China’s Evergrande problems deepen

Nick Beams

The financial troubles surrounding the Chinese property developer Evergrande continue to worsen as discussion in financial circles focuses on what measures might be taken by the government to prevent a possible financial crisis.

China Evergrande Centre [Wikimedia Commons]

Evergrande, the country’s second largest property developer, with debts of more than $300 billion, has admitted it is on the brink of default and is desperately scrambling to build up cash.

But its efforts do not appear to be succeeding. On Thursday S&P Global Ratings, which has downgraded its rating of the company’s bonds several times over the past three months, announced another downgrade, saying its liquidity and funding access “are shrinking severely.”

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities had told major lenders the company would not be able to meet interest payments on loans due on Monday following a decision by Evergrande to hire debt restructuring advisers.

So far, the government is keeping the details of any possible response close to its chest. Responding to a question on what impact Evergrande could have on the economy at a press conference on Wednesday, National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui said only that some large property enterprises were running into difficulties and the fallout “remains to be seen.”

The press conference was held on the latest national data which showed a worsening slowdown in the Chinese economy in August. Retail sales rose by only 2.5 percent for the month, well below forecasts by economists of a 7 percent rise. Industrial production, one of the main drivers of the economy, increased by 5.3 percent compared to the median forecasts by economists of an increase of 5.8 percent.

The slowdown is expected to continue. Goldman Sachs, which last month downgraded its forecast for growth in the Chinese economy from 5.8 percent to 2.3 percent for the third quarter, has cited a “meaningful slowdown” in industrial indicators such as electricity production and ferrous metal smelting.

So far, the problems surrounding Evergrande have not been transmitted into the banking and financial system. Interbank lending rates remain near average levels, indicating that there is sufficient liquidity. But the Japanese firm Mizuho Financial Group has reported that some banks are hoarding cash preparing for what it called a “liquidity squeeze in crisis mode.”

And there are some signs of broader financial stress. On Thursday, yields on Chinese junk bonds—those with a rating below investment-grade status—climbed to an 18-month high and shares in real estate companies fell sharply after Evergrande had had its rating lowered further and requested a trading halt in its bonds.

All eyes are turning to the response of the government. Bloomberg reported that “even senior officials at state-owned banks say privately that they’re still waiting for guidance on a long-term solution from top leaders in Beijing.”

The Chinese government is facing an acute dilemma. On the one hand, it wants to rein in debt in the highly leveraged property sector as well as other areas of the economy. Some of the problems facing Evergrande arise from the tightening of credit regulations earlier this year. Back in July, vice premier Han Zheng said the property industry should not be used to provide a short-term boost to the economy.

On the other hand, it is fearful of the consequences of a collapse of Evergrande on the property development sector and for the rest of the economy. There are various estimates for its significance, but Bank of America has calculated it makes up around 28 percent of the Chinese economy when both direct and indirect economic effects are considered.

Summing up the problems facing the government, in comments during a recent podcast, Yu Yong, a former regulator with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said: “The government has to be very, very careful in balancing support for Evergrande. Property is the biggest bubble that everyone has been talking about in China. So, if anything happens, this could clearly cause a systemic risk to the whole China economy.”

In a warning of the impact of a default by Evergrande in a note issued on Wednesday, Fitch Ratings said smaller banks and weaker property developers would be hurt the most.

But there are fears the damage would not stop there and extend across the entire property sector. As one financial analyst told Bloomberg: “Debt recovery efforts by creditors would lead to fire sales of assets and hit housing prices. Profit margins across the supply chain would be squeezed. It would also lead to panic selling in capital markets.”

On top of the financial ramifications of an Evergrande collapse, the government also must deal with social struggles that could erupt. Already there have been protests at Evergrande offices around the country.

Its modus operandi is to sell apartments off the plan or at least well before completion. This means that owners are confronting a situation where they will have paid out their money, only to be left with an incomplete dwelling. As of last December, Evergrande is reported to have received at least down payments on yet-to-be-finished properties from more than 1.5 million buyers.

Another key issue facing the government is how to prevent the effects of an Evergrande collapse from spreading both within China and internationally.

In 2015, the collapse of a share market bubble, which like the property boom had been promoted by the government, sent ripples through the global financial system. Since then, as a result of the massive speculation of the past 18 months, it has become more fragile and an Evergrande collapse could have major international consequences.

Entertainment industry workers continue to work without a contract

Hong Jian

Tens of thousands of entertainment industry workers, technicians, artisans and craftspersons on film and TV sets are continuing to work without a contract for months after the expiration of their old agreement as COVID-19 continues to spread.

The previous deal between the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired on July 31. The contract was extended until September 10, but that deadline came and went last Friday with no new agreement forthcoming, and the IATSE leadership simply told workers to keep reporting to work.

IATSE President Matthew Loeb said on Wednesday that negotiations had reached a “critical juncture,” and he sent out a letter to members stating, “We are united in demanding more humane working conditions across the industry, including reasonable rest during and between workdays and on the weekend, equitable pay on streaming productions, and a livable wage floor.”

Matthew Loeb [Credit: Twitter/@matthewloeb]

Then on Thursday, Loeb said that after presenting their recent proposal on September 12, they have still not heard back from the AMPTP. He stated, “They have not submitted a counterproposal, though lines of communication remain open. The union remains committed to getting an acceptable contract that recognizes the value our highly skilled and experienced members bring to this industry, which includes addressing longstanding health and safety issues that have plagued our worksites for decades. Meanwhile, member mobilization is ongoing as we prepare for either a contract ratification or a strike authorization vote. You should continue to report to work. We will notify you as more information becomes available.”

The union even paused negotiations on the new contract in order to ratify new COVID-19 protocols with management that require less testing, less social distancing and less sanitation requirements, thus lowering production costs for management and increasing the risk of disease and death for workers as the new lax protocols were signed off on despite the Delta variant surge.

At the same time, the IATSE falsely claimed to be ensuring the safety of their members when they signed onto the following statement, “The COVID-19 Safety Agreement is the outcome of unprecedented coordination and solidarity between the unions and collaboration with employers to develop science-based protocols that minimize the risk of COVID-19 virus transmission in the industry’s unique work environments. ... The protocols have driven a successful rebound of film and television production while prioritizing safety for casts, crews and all on-set workers.”

The fact that workers have been operating without a contract for nearly two months and there still has not been a strike authorization vote, much less an actual strike, expresses the determination of the IATSE to accommodate AMPTP’s demands. In reality, there are no real “negotiations” taking place but strategy sessions between studio executives and the union over how to ram through a rotten deal.

One worker responded to Loeb’s remarks, “While I agree with IATSE’s main concerns, I am equally surprised no one is pointing out two things: 1) Matt Loeb has been head of IATSE since 2008. Why did he allow the working conditions and pension to decline to this level in the first place? 2) Unsafe hours and pension contributions were Cathy Repola’s (Editors Guild) main point of contention with the previous contract. Matt Loeb all but crucified her for speaking out. I’ll strike, but don’t have much faith in IATSE…”

The conditions which IATSE members endure are nothing short of terrible. They work upwards of 12 hours a day; some regularly work 16 hours a day. For many, the pay they receive leaves them officially rent-burdened in the city of Los Angeles, the main hub of the entertainment production. A survey done in February of this year showed that of 1,014 entertainment industry assistants, 79 percent of respondents made less than $50,000 a year.

Hollywood sign [Photo: Thomas Wolf]

One commentator on social media pointed out that “Writers’ Assistants and Script Coordinators who graduate from UCLA film school can expect to earn a scale rate of $16.00 and $17.64, respectively. The In-N-Out in Westwood, meanwhile, starts new employees out at $17.75.”

The Instagram account “ia_stories” has emerged as a forum where workers have been detailing some of their working conditions. One worker wrote: ”I was so tired on my last shoot with 14 hour days and a 45 minute drive to and from set for a month, that I legit prayed I got covid so I could take a break and still have a job in two weeks. Those turnarounds and the commute was brutal. I almost fell asleep 2 times driving to work.”

IATSE workers have been laboring under these conditions for decades one sellout contract after another. But there could not be a better time to wage a struggle against the AMPTP than right now, due to the backlog of work that was created by the pandemic. According to Daniel Mitchell, Professor Emeritus at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, “A strike threat that would impede production would be more effective from the union perspective now than in a more normal situation.” Precisely, last year all production was shut down.

Israel reports that 11.2 percent of all children infected with SARS-CoV-2 suffer from long COVID

Emily Ochiai

The Israeli Health Ministry announced Monday that over 10 percent of Israeli children who have been diagnosed with coronavirus are showing signs of post-acute COVID-19 (“long COVID”), meaning they are suffering COVID-19 symptoms for over four weeks after initial infection, according to the Times of Israel.

Its follow-up survey of 13,864 children between the ages 3–18 who recovered from COVID-19 found that a staggering 11.2 percent reported symptoms of long COVID. The troubling figures come as child infections and death continue to skyrocket across the world as a result of the Delta variant which is affecting and hospitalizing children at alarming rates.

Israelis receive a COVID-19 vaccine from medical professionals at a coronavirus vaccination center set up on a shopping mall parking lot in Givataim, Israel [Credit: AP Photo/Oded Balilty]

The survey further revealed that 1.8 percent of children under the age of 12 and 4.6 percent of those between the ages of 12 and 18 reported long-term symptoms 6 months after the illness. Among the age group of 12 to 18, chances of developing long COVID were higher among those who had symptoms. However, those who were asymptomatic also developed long COVID symptoms.

Long COVID is a multisystem disease still poorly understood, which can last months and possibly years. The symptoms include a laundry list of ailments that include sleep disorders such as insomnia, heart palpitations, gastrointestinal issues, breathing difficulties, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, headaches and neurological issues such as cognitive impairment or “brain fog” and an overall lack of concentration.

With more than 200,000 children under 18 having tested positive in Israel, at least 22,400 children are suffering from lasting symptoms. The revelations are especially concerning for the youngest including infants and toddlers in early childhood crucial stages of development. Little to nothing is known about how long it will affect and potentially ruin their long-term development and lives.

Of the over 200,00 infected Israeli children, half of them were asymptomatic. This has created a situation in which many parents have to piece together information and determine the cause for what is afflicting their children and subjecting them to a growing list of symptoms. Thousands of parents have taken to social media to find support among groups of parents, as doctors lack knowledge of how to diagnose and treat long COVID.

According to Haaretz, Israel’s Education Ministry estimated in early August that 5,000 students will be infected daily by the time the school year starts on September 1. Nevertheless, the Israeli government proceeded to reopen schools as planned. Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash stated that reopening schools will be advantageous because it will allow “experimentation with all the methods we want to introduce, such as quick tests, quarantining versus not quarantining, and gaining trust in serological tests,” underscoring the absolute criminality of the reopening campaign.

With the aggressive reopening of economies and public institutions worldwide, the ruling class and the mass media have persistently promoted the lie that COVID-19 has a negligible effect on children. With over 227 million people infected worldwide, it is becoming increasingly clear that children and adolescents are the most vulnerable populations especially from the effects of long COVID.

The awareness group Long Covid Kids, founded in the United Kingdom, reports that data coming out of the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that 34,000 children are currently suffering from persistent symptoms since COVID-19 infection. Data from ONS is showing that in the UK, 13 percent of children 11 years or younger, and some 15 percent of children aged 12 to 16 are suffering from long COVID.

In the United States alone, over 5,292,837 children have contracted the virus, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, representing 15.5 percent of all cases nationwide as of September 9. If we extrapolate the number of children suffering from long COVID using the Israeli statistics, this means that at least 592,000 children in the US are experiencing post-COVID symptoms.

Access to data is difficult to obtain for both children and adults. The World Health Organization estimates the figure globally to be 10 percent of all adults who contract COVID go on to experience long COVID.

According to Ottawa Citizen, Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table estimated as of this past Tuesday that between 57,000 to 78,000 Ontario residents have reported that they are re-experiencing or are currently experiencing post-COVID symptoms.

The ruling class and the mass media all over the world continuously claimed that vaccination of adults “protects children” in order to justify the school reopening. Israel was one of the first countries to vaccinate their citizens against COVID-19. With one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with over 61 percent of the population fully vaccinated and the older population receiving a third booster shot, the current average of daily cases has skyrocketed to 7,500. Their growing case rate and infections among children clearly demonstrate that adult vaccination is insufficient at protecting children from infection.

US hospitals running out of beds amid COVID-19 surge

Benjamin Mateus

The Delta wave continues to ripple across the United States with approximately 150,000 new cases each day. Consistently, daily death tolls are reaching or exceeding 2,000 per day. Businesses are operating without restrictions and schools are forced to open.

Registered nurse Kyanna Barboza, right, tends to a COVID-19 patient as Kobie Walsh, left, puts on her PPE at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif. [Credit: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, file]

Only 54.2 percent of the country’s population (180 million) has been fully vaccinated, and 63.5 percent has received at least one dose. The seven-day moving average of administered doses declines again, with approximately 774,000 doses being given each day.

This has led to a renewed health care crisis that has inundated hospital systems across multiple states. Presently, states where the worst outbreaks have been confirmed—Tennessee, Kentucky, Alaska, Wyoming and West Virginia—are also seeing their hospitals and ICUs reach critical levels comparable to previous winter highs. Many realize that they have to turn to rationed care to provide for those who might fare better with the available resources while others are left to die.

The situation is presently most egregious in Idaho, where the state has activated “crisis standards of care,” allowing health facilities to ration treatment. There are more than 628 beds occupied with COVID-19 patients, a 35 percent increase above the winter peaks.

Speaking before reporters at a press conference, Chris Roth, president and chief executive of St. Luke’s Health System, said, “COVID is absolutely crushing us.” He warned that if measures weren’t taken to halt this onslaught, “We will consume every single bed, and every single resource we have, with COVID patients in our hospitals.”

Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppsen wrote last week, “Crisis standards of care is a last resort. It means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment care we expect.” In informal language, this means the hospitals will determine who has the best chance to survive.

Brian Whitlock, the president and CEO of the Idaho Association, said in disbelief, “It’s just nonstop trying to find placement for these patients and the care that they need. It really is a minute-by-minute assessment of where beds are open, and hospitals saying we don’t know where we’re going to put the next one.”

According to the New York Times coronavirus tracker, cases across the South and West have peaked. However, given the uncertainty in testing the population and tracking infections, these reported statistics must be taken with sobering skepticism.

COVID-related deaths in Florida continue to rise, with an average of 363 fatalities each day. In Texas, deaths continue to climb, and have reached 300 per day on average. Georgia sees 120 deaths per day, and the rise is exponential. Meanwhile, Alabama’s state health officer Dr. Scott Harris, has reported that hospitalizations decrease because people are dying. “Alabama is seeing double digit numbers of deaths, which accounts for some of the decline.”

The regions of the country that are reporting a rise in infections include the Midwest and Northeast. Specifically, in West Virginia, where the number of fully vaccinated individuals is the lowest in the country, new cases have skyrocketed to 109 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people.

Like every region where the Delta variant led to mass community transmission, health care systems quickly became inundated with COVID-19 patients leading to pleas from nurses and physicians to heed the call to get vaccinated. Meanwhile, elective surgeries were once more placed on hold as units were converted to manage severe cases.

As of yesterday, the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to West Virginia’s hospitals reached 905, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources, with 278 in intensive care units and 166 on ventilators. Dr. Clay Marsh, who heads the state’s COVID-19 response, told the Guardian, “This has been more severe than we’ve seen at any point in the pandemic. I believe people are getting very anxious over what they’re seeing in West Virginia.”

Jim Justice, a Republican governor, recently commented on the issue of rising hospitalizations in his state, “We can stop this, West Virginia. We can stop it. The vaccines are safe. The vaccines are not an invasion on anyone.” The Governor’s response has been typical of the blame game that pits the vaccinated against unvaccinated but refuses to call for measures that focus on the right to profit. He lifted mask mandates on June 20 and has opposed mandating their use in schools. He has also denounced vaccine mandates as encroaching on businesses. Meanwhile, some of the most rural counties in the state face the highest per capita rates of infection.

Rural Ohio hospitals are reporting that their ICUs are also at capacity. Portsmouth, a small town of 20,000 people about 80 miles to the south of Columbus, is running out of beds at Southern Ohio Medical Center. Creative reconfiguration of the ICUs and wards will create additional vital space. However, with staff shortages, the situation is getting direr. The hospital released a statement to its staff on social media, writing, “At no other point in the pandemic have these steps been necessary. Because patient volumes can change rapidly, it is difficult to predict where we will be in weeks, days, or even hours. What we know right now is we cannot guarantee a bed…”

In fact, some 60 million people live in what is defined as rural regions relying on local health systems for their medical needs. These same systems are seeing a mass exodus of their experienced nurses who are being enticed by recruiting agencies with higher salaries that can be on the order of five to ten times above what they could ordinarily expect to earn.

Audrey Snyder, president of the Rural Nurse organization advocacy group as well as being a faculty member at North Carolina Greensboro School of Nursing, explained, “If you lose one or two nurses, that makes a difference. These hospitals are small, and they don’t have a large nurse workforce.” Many local rural populations live in deep poverty and are uninsured, leading to declining revenues for these community hospitals that can’t keep pace with their burgeoning budgets.

According to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services research, since January 2005, there have been 181 rural hospital closures, 138 of these since 2010. Last year, according to NBC News, dozens had filed for bankruptcy. Another 216 are at high risk for closure. Brock Slabach, chief operations officer with National Rural Health Association, told NBC, “the rural hospital workforce has always been a challenge. What COVID was uniquely suited to do was take advantage of every fracture and widen it significantly and make it even harder to cope with demands being placed on them.”

Ethiopia: TPLF Terrorism Expands, Civilians Massacred

Graham Peebles

As the armed conflict between Ethiopia and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) enters a new phase, Ethiopians are uniting against their common enemy. The TPLF is not a group of freedom fighters standing up for the downtrodden; they are a terrorist insurgent force waging a war against a sovereign state. Murdering, raping, destroying property and the lives of Ethiopians, the TPLF is a cancer that for decades has thrown a suffocating shadow of fear and division over the country, a cancer that must be cut out totally if Ethiopia is to flourish.

For 27 years they were the dominant force within a so-called coalition government. Corrupt and brutal, the TPLF stole election after election, trampled on human rights, embezzled federal funds and aid money and committed State Terrorism in various regions of the country. Administering a policy of Ethnic Federalism, they ruled through fear, divided the people along ethnic lines and are widely hated by most Ethiopians.

In 2018, after sustained public protests, they were ousted. However, after such a long period in power their divisive methodology and ideals still have influence. Senior members retreated to their Tigray heartland after losing office, regrouped, plotted, and waited for an opportunity to rise up against the government.

On 4 November 2020 they attacked the Ethiopian National Defense Forces Base in the northern region of Tigray. They killed soldiers, took control of the military’s Northern Command in Mekelle (capital of Tigray) and raided federal armories. This act of terrorism, set in motion an armed conflict in the northern region of Tigray; a fight the TPLF had been itching for, which has now spread into the neighboring region of Ahmara.

Thousands have died, combatants and civilians; claims of rape and sexual violence are widespread; tens of thousands have been displaced, homeless and hungry, with large numbers, frightened and distressed, making their way to camps in neighboring Sudan.

The TPLF’s brutal actions should be condemned unreservedly by foreign governments, particularly Ethiopia’s major donors. But, far from standing with the government, the US, UK and EU have consistently supported the terrorists, circulating misinformation, making false claims against Ethiopian forces.

Civilians Massacred

In an attempt to stop the killing and defuse the situation, on 28 June, the Government declared a “unilateral humanitarian ceasefire” and withdrew its forces from Tigray. In response, the TPLF marched into the regional capital and issued a series of outlandish conditions for complying: They demanded the release of all Tigray political prisoners (imprisoned for atrocities committed over many years), falsely accused Prime Minister Abiy of starting the war, and claimed that Tigrayans “have been subjected to…genocide and ethnic cleansing”. Federal forces are fighting the TPLF not the people of Tigray. But, as a result of the TPLF instigated conflict, civilians in Tigray have been severely impacted.

Unrelenting, obdurate, Tigray forces, which have now combined with another extremist group, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), have ignored the ceasefire and continued their attack on Ethiopia, moving into the Afar and Amhara regions bordering Tigray. Death, destruction and chaos is left in their wake with distressing reports of civilian killings, rapes, kidnapping and robbery. Homes are destroyed, office buildings, including Kabele (local government) headquarters vandalized, documents burnt, water and electricity supplies cut, Churches and schools damaged or demolished, cattle killed, crops destroyed.

Over 200 civilians were killed in Afar including more than 100 children, according to UNICEF, and around 300,000 were displaced. Federal forces have now driven the aggressors out of this region. In Deber Tabor in Ahmara, the main hospital was attacked and homes destroyed. A local resident, Mr. Deres Nega told Ethiopian media how his wife, children and friends had been killed by the TPLF. His life has been torn apart. His agony is being repeated throughout the area, his pain is the pain of a nation, a pain that has but one cure, the eradication of the TPLF.

Over 200 km north of Deber Tabor, in Chena Teklehaymanot, mass graves were recently discovered containing 124 bodies, many more people (over 100) are missing feared dead. Witnesses state that the TPLF went house to house and slaughtered men, women, children, even priests (revered throughout Ethiopia) were killed. The massacre, which has been confirmed by Gizachew Muluneh, Director of Communications for the Amhara Regional State, is but one atrocity in a series of coordinated assaults by the TPLF since the government ceasefire. Getachew Shiferaw, a leading Ethiopian activist, relates that, “Civilians were massacred [by the TPLF] in Woldia, Kobo, Alamata, Lalibela, Abergele, Maytemri, Gaint, Gashena and Mersa, among others towns.” He warns that, “Chena is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed’s press secretary, has said that TPLF atrocities in Ahmara “were carried out to avenge the military loss the clique suffered by federal and state troops,” as its fighters were routed from Afar. The government believes the Chena massacre was carried out by “the TPLF’s Samri youth group”, who are also thought to be responsible for killing over 1,000 civilians in “the town of Maikadra…last November.” After which they escaped to Sudan and hid in a UNHCR refugee camp.

Such brutal attacks, which are consistently ignored by western governments (who know very well what is actually happening) and prominent mainstream media, are forcing the Ethiopian government, until now relatively restrained, to respond and mobilize its forces. Ethiopia’s foreign ministry recently said the TPLF was pushing the government to “change its defensive mood which has been taken for the sake of the unilateral humanitarian ceasefire,” and that unless (government) overtures for a peaceful resolution were reciprocated, “Ethiopia could deploy the entire defensive capability of the state.”

The government, which has been weak on law and order enforcement, cannot simply sit back and allow the TPLF to murder civilians. They must respond swiftly and decisively, including, if necessary, deploying the air force, something they are reluctant to do because of potential civilian casualties.

Malicious foreign forces

Since the conflict began the Ethiopian government has been battling, not just the terrorists, but malicious foreign forces and misleading information from western governments and mainstream media – the BBC, CNN, New York Times, Facebook etc. The US, which is widely believed to be indirectly arming the TPLF, have led the misinformation campaign, and appear (together with the UK and EU) to have sanctioned the TPLF’s attack on Ethiopia.

To its utter shame the Biden administration (and UK and EU) has failed to condemn the TPLF attacks, and has undermined the Ethiopian government from the outset. They repeatedly call for reconciliation (thereby legitimizing the terrorists), and instruct PM Ahmed to negotiate with the TPLF, which is not only unacceptable to the government, but to the vast majority of Ethiopians, who liken the TPLF to a pack of hyenas, pointing out the impossibility of negotiating with wild animals.

In response to their international backers’ call for ‘negotiations’ the TPLF drafted a list of preposterous demands for any such talks. Among other fantasies, they wanted PM Ahmed to step down and be replaced with one of their own, and a power-sharing arrangement introduced. This would amount to the overthrow (with US backing) of a democratically elected government: The Prosperity Party (a party of national unity founded by Abiy) has a huge mandate, taking 410 out of 436 seats in the June 2020 general election. The formation of a new government, which will include opposition parties, is expected by the end of September/early October, and is eagerly awaited.

As these malicious foreign forces seek to destabilize Ethiopia for their own corrupt geo-political reasons, and the TPLF commit atrocity after atrocity, the Ethiopian people are laying aside long held divisions (largely caused by TPLF policies) and coming together, standing shoulder to shoulder with their brothers and sisters against the poison of the terrorists and the Imperial arrogance of America and Co.

While this is unquestionably a deeply troubling moment for Ethiopia, at the same time there is cause for celebration and real optimism: The staging of the first democratic elections in the country’s long and rich history was a major achievement, as was the second filling of The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (the largest dam in Africa) reservoir. Along with the imminent formation of a new and democratically elected government, these are unifying national events. Significant developments which the Ethiopian people can take great pride in as they unite against the TPLF/OLA terrorists, destructive groups that must be purged from the country completely and utterly if peace and social harmony are to be established, and the  needed work of national transformation is to go ahead.

Brazil’s PT and PSOL ally with right in face of Bolsonaro’s coup threats

Tomas Castanheira

The threat of a fascist coup in Brazil emerged with blinding clarity on September 7 as demonstrations organized by President Jair Bolsonaro and his ultra-right supporters openly advocated the establishment of a dictatorial regime.

September 12 anti-Bolsonaro rally called by right-wing groups in São Paulo, Brazil. (AP Photo/Marcelo Chello)

Only two days after the demonstrations, Bolsonaro issued a “Letter to the Nation” in which he declared his loyalty to democracy and stated, “I have never had any intention of attacking any of the Powers [of the Republic].” There could not be a more cynical statement.

Bolsonaro spent weeks systematically preparing the fascistic rallies, with his virulent threats of causing an “institutional rupture.” In the speeches he gave on September 7 in front of crowds raising banners demanding a “military intervention,” he openly threatened to shut down the judiciary system and declared that only God will remove him from power. The fascistic president stated in his “Letter” that “my words, sometimes forceful, resulted from the heat of the moment and from disputes that always aimed at the common good.”

The document was written with the open assistance of former Brazilian President Michel Temer of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). As Dilma Rousseff’s right-wing vice president, he assumed the presidency in 2016 after the Workers Party (PT) president was impeached on trumped up charges.

The “Letter to the Nation” was hailed within the top echelons of the Brazilian state as a sign of reconciliation from Bolsonaro, and the havoc he has systematically promoted was immediately forgiven as a simple misunderstanding!

The president of the Congress, Arthur Lira of the Progressive Party (PP), declared, “Everything that happened and was ‘off script,’ we can frame as the fervor of politics, emotion of the moment ... the president of the republic rightly calms the tempers.” For his part, the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco of the Democrats (DEM), said that the letter was “a positive sign from Bolsonaro” and “meets what most Brazilians expect.”

The tactical retreat signaled by Bolsonaro’s “Letter,” however, can only be understood as an integral part of his dictatorial drive. Responding to a disappointed section of his fascistic supporters, who expected an immediate coup after the demonstrations, Bolsonaro declared, “Some want me to go there and slit everyone’s throat. [But] today there is no isolated country, everyone is integrated into the world.”

In other words, the consummation of a fascist military coup in Latin America’s largest country requires the alignment of both internal and external factors, among which the support of US imperialism is fundamental. While the bourgeois media and the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left have cast the election of President Joe Biden in the US as a bulwark of Brazilian democracy, the attitude of the Democratic administration—the same party that backed the Brazilian military coup in 1964—is by no means defined.

From the internal perspective, the very response of the parliamentary leaderships to the president’s cynical letter reveals a glaring degree of collusion with Bolsonaro’s coup moves. This attitude permeates both the traditional bourgeois political parties and the military. While some of the generals brought into the government by Bolsonaro have appeared on the platforms at his fascist rallies, others have made unprecedented threats to the civilian regime, such as the joint statement by the military command warning that it will not accept “frivolous attacks” by the legislature on the Armed Forces.

Such developments demolish the claims that the Brazilian regime is supposedly shielded from coup threats by the self-regulatory mechanisms of state institutions, especially by the “constitutionalist” commitment of the Armed Forces. More deeply, they expose the putrefaction of the country’s state only 35 years after the establishment of a civilian regime in the wake of more than two decades of brutal military dictatorship.

The ostensible opposition to Bolsonaro, headed by the PT and its pseudo-left satellites, has responded to this deep political crisis in the most politically criminal way. They are fighting to neutralize any independent political movement of the working class, while trying to convince the population that the only possible way to resist the dictatorial threats is by forging an agreement within the bourgeois state.

On September 12, various right-wing political parties and movements promoted a demonstration against Bolsonaro, seeking to capitalize on the growing popular hatred of the fascistic government and presenting themselves as alternatives. The demonstration was headed by the Free Brazil Movement (MBL) and Vem Pra Rua (Come Into the Streets), which originally emerged as organizers of the extreme right-wing demonstrations for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and supported the election of Bolsonaro. It also had the participation of São Paulo Governor João Doria of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB)—elected as a supporter of Bolsonaro, Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), supporters of the Maoist Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), and the main Brazilian trade union federations, with the exception of the CUT, which is presided over by the PT.

This reactionary political march did not include the participation of the PT and its pseudo-leftist ally, the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), only because, according to the presidents of both parties, they were not “invited” to “build” the demonstration together with the right wingers. Speaking to Carta Capital, the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, added that “we need to gather the democratic field and build together. The main thing is this. It’s not an adhesion, but a joint path.”

This political orientation, however, was rejected by elements within both parties. This was revealed by the action of São Paulo’s state deputy Isa Penna, one of the PSOL’s main parliamentary figures, who disobeyed the decision of her party and openly called for participation in the right-wing demonstrations against Bolsonaro.

Penna comes from the PSOL’s Insurgency faction, which is affiliated with the Pabloite Unified Secretariat. She is a mono-thematic advocate of upper middle-class identity politics. Her actions express the desperation of sections of the petty bourgeoisie in the face of the disintegration of the Brazilian bourgeois regime and their swing to the right in response. Her speech during the demonstration made clear her politically criminal attempt to give a democratic cover to the spurious goals of the extreme right-wing forces. “Today I consider that they [MBL] are in the democratic camp. ... I know they are no longer that group that flirts with fascism,” she stated.

The reactionary politics promoted by Penna, however, are not essentially different from the orientation advocated by her party. Behind organizational justifications for not joining the right-wing demonstrations, the PSOL and the PT are basing their actions on purely electoral calculations.

The PT and the PSOL intend to launch former President Lula da Silva as their presidential candidate in 2022 election, contesting Bolsonaro. Those who called for the September 12 demonstrations are hoping to advance a “third way” and have raised the banner of “Neither Lula, Nor Bolsonaro,” with which neither the PT nor the PSOL can agree.

The PT’s efforts to once again rule Brazil in the name of its national bourgeoisie have a purely reactionary character.

On the eve of September 7, Lula made a public statement in response to Bolsonaro’s coup plans for that day, which by then had already been exposed. Speaking directly to the ruling class, to whom he is offering his services, Lula attacked Bolsonaro from the standpoint that his actions, “instead of uniting forces, stimulate division.”

According to Lula, the “role of a president of the republic is to keep confidence alive in the present and in the future, to show that it is possible to overcome obstacles.” He affirmed that as president, “especially on September 7 of such a difficult year” he would have made a speech to console the “families of the victims of the pandemic” and to present plans that “would give a lift of hope to the workers” affected by unemployment and hunger.

Lula is advocating that, in the face of the profound crisis of Brazilian capitalism— completely discredited before the working masses because of the obscene levels of social inequality, the growth of mass misery and the normalization of hundreds of thousands of deaths by COVID-19—what the bourgeoisie needs is a leader capable of mitigating and not deepening social divisions.

But the growth of social conflicts in Brazil and internationally is irrepressible. The rotten alliance proposed by the PT and the PSOL to hold together bourgeois rule can only result in the deepening of its crisis and growing threats of a fascistic coup.

Inflation in Germany rises as wages fall

Elisabeth Zimmermann-Modler

In August, the annual inflation rate in Germany officially rose to 3.9 percent compared to 2.3 percent in June. Prices of goods and services are rising at the fastest rate in 28 years, i.e., since December 1993 when the inflation rate in the country peaked at 4.3 percent.

SGP placards at a demonstration against high rents (WSWS media)

Across Europe, inflation has risen to 3 percent, and in the US it already exceeds 5 percent. The price increases mainly hit the working class and in particular low-wage earners, single parents and poor pensioners.

Energy and food prices have risen especially sharply. Energy prices in August were 12.6 percent higher than one year earlier. The price of heating oil increased by 57.3 percent, fuel/petrol by 26.7 percent, natural gas by 4.9 percent and electricity by 1.7 percent. Energy prices were also affected by the CO2 tax of €25 per tonne, introduced at the beginning of this year. This tax is due to rise regularly to €55 by 2025.

Food prices have risen by 4.6 percent, vegetables by 9 percent, and dairy products and eggs by 5 percent. Prices for consumer durables, such as autos, have also risen by 5.5 percent and by 4 percent for furniture and lighting. Clothing, personal care products, flowers, newspapers and magazines have also become more expensive, while prices in restaurants have risen by 10 to 20 percent.

Savings are particularly difficult for average and low-income households when it comes to heating, energy, food and other daily necessities, the prices of which have all increased. Inflation hits workers and the poor disproportionately hard because they spend most of their income on such commodities.

Many households do not have enough left to live on due to rising energy and food prices. At the same time, the huge increase in rents in recent years is not fully included in the official statistics.

Especially in metropolitan regions, rents have risen sharply in the period from 2016 to 2020. In Munich, the price per square metre rose by 12.4 percent to €18.48 in the first quarter of 2021, in Frankfurt/Main by 14.5 percent to €15.75, in Stuttgart by 14.7 percent to €14.74, in Berlin by 8.6 percent to €13.68, and in Hamburg by 10.8 percent to €13.50. The prices refer to apartments built in the last 10 years (Handelsblatt, April 28, 2021).

In Berlin, rents already rose by more than 100 percent between 2009 and 2019. “This development,” says Handelsblatt, “is not limited to urban areas. The phenomenon of steadily rising rents can be observed throughout Germany and across settlements.”

The explosive nature of the rent price development is also made clear by a publication by the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) outlining the situation in the state of Lower Saxony.

“The rent screw is now being turned everywhere,” it says in #schlaglicht (no. 30/2021). “Even in rural regions and smaller communities, prices are soaring. But the situation is particularly precarious in big cities—also in Lower Saxony: More than half of all tenant households in Hanover, Oldenburg and Osnabrück have to pay more than 30 percent of their income for rent. The situation is hardly better in Göttingen, Braunschweig and Wolfsburg. In total, there is a shortage of 86,000 affordable flats in these six cities.”

Low-income earners, according to the publication, i.e., those with less than 60 percent of median income at their disposal, have to spend on average of about 50 percent on rent. Nationwide, about 2.1 million people are left with less than the subsistence level after deducting rent and utilities. Single parents and couples with children are particularly affected.

The DGB’s own demands for a rent freeze and a minimum wage of €12 are utterly hypocritical. The trade unions themselves sit on the official committee that sets the minimum wage. It is set at an extremely low level and rises only a few cents a year. Since July 1 it has stood at €9.60 per hour, and on July 1, 2022 will rise to just €10.45.

At the same time, the unions have ensured that workers have remained in the factories to generate profits, despite the deadly consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. They also support the opening of schools, even though this puts millions of children at risk of contagion with dramatic long-term consequences and deaths, all to ensure that parents are forced to work in line with the government’s profit-before-lives policy.

During the pandemic, the trade unions in many sectors agreed on zero or very low-wage settlements over many years, which now has the effect of massively reducing real wages.

IG Metall, for example, has suspended its scheduled wage contract negotiations for the 3.8 million workers in Germany’s engineering and electrical industries until the end of the year and has agreed a deal for this year that does not include any increase, merely a one-off payment of €500.

The union has concluded a similar contract for steelworkers. They are to receive one-off payments of €250 in late 2021 and early 2022 and €600 in 2023. At the same time as the government has handed over hundreds of billions of euros in support packages to corporations and banks, workers have been left empty-handed.

Also, IG Metall has agreed to real wage cuts at VW, which has its own in-house contract. A wage increase of 2.3 percent is not due to take effect until January 1, 2022 and will run until November 30, 2022. The percentage wage increase is thus only 1.15 percent per year, far less than the rate of inflation.

At Deutsche Bahn the DGB union, the EVG, has agreed to no increase for the current year, while the rival union, the GDL, has just agreed to a real wage cut for train drivers and other rail staff.

Some of the unions’ settlements are so low that there have been nominal wage reductions for the first time since surveys began in 2007. Gross monthly earnings, including special payments, fell by 0.7 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year. Consumer prices rose by just under 0.5 percent. This has left workers with 1.1 percent less pay in real terms. The current increase in inflation will serve to significantly drive down real wages even further.

Pensioners are particularly hard hit by both inflation and the negative wage development. Since German pension levels are linked to the wage development of the previous year, there was no pension increase this year in the West of the country and only a very small one in the East.

In many sectors, resistance is developing against falling wages, growing work stress and imminent mass dismissals. Care workers, train drivers, airport workers and delivery drivers, to name but a few, are protesting and striking against intolerable working conditions and attacks on wages and jobs.

More than 1 in 500 people in the US have died from COVID-19

Bryan Dyne

Numerous media reports have emerged noting the latest macabre milestone of the coronavirus pandemic, that COVID-19 has killed more than one out of every 500 people in the United States since the virus first emerged in the country in January 2020. The total tally currently stands at 42.5 million confirmed cases and more than 685,000 dead.

In this Sept. 14, 2021, file photo, a syringe is prepared with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic at the Reading Area Community College in Reading, Pa. COVID-19 deaths and cases in the U.S. have climbed back to where they were over the winter, wiping out months of progress and potentially bolstering President Joe Biden’s case for sweeping new vaccination requirements. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

The last such milestone occurred in mid-December of last year, when one out of every 1,000 people in the population had died. Nine months later, the number of deaths has doubled. Virtually everyone now knows a friend, colleague or family member lost to the deadly contagion.

In marking the premature passing of so many lives, CNN noted that, “It's a sobering toll that comes as hospitals in the US are struggling to keep up with the volume of patients.” An age breakdown in the Washington Post revealed that those aged 40-64 have a death rate of 1 in 780 and those aged 65-84 have a death rate of 1 in 150. Those aged 85 and older have a truly staggering death rate of 1 in 35, amounting to a total of 171,000 lost human lives.

The pandemic has ravaged both the elderly as well as those caring for them. The AARP Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard reports that, as of September 15, at least 186,000 nursing home residents and staff have been killed by the pandemic. AARP’s data implies that tens of thousands of nursing home and long-term care facility workers have died alongside those they were working to care for. Nursing home deaths are also on the rise, particularly in Alaska, Florida and Montana.

Comparisons to wars and past pandemics are increasingly apt. In absolute numbers, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed more Americans than total US combat and non-combat deaths in World War I and II combined. The coronavirus pandemic has also now killed about the same number of Americans as the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 500,000 to 850,000.

There are also many indications that the coronavirus pandemic will surpass or has already surpassed the grim milestone set by the 1918 flu. Excess death estimates from the Economist place the true death toll in the US closer to 900,000, while the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation place the total toll from COVID-19 at more than 1 million.

Official figures are equally macabre. There are currently an average of more than 1,600 people dying each day, a number which has been trending upwards since July.

What none of the media reports seriously probe, however, is the source of the immense amount of casualties. At most, there is a despair that “not enough people have been immunized” with coronavirus vaccines, as put by the Post. The Biden administration itself has remained silent on the figure. More generally, the deaths have been treated as “no longer a matter of if … but a matter of when” they would occur, as if the pandemic is some sort of unforeseen natural disaster and that we must simply accept the consequences.

Instead, the decreasing cases were seen as an excuse to more fully open the economy. July 4 was celebrated as a day of “Independence” from the virus and plans were made to fully reopen schools come the fall. Warnings of numerous scientists about the dangers of a surge of the new and highly infectious Delta variant, which had ravaged India for months, went totally unheeded. Decisions were made to prioritize the interests of Wall Street investors over human life.

The consequences have been catastrophic. There are now nearly 153,000 new cases reported daily in the US, a figure which is again rising after the dip in reporting over the Labor Day weekend. Cases are also increasing across all parts of the US, not just the American south where cases have been concentrated over the past few months. Data from the New York Times shows that states including Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have some of the highest case rates in the nation.

Montana and Idaho also have some of the highest increases in hospitalizations in the country. Montana leads the entire nation, with a 47 percent increase in hospitalizations over the past 14 days, while Idaho has suffered a 29 percent increase over that same period. Other states with similar high changes to their hospitalization rates include Ohio, West Virginia, Alaska, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

As a result, hospital systems are increasingly overwhelmed. Nearly 100,000 people are hospitalized from COVID-19 on a given day. One in four hospitals currently reports that more than 95 percent of their intensive care unit beds are occupied, and there is at least one such overwhelmed hospital in nearly every state. And many hospitals, such as those in southern Illinois and southwest Montana, have reported zero ICU bed availability.

The surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths since mid-summer is a damning indictment of the policies of the Biden administration. Since he took office, Biden has banked on vaccines being enough to slow the spread of the disease, promoting the false claim that it was safe to reopen workplaces and particularly schools since February. Other public health measures, including testing, contact tracing and isolation have been largely abandoned. Closures of businesses and schools have been rejected outright.

In doing so, Biden has adopted the policies of his predecessor and the entire US ruling establishment. While the media and various other representatives of the capitalist class may momentarily note the scale of the ongoing disaster, no solution, especially not one which impinges on the profit interests of the banks and corporate elite, is presented.

It thus falls upon the other major social force in society, the working class, to fight for a policy of eradicating COVID-19. This requires the closure of schools and non-essential businesses, together with massive investments in testing, contact tracing, and other vital public health measures.

Pegasus and Fables of National Security

Hiren Gohain

Government pleads in Supreme Court  in defence of its stubborn refusal to disclose if it has used Pegasus spyware against civilian targets, that terrorists might disappear from the radar if the answer is made public. But the moment it became known that it could be used against suspected terrorists, they would have taken prompt  precaution to disable the spyware or dive deeper into the digital cavern. Unless they are absolute duffers rather keen on coming under limelight when caught. Citizens are less fortunate in that they are both unaware and incapable of countering such abuse of law.

Pegasus hit the headlines when Whatsapp revealed to its customers, and government, that some of them have been snooped upon through Pegasus. It created a stir but died down when nobody seemed to know what to do about it. The IT minister Ravishankar Prasad came down

heavily upon Whatsapp when it later came up with a peculiar privacy policy that appeared to turn on its head the very notion of privacy. Security seemed to become  unlimited access of  service provider to private data of the hapless customer. We guarantee, it seemed to say, complete security to your data if you leave them in our possession.

National security is also a  serious business as it concerns the sovereignty of the nation and the safety of lives and property of the  people. National security, the government might be suggesting, is safest when the private space of any or all citizens is occupied and watched by it. Some will find this plea quite reasonable, except those dunderheads nursing a suspicion of the government, which has the holiest of intentions.

Pegasus seems to have turned up at the same time as the formidably wily  Benjamin Netanyuhu of Israel was hand in gloves with our leaders. So the common Indian became more curious about his Protean capabilities. As a tough guy he used all means, literally all means, to keep himself in power through all kinds of scrapes. Did he use Pegasus to stay ahead of his rivals for years together? Difficult to say since the Israeli firm marketing it would not respond to such a question.

But it is obvious that if through the alibi of national security it is operated by an incumbent government, it will have an enormous advantage over its political rivals.

It will have prior knowledge of every move of its rivals and will be in a position to frustrate or disarm their plans. Besides its prior knowledge might enable it to plant agents to mislead and doom its opponents’ campaigns.

Journalists swayed by vain ideas of their integrity can be prevented from filing their stories with a direct phone -call to the management or the story could be deactivated like a virus with stories bearing opposite content. A storm could be raised on social media about his loyalty to the nation or to his profession. True, he will also have friends and followers who won’t be taken in. But the threat to the government will be greatly weakened or nullified.

One feature of this apparatus has not been much discussed. That is its potential use to implant and infiltrate into  the targeted person’s phone false, misleading or incriminating data, the kind of use that the Bhima Koregaon accused have allegedly been subjected to.

Such deployment practically enables the government through its security agencies to influence and manipulate the behavior of the targeted individual. And he would be convinced he was acting completely on his own, a volitionally free agent. With sufficient planning and skill he could be steered into involvement even in terrorist acts, made to fall out with faithful friends and allies, and act in ways that would completely destroy things he valued most. The police might become criminalised elements not above the level of private armies of drug lords. Even a  judge might be trapped in ways beyond his legal acumen and wisdom to take biased  or hesitant positions in cases embarrassing to the government. Frightening, you say. Yes, but entirely possible with this kind of powerful device. The Dystopia may have already arrived in some parts of the world.

If such practices are sought to be  condoned by invoking hallowed national security, then there is only one remedy against their dreadful illegality. Make sure that the government of the country is not enabled to guarantee its own probity. The secrets of the state must not be a government monopoly. The  opposition must be made part of the mechanism of legislative oversight and monitoring. Policies guiding intelligence operation must be reviewed from time to time by parliament and the highest court in the land so that they do not go against the constitution. That must be made mandatory. Otherwise democracy will turn into  a shadow- play directed by power-hungry thugs.