Worst-ever drought devastates Europe amid climate crisis

Samuel Tissot

From Britain to the Balkans, a record-breaking drought is devastating Europe. Over 60 percent of the European Union and Great Britain face drought conditions, according to the European Drought Observatory, in what one EU Commission scientist called Europe’s worst drought in 500 years. Major rivers and lakes are drying up, farmers are facing unprecedented crop failures, and energy supplies are collapsing amid unprecedented heat and lack of rainfall.

The summer of 2022, which broke records for heat, wildfires and now drought in Europe, has made clear the urgent necessity of dealing with global climate change. It has now reached such a vast extent that, without prompt and large-scale action, it will threaten basic functions of society critical to human life—such as the ability to provide water, food, electricity, and safe housing.

This summer’s extreme drought was caused by record-low precipitation in Europe this year and successive heatwaves, including the July heatwave that shattered temperature records. Extreme heat and drought also led to record wildfires, with 615,341 hectares burned this year across Europe—the highest-ever figure for mid-August. The drought is disrupting key food and energy supplies, already undermined by the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, driving prices for essential goods even higher amid the ongoing inflation crisis.

On the Rhine River, barges are carrying goods at 25 percent capacity due to low water levels. Water levels are now at 40 centimeters but are forecast to fall to around 30cm, which may completely halt transport on the river. Such stoppages in 2018 cost the German economy an estimated €5 billion.

Last week, France forced its nuclear power plants, which produce 70 percent of its electricity, to operate at reduced capacity: releasing high-temperature coolant water into rivers that are at record low levels is an ecological hazard. Amid the ongoing energy crisis, however, the French energy agency now has ordered the plants to return to full capacity, whatever the resulting damage to the environment, including plant and animal life. Of France’s 96 mainland departments, 86 are on drought alert. The Loire River, France’s second-largest, can be crossed on foot along much of its length.

The water level on the Danube River, Europe’s longest, is currently 43 centimeters, the lowest since records began. In Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, dredging efforts are underway to keep the river navigable for barges, which are crucial for Balkan food and energy supplies. In southern Germany, the river’s water temperature exceeded 25°C and is expected to reach 27°C by the end of the month, the same temperature as the Caribbean Sea.

Across Europe, fish are threatened by record high water temperatures and low oxygen content. The entire fish stock of Conopljankso reservoir in Serbia died after it completely dried up.

The surface of the Oder River, running between Poland and Germany, is now all but covered in dead fish. While Polish officials have contested reports of heavy industrial contamination of the river, it is clear that as the river’s water volume plummeted to record lows, concentrations of industrial pollutants have skyrocketed.

European farmers are facing massive crop failures, with production of key grains down 30 to 40 percent in Italy and nearly 20 percent in France. Spain’s olive oil crop, which counts for nearly half of world exports, is expected to be one-quarter of the average produced over the last five years.

In northern Italy’s Po Valley, 60 percent of this year’s crop has been lost as farmers have been unable to use local rivers for crop irrigation. This has already caused at least €6.2 billion in damage. The region, which produces 30 to 40 percent of Italy’s food supply, has seen virtually no rain this year. Near the Po estuary, water levels are so low that salt water from the Adriatic Sea flowed 30 kilometers upstream, killing crops near the river’s banks that had so far survived the drought.

Drinking water supplies are critically low in every city along the Po Valley, including Milan and Turin. Water levels in lakes in the region are also at historical lows, including the popular tourist destination of Lake Garda in northern Italy, which has almost completely dried up.

Even Europe’s northernmost and wettest regions are suffering. Low water levels in Norway’s reservoirs are reducing its ability to produce hydroelectric power. This has led to warnings that it may have to cut energy exports, further exacerbating the energy crisis caused by NATO threats to refuse to pay for Russian gas and Russian threats to cut off supplies. Eight UK regions face drought conditions, including the capital, London.

These events point to the urgent necessity of an internationally-coordinated campaign to halt and address the consequences of global warming. Trillions of euros must be invested in high technology, key infrastructure, irrigation technology, clean energy generation, food security programs, and other initiatives to ensure that the globe remains habitable for humanity.

Carrying this out requires a direct assault on the capitalist system, and the wealth and privileges of its corrupt financial aristocracy. Trillions of euros were found overnight amid the stock market crash that followed the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet this wealth went not to eliminate the virus, which has since then claimed over 1.6 million lives in Europe alone, or to fund critical infrastructure investments, but to bail out a tiny elite of wealthy investors who answer to no one.

As with the pandemic, the measures needed to combat global warming are well-known to scientists and government officials alike, but the international institutions of the capitalist nation-state system have failed to organize a coordinated response. Instead, they are plunging deeper into war. EU governments are pledging hundreds of billions of euros in military spending increases, preparing to escalate the war NATO is waging on Russia in Ukraine.

FDA authorizes rationing of the vaccine against monkeypox

Benjamin Mateus

Given the rising rates of monkeypox infections across the US and the limited available doses of the Jynneos vaccine (Imvanex in Europe) made by Bavarian Nordic, the only authorized vaccine against the orthopoxvirus, last week the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to ration the vaccine through the use of intradermal injections.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf said, “In recent weeks, the monkeypox virus has continued to spread at a rate that has made it clear our current vaccine supply will not meet the current demand. The FDA quickly explored other scientifically appropriate options to facilitate access to the vaccine for all impacted individuals. By increasing the number of available doses, more individuals who want to be vaccinated against monkeypox will now have the opportunity to do so.”

A registered nurse prepares a dose of a Monkeypox vaccine at the Salt Lake County Health Department Thursday, July 28, 2022, in Salt Lake City. U.S. health officials on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022, authorized a new monkeypox vaccination strategy designed to stretch limited supplies by allowing health professionals to vaccinate up to five people — instead of one — with each vial. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

What the commissioner is explaining is called fractional monkeypox vaccine dosing, or a dose-sparing measure. Instead of giving the vaccine deep into the muscle, one-fifth of the standard dose is injected between the layers of skin. Evidence for the intradermal route was obtained based on a 2015 clinical study conducted by the government which demonstrated it could provide a similar immune response to intramuscular injection. As a result, the total number of available doses has been expanded by five-fold or five doses per vial.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, speaking during the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seminar to inform clinicians of the change in the interim guidance on the new practice, estimated that approximately 1.7 million Americans were at risk of contracting monkeypox. At least 3 million doses would be needed, although only half that amount would be available by year’s end.

The fractional dosing offered the only viable alternative as the ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine, which is available in abundance, carries a significant risk of myocarditis and rare but known complications of death. Specifically, ACAM2000 is contraindicated in immunocompromised individuals.

Yet even as an intradermal injection, the Jynneos vaccine (a smallpox vaccine) still requires two doses to be given 28 days apart to complete the series. It has also not been approved for children under the age of 18. Jynneos has also never been verified to be effective against monkeypox, and little is known about its role as postexposure prophylaxis.

In a letter dated August 9, 2022 sent to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf, with copies to White House National Monkeypox Response Coordinator Robert Fenton and his deputy Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin wrote: “Bavarian Nordic is dedicated to assisting governments around the globe to control the monkeypox outbreak and is fully supportive of dose-sparing approached, such as delaying the second vaccination. However, we do have some reservations on the intradermal (ID) approach due to the very limited safety data available (less than 200 people), the higher reactogenicity [adverse reaction] compared to the Jynneos standard dose … and the fact that there was a relatively high percentage of subjects (20 percent) that failed to receive the second vaccination during a controlled clinical study.”

These raise serious concerns about the impact that the intradermal injection approach will have on vaccine uptake and coverage. Additionally, Chaplin criticized the FDA’s EUA for not including an implementation protocol to track and gather safety data on the route of administration that would be essential for safe practices. Other questions raised included the duration of the vials remaining open, whether remaining doses could be refrigerated again, the sizes of needles and dosing for pre-and post-exposure prophylaxis.

As of August 12, 2022, global monkeypox cases have reached almost 35,500. The global seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has reached close to 1,400 cases per day. Ninety-four non-endemic countries and territories have reported monkeypox cases, of which nearly one-third have been reported in the United States (11,130). The seven-day rolling average in the US is around 650 cases per day. Only Wyoming remains monkeypox-free thus far.

However, Spain, with 5,719 cases, leads globally per capita. Two of the five deaths related to monkeypox outside non-endemic regions occurred in two previously healthy men in their 30s and 40s, each developing encephalitis, the swelling and inflammation of the brain, which led to their demise. The other three deaths have happened in Brazil, India and most recently, Ecuador. Europe, however, continues to be the epicenter of the monkeypox pandemic.

Figure 2: Map of Monkeypox cases in North and South America. Source from @antonio_caramia https://www.ilpandacentrostudio.it/uk.html.

Little is mentioned by the mainstream press of monkeypox’s impact on Africa. The African CDC noted in the last week of July that since the beginning of 2022, more than 2,000 confirmed and suspected cases had been reported among nine endemic and two non-endemic African Union (AU) Member States. At least 75 deaths have been documented for a case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.7 percent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 12,500 monkeypox infections and 365 deaths have been reported, for a CFR of 2.9 percent, underscoring the infection’s deadliness and the need to access the vaccines that have been hoarded for more than a decade by the US and EU.

The African CDC noted in its recent press release: “For the last three years (2020-2022), the monkeypox outbreak in Africa continued to grow from one country to another with little international attention. To date, the critical tools required in outbreak preparedness and response, including diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, have not yet been made readily available to AU Member States … the inequity and delayed access to COVID-19 tools in Africa should not be repeated with monkeypox, which has been a public health emergency since 2020.”

In 2013, the US had more than 20 million doses of Jynneos vaccines in its strategic national stockpiles, with another 8 million doses added in 2015. Yet, these vaccines were allowed to expire because of the preferred investment in bulk freeze-dried quantities of the vaccines. These could have been made available to the African CDC at the time to combat the evolving monkeypox outbreak there.

Prior to a major outbreak in 2017, the Nigerian CDC had reported only one monkeypox case in the country dating back to 1971, in a four-year-old child in the southeastern part of the country. On October 13, 2017, the Nigerian CDC received confirmation of a human monkeypox case, and by November 17, 2017, there were 146 suspected cases reported from 22 of the 36 states. Women made up a third of cases, and one immunocompromised person died from complications. Many of the cases were in urban centers, implying the likelihood that the disease would spread internationally. In 2018, Nigerian scientists led by Adesola Yinka-Ogunleye warned of a growing outbreak of monkeypox infections spreading among people in the country.

Madhukar Pai, director of McGill University’s global health programs in Montreal, told Quartz, “I don’t expect rich nations to do anything different with monkeypox. They will do exactly what they did with COVID: corner the vaccine supplies, hoard them, and block vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries. And just like we are seeing no end to COVID, monkeypox will be kept alive and well because of the myopia and greed of rich nations.”

In his estimates of the number of people at risk, Marks’ projections fail to account for the inevitability that monkeypox will spread to other communities, upending the false narrative that the virus is a sexually transmitted disease that only affects men who have sex with men.

Though the number of children that have contracted monkeypox remains comparatively small, on August 9, 2022, the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s leading health authority, reported a case of monkeypox in a four-year-old girl living with two infected adults in Pforzheim, according to Deutsche Welle. Other countries include the US, France, the Netherlands and Spain. Of the 98 documented infections globally in children, 25 cases have been in children four years and younger, who also happen to be the most susceptible to severe disease and death.

Meanwhile, five US colleges have already reported monkeypox cases this summer, even with most students away. Recently, Clark County School District identified a case at Palo Verde High School, and last week a daycare worker in Champaign County, Illinois, was diagnosed with the infection. These raise the specter of a growing outbreak as K-12 schools and colleges reopen across the US and internationally in the coming weeks.

With nearly 2,000 cases, California is seeing hundreds waiting in lines for vaccines only later to be turned away. Meanwhile, there is too little testing and treatment despite the recent declaration of a public health emergency. Despite the claims of increased testing capacity, on August 2, the California health department received only 6,682 monkeypox test results, with a positivity rate of around 19 percent, highlighting that there is nowhere near enough testing being performed.

Street protests erupt across Bangladesh over fuel price hikes

Wimal Perera

Unprecedented fuel price increases announced on August 5—the highest in Bangladeshi history—have triggered nationwide protests by workers, students and the poor against the Awami League-led government. The price of petrol was increased by nearly 52 percent per litre, from 86 taka ($US 91 cents) to 130 taka ($US1.37), with diesel and kerosene prices rising by 42.5 percent.

The price hikes, like those in many other countries, are a direct result of the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine and the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as workers and the poor are already struggling to deal with declining living conditions.

Bangladeshi garment workers block a road demanding their unpaid wages during a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, April 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Al-emrun Garjon)

According to media reports, protests erupted in Dhaka, the national capital, and other major cities, beginning the day after the price rises. Motorbike users and transport workers staged street demonstrations, chanting slogans against Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and demanding her government lower the prices.       

Mohammad Nurul Islam, a truck driver who transports vegetables, spoke to the BBC while queuing for petrol. “When I go to the market, I can’t buy enough food for my family. If the price of fuel keeps increasing like this, I won’t be able to look after my parents or send my children to school. If I lose my job, I might have to start begging in the street,” he said.

One protester, Homammed Shajahan, who hires vans for a living, told Al Jazeera: “No one is renting our vans now because it costs more. It is really hard on us. See all the drivers are sitting idle. We cannot understand what the government is doing,” he said.

The fuel price increases have driven up the cost of other essentials as well as bus and other transport fares.

The New Indian Express reported on August 13 spiraling prices for 25 out of 26 basic items. Over the past month, the cost of rice has risen by 22 percent, farm-grown chickens 45 percent, onions 43 percent, eggs 20 percent and fish by 10 percent.

Mamunur Rashid, an office janitor in Dhaka and with a family of six, told the newspaper that he was previously able to eat fish three times a week, but “now I only eat it once.”

Fearful of the rising mass opposition, the Workers Party of Bangladesh, a member of the ruling 14-party alliance, warned that the government’s decision to drive up fuel prices was suicidal.

Student organisations and various Stalinist parties have called protests against the price hikes.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh and the Left Democratic Alliance—an alliance of eight political parties (including various Stalinist cliques)—demonstrated in Dhaka on August 6 to demand withdrawal of the fuel price increases.

On August 7, the police baton-charged student demonstrators at the Shahbagh intersection, a major neighbourhood in Dhaka, then filed charges against dozens of student leaders and activists. Four days later on August 11, students protested to demanding their release.

Seeking to exploit the mass anger, the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the country’s main opposition party, demonstrated on August 11 in Naya Paltan, a Dhaka neighborhood, over the price increases. The BNP, like Hasina’s Awami League-led government, attacked the social rights of the working class and the poor when it was in power.

This month’s fuel price increases follow previous rises in the price of essential food items and natural gas. Mass protests erupted throughout Dhaka, bringing parts of the city to a halt for hours on June 4, following a 23 percent rise in the cost of natural gas price. Natural gas provides over 60 percent of the country’s energy needs.

Thousands of apparel workers from Snowtex Apparels, MBM Garment, Vision Garment, IDS Group, Kolka Garment and Dmox staged a four-day strike at Mirpur, in Dhaka, to demand price reductions or for compensation through increases in their salaries. Striking Snowtex Apparels worker Mamunur Rahman told the media that garment workers had no other option. “Our salaries have not been increased for a long time while the prices of essential commodities are soaring,” he said.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics the overall annual inflation rate in June was 7.56 percent, the highest in nine years. Food inflation was even higher at 8.37 percent.

The rising cost of commodities on the world market is impacting on Bangladesh, bdnews24.com reports, leading to the worst balance of payment deficit crisis in the country’s history and a sharp reduction in its foreign exchange reserves.

As of July 27, Bangladeshi foreign exchange reserves stood at $39.48 billion, down from $45.7 billion a year ago. While this is reportedly sufficient to pay for five months of imports, the government fears that further increases in the price of oil and other basic commodities will lead to a more rapid decline of reserves.

To offset this, the government has sought a $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and another $2 billion from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The IMF reports that Bangladesh had total foreign debts of $62 billion in 2021 while the Centre for Policy Dialogue has warned that the grace period for the servicing of several foreign loans will expire in 2024–25 fiscal year. In the past ten years, however, from May 2012 to May 2022, the Bangladeshi taka has devalued by 63 percent against the US dollar.

Foreign and domestic political commentators are raising concerns about whether Bangladesh will spiral into the same sort of acute political crisis as in Sri Lanka.

Protests beginning in April in Sri Lanka over rampant inflation, power cuts and widespread shortages of fuel, food and medicines, developed into a popular uprising and general strikes against the Rajapakse government, forcing it to resign and President Gotabaya Rajapakse to flee the country on July 13.

A recent article in the Dhaka-based Daily Star by UN Development Program economist Nazeen Ahmed warned that “Bangladesh may be on its way to facing a similar eventuality [as Sri Lanka.]”

The Hasina government and the World Bank, citing growth rates of 7 percent and 8.15 percent in 2015-16 and 2018-19 respectively, previously claimed that Bangladesh would become an upper middle-income country by 2031. This myth has been shattered by rising commodity prices and the global economic crisis.

The wave of mass protests that have erupted in Bangladesh are part of class struggles sweeping across the world against rising inflation and job and wage cuts. The Hasina government’s response to this crisis has been to further drive up the cost of fuel and other essentials while mobilising the police and unleash state repression, measures that will further increase mass opposition.

Public health specialists demand action as COVID-19 surges in Turkey

Harun Akın

In Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government recently declared that “the pandemic is over,” the grossly underestimated official numbers of cases and deaths are rapidly rising. The complicity of the bourgeois opposition and trade unions with the government’s policy of mass infection and death underlines the need for working people to take matters into their own hands to save lives and end the pandemic.

The official number of cases in the week of July 25 to August 1 reached 406,332, while 337 people died of COVID-19. According to the World Health Organization, Turkey ranked first in Europe and fifth in the world in terms of COVID-19 infections that week.

Tevfik Özlü, a member of the official Coronavirus Scientific Committee, spoke to the İhlas News Agency (İHA). In a devastating comment on the policies of his own committee, Özlü said: “The saddest part is that the number of deaths, the number of cases, is not very important to me anymore. Since most people do not get tested, they do not reflect the real numbers.”

In February, despite warnings from public health specialists, Özlü had said that COVID-19 “will eventually turn into a common respiratory infection, like the flu or the common cold.”

Healthcare workers go on strike nationwide to protest working conditions and low pay. The banner reads: "We are on strike, we will struggle until we get our rights." Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. [AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici]

“We are experiencing the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic,” Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ceyhan, Head of the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine in Ankara, said on Thursday. He added: “We had to reopen the COVID-19 pediatric ward due to the increasing number of cases.”

Speaking to Cumhuriyet on July 25, Prof. Dr. Bekir Kocazeybek, a member of the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty in Istanbul, explained why the number of cases is increasing: “Cases are increasing due to the Health Ministry’s abolition of masks in indoor areas, and the fact that tests are almost never performed—infected people are sent back without being tested. The government is driven by economic concerns.”

Kocazeybek noted that Omicron is the dominant variant in Turkey, with 70-80 percent of cases, warning that vaccines are losing effectiveness and calling for public health measures: “Turkey should act with an approach that prioritizes human health instead of tourism and economic concerns. Otherwise, we may spend the fall and winter more seriously with a 6th wave … My biggest concern is that we will encounter more resistant and more contagious mutations. We must reduce the infection chain by disciplining human movements.”

Health care workers’ organizations in Ankara recently issued a statement on the pandemic, calling for various precautions against the spread of the virus. They demanded that “COVID services and polyclinics should be reopened in hospitals. The use of masks should continue in indoor places and crowded open areas. … Effective contact tracing and isolation should be implemented.”

They added, “Vaccination should be accelerated through campaigns and booster doses should be administered with effective vaccines. The 5-11 age group should be included in the vaccination program. Urgent precaution plans should be put into practice.”

Continuing, they warned: “While a new variant in the COVID-19 pandemic spreads very rapidly, every six months, faster and more easily transmitted than the previous one, all measures have been lifted in our country since May. The Health Ministry started releasing daily data on a weekly basis after May 30, and although the number of tests is currently very low, the number of weekly deaths is very high.”

It concluded with a call for public health measures against the government’s “profits before health” policy: “We once again state that the government, which determines the criteria in the fight against the pandemic according to the hospital occupancy rate, the production level of factories and tourism revenues, should give priority to public health.”

As a result of this policy of death, hospitals’ intensive care units are filling up again. Prof. Dr. Oktay Demirkıran, President of the Turkish Intensive Care Association, told NTV television: “80-90 percent occupancy rates have been reached in some places” and that there is no more room at Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Hospital, one of the major hospitals in Istanbul.

Demirkıran also stated Tuesday that “The case density in Istanbul continues. Last week, some of our patients had to stay in the emergency service for a week due to the intensity and could not be admitted to intensive care units.”

In an interview with Mesopatamia Agency on August 7, Güçlü Yaman, a member of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Pandemic Working Group, summarized the horrifying situation in the pandemic: “Last year, during the Delta surge, excess deaths were around twice the official COVID-19 deaths, while this rate has increased up to ten times this year.”

He continued: “There is also an increase in official deaths, but this is far below the actual deaths. In a sense, we are back to the summer of 2020. … If you remember, the Minister of Health declared in his statement after the summer of 2020 that he hid data in order to ‘protect national interests.’” According to Yaman’s calculations, as of August 2, the number of excess deaths in Turkey has risen to 294,000, though the official death toll is still below 100,000.

Under these conditions, threats against scientists by pandemic deniers and anti-vaxxers are on the rise. Indeed, the suicide of Dr. Lisa-Maria Kellermayr in Austria, after she was targeted by anti-vaxxers and the Austrian government ignored the threats, reveals that this is an international campaign backed by the ruling class.

In Turkey, Prof. Dr. Esin Davutoglu Şenol and other scientists who have criticized the government’s unscientific policies and called for public health measures since the beginning of the pandemic are increasingly targeted by anti-vaxxers. The government’s indifference to these threats reflects the fact that in Turkey, as in Austria and in most countries, authorities have adopted the far-right policies of pandemic deniers and anti-vaxxers.

Wildfire in France’s Gironde region reignites amidst record drought, heat wave

Samuel Tissot

After wildfires devastated France’s Gironde region and much of Europe last month, they are again engulfing southwestern France. According to Gironde police prefect Fabienne Buccio, the fire is a continuation of July’s fire in Landiras, which “didn’t go out” but “went underground.” The fire has reportedly rekindled due to “heat, dry air, record drought and the fact that there is a lot of peat in the ground.”

Since August 9, the fire has burned an additional 7,400 hectares of vegetation. It is fueled by extremely dry vegetation amid a record-breaking drought and another heat wave with successive days of temperatures above 35°C (95 degrees F). Around 10,000 people, mostly in the municipalities of Hostens and Belin-Beliet, have been evacuated. Over 1,100 French firefighters are currently tackling the blaze. On Friday, Gironde’s deputy prefect, Ronan Leaustic, said that although the fire had not expanded on that day, “the weather conditions are pushing us towards extreme vigilance.”

A burnt out car is seen at Les Flots Bleus camping site in Pyla sur Mer, near Arcachon, southwest France, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. [AP Photo/Bob Edme]

Emergency measures against the fire included the arrival of around 300 firefighters from Romania, Germany, Poland, and Austria, and 6 additional Canadair water bombers from Greece, Italy and Sweden. On Friday evening, French president Macron tweeted that firefighters had even been flown in from French Polynesia—16,000 kilometres away—to tackle the blaze.

The government has also requested that companies give employees with volunteer firefighter training time off to help battle the blaze. Volunteers brought in at short notice are being thrown into the fight against the Gironde blaze alongside better-trained professionals.

However, these measures fall short of those requested by Gregory Allione, president of National Federation of French Fire Fighters, who after July’s fires in Gironde told Le Monde that the government “must cover the wages of the volunteers so companies can deploy them more easily to fight fires.” He also added that the measures taken by the government after July’s fires “just aren’t enough.”

In July, wildfires in the Gironde region led to the loss of 19,000 hectares (46,950 acres) of vegetation in the Landiras forest area and 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) at La Teste-de-Buch, as well as the evacuation of around 40,000 residents and tourists in the region. Francis Cros, vice-president National Federation of Forest Communities, told Le Monde that the high toll in La Teste-de-Buch was due to the failure to implement standard forest fire safety protocols.

Due to the fire, the A63 motorway, which runs from Bordeaux to the western most point of the French-Spanish border, was closed in both directions on Thursday, before partially reopening on Friday. Dozens of trucks from Spain were blocked from entering France on Thursday.

Le Jura, a commune bordering Germany in France’s Burgundy region, has also been hit by significant wildfires in the previous two days, with 660 hectares (1,630 acres) lost to two fires. Several smaller fires are still burning elsewhere in France, including in Brittany, Anjou, and in the Ile-de-France region, and have impacted transportation services there.

The expansion of the fire comes amid another heatwave, the fourth of 2022, with temperatures in the high 30s in the South and West of France from Thursday to Saturday. Wave after wave of extreme heat with little precipitation in-between has caused a record-breaking drought in France and across Europe that is driving a record European wildfire season.

At least 17 homes in Belin-Béliet had been destroyed by Tuesday night. This is the second time in less than three weeks that the village had to be evacuated. A local resident, Karine Monjeau, said: “The nightmare is starting again. When are we going to get out of this?”

Since the beginning of the year, 60,901 hectares (150,490 acres) in France have been lost to wildfires—three times the national average for an entire year and a new record. Recent years with very dry temperatures have seen major wildfires throughout August and into September and October.

The entirety of the Europe has experienced record wildfires in 2022. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), on August 6, 615,341 hectares (1,520,541 acres) had been burned across Europe; the previous maximum for this date was 380,742 hectares (940,834 acres) burned. As of writing, the EFFIS estimates that 740,583 hectares (1,830,020 acres) have been lost, an increase of 125,000 hectares (308,882 acres) in just one week.

According to a Reuters tracker, 7 people have been killed, 211 injured, and at least 65,000 displaced by wildfires in Europe in 2022 so far. Over the summer months, thousands in Europe have died from successive waves of extreme heat that drove fires across the continent.

These totals are likely to grow further in coming weeks. In Portugal, the Serra da Estrela national park has also been engulfed by a wildfire this week. The fire has destroyed 10,000 hectares (24,711 acres) of woodland so far and is currently being fought by 1,500 firefighters and 12 planes. Britain, which also saw a record wave of fires in July, is facing a new round of extreme heat, with temperatures predicted to reach 36°C (97 degrees F) in coming days.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne visited Gironde on Thursday. Speaking near Landiras, she claimed that the government’s mobilization on wildfires was “total” and that the government had never before made available “so many resources.” She pointed to the government’s purchase of seven water-bombing helicopters since July’s fire as evidence of this fact.

However, the current situation in Gironde shows that the Macron government has failed to protect the population from wildfires. Well before the peak of wildfire season, events in July showed that drastic measures were needed instantly to protect the population of Gironde from fires in the proceeding weeks.

It is well-known what measures are necessary. Leading firefighters and ecology experts have made clear that improved systems of firewalls, fire surveillance, more professional firefighters, and development of transportation infrastructure in high-risk areas can prevent wildfires spreading out of control. Amid record drought and yet another heatwave, more wildfires were clearly inevitable before the end of the summer, yet no adequate action was taken by the Macron government.

The renewal of the deadly fire in Gironde once again, shows that the ruling class in France and across the world are unable to tackle global warming and its effects. Record wildfires are ripping through Europe and Alaska, and significant fires continue to burn in California and North Africa. Since 2020, wildfires have destroyed large parts of Australia, Russia, North Africa and California.

The consequences of the current 1.2°C (2.2 degrees F) of global warming since the pre-industrial age has already claimed uncountable lives in myriad extreme weather events, as well as causing the exodus of millions of climate refugees.

German police kill four people in just one week

Marianne Arens

Candles lie on the pavement, an anonymous person has sprayed “No Justice No peace” on the ground. On the previous Monday, 16-year-old Mohammed D. was shot dead by the police in the courtyard of the St. Antonius congregation in Dortmund in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

German police [Credit: Max Pixel]

His fate is all the more tragic since he ought to have received special protection. As an unaccompanied minor, Mohammed only recently fled Senegal. On the day before his death, he reportedly visited a psychiatric clinic at his own initiative because of the risk of suicide, but was released. On Tuesday, a guardian of the youth facility where he lived alerted the police because he saw Mohammad handling a knife.

No less than eleven heavily armed policemen arrived, who first subjected the young man (who did not understand German) to pepper spray and electric batons and then shot him with a machine gun. Five shots hit him in the stomach, in the forearm, twice on the shoulder and once even in the face. They shattered the boy’s jaw, who died shortly afterwards in the hospital.

The latest police murder highlights the increased readiness of the German police to use violence. Four missions in just one week, as different as they were, all ended in the use of deadly force:

• On Tuesday, August 2, special operations (SEK) officers shot a homeless 23-year-old Somali in Frankfurt's Bahnhofsviertel. So far, only what the Hesse State Criminal Police Office reported is known. According to this, the police were called because a man in a hotel in the Red Light District had threatened two women. Armed with a knife, he injured a police dog when the officers arrived. Around 4 a.m., the young man was executed with a shot to the head.

• The following day, August 3, Jozef Berditchevski (48) was killed by police bullets during a forced eviction in Cologne. He is said to have resisted eviction from his home. Policemen attacked him with pepper spray and then fired their weapon.

• On Sunday night, August 7, a police operation in Oer-Erkenschwick near Recklinghausen had a deadly ending. A 39-year-old is said to have rioted in his apartment. The policemen called to the scene first used pepper spray and “fixed” him, whereupon he lost consciousness and died a short time later.

• So when the police shot Mohammed D. in Dortmund on Monday afternoon, this was the fourth horrific case in just one week in which police officers killed a person.

In response to Mohammad’s death, around 250 people spontaneously took to the streets on Tuesday and another 400 on Wednesday. With shouts of “Murderer! Killer!” they marched through Dortmund’s Nordstadt. A mourning and protest rally in front of the house of the victim Jozef Berditchevski took place last Saturday in Cologne under the slogan “Evictions destroy lives.”

Jozef was by no means the “violent Russian,” as numerous media outlets, especially the Bild newspaper, portrayed him. Bild wrote: “The dead man is said to be a native Russian who was often drunk and then rioted.” The newspaper emphasized in particular: “A Soviet flag hangs on the balcony.”

In reality, Jozef was a virtuoso street musician who was well known and respected in Cologne. Born in St. Petersburg, Joseph came from a Russian-Jewish family. His mother was a well-known Russian violinist, and he devoted himself to classical music from the age of 12. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the 19 year old came to Germany because he did not want to fight against Chechnya as a Russian soldier. Later he studied at the Cologne University of Music. There is a WDR report about him, which was posted on YouTube and can be seen here.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the ban on all street performers in Cologne also threw Jozef off the rails and deprived him of his livelihood. Added to this was the vicious Russophobia, which the media continues to deliberately fuel to this day to whip up support for the imperialist proxy war in Ukraine.

Jozef was known to the authorities as suicidal. How desperate he was can be seen in the official report. There, Chief Prosecutor Ulrich Bremer writes: “The deceased was already known to the police and courts. Most recently, he was indicted by the public prosecutor’s office at the Cologne District Court in June 2022. The charge was based on the accusation of having resisted police officers after the accused announced his suicide and had kicked the police officers who had rushed to his aid.”

The bureaucratically cold report makes it quite clear in passing that Joseph should not have been evicted from his apartment under such conditions, because evictions are prohibited if there is a risk of suicide.

The other cases also appear to have involved exceptional psychological crises for the victims. In order to deescalate such situations, experienced psychologists or social workers, not militarily-armed cops, ought to be present. For years, it has been known that the overwhelming majority of people killed by police officers were in a “state of psychological emergency.” This applies to two-thirds of all victims, according to a report by the RBB television channel in 2014.

In Oer-Erkenschwick on August 8, the alleged “rioter” was pepper sprayed, subdued and “immobilised.” He lost consciousness and died a little later. The police report states: “There are indications that the man from Oer-Erkenschwick had taken drugs.” What are the indications? Was his death actually the result of drug use? What role did the police “immobilisation” play, which interfered with his breathing, or the use of pepper spray? This method of exposing people to irritable gas is extremely dangerous and can lead to death, for example, for people who have taken psychotropic drugs.

All four deaths have been investigated, but it is doubtful whether the real causes and circumstances will ever come to light. The police headquarters in Dortmund is responsible for the case in Oer-Erkenschwick, and the one in Recklinghausen, to which Oer-Erkenschwick belongs, is responsible for uncovering the events in Dortmund. (The same applies to the neighbouring cities of Bonn and Cologne.) In recent cases, this means that the police department charged with Mohammad’s death is investigating the colleagues responsible for the death in Oer-Erkenschwick—and vice versa.

This practice, which the Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia claims guarantees a “neutral investigation,” has long been criticized by the German Bar Association (DAV). Instead, the association calls for an independent complaints body. In fact, police officers are practically never convicted of fatalities. The figures of the Federal Statistical Office show how low the chances of success after a complaint are. According to him, in 2020, out of 4500 investigative cases against police officers, only 70 cases were opened.

The killing of four people during police operations in less than a week marks a new level of police violence in Germany. It is reminiscent of American circumstances, where police attacks with fatal outcomes occur several times a day, more than 1,000 times a year. In the current year 2022, 588 people have already been murdered by the police in the USA. Two years ago, pictures of the brutal police murder of George Floyd triggered protests around the world.

In Germany, there are also repeated murders by the police, but so far not in such large numbers. The website polizeischuesse.cilip.de, which lists all incidents, has counted since reunification in 1991 at least 315 cases in which “persons were killed by bullets from the German police.” Other victims died in police custody, such as Oury Jalloh, or were killed in connection with a brutal deportation.

In parallel with the war policy of the “traffic light coalition” (Social Democratic Party, Free Democratic Party, Greens) and its rearmament of the state apparatus, this deadly practice is currently on the rise. This development is a sign of the ruling elite’s fear at the growing resistance of the working class.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the ruling class pursued a systematic profit-for-life policy. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, inflation has been fueled more and more, jobs have been destroyed and the living conditions of the socially vulnerable have been endangered. Due to glaring social inequality, a huge social storm is brewing.

This is the reason why ruling politicians, under all circumstances, protectively put themselves in front of trigger-happy policemen and defend them even when their right-wing extremism and racism are openly exposed.

In Hesse, in connection with the police scandal surrounding the far-right terrorist NSU 2.0 hate messages, it has now emerged that the head of the internal police investigation himself is said to have manipulated the results and warned other colleagues. In addition, he used to belong to the same SEK (special operations) unit associated with right-wing chats. A second supervisor from the police investigation office is also accused of having warned officials about the internal investigations.

At a press conference on August 10 in North Rhine-Westphalia, Minister of the Interior Herbert Reul (Christian Democrats) explicitly defended the police officers who shot Mohammed D. It was a matter of seconds, said Reul, and the boy (who was actually already blinded by tear gas) ran towards the police with a knife. “And in this situation,” said Reul, “it was about the question: Does he stab—or do the police shoot?”

This is nothing more than a carte blanche for further police murders.

US House passes pro-corporate climate bill

Barry Grey

On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 on a strict party-line vote. All Republicans voted against and all Democrats, who hold a narrow majority, voted in favor. The bill, having been passed in a similar party-line vote by the Senate last Sunday, will now be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., receives the vote tally as she prepares to finish the vote to approve the Inflation Reduction Act in the House chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

The Democrats and media outlets aligned with the Democratic Party are hailing the measure as a “landmark” and “historic” breakthrough in the fight against global warming and a major advance for tax fairness, affordable health care and inflation control.

None of this is true. The World Socialist Web Site has published several articles detailing the actual provisions of the bill and exposing the Democrats’ cynical and misleading hype. It is clear that the orchestrated effort to present this pro-corporate bill as a major piece of social reform legislation is a desperate attempt to reverse Biden and the Democrat’s collapsing popular support in the run-up to the November 8 midterm elections.

All the substantial social measures included in previous versions of Biden’s domestic initiative, at one time dubbed “Build Back Better,” already downsized last year from $3.5 trillion to some $2 trillion over 10 years, have been removed from the current legislation, whose outlays are estimated at only $433 billion.

Last November, in fact, the House passed a $2.2 trillion “Build Back Better” bill that included universal pre-kindergarten, subsidies for child care, expanded financial aid for college, hundreds of billions of dollars in housing support, home and community care for older Americans, a new hearing benefit for Medicare, an expanded child tax credit, and four weeks of paid parental and medical leave.

That bill died in the Senate due to opposition from two Democrats, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

The 2021 House bill also included a surtax on ultra-high earners and increased taxes on corporations estimated to bring in nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

None of these provisions are included in the current legislation. Its provisions for “clean energy” consist of massive handouts to solar, wind and other renewable energy corporations in the form of $369 billion in tax credits over 10 years. This is accompanied by far-reaching concessions to the fossil fuel industry demanded by Manchin, a coal business multimillionaire and unabashed shill for Big Oil.

Manchin, the Senate’s biggest recipient of campaign cash from oil and gas companies, used his leverage in the evenly divided Senate to demand that the bill include unprecedented guarantees of new leases of federal lands and offshore territories for gas and oil exploration. He also secured the agreement of Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vote this fall on a bill that would weaken the ability of environmental agencies to restrict permitting of new oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure projects.

Since the Inflation Reduction Act contains no caps on greenhouse gas emissions or penalties on carbon polluters, there is good reason to believe that the net result will be a worsening of the climate crisis.

The other major spending in the bill is $44 billion to extend for three years enhanced subsidies to purchasers of private insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, which were enacted as part of the CARES Act in March 2020. The Democrats made sure to include this in the bill because the increased support would otherwise have expired at the end of the year, and voters would have learned they faced sharply higher premiums right before the November elections.

Much is being made of provisions that for the first time empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical corporations. This is estimated in the bill to generate $265 billion in federal revenue from lower Medicare outlays for prescription drugs, with the benefit passed on to enrollees. However, as is typical of the entire bill, this “reform” is hemmed in and pinched so as to minimize any loss of profits on the part of the drug giants.

The government will not begin negotiating drug prices until 2026 and will be limited to a mere 10 drugs. That will increase only to 20 drugs by 2029. A $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare enrollees will take effect only in 2025 and will aid only some 1.4 million seniors. A fee on drug companies that raise prices higher than inflation will apply only to drugs purchased through Medicare, not to the private market. And a $35 monthly cap on insulin costs will similarly be limited to Medicare.

The claims about inflation reduction are entirely bogus. Supposedly, the bill will generate a net surplus of $300 billion in additional government revenues over net outlays in the course of 10 years, a drop in the bucket of ever-expanding government debt. That, plus projected decreases in drug costs, is the entirety of the so-called inflation reduction impact.

The Congressional Budget Office called the bill’s impact on inflation “negligible at best.” The Bipartisan Policy Center projected “small impacts one way or the other,” and the Penn Wharton Budget Model said the impact would be “statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

Claims about significantly shifting the tax burden from working people to corporations and the rich are no less fraudulent. The 2017 tax overhaul that dramatically slashed corporate and individual income taxes for the rich remains intact. The minimal tax hikes that were included in the deal worked out last month between Manchin and Schumer were gutted or removed at the insistence of Sinema, the biggest recipient in the Senate of campaign cash from the hedge fund and private equity billionaires.

She demanded and got the removal of a provision, estimated at $14 billion, to effectively end the notorious “carried interest” tax loophole that allows hedge fund and private equity managers to pay taxes on their income at the capital gains rate, barely half what they would pay at the normal rate for their income level.

The other major tax provision is a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations reporting annual income of $1 billion or more, projected to generate $222 billion over 10 years. However, Sinema, after a private call with the National Association of Manufacturers and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, demanded and got the reinsertion of an accelerated depreciation allowance for manufacturing companies. This tax dodge, which is used by many highly profitable manufacturers to pay virtually no federal taxes, will render the 15 percent minimum corporate tax largely meaningless.

In place of the ending of the “carried interest” loophole, the Democrats inserted a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, estimated to produce $74 billion in tax revenues over 10 years. The Wall Street Journal published an article last week headlined “Plan Isn’t Expected to Affect Buybacks,” citing various finance analysts who predicted the small fee would not dampen the enthusiasm of companies for purchasing their own stock, a parasitic use of profits to drive up the portfolios of big investors and the compensation packages of executives. Last quarter, in the midst of soaring consumer prices and shortages, US stock buybacks hit a record of $281 billion.

Every one of the so-called “progressive” Democrats in the House voted for this miserable pro-corporate bill. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement: “While we are heartbroken to see several essential pieces on the care economy, housing and immigration left on the cutting room floor…we know that the Inflation Reduction Act takes real steps forward on key progressive priorities.”

Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of the so-called “Squad,” said, “While our work is unfinished—on paid leave, housing, disability justice, immigration, the care economy, environmental justice and more—this bill is historic and desperately needed. This is one more example of progressives pressing in support of the President’s agenda and the Biden White House delivering. …”

Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, another Squad member who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), called the bill a “massive step forward.”