Pandemic continues to kill in America, while the ruling elite squabbles over mandates

Benjamin Mateus

There is barely a mention of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States any more, other than the assertions by the mainstream press that the worst is now behind us or announcements of new approvals of vaccinations. The recent declines have been celebrated even though the daily infection rates remain above most of the previous peaks, and new waves—and variants—could well arise.

The pandemic has had and continues to have a massive impact on the population regardless of the media’s silence on the matter. There have been more than 45.4 million reported COVID-19 infections during the pandemic. The reported number of COVID-related deaths is approaching 740,000. Over the last three months, 10 million infections were registered with 114,000 deaths, demonstrating the virulence of the Delta variant despite more than half the population being fully vaccinated.

However, even these figures are a significant underreporting of the true calamity. According to data provided by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s model of excess COVID-19 deaths, the death toll stands at a horrific 1.33 million lives lost over the span of 18 months. Nearly 300,000 of these deaths occurred during the last wave of infections.

The discrepancy between the reported COVID deaths and the excess deaths estimated on the basis of COVID-19 models is staggering, and yet there is not a mention of it in the bourgeoisie press and by the political establishment.

And despite these horrific developments, instead of employing any significant public health measures to save lives and livelihoods, the message has evolved into mitigate through vaccinations only.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” provided what passes for caution in the official discourse. He told anchor Jonathan Karl, “We certainly are turning the corner on this particular surge, Jon. But we have experienced over now close to 20 months of surges that go up and then come down, and then go back up again. The way to keep it down, to make that turnaround continue to go down, is to do what we mentioned: get people vaccinated.”

Critical modeling of the dynamics of community spread employing various strategies for dealing with the pandemic has shown that vaccinations alone will not stem the tide of infections. The vaccination campaigns have all but stalled, making any stated vaccination goal difficult to achieve. Currently, only 56.6 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, below what would be required even to slow the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

As for eradicating the virus and freeing humanity from this deadly threat, neither of the two camps in bourgeois politics hold out any such prospect.

Placing the discussion into context, even before the last surge in the US this summer, scientists had estimated that combined with infections and vaccines, approximately 83.3 percent of the population had some level of immunity. And yet, the last wave was only second in its destructive force to the winter surge. Without measures in place to curtail the spread of infection, the virus will continue to spark new fires across the country, including a likely new surge accompanying the colder weather that is imminent in the Northern US states.

Presently, the pandemic is rippling through dispersed populations of rural regions for whom the lack of infrastructure and access to health care are playing havoc. A new study from the University of Iowa College of Public Health found COVID-19 death rates in rural regions were double those reported in urban areas.

On Wednesday, Alaska saw 18 more people hospitalized for COVID-19, bringing the total to 204. Cases also doubled overnight with 1,220 new infections. The state continues to lead in infection rates. Earlier in the month the state health officials activated a “crisis standard of care” policy across 20 hospitals, which means critical life-sustaining care is being rationed to those deemed best fit to survive. For instance, at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, treatment for a 70-year-old woman on a ventilator and dialysis machine was terminated to free up the machine for a 48-year-old man, according to CNBC . Both patients, however, passed away.

The current surge in hospitalizations in Montana has persisted. This week the state broke the 2,000 mark for the first time during the pandemic as the figure rose to 2,227 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, breaking the previous record of 1,456 on October 4, 2020. Wyoming and West Virginia are experiencing similar surges of cases.

But more densely populated states are also suffering anew. Michigan has witnessed a resurgence of the infection. The state’s health department reported on Wednesday that there were 8,671 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and 110 deaths over the span of just two days. Hospital emergency rooms are filled with patients lying on stretchers in the crowded hallways left unattended from staffing shortages. However, many are also there not because of COVID-19 but other ailments that have been long neglected, but which are now forcing people to overcome their understandable reluctance to seek hospital treatment.

Dr. Brad Uren, an emergency medicine professor at the University of Michigan College of Emergency Physicians, told the Detroit Free Press, “We’re back to pre-COVID volumes, but also have the added burden of the COVID patients and the sort of backlog of patients that have been deferring some of their care over the last year.”

Wisconsin has seen cases peak across the state, with the seven-day average having reached over 2,600 cases. As schools there ended even mitigation policies, the number of infections among children has soared, contributing to the present dire situation. Deaths have begun to track upwards again. According to the Wisconsin Hospital Association, more than 1,170 people are admitted to the hospitals in the state with 310 in intensive care units.

Though the number of new cases nationally has been declining, with the seven-day average now a little over 91,000 per day, the death toll remains high, with more than 1,900 people dying each day. There are also indications that the decline in national COVID-19 cases is slowing, which has ominous implications as the country is heading into winter with the added burden of the flu season.

Though full vaccination status for the elderly has reached 80 percent, they were also the first to be vaccinated, meaning their immunity to the coronavirus is most likely to have weakened. The continuing drive to return to pre-pandemic norms means that this age group faces renewed dangers of the full implementation of the “learning to live with the virus” policy. Though one in 450 people has died from COVID-19 in the United States, COVID-19 deaths among the elderly are now at one in 100, highlighting the dangers for this age group. Thus far, more than a half million people aged 65 or older have died from coronavirus in America.

Despite these grim statistics, the Biden administration is pushing ahead with a policy focused almost exclusively on vaccinations, while other public health measures go by the boards. Biden signed an executive order implementing emergency temporary standards (ETS) that would force companies with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccination or regular testing. Once it goes into effect, the ETS would impact around 80 million workers, half the US workforce. Yesterday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) submitted the text of the new vaccine rule for large employers to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, June 2021 (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has taken the offensive against the vaccine mandate push by signing an executive order on Monday that would prohibit companies and organizations from enforcing a COVID-19 mandate on workers . The order states, “No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including any employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, including prior recovery from COVID-19.” However, as many of these corporate “entities” operate across multiple states, it will only further exacerbate the global supply chain issues and the chaotic economic situation as companies have to determine which rules they will abide by.

The vaccinated governor presides over a state with one of the highest COVID-19 death tolls. Close to 69,000 people have died thus far, and more than 200 are still dying each day. Assuredly, these decisions are driven by personal political ambitions and not based on any moral stance or consideration based on sound scientific advice. In this regard, both the Democrats and Republicans are complicit in the massive number of deaths caused by their policies.

As Biden remarked last month during a White House speech urging large companies to enforce vaccination mandates on their labor force, “While America is in much better shape than it was seven months ago when I took office, I need to tell you a second fact: we’re in a tough stretch and it could last a while.” The president said more than he had probably intended.

South African metalworkers strike expands

Patrick Martin

Some 16,000 workers in a smaller union have joined the 155,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), who walked out October 5 over demands for wage increases and other improvements.

Members of the Metal and Electrical Workers Union of South Africa (MEWUSA) announced that its members in the industry had come out on the picket lines. A third union, UASA, said it was in dispute with the employers but had not yet approved a walkout.

The strike has begun to have an impact on the South African auto industry, which is entirely dependent on steel and auto parts that come from the factories where NUMSA members have walked out. The German-based carmaker BMW was the first automaker to announce the disruption of production, saying that its main assembly plant was affected on Monday, losing 700 vehicles.

Striking members of NUMSA (Source: Twitter/Unati Msuthu)

The executive director of the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers (NAACAM) said in a statement, “We expect more OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer] assembly lines to be impacted if the strike continues into next week, due to lack of production in parts of the supply chain.”

The auto industry accounts for 5 percent of South Africa’s GDP, on top of the 8 percent of GDP represented by the output of the steel and metal industries themselves.

The strikers continue to encounter widespread violence from police and security guards. At least six workers were injured Monday when police fired rubber bullets at a picket line outside the Wireforce plant in Germiston. Edward Matube, the union secretary in Germiston, said police told the workers they were to keep at least 150 meters from the Wireforce premise.

Matube said one of the police began counting down from 10 for them to disperse. “We were leaving when they started shooting, so they shot at our backs,” he told the press. Another union officer, Nelson Kiyane, released photos the next day showing bullet wounds on his thighs and on other workers’ backs and legs, confirming that they were shot as they were moving away from the factory, not toward it.

The expansion of the strike coincides with an official statement from NUMSA rejecting the latest contract offered by the major employers federation, as well as attacking two smaller employers groups which have failed to make any new offer at all.

NUMSA announced Wednesday it was rejecting the offer by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (SEIFSA), which raised the proposed first-year wage increase from 4.4 percent to 6 percent but still well below the 8 percent demanded by the union and limited only to the lowest paid workers. Metalworkers received no wage increase at all in 2020 because the union agreed to freeze all bargaining during the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a press conference Thursday, NUMSA General Secretary Irvin Jim put on a demagogic show of intransigence, while at the same time holding out an olive branch to SEIFSA. He used as props for this cynical performance the refusal of two smaller employer groups, the National Employers’ Association of South Africa (NEASA) and the South African Engineers’ and Founders’ Association (SAEFA), to match the offer made by SEIFSA.

Jim said that SEIFSA had limited its offer to workers currently making the minimum pay at each company, while the union wanted any increase to apply to all workers at all pay grades. But NEASA and SAEFA, whose member companies tend to be smaller, less well financed and based in the regions rather than the central industrial area around Johannesburg, have refused to make a new offer to the union. The union leader called the 4.28 percent raise proposed by NEASA a “non-offer.”

While SEIFSA had reached out to NUMSA after the beginning of the strike, the other two associations were sabotaging the structure of collective bargaining and seeking to “advance down variation of wages in industrial sectors.”

“Our message to SAEFA, NEASA and their CEOs is that they must stop their shenanigans of working to break down the collective bargaining power of workers and come to the negotiation table,” he concluded.

The effect of these statements was to present SEIFSA as the “good” employers’ group and the other two as “bad” federations, although SEIFSA includes the largest and wealthiest of the corporations, including those linked most closely to globally mobile capital. The result could well be a settlement with SEIFSA only that leaves workers at the two smaller groups in the lurch.

It is extremely significant that the NUMSA leader declared his support for a deal at the 6 percent level, provided that this was extended to all pay rates and not just the minimums, effectively abandoning the 8 percent demand for which the workers went on strike.

Irvin Jim said that for the past decade metalworkers had received “unilaterally imposed crumbs or no increase at all,” although his own organization is by far the largest in the industry and has done nothing to fight back, including the betrayal of the last major strike in 2014.

He went on to criticize the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ruling African National Congress. “The working class across all sectors, particularly the industrial proletariat with hard skills, have been victims of an ANC government that failed to impose a meaningful national minimum wage that breaks the back of the apartheid wage gap,” Jim said.

This government, however, depends for its existence on the support from the trade unions. The biggest labor federation, COSATU, is actually part of the government, and Ramaphosa himself, before he became a billionaire capitalist boss, was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.

NUMSA broke away from COSATU, but it never broke with the fundamental political perspective of the ANC, the Stalinist South African Communist Party, and COSATU, which is the development of “black capitalism” in South Africa to replace the apartheid monstrosity, rather than the mobilization of the vast power of the South African working class on the basis of revolutionary socialist politics.

In the current strike, the ANC government will inevitably play a reactionary anti-working-class role. Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi has limited his statements so far to calling for calm. “It is common cause that the country is now going through one of the most difficult periods occasioned by the pandemic on one hand and the inclement economic conditions that prevailed even before COVID-19 on the other,” he said.

“It is against this background that we appeal to all the players—workers and employers, unions, federations and employer bodies—to handle the sensitive talks with the necessary caution,” he said, adding, “Cool heads should prevail and the good of the country and our economy should always be at the top of mind.”

What terrifies the ANC government and the capitalist class which it serves is that the trade union organizations, which act to defend the ruling elite and suppress the working class, are increasingly discredited, and the working class is now coming forward into revolutionary action.

Soaring food prices drive hunger around the world

John Malvar

The 2021 Global Hunger Index (GHI), published on Thursday, revealed soaring levels of hunger among the poor and working populations around the globe.

The foreword, written by the heads of Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, the organizations responsible for the GHI, stated that the report “points to a dire hunger situation, a result of the toxic cocktail of the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly severe and protracted conflicts.”

Rising food prices are a critical contributing factor in the growth of world hunger over the past year. Rapidly mounting inflation and the disruption of the supply chain networks of global capitalism are driving up the prices of all basic consumer goods. The U.S. Energy Information Authority reported that nearly half of all US households who use natural gas to heat their homes will pay an average of 30 to 50 percent more this winter for heating than last year.

Cars line up for food at the Utah Food Bank’s mobile food pantry at the Maverik Center Friday, April 24, 2020, in West Valley City, Utah [Credit: AP Photo/Rick Bowmer]

Real hourly earnings for American workers have fallen 1.9 percent since January. Workers in countries around the globe confront a similar situation, one that has become unlivable. Increasingly unable to pay rent, purchase adequate food, obtain fuel, they are being driven into struggle.

They confront a social system, capitalism, that exploits them, overworks them, and then leaves them without the basic necessities of life. The producers of the world’s goods find themselves without the means of survival. Nowhere is this more palpable than with the skyrocketing levels of world hunger.

The GHI report on hunger appears a week after the United Nations held a high-level event, Action in Support of Preventing and Ending Famine Now. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu told the assembly, “Today we face unprecedented food crises on multiple fronts. Starvation and hunger-related deaths are a present reality. ... As we near the end of 2021, the situation has continued to deteriorate.”

The report stated that hunger remained at “serious, alarming, or extremely alarming levels in nearly 50 countries” and noted that “after decades of decline, the global prevalence of undernourishment ... is increasing.”

Three factors, according to the GHI, drive the rising levels of world hunger, which have driven 41 million people to “the very edge of famine”—“conflict, climate change, and the economic devastation brought on by Covid-19.”

Fueled by inflation and the economic dislocation caused by the pandemic, world food prices are soaring. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI), which measures change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, reported in September that prices were 32.8 percent higher than they had been a year prior. The prices of the most basic staples rose even more sharply; wheat was up 41 percent and maize 38 percent from September 2020.

These figures contain immense misery. According to an article published in Nature Food in July, three billion people could not afford a healthy diet before the pandemic. Soaring food prices, and rising prices of consumer goods generally, have markedly worsened the situation. While 43 percent of the world’s population could not afford a healthy diet prior to COVID-19, by the end of 2020 the numbers had risen to 50 percent.

A 32 percent rise in the price of food has a profound impact on the poor. In underdeveloped countries, a majority of the population will spend somewhere from 40 to 60 percent of household income on food. The poorest 20 percent of the population in the United States spent from 30 to 40 percent of household income on food. Rising prices either mean an inability to pay rent and other expenses or cuts in the quality and overall calories of the food consumed.

The mass hunger and malnutrition confronting a substantial portion of the world’s working class is a social catastrophe, not a natural one. It is an immense crime which has been committed by the capitalist class around the globe.

The three factors driving world hunger identified by the GHI—conflict, the economic dislocation of the pandemic and climate change—are all the results of the irrational and rapacious character of capitalism.

The sharp rise in world hunger over the past year is above all a result of the criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic by capitalist governments around the globe. The FAO cited “food price spikes, movement restrictions that limit market and pastoralist activities alike, rising inflation, decreased purchasing power” among the economic effects of the pandemic on world food consumption.

There are now 2.37 billion people in the category of “food insecure.” Most subsist on one or two small meals a day of inadequate nutrition, often simply a grain extended with a meager source of fat and a vegetable.

Around the world, working parents go hungry to ensure that there is food on their children’s plates. They invent ways of extending their food. They find ways to cook scraps. They dull hunger pains with instant coffee. They eat rice with a pinch of fish paste and a smear of vegetable oil.

Basic necessaries in much of the world are sold in small units as it is all that most can afford. Rice is purchased by the cup; oil in a small tied-off plastic bag.

The problems of malnutrition and hunger confront the working class in even the richest country in the world. American inner cities are food deserts, where the nearest source of healthy food is often miles away and inaccessible by public transit. All that is available at a nearby liquor store are Spam and Frosted Flakes. Lines form outside food banks often stretching for a block. One in five Americans relied on food bank assistance in 2020.

Every day more than seven hundred million people, 8.8 percent of the world’s population, go to bed on an empty stomach, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Hunger and malnutrition mean shortened life expectancies, stunted mental development, the premature death of loved ones; it means widows and orphans and childless parents.

The crisis of the pandemic, the drive of the capitalist class to force workers back into the factories, and the soaring cost of food and other basic goods are fueling an explosive growth in the global class struggle. Workers around the world are beginning to move, in opposition to the capitalist class and in defiance of the corporatist trade unions that have for decades strangled their struggles. They are engaged in a fight for their lives in a struggle over how society’s resources will be allocated.

The vast wealth of humanity, the product of our collective labor, is enough to feed, clothe, shelter and provide a rich and meaningful life to every human on this planet.

These immense resources, however, are controlled by a handful of billionaires and the super-rich, who have parasitically profited off the exploitation of the world’s working class and who squander this wealth. They have grown richer in the pandemic. Over the course of 2020, the world’s billionaires brought in an additional $5.5 trillion in personal wealth.

Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos compete with each other to take vanity flights to space, while a majority of the world’s population cannot afford a healthy diet. Society can afford to feed everyone on earth, but it cannot afford the billionaires.

Netflix UNESCO Short Film Competition 2022

Application Deadline:

14th November 2021

Tell Me About Netflix UNESCO Short Film Competition:

We believe that a great story can come from anywhere, and be loved everywhere. Africa has a rich heritage of storytelling and a young population that is ready to step up and tell Africa’s stories, in all their multiplicity. We’re excited by the fresh new voices that are ready to tell the stories they were told by prior generations, to the world. Netflix has partnered with UNESCO to launch a short film competition, “African Folktales, Reimagined,” to find the bravest, wittiest, and most surprising retellings of some of Africa’s most-loved folktales. We can’t wait to see what you’ve got.

Folktales have always played an important role in the heritage of a culture, passing down values, knowledge, and customs from one generation to the next. Knowledge that builds communities, nations and unites the world in shared understanding and experience. We believe Africa’s rich history of storytelling, from universal tales to hyper-local fables, provides a fertile ground for creative retelling. This is an opportunity to reimagine the relevance of these tales to our contemporary society and extend them to the world stage on-screen: a celebration of Africa’s profoundly varied culture, folklore, and heritage. This competition invites submissions from emerging filmmakers across Sub-Saharan Africa on the theme of “African Folktales, Reimagined”.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Contest

Who can apply?

The Netflix UNESCO Short Film Competition is open to individuals seeking to venture into feature film development and production. Applicants must have a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 5 years of demonstrable professional experience in the audio-visual industry. Applicants must have developed and produced 1 to 2 theatrical feature films, television fiction, documentaries, or 2-3 short films and/or commercials.

Do you have a tale to share with the world? If our call has set your imagination alight, you may be one of the final six storytellers chosen to tell the stories you were told, to the world, on-screen. We are calling upon budding filmmakers to share their reimagined African folktale concept for a short film that celebrates the dynamism of African cultures. All genres welcome! Look at this brief as creative ignition — see where the theme takes you. You will submit a concept synopsis that should give us a clear idea of your creative vision and artistic angle.

Be a part of the new generation that shares Africa’s dazzling folktales — and just be sure to put your own fresh twist on it. Shortlisted finalists will have the opportunity to take part in “How to Pitch to Netflix” workshops. These will give you the chance to prepare, polish, and present your film concepts with the help of industry experts. The Netflix and UNESCO judging committee will then mentor six winners to develop a 12 to 20-minute short film. The final 6 storytellers will each win $25,000; each of them will also receive a production budget of up to $75,000 to create their short film. The collection of winning films will be launched on Netflix in 2022 as an “Anthology of African Folktales, Reimagined.”

How are Applicants Selected?

• Submit synopsis: You will need to submit a synopsis of your concept (no more than 500 words) in a Creative Statement as well as a link to a recent CV and a portfolio of any past audiovisual work you have produced.
• The shortlist: We’ll announce our top 20 finalists in January who will then be invited to a “How to Pitch to Netflix” workshop.
• The finalists: Our final 6 winners will be selected by an independent judging panel guided by Netflix and UNESCO

Which Countries are Eligible?

Sub-Saharan African countries

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

6

What is the Benefit of Netflix UNESCO Short Film Competition?

Six winners will have their short films (12-20 minutes long) launched on the Netflix service in 2022, as an “Anthology of African Folktales, Reimagined.” Each of the 6 winners will receive a production grant of US$75,000 (through a local production company) to develop, shoot and post-produce their films which will be administered by a nominated local production agency. In addition, each of the 6 winners will receive $25,000.

How to Apply for Netflix UNESCO Short Film Competition:

• You are under 35 years old
• You are a citizen and resident of a Sub-Saharan African country
• You are a filmmaker with limited experience, but have developed and produced 1- to 2 theatrical feature films, television fiction, documentaries, or 2-3 short films and/or commercials seeking to venture into feature film development and production

If you’re eligible for this competition then let’s get started. Create an account to start your application. You’ll receive an email with a link to your application if you don’t complete it all in one go. Good luck!

APPLY NOW

Visit Netflix UNESCO Short Film Competition Webpage for Details

UN Human Rights Council Abandons Yemen

Charles Pierson

The UN Human Rights Council has quashed an ongoing investigation into possible war crimes in Yemen.  The HRC rejected a draft resolution on October 7 which would have continued the mandate of the UN Group of Eminent Independent and Regional Experts on Yemen (GEE) to investigate war crimes and human rights violations in Yemen for another two years.  This was the first time in the Council’s 15-year history that a resolution was defeated (rather than passed and then ignored).

Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the country’s Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah) toppled the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.  In 2015, a military coalition led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in Yemen, ostensibly at President Hadi’s request.  The Saudi-led coalition is backed by the US and UK, while the Houthis receive support from Iran.  Also at war in Yemen are the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist movement in Yemen’s south; Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; and Al-Islah, the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; as well as a variety of extremist militias and tribes.  The Group of International Experts has concluded that it has “reasonable grounds” to conclude that all of these actors have committed serious human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law.[1]  Yet none of them voted against the October 7 resolution.  Saudi Arabia and the US are not even members of the Human Rights Council.  So, who killed the GEE’s investigation?

Eighteen members of the Human Rights Council voted to continue the GEE’s mandate, twenty-one voted against, and seven abstained.[2]  Three of the 28 states voting against the resolution were Russia, China, and Bahrain. All three are repressive states with miserable human rights records.

Bahrain is a member of the Saudi-led coalition at war in Yemen, so naturally it voted against the resolution.

Russia’s and China’s votes against the October 7 resolution take a little more explaining.  The US Institute of Peace says that “China’s position on the Yemen conflict is driven primarily by its interest in maintaining close strategic relations with Saudi Arabia.  As a result, Beijing has acquiesced to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.”  USIP notes that China has supported peace initiatives and supplies Yemen with humanitarian aid.  China’s altruism should comfort the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the citizens of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Russia is not militarily involved in Yemen, possibly because it is too busy slaughtering Syrians for the Assad dictatorship.  Russia is an ally of Iran, but is also trying to improve relations with Saudi Arabia.  By voting no on October 7, Russia has taken a few degrees of heat off Tehran and Riyadh.

Russia and China must have hated voting to end the GEE investigation which is even more of an embarrassment to the US than it is to them.  The US has actively assisted the Saudi-led coalition since 2015 with intelligence sharing, target spotting, arms sales, spare parts for coalition aircraft, and (until November 2018) in-flight refueling of coalition warplanes—all without the consent of Congress.  In its September 2020 report, the GEE called upon the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court.[3]  The veto held by the US and the four other permanent members of the Security Council will ensure that this never happens.

This seems to be the season for denying justice to innocent men, women, and children subjected to indiscriminate bombing, detention, enforced disappearances, weaponized starvation, forced displacement, torture, rape, and other offenses.  The International Criminal Court announced on September 27 that the US would be left out of its probe of war crimes in Afghanistan.  Impunity reigns.

* * *

Saudi Arabia served recently on the Human Rights Council, but lost its 2020 reelection bid after two terms.  Yet the kingdom’s malign influence persists.  Reuters observes that “Rights activists said … that Saudi Arabia lobbied heavily against the Western resolution.”  I can imagine.  The Saudi Lobby has a lot of money and a lot of muscle.  According to the independent Center for International Policy, Saudi Arabia spent at least $31 million on lobbying in the US last year, more than a million dollars of that going to campaign contributions; this at a time when Yemen is struggling to feed itself.  Even before the war, Yemen was the poorest country in the Arab world.  Today, Yemen is skidding towards famine thanks to coalition bombing and a coalition land, sea, and air blockade on food, fuel, and medicine.  The UN calls Yemen “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

Now that the Saudi Lobby has successfully torpedoed the GEE’s investigation into war crimes in Yemen, their next target will be California Democratic Representative Ro Khanna’s amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.  Khanna’s amendment was accepted by the House of Representatives.  If incorporated in the final version of the NDAA, Khanna’s amendment will end all US support to the Saudi-led coalition.  However, similar amendments from Congressman Khanna were stripped in conference last year and the year before.  Will the same thing happen this year?

Khanna is trying to accomplish what President Biden promised to do, but so far has not:  end all US support for coalition “offensive operations” in Yemen.  Biden has ended some, but not all, US support.  In September, the Biden Administration approved a $500 million contract to provide maintenance support services for Saudi warplanes.  In addition, President Biden has decided to go ahead with a $23 billion arms sale to the UAE which was negotiated under the Trump Administration.

Yemen’s suffering continues.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declares 23 species extinct

Philip Guelpa

A small portion of the death toll inflicted on the earth’s biosphere by human-induced climate change and destruction of natural habitats was acknowledged officially in a recent announcement by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which changed the status of 23 species (including 11 birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant) from endangered to extinct under the terms of the Endangered Species Act (1973).

These species include the ivory-billed woodpecker, the Bachman’s warbler, and the Kauai O’o, a Hawaiian forest bird. This is the largest single group of species designated as extinct since the act went into effect, a reflection of the increasing pace of extinctions. In the nearly 50 years since the law was passed, only 11 species in the US had previously been determined to be extinct.

Ivory-billed woodpecker, now extinct

By contrast, a conservative estimate (National Wildlife Federation, 2018) suggests that in the US alone at least 150 species have already gone extinct and another 500 are likely to have suffered that fate. One-third of US species are considered “vulnerable,” with one in five “imperiled.” A total of more than 1,600 species are currently listed as endangered.

The impact of the Endangered Species Act on the rate of extinction is limited and decreasing. The inclusion of new species to the protected list is extremely slow. A 2016 study found that species waited a median of 12 years to receive safeguards, during which time they continued to be under stress. At least 47 species have gone extinct while being evaluated for listing as endangered. News accounts play up the removal of 54 species from the endangered list, supposedly because they are now “safe.” The accelerating rate of extinctions, both in the US and worldwide, indicate that such moves are cosmetic at best.

The significance of this latest finding goes well beyond the loss of these particular forms of life. It represents only a tiny fraction of the ongoing sixth global mass extinction of lifeforms on this planet, the first to be caused by humans.

The speed and scope of this process, along with the other devastating impacts to the environment (e.g., rising sea levels, environmental pollution, raging wildfires and floods, global warming) caused by uncontrolled human activities, of which species extinction is only one part, threaten to render the planet unlivable in the not too distant future.

The earth’s ecosystem is formed by the dynamic interaction of a huge variety of biological and physical components, constantly affecting and being affected by each other. The diversity of these elements and their complex interactions tends to have a stabilizing influence on the system as a whole. Change is a constant, at varying rates at different times and in particular sub-components. Over time, species adapt or become extinct, and new ones arise. When changes result in the reduction in diversity of species from the complex of interactions that create the environment (i.e., the reduction in biodiversity ), this tends to make the system as a whole less stable.

An example of the interdependence of species is one of the species now declared extinct. The ivory-billed woodpecker, a relatively large bird, creates its nests by excavating cavities in the trunks of dead trees. Once the young have reached maturity, the nests are abandoned, then to be appropriated by other species, including wood ducks, eastern bluebirds, opossums, gray squirrels and honeybees. The loss of the woodpeckers has likely lessened the opportunities for suitable nesting spots for these species.

The rapid loss of a growing number of species now occurring accelerates the rise of instability. The rate at which these changes have occurred over the last several centuries is unprecedented in human history.

Since the end of the last Ice Age, human society has developed in the context of a relatively stable set of environmental conditions (of course, with regional and temporal variations). These conditions provide what have come to be known as “environmental services,” such as fairly predictable seasonal cycles of temperature and precipitation, and the contribution of a variety of animals (e.g., pollinating insects and birds) to the growth of crops, to name but a few.

The disruption of this environmental context at an ever-accelerating rate will soon threaten massive failures that will impact billions of people. In recent decades, the widespread occurrence of wildfires, floods and droughts at an unprecedented scale, as well as the increasing rate of extinctions, are signaling this process. Worldwide, millions of people have already been forced to become “climate refugees” due to changes that have made their local environments unable to support pre-existing ways of life, compounded by the effects of armed conflicts.

A further and very consequential impact of habitat loss is the increasing proximity of wild animals with human populations due to the latter’s incursion into previously undeveloped areas, raising the potential for the spread of zoonotic (animal-derived) diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely an example of this process.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity recently concluded that, worldwide, up to 150 species may go extinct every day. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that over 6,000 species are critically endangered.

This is a worldwide process which cannot be effectively addressed within the confines of the nation-state system. As the abject failure of capitalism to cope with either the pandemic or climate change have dramatically illustrated, this system is not only incapable of mounting effective responses to these existential crises, but is, in fact, compounding and accelerating their effects.

In contrast to past centuries, humans now have the scientific knowledge and technological capacity to confront and effectively control the range of dangerous environmental impacts, including the loss of biodiversity, that threaten catastrophe in the near future. The only obstacle is the insanely destructive drive of the capitalist system to prioritize private profit above human survival. The only social force that can bring an end to this system is the working class, by implementing a rational, scientifically based socialist reorganization of society.

Verdi trade union calls off strike at Berlin’s Charité hospital

Markus Salzmann

On 7 October, Germany’s Verdi trade union ended the almost month-long strike by nursing staff at Europe’s biggest university hospital, the Charité in Berlin.

A contract is due to be negotiated within five weeks based on a vaguely formulated document whose key points include a few cosmetic improvements for workers. In ending the strike, Verdi is deliberately sabotaging the ongoing strike by workers at the Vivantes hospital group.

The agreement was welcomed effusively by both the union and Charité management. Verdi negotiator Melanie Guba described the agreement as a “big step” and “milestone of relief” for Charité health workers. Verdi had demanded the establishment of minimum staffing regulations, less intense workloads and improved training conditions. These issues were “now being addressed based on this result,” the union official said.

“This is the contract that now settles everything satisfactorily,” declared Verdi representative Dana Lützkendorf at an appearance with the Charité management. Carla Eysel, Charité board member for personnel and nursing, was also “very pleased” with the result and referred to the ultimate contract as a “milestone.”

The political parties that control the Berlin Senate (a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Left Party) also expressed their pleasure at the end of the strike.

Franziska Giffey (SPD), whose party is largely to blame for the disastrous conditions in the city’s state-owned hospitals, called the result a “very positive signal.” Even Berlin’s neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) had nothing but praise for the agreement.

In fact, the key points of the contract thus far revealed make clear that it will neither lessen the overworking of nursing staff nor increase the quality of patient care.

According to the agreement, 700 additional nursing staff are to be hired over a period of three years. Even the 1,200 extra staff originally demanded by Verdi would have been insufficient to guarantee adequate care. Now this demand has been reduced by almost half and extended over a period of three years, during which the demands on nursing staff will certainly increase much further.

Moreover, the joint statement by Verdi and the Charité does not refer to full-time positions, but only employees. Currently, many employees have just part-time positions. And even if this provision were to be fulfilled over the extended period of time laid down in the agreement, it would amount to a mere drop in the ocean.

Another key point refers to so-called “stress points.” For every five understaffed shifts that are worked, health care employees are to be awarded one point, which can be converted into eight hours of free time to compensate for the additional stress.

However, workers will receive a maximum of only five days off per year, and the measure is more likely to entrench permanent overworking rather than end it. When a nurse works double (to compensate for an absent colleague), he or she will receive less than two hours of free time in exchange. This means that understaffing will remain much more profitable than employing the prescribed number of nurses.

Given the reality of unbroken overwork, limiting the scheme to five days means it is unlikely to be used to any significant extent. Already, most nurses have a huge backlog of overtime that can hardly be reduced due to lack of staff.

Another point to be included in the contract is staffing ratios. So far, staffing ratios of 1:1 for intensive care units, 1:10 for regular day duty and 1:17 for night duty have been mentioned. Whether these ratios will be reflected in the contract is questionable. On the other hand, it is already common practice to ignore agreed staffing ratios, sometimes for weeks.

Other points concern the use of trainees, the possibility of sabbatical years and changes to duty scheduling. No concrete information on these issues is available, and, as usual, the contract negotiations are taking place behind closed doors.

Workers should not be misled by the vague and totally insufficient promises of improvements. In 2016, Verdi hoodwinked Charité workers and agreed a deal on health protection and minimum staffing—again dubbed “historic” by the union. The deal ended a series of strikes and protests.

At the time, Verdi negotiator Meike Jäger, who is also deputy chairperson of the supervisory board of Vivantes and a member of the supervisory board of the private Rhön-Klinken, declared fulsomely: “At last we have succeeded in putting a stop to job cuts, especially in nursing, by limiting any further deterioration in minimum staffing levels with binding benchmarks.”

In fact, the agreement was not worth the paper it was written on. Since then, the situation has become increasingly dire, with nursing staff overwhelmed with extra work. Verdi was able to force staff at Europe’s largest university hospital to keep quiet for a short time with its vile manoeuvre, but the latest contract is to be valid for three years so as to make sure that further strikes will be illegal over that period of time.

Since the beginning of the strikes at the Charité and Vivantes clinics, Verdi has been working towards a quick agreement with management but has confronted enormous anger and militancy on the part of health workers. Now the union wants to use the end of the strike at Charité to weaken the industrial action of Vivantes workers and quickly close down their strike as well.

Vivantes nursing staff have been on strike since 9 September, demanding improved working conditions, while employees at the company’s subsidiaries are demanding better wages. The joint strike at the two big hospital groups in the German capital has demonstrated the power of workers and made clear they face the same problems. Last Tuesday, workers at the Asklepios health clinics in Brandenburg also voted for an indefinite strike to secure wage raises.

The strike at Vivantes is continuing and more than 2,000 people, including many nurses, protested in Berlin on Saturday for more staff and better working conditions. The protesters marched from the Urban Clinic in Neukölln to Willy Brandt House, headquarters of the SPD.

Verdi representative Susanne Feldkötter cynically justified the ending of the strike at the Charité to the newspaper Neues Deutschland with the words: “One strike less means we have more strength for the other industrial action.” In reality, Verdi is now working flat out to sell out the Vivantes strike and ensure the perpetuation of the existing miserable working conditions and poor wages.

At Vivantes, no agreement has been reached to date due to the group’s unscrupulous management, which, even under conditions of the coronavirus pandemic, has made “offers” that would result in worse conditions for the workers.

Verdi announced plans to suspend the strike at the Vivantes subsidiaries on Thursday, arguing that contract negotiations would resume on that day. This agreement was reached under the auspices of former SPD state premier Matthias Platzeck. Verdi and the Berlin SPD chose Platzeck as moderator after he was appointed as mediator at Charité-Facility-Management (CFM) at the beginning of the year and was instrumental in pushing through a miserable agreement against workers there.

The threatened sell-out at the Charité and Vivantes clinics once again highlights the treacherous role of the trade unions. Health workers must build independent action committees which they control, rather than the highly paid Verdi functionaries. This is the only way to expand the struggle for decent wages and good working conditions.

US-EU rift over relations with China widens after AUKUS pact

Alex Lantier

Recent weeks have seen mounting conflicts between Washington and the European imperialist powers over China. Last month, Australia suddenly repudiated a €56 billion French submarine contract to sign instead the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) alliance targeting China, and European countries this month successfully overrode US accusations that IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva improperly promoted China in official reports.

When French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire arrived in America for this week’s G-20 finance ministers’ summit in Washington, the New York Times largely asked him about China. The Times wrote that it is impossible to “mask stark differences on China and other issues” between America and France. Le Maire asserted that US and European Union (EU) policies towards China are fundamentally incompatible.

The U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), front, and the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG-52) underway in the the South China Sea on 18 April 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

“The United States wants to confront China. The European Union wants to engage China,” he said. Washington, he added, sees China as a threat and does not “want China to become in a few years or decades the first superpower in the world.” Asked if this meant a divergence between America and Europe, he replied, “It could be if we are not cautious.” To avoid US-EU conflict, he said, Washington must agree to “recognizing Europe as one of the three superpowers in the world for the 21st century,” together with the United States and China.

Workers must be warned: deep, historically rooted conflicts between the world’s most powerful imperialist states, that twice in the 20th century led to world war, again threaten to erupt. It is thirty years since the 1991 Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union deprived the NATO powers of a common enemy. Today, amid a horrific social and economic crisis caused by the criminal official handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, profound conflicts over economic and military interests are driving US imperialism and the European powers apart.

Le Maire said the “key question now for the European Union” is to be “independent from the United States, able to defend its own interests, whether economic or strategic interests.” Such independence, he added, “means to be able to build more capacities on defense, to defend its own view on the fight against climate change, to defend its own economic interest, to have access to key technologies and not be too dependent on American technologies.”

The Times listed demands presented by Paris to Washington through Le Maire. One is that the Biden administration end steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the previous Trump administration. France, the Times wrote, also wants “greater American commitment to independent European defense ambitions … as well as evidence of American respect for European strategic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.”

Washington’s signing of AUKUS behind the EU’s back only underscores, however, that it has no intention of respecting EU ambitions or of accepting a role as co-equal of anyone. Maintaining US global primacy has, in fact, been US policy throughout the post-Soviet era.

A 1992 Pentagon strategy paper asserted that US national security required Washington to convince “potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role,” and to “discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order.”

Already after Trump’s election, however, the EU powers had signaled a more antagonistic military posture. In 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel commented amid Trump’s first tour of Europe as president that “we have to fight for our own future ourselves.” The EU announced multibillion-euro plans for independent EU weapons and armed forces.

Washington has since been weakened by its championing of a disastrous “herd immunity” response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has left millions dead worldwide, and the humiliating collapse this summer of its Afghan puppet regime in Kabul. The French finance minister’s role in criticizing US policy is not accidental, given longstanding French criticisms of US handling of the dollar. These criticisms have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the IMF became the focus of a battle between Washington and the EU, which demanded IMF subsidies for Africa to deal with the pandemic, which US officials opposed as a threat to its monopoly of printing dollars. With Georgieva’s support, the EU and African countries ultimately overcame US opposition. This month, 15 African states, including Nigeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, signed a letter in the Paris-based monthly Jeune Afrique endorsing Georgieva against Washington.

Calling her an “invaluable partner,” they wrote, “Georgieva played a decisive role in the unprecedented issuing of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) equivalent to US$650 billion, providing liquidity and cash buffers to many countries in need. She fought to promote multilateralism …”

Inter-imperialist rivalries over the profits to be extracted from China, Africa and beyond are ever more clearly acquiring a military dimension, however, and the risk of war is growing rapidly. France’s Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) think tank recently published a report on the AUKUS alliance and the Indo-Pacific. It wrote that AUKUS demonstrates US “mistrust towards Europe (not only France) which Washington cast aside, notably because it is not hard-line enough towards Beijing and also tends to compete commercially in the Chinese market.”

It dismissed US attempts to mend fences with France: “US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, flanked by Australian officials, trying to temper French indignation (‘France is a vital partner … we want to take every opportunity to reinforce trans-Atlantic cooperation on the Indo-Pacific’) fools no one. This is the pursuit of a strategic agenda based on and seeking to reinforce the marginalization of the European Union.”

Noting the “imbalance between Europe’s means and its ambitions,” the FRS called for a military buildup: “Promoting effective strategic autonomy (while preserving necessary trans-Atlantic solidarity), European sovereignty in its various dimensions, and a will to power in a universe where force rules is now absolutely urgent. Deceiving oneself with words is useless, we have just had that proven to us. … France needs a global China strategy not limited to the Indo-Pacific (due to a lack of inter-ministerial coordination, Paris has no clear view on the ‘New Silk Road’ program).”

The FRS made clear that this entails rising strategic tensions inside Europe, notably with Britain. “To imagine that the fact that Europe is still England’s leading trading partner after Brexit means that Britain is tied to the EU is an illusion that has (at least partially) been dispelled. … London’s role in AUKUS and its industrial participation in the future Australian nuclear submarine program must lead to broader reflection on the future of Franco-British strategic relations,” it wrote. It added that this “could impact the 2010 Lancaster House accords” on UK-French military collaboration.

The force emerging as the alternative to the disintegration of the international institutions of world capitalism is the international working class. Strikes and protests are mounting worldwide against super-exploitation, social inequality and massive unnecessary deaths caused by the official response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Significantly, Le Maire told the Times he fears “inequality divides” and warned, “a new ‘Yellow Vest’ [protest] movement remains possible everywhere within Europe.”

Workers face the bankruptcy not of individual politicians or governments, but of an entire social system. While US war threats against China are the most aggressive and reckless elements of imperialist foreign policy, the EU powers are not fundamentally different. They are planning the diversion of hundreds of billions of euros into weapons programs, social attacks on the workers, and cultivating a militaristic “will to power,” in the FRS’s words.