Strike wave in Northern Ireland against below inflation pay offers

Steve James

A wave of strikes and strike ballots in Northern Ireland show workers’ determined efforts to combat falling living standards. As is the case internationally, the cost-of-living crisis, accelerated by the disastrous NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine and coming on top of the pandemic, is driving an intensification of the class struggle which the trade unions are working to isolate, suppress and bury.

Sections of workers involved in or preparing strikes include Translink bus workers, local authority classroom assistants, waste and recycling workers and school bus drivers, fast food delivery workers, university lecturers and construction machinery workers at Caterpillar. All are faced with finding a way to unify their struggles and take them out of the death grip of trade unions working to subordinate workers to the interests of the employers.

Caterpillar workers picket line in Belfast on day two of their strike (Credit: Unite the Union NI/Twitter)

Translink is Northern Ireland’s main bus company and is a private subsidiary of the state-owned Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, which controls UlsterBus, Metro and Northern Ireland Railways, all of which trade as Translink. It employs around 2,000 bus workers who have on three occasions rejected the company’s 3 percent annual pay offer. With inflation running at between 7.8 and 8.2 percent, amid the massive price hikes imposed by the Johnson government, the offer, which a company spokesperson described as “fair and reasonable”, is a substantial pay cut.

On April 1, the GMB reported 82 percent of its Translink members had voted to strike, while Unite reported a simple majority. Despite the outcome, Unite and the GMB resorted to a further “consultation”. Unite’s Deputy Regional Secretary Davy Thompson wagged his finger at Translink, calling on the company to “realise the error of its ways, table an improved offer and return to the negotiating table.”

GMB organiser Peter Macklin took the same approach, hailing the fact that the unions had kept bus drivers working during the worst peaks of the COVID-19 crisis. He told the Belfast Telegraph, “Translink fails to recognise what workers went through during the pandemic. They kept transport running so other essential workers could get to and from workplaces to perform vital roles.”

The unions’ intention to organise a sellout as soon as possible is made clear by their own pay claim figure of 6 percent, also below inflation.

Although a strike date of April 25 has belatedly been set, opening a weeklong cessation of bus services, to be followed a one-day strike May 6, Translink issued a statement confirming they were “committed to working with the unions to avert this unprecedented industrial action”. Translink and the unions are also in discussion over efforts to neutralise the strike’s impact, even if they are unable in the meantime to prevent it. The company has been trying to extract promises to keep school bus and tourism related services open.

Local authority workers are preparing strike action over pay claims. Thousands of workers, members of the NIPSA, Unite and Unison unions, providing crucial frontline services were offered a miserable 1.75 percent, for 2021/22 which was roundly rejected late last year. A one-week strike was held last month by school meals staff, school bus drivers and cleansing and bin workers. Unite have conceded a further series of stoppages involving education authority and local government workers between April 25 and May 8. School meals, yellow bus school transport, and some non-teaching and housing executive work will again be impacted.

As with Translink, however, orchestrated and systematic foot dragging by the unions has led to a situation where workers are still pursuing last year’s pay claim. Early March, a joint statement from Unison, NIPSA, GMB and Siptu covered their refusal to take up any struggle. The statement claimed that despite the 50 percent membership turnout threshold for industrial action only being applicable in England and Wales and not in Northern Ireland, no action could be organised because of the “forthcoming end of mandate of the current Northern Ireland Executive and Ministers.” Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly are due May 5.

In a separate dispute, 160 NIPSA education welfare officers took 16 days strike action in March. The strike, the longest ever pursued by the welfare officers who are qualified social workers, is in pursuit of pay parity with welfare officers working for the health services who are paid around £5,000 more annually.

University lecturers and support staff at Queens University and Ulster University are also involved in protracted struggles over pay and pensions.

Private sector workers are involved in major disputes. Workers employed by heavy construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar held a four-day strike last week over pay. The strike followed a vote to reject a below inflation offer of 9 percent over two years along with compulsory overtime.

Workers struck the company’s sites in Belfast and Larne. Further four-day strikes will also take place on April 25, May 3 and May 9. Workers mounted well attended pickets at the Northern Ireland sites, which were widely respected. One striking worker was injured after being forced to jump out of the path of an HGV lorry driven recklessly at speed through the picket line.

Caterpillar, one of the world’s largest machinery manufacturers, has a cash pile of $9.3 billion. In defence of its loot, the company has been reported trying to recruit a scab workforce from its management staff in the UK to fill production roles at the Northern Ireland sites. Caterpillar employs as many as 10,000 workers at its UK facilities, including at its Perkins subsidiary sites in Peterborough and Stafford. Worldwide, the US based outfit employs as many as 107,700 people at 150 primary locations.

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham demagogically denounced Caterpillar’s strike breaking as “utterly irresponsible and a disgraceful way to treat a workforce that has powered Caterpillar to huge profitability.” Graham, of course, took no steps to sound the alarm among or mobilise Unite’s Caterpillar members in the UK, let alone its 1.4 million overall membership, against the transnational company’s aggressive and dangerous actions.

In March, fast food delivery workers, members of the App Drivers and Couriers Union, took part in the first gig economy strike in the north of Ireland in pursuit of improved pay and conditions. One worker, with a child to support, told the Irish Times, “I’ve been working for Just Eat and Deliveroo since last August. The pay was quite good but last December Just Eat dropped our pay by 25 percent. I’m doing a minimum of 12 hours a day and working of two different apps which is more stressful.”

Taken together, transport, local authority, manufacturing and gig economy workers have enormous potential social power with which to combat their ruthless, wealthy, state-backed and frequently globally organised employers.

European Central Bank paints bleak picture of economy

Nick Beams

The European Central Bank decided to maintain its present ultra-low interest rate policy at its meeting last Thursday and sought to create the impression in its monetary policy statement that it had the increasingly turbulent economic and financial situation in the eurozone under control.

But the statement painted a bleak picture of the eurozone economy and the question-and-answer session with ECB President Christine Lagarde underscored that the central bank has no real idea on how to chart increasingly turbulent waters.

In this Oct. 1, 2019, file photo people wait in line to inquire about job openings with Marshalls during a job fair at Dolphin Mall in Miami. On Friday, Dec. 6, the U.S. government issues the November jobs report. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

The ECB resisted pressure at the meeting to follow the lead of the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, as well as a number of other central banks, to lift interest rates in response to the global surge in inflation.

In her opening press conference statement Lagarde said the Ukraine war and the associated uncertainty was “weighing heavily on the confidence of businesses and consumers.”

“Surging energy and commodity prices are reducing demand and holding back production. How the economy develops will crucially depend on how the conflict evolves, on the impact of current sanctions [against Russia] and on possible further measures.”

Throughout most of last year the ECB maintained, along with the Fed, that inflation was “transitory.” That perspective has now been junked as Lagarde warned that inflation had increased “significantly” and would “remain high over the coming months, mainly because of the sharp rise in energy costs” with inflationary pressures intensifying “across many sectors.”

Growth was weak in the first quarter of this year and there would be “slow growth” in the period ahead both because of the uncertainty created by the war and the continued disruption to supply chains because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Lagarde noted that inflation in the eurozone had increased to 7.5 percent in March, up from 5.9 percent in February, and energy prices were now 45 percent higher than a year ago.

While the struggle by workers for wage increases in the eurozone still remains relatively subdued, that could change very quickly, as evidenced by the recent two-day strike in Greece.

Lagarde indicated that, like other central bankers, her eyes are firmly fixed on wages, saying “higher than anticipated wage rises” were an upside risk to inflation, together with a “worsening of supply-side conditions.”

In response to a question, she insisted the ECB would not move to lift interest rates until asset purchases by the bank were concluded sometime in the third quarter and that it would “deal with interest rates when we get there.”

One of the major factors affecting the ECB’s interest rate stand is the effect of a rise on the more indebted countries, such as Italy, with any increase exacerbating their financial problems.

A questioner from a German news organisation referred to the issue of “fragmentation”—a situation in which interest rates in Italy and other southern European countries begin to diverge markedly from those in northern countries.

The questioner then raised the issue of a wage-price spiral. “How far is the governing council worried about a wage-price spiral with inflation getting out of control? You have mentioned wages, and wage growth is muted but it is coming. We are in Germany, and I think we may be in for a hot autumn.”

The use of the term “hot autumn” was significant because it recalled the situation in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the struggles of the working class for wage rises unleashed by the last inflationary surge destabilised governments—the spectre that haunts the ruling class today.

On the issue of “fragmentation,” Lagarde offered the assurance that the ECB was prepared to be “flexible.”

As for wages and the so-called second round effect on inflation as workers push for increases, Lagarde responded somewhat testily: “I think I have told you at the last press conference we had that we were particularly attentive to wages, and we continue to do so, because that is a critically important component to assess [the] inflation outlook in the medium term.”

She returned to the issue in response to another questioner who asked how ending asset purchases in the third quarter was going to reduce inflation.

Dismissing any conception the ECB believed reducing asset purchases would affect the price of oil, she said: “Who would, in their right mind, think so? But it is also, obviously the case that we have to be attentive to the inflation shock, to the impact that it has on wages.”

In some countries, she said, unions and management had taken into account the risk of redundancy and the threat to the economy—that is, the unions had been successful, at least so far, in keeping wage demands “relatively muted.” But in others, there were much higher wage demands and we will “continually [to] look at that extremely carefully.”

Throughout her press conference, Lagarde maintained the ECB was on a path of “normalisation,” and it had started a journey that was “moving along as predicted.”

Of course, this raised the obvious question of what constituted “normalisation” under conditions of the highest inflation in 40 years, a major supply-shock to the economy, and the impact of the war in Ukraine.

These issues were raised, albeit somewhat obliquely, by a questioner who asked whether the ECB actually had an “idea of what normal is.” Lagarde provided no real answer, simply stating that when talking about normalisation of monetary policy “I think of the kind of instruments we are using.”

In response to another question, she was somewhat more informative about the real state of affairs in the ECB headquarters. Because of the war there were “major developments that are not predicted, that are not part of past patterns” and “who knows” what would be the impact of the development of the war on the European economies.

There was also something of an extraordinary admission. Given the push to impose a total European embargo on Russian oil and gas imports, one questioner asked whether there had been any consideration by the ECB about the potential impact of such a move.

She acknowledged that an abrupt boycott of oil and gas would have a “significant impact” but then continued: “But have we actually factored in exactly the net amount, the trade-off resulting from such a boycott? No.”

Some forecasts have been made. German chancellor Olaf Scholz said last month that an embargo on Russian oil and gas supplies “would mean plunging our country and the whole of Europe into a recession. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk. Entire branches of industry are on the brink.”

This assessment was endorsed by a forecast by five German economic institutes last week. It said a full embargo would trigger a major recession in Germany, result in a 2.2 percent fall in output and wipe out more than 400,000 jobs. The report said a full embargo, after slowing growth this year, would lead to a contraction of 2.2 percent in 2023 with the cumulative impact over two years greater than that of the pandemic.

Supporting Scholz’s comments on the effect of an embargo, the BDI, a major German business lobby group, said it would have “incalculable consequences,” including production disruptions, employment losses and “massive damage to production facilities” in some cases.

BDI president Sigfried Russwurm warned the European Union was not prepared for such a move. It would “jeopardise [EU] unity and [its] ability to act economically and politically” and a total boycott would “tear the EU apart.”

UK special forces are supplying war zone training to Ukraine’s troops

Robert Stevens

British special forces are training Ukrainian troops according to a report published in the Times.

The piece published Friday evening, headlined “British special forces ‘are training local troops in Ukraine’: Serving UK soldiers ‘on ground’ for first time”, states, “Officers from two [Ukrainian] battalions stationed in and around the capital said they had undergone military training, one last week and the other the week before.”

Ukrainian soldiers take part in an exercise for the use of NLAW anti-tank missiles at the Yavoriv military training ground, close to Lviv, western Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Pavlo Palamarchuk)

It reports, “Captain Yuriy Myronenko, whose battalion is stationed in Obolon on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, said that military trainers had come to instruct new and returning military recruits to use NLAWs, British-supplied anti-tank missiles that were delivered in February as the invasion was beginning.

“One Ukrainian special forces commander, who goes by the military nickname ‘Skiff’, said the 112th battalion, to which his unit was attached, had undergone training last week. The account was confirmed by his senior commander.”

The article claims, “British military trainers were first sent to Ukraine after the invasion of Crimea. They were withdrawn in February to avoid direct conflict with Russian forces and the possibility of Nato being drawn into the latest conflict.”

It continues, “Former British soldiers, marines and special forces commandos are also in Ukraine working as training contractors and volunteers, but the Ukrainian officers were adamant that their training this month was carried out by serving British soldiers.”

Much of the recent training provided by Britain to Ukraine has been in the use of the 3,600 Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAWs) that London has shipped into the war zone since February. These have played a crucial role in the Ukrainian military’s ability to destroy many Russian tanks and armoured vehicles.

The UK media have been jubilant for weeks over the role of British forces in Russian military setbacks. On April 1, the Times, citing information from “Major William Ross, known as Bill, who ran army training in the country until February 13,” reported, “Ukrainian soldiers from across the country turned up in droves to receive UK training on anti-tank weapons in the days before the invasion, which then proved invaluable in slowing the Russian advance…”

The Times noted “the extent of the UK’s training effort in the country” by Ross and other British troops “who deployed to Ukraine in the months leading up to the invasion by Russia”. The “UK troops trained soldiers in counter-sniper techniques, how to defend against heavy artillery and how to fight in urban battles.”

The latest Times piece states in relation to the role of special forces, “The [UK] Ministry of Defence [MoD] refused to confirm the Ukrainian commanders’ accounts, citing a longstanding convention not to comment on special operations.”

All such statements from London refusing to confirm or deny must be treated as an evasion, given the long-standing record of British imperialism in anti-Russian intrigues, particularly in training and arming Ukraine since the 2014 Maidan Square coup. Britain backed the coup, led by fascist forces, including the Right Sector, Svoboda and the Azov Battalion, which overthrew the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

In February 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain was to send military “advisors” and “nonlethal aid” to Ukraine, in order to “improve the survivability” of Ukrainian troops. As part of that operation 75 military trainers were sent to western Ukraine, “providing instruction in command procedures, tactical intelligence, battlefield first aid, logistics, and the planning and execution of urban operations.”

The British also assessed the future training requirements of Ukraine’s infantry.

A few months later, in July, Britain took part in a multinational training operation, Rapid Trident. Led by the US and Ukraine, it brought “British soldiers together with troops from several other partner nations in the west of the country.” The MoD said “Partner nations” troops were trained in “essential tactics, such as reacting to contact with enemy forces. Battle Group Headquarters staff will also contribute to a command post exercise, testing the ability of commanders to lead operations alongside soldiers and officers from other nations.”

As part of the operation the UK Army sent in “Battle Group Headquarters staff and an infantry platoon from 1st Battalion The Rifles, a total of around 50 personnel, to provide vital training and contribute to the mission command headquarters.”

The same year, Britain codified its support role with the launch of Operation Orbital, its official training mission to Ukraine.

At the end of 2015, Cameron authorized an increase of £2 billion in the special forces budget, to be spread over five years.

In 2018, the scope of the Orbital training was enlarged with the deployment of “training teams from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines to deliver training to the Ukrainian Navy who face increasing threats in the Sea of Azov.”

In 2019, as the MoD revealed that 17,500 members of the Ukrainian armed forces had already been trained by Britain via Orbital, it announced a further extension “of its training mission to Ukraine by three years to March 2023.”

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced in September 2020 that Britain would lead a multinational Maritime Training Initiative for the Ukrainian Navy. The following year, in the lead up to the war and as Britain boasted that it had trained over 20,000 members of the armed forces of Ukraine, both nations played a crucial role in upscaling provocations against Russia as part of NATO’s UK-led Carrier Strike Group 21 operations in the Black Sea.

The WSWS reported in April 2021 that Britain’s Special Air Services (SAS) were by then playing a critical role in Ukraine: “The UK already has special forces and Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft deployed to the region. An SAS special forces team and Royal Signals electronic unit were officially sent to Ukraine last week, alongside a US special operations team, to ‘monitor Russian activity’”.

As well as UK forces training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine, there has been regular training organised between the two nations held in Britain. Last week, on April 12, the i news website reported, “Ukrainian troops will arrive on UK soil within days for emergency training in their fight against Russia.”

With the MoD’s assessment that there will be an intensification of the war in the east of Ukraine, the i reported Armed Forces Minister James Heappey telling LBC Radio that Britain was supplying Ukraine with 120 armoured vehicles that were being “made ready”. He added, “The Ukrainian troops that will operate them will arrive in the UK in the next few days to learn how to drive and command those vehicles.”

With Prime Minister Boris Johnson making a determined pivot to the US as a central plank of his post-Brexit strategy, and massively increasing London’s military capabilities, Britain can be relied on to stir the pot, no matter what the consequences. Last year Britain’s anti-Russian provocations in the Black Sea led to a Russian fighter plane dropping bombs in the path of a UK warship as tensions reached boiling point.

This weekend Russia acknowledged Britain’s role as the chief lackey of US imperialism in facilitating its long-held designs on the Eurasian land mass and the dismembering, ultimately, of Russia. On Saturday, Moscow banned Johnson from entering Russia, along with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, former prime minister Theresa May, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and other senior ministers and politicians.

Moscow’s Foreign Ministry said it was “in view of the unprecedented hostile action by the British government, in particular the imposition of sanctions against senior Russian officials.” Britain had waged an “unbridled information and political campaign aimed at isolating Russia internationally, creating conditions for restricting our country and strangling the domestic economy”.

Russia could just as easily have taken action against Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his front bench, who have joined the ruling Conservatives in one de facto party of war. As Johnson rolled out initial sanctions against Russia, Starmer was bellicose in demanding he “ramp up” sanctions on Russia to “cripple its ability to function.”

As Omicron BA.2 subvariant surges in the US, Biden administration deepens COVID-19 coverup

Evan Blake

The latest surge of COVID-19 is now well underway in the United States, driven by the highly infectious and immune-resistant Omicron BA.2 subvariant. The mass travel and large indoor congregations for the Easter holiday will fuel an already raging fire throughout much of the country.

According to the New York Times coronavirus tracker, the official seven-day average of daily new cases was 37,810 on Saturday, an increase of 38 percent over the past two weeks. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, due to inadequate testing, the likely real number of daily new infections in the US is far higher at roughly 270,000 per day.

Lt. Youngmi Kim, an internal medicine resident assigned to Naval Medical Center San Diego's (NMCSD) Intensive Care Unit (ICU), dons personal protective equipment before a procedure in the hospital's ICU Nov. 2. (U.S. Navy/Luke Cunningham)

Thirty-two states, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C. and the Virgin Islands have all seen an increase in official daily new cases over the past two weeks. The Northeast has been hardest hit so far, as BA.2 first became dominant in that region of the country, with New York and other states now seeing a growth in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

The surge of BA.2 in the US takes place only four months after the Omicron BA.1 subvariant ripped through the country, killing over 185,000 Americans and driving the official death toll above 1 million, according to Worldometer. During the month of January, COVID-19 supplanted cancer and heart disease as the leading cause of death in the US. At present, it stands as the third leading cause of death, killing an average of 512 Americans every day, according to the Times.

During the BA.1 surge, the Biden administration effectively adopted the “herd immunity” strategy of the Trump administration, encouraging states to dismantle COVID-19 data reporting systems and lift all mitigation measures to slow the spread of the virus.

Starting in early February, nearly every state ended mask mandates that were still in place. To justify this policy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new masking guidelines which weighted hospital capacity over infection figures, emphasizing “individual and household-level prevention behaviors” over basic principles of public health.

As numerous states drastically curtailed COVID-19 testing sites, testing is now at its lowest level since summer 2021. Federal pandemic funding began to evaporate in March, meaning that uninsured people now have to pay $100 for more accurate PCR tests.

In February, the Biden administration urged states to reclassify what qualify as COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths using the artificial distinction between those hospitalized “with COVID-19” and “from COVID-19,” a talking point of the far right since the start of the pandemic.

Despite the fact that at least a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths take place over 30 days after infection, in March Massachusetts adopted a policy of discounting such deaths, retroactively deleting nearly 4,000 COVID-19 deaths from their records. In a still-unexplained change which took place amid a record surge in child hospitalizations and deaths from Omicron, on March 16 the CDC deleted 72,277 deaths from its Data Tracker website, including a quarter of all child deaths. Despite these data manipulations, these children and adults killed by COVID-19 are not coming back to life.

Outside of the World Socialist Web Site, one of the few sources closely monitoring these policy changes has been healthcare expert Gregory Travis, who tracks COVID-19 data reporting from all US states.

Travis has documented that since the start of the Omicron surge last December, at least a dozen states stopped reporting COVID-19 data on a daily basis. Over the past week alone, Indiana, Kansas, Washington, North Carolina all “went dark,” meaning they now report data only twice per week or less frequently, effectively useless in terms of guiding public health measures. In total, over a third of all US states with a combined population of nearly 100 million people have now “gone dark.”

The cumulative impact of this massive data coverup means that the severity of the BA.2 surge in the US will be more difficult to determine than any previous spike since the start of the pandemic.

In all likelihood, millions of Americans will be infected with BA.2 and tens of thousands will die. Based on the experience with BA.2 in Europe, both figures could reach an order of magnitude higher. In Germany and the UK, where the percentages of the population with two and three vaccine doses is far higher than the US, BA.2 has decimated society and caused worse levels of infections and hospitalizations than during the BA.1 surge. In the UK, nearly 2,000 people were killed by COVID-19 in the past week alone.

Instead of alerting society to these dangers and the disastrous state of COVID-19 surveillance in the US, every effort is being made to conceal this reality from the American public.

Appearing on three of the Sunday morning talk shows, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha downplayed the present dangers facing the public. On Meet the Press, Jha argued that “we’re in a much better place than we’ve been for the past two years, certainly way better than we were in January.” He only acknowledged that “cases are ticking up and we’re gonna want to watch this carefully.”

While remaining silent on the savage assault on public health in the United States, Europe and much of the rest of the world, over the past week the corporate media devoted ample column space and airtime to denouncing the public health measures being implemented in Shanghai and across China to try to stamp out their worst outbreak of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

The most unhinged was written by Li Yuan for the New York Times, absurdly comparing China’s Zero-COVID policy to the 1958 “zero sparrow” policy implemented under Mao Zedong that in part contributed to the Great Chinese Famine. In fact, China’s Zero-COVID policy has repeatedly eliminated COVID-19 and saved millions of lives in the country.

In his Fox News Sunday interview, Dr. Jha explicitly opposed China’s use of lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19, saying: “I think it’s very difficult at this point with a highly contagious variant to be able to curtail this through lockdowns alone. And that’s why our strategy, which we have advocated, is, people should get vaccinated and boosted, we should make sure treatments are available. That is a much more effective, long-term, durable strategy for living with this virus.”

Left unstated in this “strategy for living with this virus,” but acknowledged in government reports and modeling, is that untold thousands more Americans will die from COVID-19 and potentially millions more will suffer from Long COVID.

One of the signs of political regimes in the process of disintegration is that they ignore crises, hide them, and lie about them. A major event that precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, which was directly caused by the Stalinist bureaucracy’s mismanagement, coverup and indifference to the safety of the Soviet population.

In a similar fashion, the American ruling class and all its political representatives have massively mishandled the pandemic, needlessly killing over 1 million Americans and debilitating potentially tens of millions more with Long COVID. With a social Chernobyl on their hands, they are incapable of speaking with any level of honesty to the public.

As with the pandemic, the ruling class is also withholding from the public the immense danger that the war in Ukraine could quickly spiral out of control. Amid increasingly open discussion about the potential use of “tactical” nuclear weapons, no officials or media talking heads have openly stated the fact that the use of such weapons would almost inevitably precipitate World War III between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

It is urgent that the American and international working class be alerted to the immense dangers posed by both the war and the pandemic, the interconnected crises at the center of the deepening crisis of world capitalism. Both the pandemic and the war have fueled a massive rise of inflation and global food shortages, which are impelling workers into struggle on every continent.

Ukrainian President Zelensky threatens “end of all negotiations” as Russia takes control of large parts of Mariupol

Clara Weiss

After the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, last week, and a major expansion of NATO arms shipment to Ukraine, the imperialist proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is escalating further, with Zelensky now threatening an “end of all negotiations” with Russia.

The exact circumstances of the sinking of the Moskva remain unclear. While Kiev is claiming that it had fired two Neptune missiles that hit the ship—a claim supported by the US—the Kremlin is insisting that an explosion on board and “stormy seas” accounted for its sinking. Whatever the truth, however, the loss of the Moskva is universally regarded as a massive military humiliation and setback for Russia. It is the most significant loss any navy has experienced in decades and has been compared to the catastrophe suffered by the Russian navy in the war with Japan in 1904-05.

Ukrainian servicemen run for cover as explosions are heard during a Russian attack in downtown Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Motivated no doubt by the attempt to offset the catastrophic impression of the sinking of the Moskva, and in response to the endless provocations by the imperialist powers that have funneled weapons worth billions of dollars into the Ukrainian army, Russia has escalated air strikes on targets across Ukraine, and has made a concerted effort to seize Mariupol.

As of Sunday, Russian forces have reportedly destroyed an ammunition factory near Kiev and seized large parts of the southeastern city with the exception of territory around the Azovstal factory. According to the Russian major general Igor Konashenkov, 2,500 fighters affiliated with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion were still holding out at the Azovstal factory, including 400 foreign mercenaries, who had been recruited mostly from Europe and Canada.

Kiev rejected an ultimatum issued by the Russian army to the remaining Ukrainian forces to surrender by noon on Sunday. Ukraine’s prime minister has insisted that the troops would “fight until the end.”

In response to threats by Russian officials that forces still fighting in Mariupol would be “eliminated,” Zelensky warned that the destruction of “our guys will put an end to all negotiations with Russia.”

Mariupol has been under siege for seven weeks. A humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding among the 100,000 civilians that have remained in the city and have reportedly experienced serious shortages of electricity, water and food. Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine about the establishment of corridors to evacuate the civilian population, including from Mariupol, have repeatedly ended in failure.

With a pre-war population of 400,000, Mariupol is the second largest city in East Ukraine, the so-called Donbass, and is of key strategic and economic significance. It is located on the northeastern cost of the Sea of Azov and, up until the war, much of Ukraine’s imports and exports went through its ports.

If taken by Russia, the city would form a critical part of a land bridge between the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea and the other territories controlled by Russia in the Donbass, around Donetsk and Lugansk. Such a scenario would be a major military setback for Ukraine and create significant economic and logistical challenges for the Zelensky government in the continuation of the war.

It is widely acknowledged that the Azov Battalion, which includes hardcore neo-Nazis who admire Adolf Hitler and are dreaming of a worldwide battle for the supremacy of the “white race,” has played the central role in the battle of Mariupol since the beginning of the war this year. In the civil war that erupted after the US-backed February 2014 coup in Kiev, a bloody battle between far-right militias like the Right Sector and the Azov Battalion and pro-Russian separatists ended with the city falling to the Kiev regime. Later that year, the Azov Battalion was integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard and set up its official headquarters in Mariupol.

In an interview with local media, Zelensky has indicated that the Azov fighters have effectively been given carte blanche by the government. He said, “‘the Azovtsy’ are already heroes and no one would forbid them to take certain measures.” Zelensky has awarded commanders of the Azov Battalion orders of “heroes of Ukraine,” and his government has encouraged a recruitment campaign by Azov aimed at attracting far-right forces from all over the world to fight in the war .

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, sitting in front the Ukrainian national flag and a flag with the emblem of the Nazi collaborationist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Zelensky acknowledged that “all of the world, all of the countries have to be worried” that Russia might use nuclear weapons.

However, far from advocating a de-escalation of the conflict, he echoed the provocative rhetoric of US President Joe Biden who alleged last week that Russia was perpetrating a “genocide” against Ukrainians, and demanded “stronger, more destructive weapons” for Ukraine and a complete embargo on Russian oil and gas. He also warned that Ukraine would not surrender the Eastern part of the country with Russia reportedly preparing a major offensive in the Donbass, set to begin within the coming days.

Israel attacks worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque to stoke war

Jean Shaoul

In the opening salvo of a renewed war on the Palestinians, “Operation Break the Wave,” Israeli security forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City early Friday.

They fired stun grenades, tear gas and live rounds at Palestinian worshippers marking the end of the second week of Ramadan. They beat and bound those captured, forcing them to lie face down in lines inside the mosque. Over a four-hour period, Israeli forces used baton rounds and tear gas to clear the compound, with police beating journalists and women.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 153 Palestinians were hospitalised, while “dozens of other injuries” were treated at the scene. Nearly 400 people were arrested.

Israeli security forces take position during an attack on Palestinians demonstrators at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, April 15, 2022 (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

The Israeli police claimed that “dozens of masked men” had set off fireworks in the compound before crowds hurled stones towards the Western Wall, injuring three soldiers. Omer Bar-Lev, Israeli public security minister, said the officers had acted 'bravely' in 'complex circumstances.'

Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, flatly contradicted this lying narrative, telling AFP that an “assault was made inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque” and that “More than 80 young people inside the holy mosque were displaced.”

“Al-Aqsa Mosque is a red line,” he added.

The mosque is the third holiest site in Islam, while the Western Wall, on the edge of the mosque compound, is one of Judaism’s holiest sites.

Far-right religious zealots had threatened to sacrifice a goat and perform Passover prayers in al-Aqsa. With Jewish prayers in the mosque forbidden under an agreement with Jordan, which acts as the custodian of the mosque, Israeli authorities said they would stop any sacrifices being made. But since the security forces regularly turn a blind eye to Jews praying in the compound, the Palestinians stayed in the mosque over night to prevent any attempts.

Israel’s provocative attacks on worshippers and its storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan last year was one of the factors, along with brutal attacks on protests in East Jerusalem over the threatened eviction of six Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, were the precursor to an 11-day murderous assault on Gaza.

The latest violence at the mosque comes at the start of the Jewish Passover and follows three weeks of increasing tensions in Israel and the West Bank that have seen 14 Israelis and 25 Palestinians killed in reprisal raids, including those suspected of targeting the Israelis, an unarmed woman and a lawyer, since March 22.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has increased its forces in the West Bank and on Israel’s border with Gaza, while Prime Minister Naftali Bennett urged all Israelis licenced to do so to carry their weapons. Requests for arms purchases by Israeli citizens have risen by 350 percent since the same time last year, according to the Walla news website, with more than a thousand people submitting applications to purchase a gun in March.

Bennett announced he was considering “a larger framework to involve civilian volunteers who want to help and be of assistance.” This is little short of an open invitation to Israel’s far right settler groups to form militias. Gangs of armed settlers have long acted as vigilantes, attacking Palestinian farms, their property and homes on the West bank and even threatening their lives with chants of “Death to the Arabs,” egged on by Israeli politicians and under the protection of the IDF. Having long called for ethnic cleansing under the guise of “population transfers,” last year they incited riots in Israel’s mixed population towns to terrorise and drive out Palestinian citizens and “judaicise” the towns.

Bennett’s call for civilian volunteers follows the formation of the Barel Rangers militia in the Negev, an armed Jewish vigilante group launched last month. Its founder is Almog Cohen, a former Israeli police officer and regional organiser of the far right Kahanist party, Otzma Yehudit.

The Negev is home to 90,000 of Israel’s 300,000 Bedouin citizens who live in at least 35 “unrecognised” villages that lack basic infrastructure and services. Classified as trespassers, between 2013 and 2019 more than 10,000 Bedouin homes in the Negev were demolished. Earlier this year, the announcement of a forestation plan—a thinly disguised cover for a land grab near Beer Sheva—led to violent clashes with the security forces and a police crackdown, while vigilante attacks on the villagers have sown panic and fear.

According to the daily Ha’aretz, the militia’s website says that the group, made up of volunteers, “will undergo training in fighting terror” and “show its presence and maintain security.” They would not join the regular civil guard, but instead would act as an “independent force” with each volunteer having “the authority, even when not accompanied by a policeman.” Cohen wrote in a Facebook post, “If there is a life-threatening situation it’s simple. Kill the source of danger. It’s simple and easy.”

While the police have supposedly withdrawn their support for the militia, they have declined to state whether they will prevent the group’s operation.

Cohen’s aim is nothing short of the completion of the Nakba, or catastrophe, that struck the Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 when 750,000 Palestinians—about half Palestine's population—fled or were expelled from their homes, after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine and establish a Jewish State alongside a Palestine one. The Nakba saw entire Palestinian villages massacred, with Zionist gangs killing unarmed civilians.

Two weeks ago, Uzi Dayan, a former general and Knesset member, warned in a Channel 14 TV interview, “The thing we need to tell the Arab community, even those who didn't participate in the attacks [on Israeli citizens], is to be careful.” Israel’s 1.8 million Palestinian citizens make up 20 percent of the country's population. He added, “If we reach a civil war situation, things will end in one word and a situation you know, which is Nakba. This is what will happen in the end.”

In the past weeks, Israeli security forces have carried out repeated raids on the West Bank city of Jenin and the surrounding towns and villages. These areas have become the focal point of opposition to both the Israeli occupation and the corrupt government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that serves as the enforcer of Israel’s illegal occupation.

Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians take place as Bennett’s fragile coalition government suffered the defection of Idit Silman, who served as chairperson of Bennett’s Yamina Party, to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. Her surprise move leaves Bennett with only 60 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. It came after Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz ordered hospitals to comply with a supreme court ruling overturning years of prohibition and allowing bread products into their facilities during the Passover holiday.

Mansour Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Ra’am party in the Knesset, also a member of Bennett’s coalition, said the violent raid on the mosque could force his party to leave the coalition. He said, “The continued damage to al-Aqsa Mosque is a red line for us, also regarding the stability of the coalition,” adding, “There are no political considerations when it comes to al-Aqsa.”

Syria’s state news agency Sana has reported that Israel had carried out air strikes on government positions near the Syrian capital of Damascus Thursday night. Syrian air defences had shot down “some” of the missiles fired and the strikes that hit the countryside caused only physical damage. Since the US-backed, proxy war for regime change in Syria began in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against targets inside the country, including government positions, Iranian facilities and those of its allies, fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Britain reports nearly 2,000 COVID deaths in a week

Robert Stevens

COVID-19 deaths in Britain are surging as the result of every restriction being ended by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government.

In the last week, almost 2,000 people have died in Britain from COVID-19, as fatalities reach levels not seen since the height of the pandemic in January and February 2021. The 2021 deaths were during a period before vaccines were widely available to the population.

On Wednesday, 651 people were reported dead, the highest number since February 17, 2021. The 1,984 lives lost Thursday represent an increase of 665 deaths over the previous week, or 50.4 percent.

Clinical staff care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, May 5, 2020 [Credit: Neil Hall Pool via AP]

The Daily Mail declared the 651 figure “artificially high because it includes some who should have been counted yesterday”. But the previous day saw 288 deaths recorded, making it 939 fatalities over both days no matter how the data was sliced up. Hundreds more deaths followed, with 350 announced Thursday.

Rising COVID deaths in Britain are part of a persistent death toll across Europe as the inevitable consequence of restrictions being lifted everywhere, including on travel between countries. Over 10,000 deaths have been recorded throughout the continent in each of the last two weeks. Taken over a year this would add more than half a million more deaths in Europe, assuming the fatalities rate stays as it is, and bring the official death tally to around 2.3 million.

On the day the UK recorded 651 deaths, Germany recorded 307; Russia 267; Italy 155 and France 152. In Spain, where the population has already suffered over 103,000 deaths, the authorities did not even provide a figure for that day.

The media has either not even reported the shocking increase in UK deaths, or relegated it to a minor report.

On Thursday, Dr. Dan Goyal, a National Health Service consultant and academic, tweeted, “FFS, 350 more gone today! 2,000 lives lost this week! That’s X 5 more than any other infectious disease. That keeps Covid the 3rd biggest killer of all adults in the U.K. Vaccine rates plummeting. Mask wearing and self-isolation gone. Where the feck is the media uproar?”

A “Doctor in Emergency Medicine” posted, “Yesterday there were 651 deaths in the UK from covid. 651!!!! Nothing on the news. This isn’t living with covid. It’s living with zero restrictions.”

Yesterday, Kit Yates, a mathematical Biologist at the University of Bath and member of the Independent Sage group, tweeted, “It's important to remember that falling covid doesn't mean low covid. Latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey suggests prevalence is around where it was at the January peak, which is still extremely high. One in 14 people currently infected in England.”

This was in response to official figures showing that COVID cases overall are falling. It is claimed there were 217,308 cases up to Thursday, compared to 328,471 over the previous seven days.

However, case figure reports must be viewed with extreme caution given that universal free testing was done away with in Britain at the start of April. Under conditions in which the working population of over 30 million are not only back in the workplace, but actively encouraged to work even if they have the virus, the spread of COVID is likely to be far higher.

The Guardian reported that although there had been small decline in the number of cases reported nationally, “experts analysing the data say it is too soon to say whether infections have passed their peak… Declines have been recorded in England across most age groups; however, the trend in the week ending 9 April was unclear for those in school years 7 to 11 and those aged 70 and over, with 7.2% of the latter thought to have had Covid in the most recent week, the highest level yet for that age group.”

A central plank of the government’s homicidal agenda of “living with COVID” is to end all reporting of the spread of the disease. Therefore, at this stage, the only reliable indication of the prevalence of COVID is the number of hospital admissions and deaths.

While hospitalisations are below the numbers recorded during the second wave in early 2021, this is mainly due to the impact of the mass vaccination of the population. That given, while there was a fall in admissions in the week to April 4 compared to the week to March 28, per 100,000 population, on Thursday there were still 19,770 patients in hospital with COVID in Britain.

A family hold roses and candles in memory of a loved one who died of COVID, National Covid Memorial Wall, London, March 28, 2021 (WSWS Media)

According to the government’s measure, which tallies people who passed away within 28 days of a position COVID test, 171,046 are dead. The more accurate figure recorded by the ONS, based on COVID-19 being mentioned as a cause of death on a death certificate, finds that 191,164 people have perished. The i news noted, “About nine in 10 deaths with Covid-19 on the death certificate since the start of the pandemic have coronavirus as the primary cause of death, with a minority listing the virus as a contributory factor.”

For more than two years, COVID has ravaged the world’s population as the ruling class everywhere, except for China and a few other countries, following a herd immunity policy. According to official figures over half a billion people have been infected globally, with over 186 million cases recorded in Europe. France, Germany and Britain have all recorded well over 20 million cases among their populations, with France approaching a staggering 30 million.

Millions are now suffering from Long COVID, a series of debilitating conditions that can afflict people for months or years even if their infection was only “mild.” It is feared that some cases could last for a lifetime. COVID is proven in numerous studies to be a devastating disease, which if it does not immediately kill can attack and damage the heart, the brain and other vital organs.

According to research published in November, an estimated 100 million were suffering from Long COVID. However, this was based on a World Health Organization estimate of 237 million worldwide COVID infections. Infections have more than doubled globally in just the four months since.

In a piece headlined, “Long Covid: the invisible public health crisis fueling labour shortages”, the Financial Times noted that “UK labour market data show a rise of some 200,000 since the start of the pandemic in the number of people who are not working or job-seeking because of long-term ill health; and a quarter of UK companies say long Covid is one of the main causes of long-term staff absence.”

“The UK also publishes an official monthly count of self-reported cases, in which an estimated 1.2mn people said in March they had persistent long Covid symptoms lasting at least 12 weeks, with women, people aged between 35 and 49, health workers and teachers most affected. A total of 784,000 said they had been suffering for at least a year, and 322,000 said it limited their day to day activities ‘a lot’”.

ONS data reported by the newspaper the previous week found that an “estimated 1.7mn people, or 2.7 percent of the UK population, reported experiencing symptoms lasting for more than four weeks after they had, or suspected they had, the disease as of March 5. This represents a slight rise from 2.4 percent about a month earlier.”

Allowing COVID to rip and to keep profits flowing at all costs can only lead to further more deadly COVID variants. One such could be the Omicron XE variant, of which hundreds of cases have been detected in Britain. Analysis shows that this arose as the result of the unrestricted Omicron BA.2 sub-variant, which has fueled recent cases and deaths. XE is a known as a “recombinant” as it combines genetic characteristic of other variants, in this case BA.1 and BA.2. XE was first detected in the UK on January 19 and by March 22, 637 cases were present in England.

The World Health Organisation has warned that XE could be more transmissible than the BA.1 and BA.2 variants. This assessment was backed up by the UK Health Security Agency, with the most recent data showing a growth rate for XE 9.8 percent higher than BA.2.