact of the Delta variant in his region of the country. “I’m really holding my breath about the South and what happens over the summer,” Hotez warned in an interview with CNBC. “Here in the South, particularly in Louisiana, Mississippi, we’re seeing really low vaccination rates. And less than 10 percent of adolescents are vaccinated in many of these southern states, so we have a real vulnerability here.”

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, also warned that states with low vaccination rates could be at risk given the rapid spread of the variant. “If the UK is where we should draw our lessons, I think the US is in for a surge in the lower vaccinated states.”

Military show trial of Suu Kyi begins in Myanmar

Mike Head

Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed on trial behind closed doors this week, on the first of a series of bogus charges evidently designed by the military junta to shore up its power and claim international legitimacy for its dictatorship.

The military’s February 1 coup prevented elected legislators from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) from taking office, following what was officially confirmed as a landslide election victory last year.

Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi addresses judges of the International Court of Justice for the second day of three days of hearings in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

The army justified its coup by alleging that Suu Kyi’s government failed to properly investigate accusations of voting irregularities. Since then it has claimed to have found evidence of fraud, but that assertion has been rejected so far by various international agencies.

The trial is being conducted amid ongoing repression, against widespread popular opposition. United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq this week said a UN team on the ground estimated that at least 861 women, children and men had been killed since February 1, with thousands more injured. About 4,800 people are in detention, including politicians, teachers, health care workers, civil servants, journalists and ordinary citizens.

Suu Kyi’s lawyers said she had been charged with illegally importing walkie-talkies for her bodyguards’ use, unlicensed use of the radios, and spreading information that could cause public alarm or unrest. There were also two counts of violating the Natural Disaster Management Law for allegedly breaking pandemic restrictions during the 2020 election campaign.

Two more serious charges against Suu Kyi are being handled separately. One is for breaching the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum 14-year prison term, and another for bribery, which has a potential penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment and a fine.

The proceedings are an obvious travesty. Although Suu Kyi faced her first charge just days after the coup, she was not allowed her first face-to-face meeting with her lawyers until May 24, when she made her initial appearance in court for a pre-trial hearing. She had only another brief meeting with them before the trial started on Monday.

Representatives of the ousted government, which was a partnership between the NLD and the military, are agitating for intervention by the imperialist powers. Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN, who has continued to be recognised by that body, despite being fired after the coup, has called for “effective collective measures” against the junta, ahead of expected UN Security Council talks on the crisis.

These appeals underscore the fact that the orientation of the NLD and its alternative “national unity government” in exile, is not to the youth and workers, who have conducted widespread strikes against the junta, but to the same world powers that backed the previous power-sharing arrangement between the NLD and the generals.

To overthrow the junta requires the mobilisation of the millions of workers, as well as the rural masses, to fight, not just for essential democratic rights, but for improved social conditions, which were under assault by the NLD-military regime.

As happened internationally, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the attacks of government and big business on workers’ jobs and conditions. Suu Kyi’s government provided virtually no cash support to those hardest hit.

According to one survey conducted last October, the proportion of the population living in poverty (making less than $US1.90 a day) had risen from 16 percent to 63 percent over the previous eight months.

With the military takeover, the UN Development Program now expects half of Myanmar’s population of 55 million to fall into poverty over the coming six months, and the World Food Program worries that 3.5 million more people will face hunger.

Essential medicines and treatments are reported to be in extremely short supply, and during 2021, 950,000 infants will not receive the vaccines they need for diseases such as tuberculosis and polio.

Since the pandemic erupted, industries on which working-class households rely, such as tourism, have collapsed, as have remittances by migrant workers overseas, which totaled about $2.4 billion in 2019. The garment industry, which employed over a million people, many of them young women, has been devastated as orders from Europe have dried up.

Within days of the coup, hundreds of thousands of people poured onto the streets, demanding an end to military rule. A civil disobedience movement emerged, with medics leaving government hospitals, and quickly spread across the public sector. On February 22, a general strike shut down businesses, including banks.

The army cracked down ruthlessly. During the last week of February, elite infantry divisions, including units responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya ethnic minority, began moving into cities, firing on people in residential neighborhoods, breaking down doors and hauling people away

Nevertheless, protests persisted. Young men and women erected makeshift barricades and wielded shields to defend themselves. On March 14 alone, dozens were killed in Yangon’s industrial suburb of Hlaingthaya. On March 27, over 100 died as the army opened fire on crowds across Myanmar.

Amid the resistance, some protesters raised signs calling for “R2P,” referring to “responsibility to protect.” This is a doctrine developed to justify imperialist intervention, supposedly to defend people from crimes against humanity. Hopes of such action have since faded.

Some youth have since joined armed separatist groups, based on ethnic minorities in border areas, but these are outgunned by the military. Numbering perhaps 75,000 fighters in total, they face a military with over 300,000 personnel, equipped combat aircraft, drones and rocket artillery.

The fight for democratic rights, moreover, is bound up with far broader political issues, including overturning the divisive nation-state framework imposed over the region by British colonialism and maintained by the local ruling classes, which are utterly subservient to the global capitalist powers.

In 1937, ten years before Pakistan was split from India along religious lines, the British partitioned Burma from India on the basis of perceived racial differences. After being granted formal independence in 1948, the Burmese elite retained a communalist policy, denying basic rights to those designated as “aliens,” such as the near million Rohingya, driven into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Mired in this Burmese Buddhist nationalism, Suu Kyi and the NLD defended the military’s atrocities committed against the Muslim Rohingya.

The military had freed Suu Kyi in 2010, after 15 previous years of detention, and staged elections under a constitution that ensured its continued grip on the key levers of power. The Obama administration and its allies oversaw this anti-democratic arrangement, seeking to coax the generals away from links to Beijing, as part of US imperialism’s offensive against China.

As this history demonstrates, the working class can place no faith in Suu Kyi to defend democratic rights. No less than the generals, the NLD leaders fear a working-class uprising that could threaten capitalist rule. They represent sections of the capitalist class in Myanmar, whose profit-making interests have been flattened by the military, which controls substantial sections of the economy, including mining operations.

Myanmar is the world’s third-largest source of strategic mined rare earths. This not only provides the regime with revenue but heightens Myanmar’s strategic value for the US and its allies in their conflict with China, which borders Myanmar to the north and east. Any imperialist intervention will seek to pursue that confrontation, not defend the masses of Myanmar.

Sri Lankan government lifts fuel price, deepening social assault on workers and the poor

Saman Gunadasa

The Sri Lankan government announced a sharp increase in the price of fuel on Saturday, imposing further burdens on workers and the poor who already face declining living conditions worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A litre of petrol now costs 157 rupees ($US0.79), a rise of 14.5 percent, with diesel and kerosene hiked to 111 and 77 rupees, increases of 6 and 10 percent respectively. The government is currently discussing lifting the price of gas by 25 percent.

Fishermen protest at Ambalangoda on 15 June over fuel price increases (Source: Facebook)

Bakers, bus owners, three-wheeler operators and distributors of food items have threatened to increase their charges, with bakery goods to go up by 5 rupees and transport by 15 percent. On Tuesday, the privately-owned Prima Company lifted the price of flour by 3.50 rupees a kilo.

Saturday’s increases are on top of already skyrocketing food prices. According to Central Bank data, the official food inflation rate hit almost 10 percent in the month of May.

The price of rice, Sri Lanka’s staple food, has climbed by 27–46 percent over the past twelve months to May, with other essential foods, such as dhal and coconut oil, going up by 36 and 30 percent in the same period.

Sri Lankan workers and the rural masses, already struggling to survive on meagre incomes, are adopting various coping mechanisms including smaller meal sizes, skipping meals, eating less preferred foods or borrowing, pawning, and selling assets.

In 2013, the Colombo Consumer Price index was at 100 points. In 2017 it reached 119, followed by 129.5 in 2019 and 135.4 last year.

In January 2020, the public sector real wage rate index was 95 points, but by December it had fallen to 92. It was 100 in 2016. Similarly, the private sector real wage index dropped from 97 to 89 between January and December last year.

On Tuesday, fishermen who have been heavily-impacted by the latest price increases, held a torch light protest in the southern town of Ambalangoda.

Workers who have spoken to the World Socialist Web Site this week voiced the rising popular anger over rapidly worsening social conditions.

Manickam, a plantation worker from Glenugie Estate in Up-Cot, said: “We’ve already been affected by the high price of goods and so the fuel price increase will make life intolerable. Our current wage is not enough even for food so we’re unable to give our children three meals a day. Workers are earning less than what the government and unions claim, they lie when they say we get 1,000 rupees [less than $5] a day.”

A three-wheeler taxi operator explained that he and his family were struggling to survive on his daily income. “We had to pawn the jewellery to buy food for my family and our two kids. I’ve searched for labouring work but have not been able to find any,” he said.

Iroshan, a fishmonger from Hikkaduwa, a southern coastal town, said: “I don’t know how I’m going to survive with this fuel increase. Fishing boats have stopped going to sea because they cannot cover their costs with the fuel price rises. Fishermen in Negombo and Chilaw [on the west coast] are preparing protests and we are planning to join them.”

Chaminda, a fisherman from Marawila in Chilaw, explained: “I use petrol for my small boat but with this new price my day’s fuel costs go up by 1,000 rupees to 6,500. There’s no guaranteed price scheme for fish and so if our catch increases, the market price comes down. We cannot afford to bear this price increase.”

In Sri Lanka there are around 5,000 multi-day fishing vessels. They generally spend several days at sea with each vessel usually consuming between 10,000 and 15,000 litres of diesel. Some 30,000 fishermen and their families depend on the industry. Tens of thousands of small-boat fishermen, who mostly use kerosene, are being also hard hit by the increases.

Desperate to divert rising anger over the new fuel price, Sagara Kariyawasam, general secretary of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna called on Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila to take responsibility for the hikes and resign. Gammanpila is leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya, which is also part of the government’s ruling alliance.

President Gotabhaya Rajapakse declared, however, the price increases were decided by a cost-of-living committee that he chaired. The hikes, he said, were the result of global crude oil prices, the scarcity of foreign exchange and losses of the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. He then absurdly claimed that it was connected to his “Climate Resilient Green Economy” policy to reduce fuel consumption.

“The government has taken steps to implement a number of proposals to change the pattern of consumption based on imported fuels,” Rajapakse said. It was, he added, “one key factor in a common strategy that strengthens the local economy” and “safeguard[s] the health and welfare of the people.”

When Rajapakse speaks about strengthening the “economy,” he is not referring to the living conditions of Sri Lankan workers and the poor, but to big business profits. His insistence that there be a “change in the pattern of consumption based on imported fuel” is, however, not limited to that commodity but extends to the importation of many essentials that have been stopped or had levies imposed.

State Minister Ajit Nivard Cabraal admitted that the fuel price increases would drive up the cost of living but said that “the government can no longer continue without revising prices.”

The international consequences of the coronavirus pandemic have been catastrophic for the cash-strapped government and the national economy. Last year, the Sri Lankan economy contracted by 3.6 percent with declining exports, tourism and remittance payments.

This week, Fitch Rating revealed that the government will have to pay a staggering $US29 billion on loans between now and 2026. Having concluded a financial swapping agreement with Bangladesh for $200 million earlier this month, the Central Bank is now attempting to organise a $400 million swap with India in order to avoid foreign debt default.

While the Rajapakse government is determined to place this financial burden on the masses by pushing up fuel costs and the price of essentials, it demands export sector employees, particularly in the garment industry, keep working despite the ongoing surge of COVID-19 infections.

At the same time, the labour ministry last month announced that employers can postpone their payments of workers’ pension funds for another six months and said they should direct their employees to keep working despite COVID-19 travel restrictions. The trade unions have endorsed these directives and continue to hold discussions with the government on how to keep industry operating.

Big businesses in Sri Lanka, with the blessing of the government and the unions, have reaped record profits during the pandemic. The Hayleys conglomerate generated 242 billion rupees in revenue last year and a 14 billion-rupee net profit, the highest in the company’s 143 years’ of existence. LOLC, a major finance company, made a 53 billion rupees after tax profit, the highest ever recorded by any Sri Lankan company, while Hemas reported a 3.3 billion rupees net profit.

While the corporate elite is accumulating record fortunes, recent months have seen a wave of strikes and protests by key sections of the working class, including among state sector, plantation, garment, railway and port and port staff.

Nervous about these growing struggles, which are part of a rising movement of the international working class, President Rajapakse used the draconian essential services act on May 27 and June 2 to ban state sector strikes and industrial action. Last Friday, more than 50,000 health workers defied these authoritarian measures, holding a five-hour walkout over jobs and demands for improved COVID-19 safety measures.

The government’s fuel price hike and other attacks on the masses are further deepening class tensions and creating the conditions in Sri Lanka for a social explosion.

French Institutes for Advanced Study (FIAS) Fellowship Programme 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 6th July, 2021 – 6:00 PM CET (Paris Time).

Eligible Field(s): The call is open to all disciplines in the SSH and all research fields. Research projects from other sciences that propose a transversal dialogue with SSH are also eligible.  Some of the IAS have scientific priorities they will focus on more specifically.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• FIAS awards fellowships to outstanding researchers of all career levels, from postdoctoral researchers to senior scientists. The minimum requirement is a PhD + 2 years of research experience at the time of the application. Exception will be made for scholars with a Master + 6 years of full-time research experience after the degree (PhD training will not be considered in the calculation of experience).
• Researchers from all countries are eligible to the FIAS Fellowship Programme but they have to have spent no more than 12 months in France during the three years prior to the application deadline.

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (Country): France

Number of Awards: For the 2022-2023 academic year, FIAS offers 28 fellowship positions: 17 in Paris, 4 in Marseille, 3 in Montpellier and 4 in Nantes.

Value of Award: The FIAS fellows will benefit from the support and conducive scientific environment offered by the IAS, in an interdisciplinary cohort of fellows and in close relation to the local research potential. The fellows will be free to organize their work and conduct research as they wish.

CONDITIONS

All IAS have agreed on common standards, including the provision of a living allowance (min. net 2,700€ per month), social security coverage, accommodation, a research budget, plus coverage of travel expenses.

Duration of Award: 10 months

How to Apply: Applications are submitted online via www.fias-fp.eu where you will find detailed information regarding the content of the application, eligibility criteria and selection procedure.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Huawei HMS App Innovation Global Contest 2021

Application Deadline: 20th August 2021

About the Award: The Huawei HMS App Innovation Global Contest aims to inspire talented developers across the globe to create seamless, smart, and innovative digital experiences, and explore the future of digital intelligence. By highlighting pioneering HMS open capabilities, the competition gives app developers the tools to build tomorrow’s all-connected world.

Type: Contest

Eligibility:

• The Huawei HMS App Innovation Global Contest is open to developers from all over the world. Participation is as simple as signing up with your HUAWEI ID.
• Individuals aged 17 and under are not eligible to enter the contest.
• Employees of Huawei and its affiliates, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible to enter the contest.
• You can participate in the contest on your own, or as part of a team. All members of the team must belong to the same contest region.

Rules for setting up a team

• (1) Each contestant is only eligible to join a single team.
• (2) Each team can have no more than 3 members.
• (3) Each team should have a team leader who is responsible for team management, such as inviting or deleting members and submitting works.
• (4) A team member can apply to join or leave a team.
• (5) The score for a contest submission belongs to the team. If a team member leaves the team, all existing scores will continue to belong to the team, rather than the departing member.

You will be disqualified in the event of the following:

• (1) You plagiarise the work of others;
• (2) Third-party code plug-ins used in your works are not authorised, and/or are the source of a legal dispute; or
• (3) Your works violate any relevant terms, service agreements, or rules applicable to HUAWEI DEVELOPER services, including but not limited to the HUAWEI Developer Service Agreement, Agreement on Use of Huawei APIs, and AppGallery Review Guidelines.

Eligible Countries: Global

Number of Awards: See below

Value of Award: US$1,000,000 Total Bonus

Huawei has set aside US$1 million from its Shining Star Program as prize money for the contest.

US$200,000 will be allocated for the top 20 apps in each region. The awards are as follows:

• US$15,000x 5 Best App
• US$15,000x 3 Best Game
• US$15,000x 3 Best Social Impact App
• US$5,000x 1 Tech Women’s Award
• US$5,000x 2 Best HMS Core Innovation Award
• US$5,000x 1 All-Scenario Coverage Award
• US$5,000x 3 Excellent Student Award
• US$3,000x 5 Honorable Mention

How to Apply: Apply below

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details