Alliance with fascistic party returns Benjamin Netanyahu to power in Israel

Jean Shaoul

With 95 percent of the votes counted, former Prime Minister and Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu is on track to form a government with the help of his far-right, fascistic allies Religious Zionism after Israel's fifth election in less than four years.

People walk past an election campaign billboards showing Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Prime Minister and the head of Likud party, in Bnei Brak, Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Israel is heading into its fifth election in under four years on Nov. 1. [AP Photo/Oded Balilty]

Netanyahu’s Likud Party looks set to win 32 seats, an increase of two seats on last year’s election. His political ally, the fascistic Religious Zionism, led by Bezalel Smotrich in alliance with Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power, is likely to gain 14 seats, an increase of eight, making it the third largest party. Together with the seats of the other religious parties, United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas, this would give him a majority of four to five seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Crucially, depending on the final count, Likud, as the minority partner, will be beholden to the religious parties.

The scandal-ridden Netanyahu, who is embroiled in three separate court cases on charges of corruption, fraud and breach of trust and views a return to power as a means of introducing legislation that will end his trial, told supporters at his Likud Party election headquarters, 'We are on the brink of a very big victory. The people want power, not weakness.”

Yair Lapid, caretaker prime minister and leader of Yesh Atid, the second largest party and head of the opposition bloc, is likely to have 24 seats, up seven on last year’s election. Even with the support of Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am Party, by no means assured, this leaves him with 50 seats, as his partners, the right-wing Yamina Party led by Ayelet Shaked, and the liberal Meretz, led by Nitzan Horowitz, failed to meet the 3.25 percent of the total vote needed under Israel’s system of proportional representation to win at least one seat.

The rout of Israel’s leftist forces is such that the movement that founded the State of Israel—the Labour Party—won just four seats compared with Religious Zionism’s projected 14.

Despite a lacklustre campaign, the turnout topped 71 percent, the highest since 2015, six elections ago. Arab Israelis voted in higher numbers than expected, topping 50 percent. On Wednesday, ahead of the final results to be announced at the end of the week, Lapid asked his office to prepare to hand over the reins and cancelled his trip to next week’s Cop27 climate conference in Egypt.

Tuesday’s elections were called last June, one year after the formation in June 2021 of a fragile coalition after Netanyahu proved unable to cobble together a coalition despite his Likud Party winning the most seats. United only in their opposition to Netanyahu, it consisted of eight disparate parties, including those ostensibly committed to the Oslo Accords (1993-95) and a Palestinian mini-state—Meretz, Labour, Yesh Atid and Blue and White—and included for the first time one of Israel’s Arab parties, Ra’am.

To secure the support of some of the secular right-wing parties away from Netanyahu, Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid Party won the second largest number of seats, ceded the premiership to Naftali Bennett, a former settlers’ leader, even though the latter’s party won only six seats, and agreed not to negotiate with the Palestinians over statehood for the duration of their alliance.

The Bennett-Lapid-led “government of change” continued Netanyahu’s pro-business agenda, including lifting all measures aimed at restricting the spread of the pandemic.

The “government of change” presided over more killings of Palestinians in the occupied territories than at any time since 2005—including the deliberate targeting of US-Palestinian Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh—more administrative detentions and more house demolitions than the last few years of Netanyahu’s period in office. It advanced the ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta, carried out almost daily raid and mass arrest operations, collective punishment, and designated six leading Palestinian NGOs as “terrorists”. It escalated Israel’s covert wars against Iran and its allies, Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah—in Iran, the Persian Gulf, Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.

None of this was enough for Bennett’s right-wing ministers, prompting Netanyahu to engineer a parliamentary manouevre to bring down the government and secure his return to power. Following the coalition’s collapse in June and in accordance with their coalition deal, Lapid replaced Bennett as caretaker prime minister pending the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, while Bennett resigned from politics.

The failure of the “anyone but Netanyahu” coalition to put forward any real alternative to alleviate a social inequality level that is one of the highest in the OECD group of advanced countries is determined by its class position as representative of Israel’s oligarchs against the working class, both Jewish and Palestinian, within Israel’s internationally recognised borders and the occupied territories.

Israeli far-right lawmaker and the head of "Jewish Power" party, Itamar Ben-Gvir, gestures after first exit poll results for the Israeli Parliamentary election at his party's headquarters in Jerusalem. November 2, 2022. [AP Photo/Oren Ziv]

The beneficiaries have been the far-right, fascistic forces of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, aided and abetted by Netanyahu, who brokered their alliance and engineered their entry into the Knesset to bolster his bloc prior to the 2021 elections.

These racists, the ideological successors of the banned Kahanist movement that was designated a terrorist organisation in the US, are forming vigilante groups in Israel’s Negev and Bat Yam, an impoverished Tel Aviv suburb, and inciting pogrom-like violence against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as in Israel’s mixed towns and cities. Their Jewish supremacist agenda includes Israeli rule over the West Bank, the expulsion of what they call “disloyal” Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20 percent of the country’s population, the demolition of the al-Aqsa Mosque and the building of a Jewish Temple, the imposition of religious law and the destruction of the judicial system.

Both leaders support the introduction of a law barring criminal investigations into a sitting prime minister. This is expected to guarantee them key posts in a Netanyahu-led government—they have already lobbied for control of the justice, defence, finance, and public security ministries—that would remove any remaining restraints on the imposition of direct military rule over the Palestinians.

Ben-Gvir celebrated his party's success, telling his supporters in Jerusalem that “it's time to be the owners of this country again,” and “I'm still not prime minister.” He said that people who voted for religious Zionism “want to walk safely on the street, not to have our soldiers and police officers restrained, [and] seek to completely separate those who are loyal to the State of Israel and those who undermine its existence.” Some witnesses claimed that the crowd chanted “death to Arabs” alongside the more prevalent calls for “death to terrorists.”

While Netanyahu could avoid being beholden to these fascist forces by trying to form a coalition with some of the parties in the opposition bloc that have previously served under him, this is thought to be unlikely.

The Biden administration, despite its well known dislike of Netanyahu and supposed support for the Oslo Accords, has been reluctant to even criticise the possibility of Ben-Gvir’s potential inclusion in a coalition government, with State Department Spokesperson Ned Price saying on Monday, “No matter the shape of the Israeli coalition and government, our relationship will be strong and enduring.”

Following the election, a US National Security Council spokesperson said, “We are pleased to see such strong voter turnout for the Knesset election. It is too early to speculate on the exact composition of the next governing coalition until all the votes are counted. We look forward to continuing to work with the Israeli government on our shared interests and values.”

Ebola crisis in Uganda: a new public health warning from WHO

Benjamin Mateus

Forty-six days have passed since the outbreak of Sudan virus in Uganda when a young man in Mubende was confirmed with the rare Ebola infection. There are now 130 confirmed cases of Ebola and 21 probable cases reported. The death toll has also been rising with 43 confirmed and 21 probable deaths. The case fatality rate of confirmed cases is 33 percent and overall, confirmed and probable cases, 42 percent. Notably, 15 healthcare workers have been infected of whom four have perished. 

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) update from October 28, Ebola has affected seven of 147 districts, including Wakiso, the district in which the capital of Kampala, a densely populated city of millions sits on the shore of Lake Victoria. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said at this week’s press conference, “Although these cases [in Kampala] are linked to known clusters, the very fact that there are cases in a densely populated city underscores the very real risk of further transmission and the very urgent need for increased readiness in districts and surrounding countries.”

Some 1,844 contacts remain under active follow-up, while 1,194 have completed the 21-day observation period, the incubation period for Ebola to manifest in someone previously in contact with a confirmed or probable case. 

Confirmed and probable cases of Sudan variant of Ebola in Uganda by date of illness onset and outcome (dead/alive), 20 September – 26 October 2022. [Photo: Graph by World Health Organization]

The WHO also reported that they had released another $5.7 million from their Contingency Fund for Emergencies in support of the outbreak in the region on top of the $5 million previously distributed to the region. 

The US Embassy in Uganda reported on Wednesday that the US has channeled $22.3 million “through implementing partners” in support of the response by the Uganda’s government and other international organizations. These efforts include 51 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staff offering direct technical assistance and working in collaboration with district and national level task forces advising on response strategies and coordination.

Although the experimental Sudan virus vaccine trials have yet to begin, Dr. Henry Kyobe Bosa, the national incident manager for Ebola for Uganda’s Ministry of Health, said in an opinion piece in the New York Times that the US support includes experimental monoclonal antibodies, MBP-134 (licensed to MappBio) and the antiviral Remdesivir.

Remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral medication developed by Gilead Sciences, gained much media attention as one of the early pharmaceuticals for the treatment of mild to severe COVID-19. However, trial results from a WHO-initiated international study recommended against its use, due to lack of efficacy. 

Remdesivir, a sort of wandering minstrel in search of an audience, was created and developed in 2009 to possibly treat hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections but was found to be ineffective against these two pathogens. Then, in October 2015, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) announced that Remdesivir completely protected Rhesus monkeys from Ebola virus when they treated with the drug three days after viral inoculation.

Remdesivir was fast-tracked through clinical trials in response to the Zaire Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa from 2013 to 2016. It was also used in the Kivu Ebola epidemic in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Central Africa between 2018 and 2020. There were a total of 3,470 confirmed and probable cases then killing 2,266 people. Four of these cases had spilled into Uganda. However, Remdesivir’s use was discontinued by Congolese health officials after determining it was significantly less effective than various monoclonal antibodies that were available.

More recently, a study published in JCI Insight on May 23, 2022, Remdesivir combined with a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies protected macaques, nonhuman primates, against advanced Sudan virus disease. Currently, the vaccines available against the Zaire strain of Ebola do not work against the Sudan strain as the viruses are too divergent in their evolutionary development. There are no licensed anti-Sudan virus therapeutics on the markets.

Ebola patient in Uganda [Photo: @DanielLutaaya]

Study findings were significant in that 80 percent of macaques who received the combination treatment within six days of being infected with the Sudan virus survived. However, after this period, the survival plummeted to 20 percent, meaning these treatments require immediate administration in probable or confirmed cases. 

In early October, the US initiated a clinical trial using the combination therapy of MBP-134 and Remdesivir in Uganda. Seven critically ill patients have thus far received the treatment. These efforts are being financially supported by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), which announced last month when the trial was being launched in Uganda that they had provided Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, a San Diego-based research and development firm, a contract for $110 million. 

Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said in a press release dated October 4, 2022, “One of the ways we enhance the nation’s readiness for health emergencies is by investing in medical countermeasures for which there is no commercial market. The funding being provided by BARDA [Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority] will advance this research. If approved this treatment will put the US in a better position to prepare for and respond to future potential ebolavirus incidents. Given the current outbreak of Ebola Sudan in Uganda, this work is now even more important.”

The rhetoric in the press release is unabashedly nationalistic and underscores the security and economic interests motivating such research. Instead, there should be a call for an international collaboration to build centers of excellence and community treatment facilities in these regions where Ebola and other infectious disease pose a daily existential threat. 

As Dr. Bosa observed, “We know that the countermeasures we have work best when they are given in the earliest stage of this disease. Patients who have monoclonal antibodies late into their illness have died, for example. But most Ebola patients are going to public health facilities too late. Many have gone to private facilities or have tried alternative methods first. We also need more of a supply of treatments to treat patients we do see early.”

Experience has taught healthcare providers that early intervention with intravenous hydration and supplemental oxygen can improve the prognosis for those infected with Ebola. This requires both trust in the public health infrastructure and aid and support for the front-line healthcare providers who are placing their own lives in peril. 

The failure of medical science and public health to keep pace with the threat posed by emerging infectious disease demonstrates that even the most dedicated scientists cannot overcome the social polarization within capitalist society. The mobilization of public health resources on a socially equitable basis can only be carried out through the intervention of the working class on an international basis, in struggle against the profit system.

The COVID pandemic that has raged for the last three years has revealed and exacerbated tremendous divisions in communities across the world. An international response early during the outbreak in 2020 to eliminate the virus while supporting people through the provision of material resource such as food, medicine, income, and access to internet and on-line educational material, could have beat back the pandemic. It would also have had the effect of promoting consciousness of social equality, a major reason capitalist governments rejected this course of action.

In the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, neighboring countries like Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are preparing for the possible spilling of the Sudan virus across their borders. The WHO has requested these countries activate an assortment of response mechanisms that include community surveillance readiness, laboratory training, health system preparedness, and border controls. The current risk assessment, considering the presence of Sudan Ebola virus in a densely populated urban setting to be very high at the national level (Uganda itself) and high at the regional level.

Qatar Football World Cup being played on the bones of thousands of construction workers

Peter Schwarz

The 2022 World Cup, which begins in Qatar on November 20, will go down in history as the tournament in which profit interests completely triumphed over sport. Thousands of construction workers had to forfeit their lives so that the total of 64 matches could be played in twelve newly built stadiums.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper published a report in February 2021, according to which 6,751 workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan had died in the ten years since the World Cup was awarded to the Gulf state. The newspaper did not have figures on workers from countries outside south Asia, such as the Philippines and Kenya, who are also employed in large numbers in Qatar.

Migrant workers in Doha [Photo by Jabiz Raisdana / flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0]

“Qatar’s grim death toll is revealed in long spreadsheets of official data listing the causes of death: multiple blunt injuries due to a fall from height; asphyxia due to hanging; undetermined cause of death due to decomposition.

“But among the causes, the most common by far is so-called ‘natural deaths’, often attributed to acute heart or respiratory failure.” (The Guardian, 23 February 2021)

In August 2021, based on official government data, Amnesty International calculated more than 15,000 non-Qataris of all ages had died in the Gulf state between 2010 and 2019. In 70 percent of these cases, the cause of death was not determined. Autopsies are banned in the Islamic country. “Death certificates usually report the deaths as ‘natural causes’ or ‘cardiac arrest,’” the study says, without linking them to working conditions.

The human rights organization uses several individual examples to show how young workers who had no previous health problems fell victim to inhumane working conditions. 30- or 40-year-olds lost consciousness and died after twelve-hour shifts in sweltering heat of more than 40 degrees Celsius (104° Fahrenheit). In some cases, they had been working seven days a week.

Since the release of these figures, which the Qatar government does not refute, a fierce dispute has erupted over how many deaths are directly linked to the construction of the soccer stadiums, new airport, subway, roads, 100 hotels and other projects being built for the World Cup at a cost of $185 billion.

World soccer’s governing body FIFA—which hawked the World Cup to Qatar 12 years ago in exchange for millions in alleged bribes—the World Cup organizing committee and the Qatari government are trying to downplay the figures. But the more details that come to light, the more terrible the picture that emerges. It is a picture of a class society in which a fabulously wealthy upper class towers over a prosperous middle class, while a working class without rights is exploited to the hilt and a human life is worth next to nothing.

As if magnified through a looking glass, the social conditions that increasingly characterize all capitalist societies become clearly visible here. This is why the topic is becoming more explosive the closer the kick-off of the first game approaches on November 20. Many soccer fans find they can no longer separate their enthusiasm for their sport from politics.

Governments are reacting with corresponding nervousness. They defend their lucrative economic and political ties to Qatar and seek to channel outrage over the brutal exploitation of workers there into less explosive channels, such as LGBT rights, and in an anti-Islamic direction.

An absolute monarchy rules over non-citizens

Qatar is an authoritarian dictatorship. The Emir and his family exercise unrestrained rule and control the country’s wealth. Although a Consultative Assembly was elected for the first time last year (two-thirds by public vote and one-third chosen by the Emir), it has only advisory and no legislative powers. There are no political parties, and trade union activities as well as freedom of speech and of the press are subject to strict restrictions.

Of the country’s 2.2 million inhabitants, only about 330,000 have Qatari citizenship, of whom about 70,000 work in well-paid jobs (mostly for the state). The remaining 88 percent are migrants. Of them, a minority—mostly from Europe or other Arab countries—work as well-paid professionals. The vast majority—mostly from Asia and Africa—carry out hard physical labour and are ruthlessly exploited. In addition, there are more than 170,000 migrant women who work as domestic helpers and are often subjected to abuse and sexual assault.

Meanwhile, the Qatari government boasts that it has improved workers’ situation through reforms implemented in the summer of 2020. But a look at these “reforms” only shows how intolerable conditions are. For example, a statutory minimum wage of 1,000 riyals was introduced for foreign workers for the first time. That is 230 euros a month—and in one of the richest and most expensive countries in the world!

The reforms also formally abolished the so-called kafala system, which kept foreign workers in a kind of serfdom. Their passports were confiscated, they could change jobs only with the employer’s consent and often received no wages for months.

However, the reforms only exist on paper. In practice, little has changed. When asked, Amnesty International confirmed to news weekly Der Spiegel late last year that for the majority of foreign workers, “exploitation, unpaid or late wages, lack of access to labour courts, in some cases catastrophic living conditions, withheld passports and much more continue to be the order of the day.”

This was also reported by a group of affected workers who toured Germany in September.

According to Malcolm Bidali from Kenya, who worked for four and a half years as a security guard at stadiums in Qatar, six to eight workers must usually share a room. He reported a lack of privacy, bed bugs in the mattresses, terrible food, and poor sanitation. When Bidali spoke out on the Internet for better conditions, he was arrested and placed in solitary confinement for a month.

A Nepalese worker described how sometimes fifty or even a hundred workers had to share one kitchen, with corresponding hygiene problems. Despite the heat and high humidity, there was not enough germ-free drinking water available, which often led to illness, he said.

Meanwhile, workers are being made to leave these miserable dwellings. As Reuters reported, thousands of workers in central Doha have been recently ordered to vacate their accommodation so it can be remodeled for expected World Cup visitors. Many were given only two hours to pack their belongings and are now on the streets.

Political hypocrisy in Europe

The exploitation of workers in Doha is met with outrage by numerous soccer fans, many of whom are workers themselves. As early as last January, FC Bayern fans had protested in their home stadium with a huge banner against the club’s close ties to the Emirate of Qatar, which is one of its main sponsors. Above a caricature of club chairman Oliver Kahn and president Herbert Hainer putting a blood-stained shirt in a washing machine, the banner read, “For money, we wash everything clean.”

When the club’s honorary president Uli Hoeness, who served several months in prison for tax evasion, was asked about this at the recent annual general meeting, he angrily retorted, “This is the Bayern Munich soccer club, not the Amnesty International general assembly.”

Meanwhile, numerous cities in Germany and France have cancelled the broadcast of the World Cup in public places. The criticism of European politicians of the conditions in Qatar, however, can hardly be surpassed in hypocrisy. The terrible circumstances in Qatar have been known since the World Cup was awarded twelve years ago. And the European Union’s treatment of refugees, thousands of whom it lets drown in the Mediterranean or crams into inhumane camps, is even worse than the treatment of construction workers in Qatar.

Above all, there are huge financial interests at play. This is true not only for FIFA, which earns more than a billion euros in sponsorship money from the World Cup; European and, above all, German companies are making a lot of money in Qatar, and the emirate is one of the biggest investors in Europe.

Qatar’s state investment fund has invested more than 350 billion euros in dozens of countries, a quarter of it in Britain, the USA and France. It holds substantial stakes in the London Stock Exchange and in the Barclays and Crédit Suisse banks. In Germany, Qatar has invested 25 billion euros, including in Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Hapag-Lloyd, and energy corporation RWE. Around two billion euros in Qatari money has flowed into European soccer clubs over the past ten years.

European and German corporations, including Deutsche Bahn, Siemens, software company SAP and the construction industry, are involved in major Qatari projects and earn a share in the exploitation of workers. In 2018, German Chancellor Angela Merkel received Emir al-Thani in Berlin to deepen economic ties. Qatar has also been courted as a gas and oil supplier since sanctions against Russia began. Both Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrat, SPD) therefore paid their respects to the Emir in Doha this year.

While European politicians ceaselessly invoke “human rights” in calling for the boycott of sporting events by political opponents in Russia and China, or the exclusion of their teams, different standards are applied to Qatar.

Not everyone goes as far as former SPD leader and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who responded to criticism of Qatar by tweeting, “German arrogance toward Qatar stinks!” But his party colleague, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, travelled to Doha this week specifically to mend fences after provoking the emir’s ire with barely audible criticism.

Faeser met behind closed doors with Prime Minister Khalid bin Khalifa Al-Thani and FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, who has since moved his residence to Qatar, only to play the whole matter down afterwards. She would “travel there for the World Cup,” she declared. Chancellor Scholz is now also likely to attend—if the German team makes it to the final.

CDC study: Excessive alcohol use accounts for one in eight deaths among working-age Americans

Kate Randall

One in eight deaths of Americans aged 20 to 64 in the years 2015–19 were the result of injuries or illness caused by excessive alcohol use, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, found that people of working age accounted for nearly two-thirds of the annual average of 140,000 alcohol-related deaths in the US.

Sue Howland, right, a member of the Quick Response Team which visits everyone who overdoses to offer help, checks in on Betty Thompson, 65, who struggles with alcohol addiction, at her apartment in Huntington, W.Va., Wednesday, March 17, 2021 [AP Photo/David Goldman]

The years of the pandemic have seen excessive alcohol use and related deaths rise since the period studied by the CDC. According to a research letter published in JAMA in May, alcohol consumption and related harms increased by more than 25 percent between 2019 and 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers studied average daily alcohol consumption among more than 2 million respondents to the 2015–2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a CDC health-related telephone survey, adjusted using national per capita alcohol sales to correct for underreporting. Blood-alcohol concentrations were used to assess partially alcohol-attributable deaths. Mortality data were from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System.

The CDC defines excessive alcohol use as 8 or more drinks per week for a woman or 15 or more drinks per week for a man. Binge drinking is defined as consuming 4 or more drinks on an occasion for a woman or 5 or more drinks on an occasion for a man.

Alcohol continues to take a progressively heavier toll on older age groups. However, its effects are more evident among younger people who are less likely to die of other causes. The CDC study found that for the 20 to 34 age group, a staggering one in four deaths was attributable to drinking; for those ages 20–49, it was one in five deaths. People in their 20s, and younger, are more likely to binge-drink.

The study estimated the average number of deaths from excessive alcohol use relative to total deaths among adults aged 20 to 64 years, both overall and by sex, age group, state and as a proportion of total deaths. Five percent of all-cause deaths were attributable to excessive alcohol use, the research found.

The three leading causes of these deaths were alcoholic liver disease, other substance overdoses in addition to high blood alcohol levels and motor vehicle traffic crashes. Other causes of illness and death from excessive alcohol use include polyneuropathy, cardiomyopathy, liver cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis, pancreatitis, hypertension, stroke and a variety of cancers.

In a cross-sectional study of 694,660 average deaths per year, the study estimates that excessive alcohol consumption between 2015 and 2019 accounted for 12.9 percent of total deaths among adults aged 20 to 64 years, 20.3 percent of deaths among adults aged 20 to 49, and 25.4 percent of deaths among adults aged 20 to 34.

Among men, 6.8 percent of the 1,429,008 estimated annual all-cause deaths were attributable to excessive alcohol use. Among men ages 20–34, 27.4 percent were attributable to excessive alcohol use. Among women, 3.2 percent of the 1,3636,877 all-cause annual deaths were attributable to excessive alcohol use, but this rises to 20.4 percent in the 20–34 age group.

In other words, alcohol abuse is claiming the highest percentage of lives among young workers and new parents. The three leading causes of these excessive alcohol-attributable deaths for both men and women ages 20 to 34 were substance overdose in conjunction with high blood alcohol levels, motor vehicle accidents and homicide.

Among US adults ages 20–49, the percentage of deaths attributable to alcohol abuse was generally higher in the country’s West, upper Midwest and the Northeast, and generally lower in the Southeast.

The highest percentage of alcohol abuse attributable deaths among those aged 20–34 was in New Mexico, where it accounted for 33.3 percent of deaths. This was followed by South Dakota, at 30.6 percent, and the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., where it accounted for 30.5 percent of total deaths.

The stunning findings in this latest study on deaths from excessive alcohol use are in line with other figures showing the rising toll from “deaths of despair,” which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the proliferation of fentanyl, the highly potent and deadly synthetic opioid.

Deaths from drug overdoses in 2021, the second year of the pandemic, neared 108,000, fueled by an ever-worsening fentanyl crisis. Since the CDC began collecting data two decades ago, overdose deaths in the US have surpassed a shocking 1 million. Prior to the pandemic, the US was already suffering from a surge of deaths from suicides, overdoses and gun violence.

The official number of deaths attributed to the coronavirus pandemic—1,065,571 according to the latest CDC figures—is a vast undercount. It takes into account only those death certificates that list COVID-19 as the cause of the death. The increase in deaths from alcohol and substance abuse is an indication of social stress that existed in the US long before the pandemic and have only been exacerbated by it.

The relationship between the coronavirus pandemic and alcohol and substance abuse is a complex one, but one thing is certain: the social inequality, economic distress and accompanying alienation of large numbers of people in capitalist society have been aggravated over the past three years in America and around the world.

A provisional report from the CDC earlier this year estimated that life expectancy fell for the second year in a row in 2021, dropping by 0.9 years. The decline was 1.8 years in 2020, for a two-year total of 2.7 years. The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced US life expectancy at birth to 76.1 years, the lowest level since 1996 and the largest two-year reduction since 1923, in the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic.

Undoubtedly, government policies forcing workers into COVID-infested factories and children and teachers into unsafe schools under these conditions have contributed to the increase in drug- and alcohol-related illnesses and deaths.

The criminal policies of the government, under both Trump and Biden, are responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions in the pandemic. A rational and scientifically sound response to the pandemic is an alien concept to the corporations and their political representatives as they seek to increase the profits of the wealthy amidst this social misery.

Blood tests reveal at least two-thirds of Australians have contracted COVID-19

Martin Scott

Two serological surveys released on Thursday suggest that at least two-thirds of the Australian population, or 16.9 million people, have been infected at least once with COVID-19. It is estimated that one-fifth of all adults in the country contracted the virus between June and August.

A drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, January 8, 2022. [AP Photo/Mark Baker]

For the first time, blood samples from children and teenagers were tested. The rate of COVID-19 infection among those aged under 20 was similar to the overall population, with 64 percent of samples testing positive, although the rate was slightly higher among school-aged children. 

These results make clear that official infection figures are a vast understatement of the extent of the virus. Since the start of the pandemic, around 10.4 million cases have been reported across the country, an undercount of at least 6.5 million according to these surveys.

In fact, the true figure is likely higher still. Previous studies have established that nucleocapsid protein antibodies are not detectable in 15 to 20 percent of vaccinated people infected with Omicron. These antibodies are produced at lower levels and wane more quickly when an individual has received at least a partial course of COVID-19 vaccine.

Given Australia’s high vaccination rate, at least for the initial two-dose course (96 percent), it is likely that more than 20 million people in the country have been infected.

Almost all of these infections have occurred in 2022. On December 31, 2021, the official total for Australia stood at 395,504.

The mass infection of the population with a highly contagious and deadly virus is the result of the deliberate and bipartisan adoption of “let it rip” policies by all Australian governments, state, territory and federal. 

One of the sharpest expressions of the reopening drive was the herding of (then mostly unvaccinated) students and teachers back to face-to-face schooling in February, during what was, at the time, the worst surge of COVID-19 in Australia throughout the pandemic. This was motivated by the demands of big business for parents to go back to work, under conditions of staff shortages exacerbated by the pandemic.

This has resulted in the mass infection of children, who have in turn become a significant and unwitting vector, spreading the virus to their parents and older relatives, who are most at risk of severe illness or death. 

Between June 8 and August 31, the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS) network collected samples from 2,046 children and teenagers who were undergoing procedures at eight hospitals across the country.

Nucleocapsid antibodies were detected in 64 percent of the paediatric survey participants. Among school-aged children and teenagers, the prevalence was slightly higher, at 70 percent for 12–19 year olds and 67 percent for 5–11 year olds.

Of those school-aged children who were unvaccinated, 75 percent were nucleocapsid positive, including 81 percent of teenagers.

Nucleocapsid antibodies were detected in 38 percent of young people under 20 with no history of past infection, pointing to the high incidence of asymptomatic infection and the lack of surveillance testing.

The surveys also tested for spike protein antibodies, which remain detectable in the blood for longer, but because these are also produced in response to the COVID-19 vaccines used in Australia, they are only a reliable marker of infection among the unvaccinated.

Spike antibodies were detected in 79 percent of children aged between one and four years old, all of whom are unvaccinated. Across the whole survey, 82 percent of unvaccinated children and youth had these antibodies in their blood.

Only 90 percent of those who had previously been infected tested positive for nucleocapsid antibodies, which is in line with the known limitations of these tests, especially among the vaccinated.

This suggests that the difference in infection rate between vaccinated and unvaccinated children is negligible. Therefore, the spike positive figures for the unvaccinated, showing that 94 percent of teenagers and 84 percent of 5–11 year olds have been infected with COVID-19, are likely closer to the true infection rate.

The Australian COVID-19 Sero-surveillance Network conducted its third survey of blood donated by adults, analysing 5,005 samples collected between August 23 and September 2.

Nucleocapsid antibodies were detected in 65 percent of samples, up from 46 percent when the survey was last conducted in June, and 17 percent in February. Extrapolating from these results, it is likely that at least half the adult population of Australia contracted COVID-19 over a period of six months.

The highest prevalence was found among 18–29 year-olds, with 79.7 percent of that cohort testing positive for nucleocapsid antibodies.

The study noted “these antibodies do not necessarily confer immunity,” especially from BA.4, BA.5 and other Omicron subvariants, which have “substantial immune escape, and re-infections are common.” It is not possible to determine from these results how many of the participants have had multiple cases of COVID-19.

The full implications of the mass infection and re-infection of the population, especially young people, with COVID-19 may not be known for decades. Some studies have shown that up to 30 percent of people infected with even a “mild” case will continue to experience symptoms of Long COVID for months and years afterward.

Even using the most conservative estimate, of a 5 percent incidence of Long COVID among highly vaccinated populations, these serological surveys would suggest that more than 1 million Australians are already suffering from the debilitating and poorly understood disease.

University of Queensland researchers recently discovered that COVID-19 can trigger an inflammatory response in immune cells in the brain, potentially leading to the development of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Figures from the Australia Bureau of Statistics show that deaths from dementia were 19.8 percent higher than historical averages in the first seven months of the year. Deaths from diabetes were 21.3 percent higher than average over the same period and 24 percent higher in July.

Overall, in the year to July, there were 16,375 excess deaths, 17.3 percent higher than average, including 2,503 in July. This compares to official COVID-19 death figures of 1,949 in July and 9,607 for the first seven months of the year. 

These statistics reveal that, like the infection figures, the official COVID-19 death toll, now at 15,705, vastly understates the lethal consequences of the pandemic, in terms of additional illness and death caused by complications of infection, as well as the reduced capacity of an overwhelmed health system to deal with otherwise treatable conditions.

Officially reported COVID-19 deaths in Australia to November 4, 2022 [Photo: WSWS]

As COVID-19 infection and death have continued to mount, governments, the corporate media and the unions have promoted the dangerous lie that the pandemic is over and should be considered no more serious than the common cold.

Virtually all public health measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 have been torn down since late 2021. This includes border closures, quarantine, contact tracing, mass testing, capacity limits and mask mandates.

This offensive against public safety has continued and deepened since the election of the federal Labor government in May. In recent months, mandatory isolation and paid pandemic leave for those infected with COVID-19 have been eliminated, placing workers, especially casuals and others without sick leave entitlements, under enormous financial pressure to attend work while infectious, placing their coworkers at risk.

Public health policy is now being entirely dictated by the demands of the corporate elite. COVID-19 mitigation measures have been scrapped to ensure that nothing stands in the way of the continued operations and profits of big business.

In an attempt to cover over the catastrophic impact of these moves, the Albanese government and the Labor-dominated National Cabinet have reduced the reporting of COVID-19 statistics from daily to weekly.

Now, the two most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, have ended mandatory reporting of positive rapid antigen tests, in an effort to further obfuscate the spread of the virus. Despite this, official infection figures in the two states are increasing, indicating that another wave of COVID-19 is developing.

Bank of England lifts rates and forecasts “prolonged” recession

Nick Beams

The Bank of England (BoE) yesterday lifted its base interest rate by 0.75 percentage points as part of the deepening class war being waged by the major central banks against the working class.

The Bank of England, is seen at the financial district in London, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022. [AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

The decision, carried by a 7‒2 majority on its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), came in the wake of the decision by the US Federal Reserve to again hike its base rate by 75 basis points for the fourth time in a row on Wednesday, targeting what it continually refers as the “tight” labour market.

The BoE rate increase was the largest in 30 years, taking the base rate to 3 percent, the highest point since 2008.

In its economic outlook, the bank forecast a significant contraction for the UK economy as inflation continues to surge. If the BoE interest rate remains at its present level of 3 percent, it forecast a contraction in the economy over the next five quarters because of rising energy prices and mortgage costs.

But financial markets are at variance with this scenario. They expect that the BoE’s rate will rise to 5.25 percent. According to the MPC projections, if that were to take place there would be eight quarters of contraction—the longest UK recession since World War II.

BoE governor Andrew Bailey took the somewhat unusual step of directly countering the financial market forecasts at his press conference on the decision.

“We can make no promises about future interest rates,” he said. “But based on where we stand today, we think [rates] will have to go up less than currently priced into financial markets. That is important because, for instance, it means that the rates on new fixed-term mortgages should not need to rise as they have done,” he said.

The markets, which demonstrated their power in determining policy during the UK financial crisis of September‒October, leading to the ousting of Prime Minister Liz Truss, quickly delivered their verdict on this assessment.

The pound fell by 2 cents against the US dollar, which rose following the clear message from Fed chair Jerome Powell, that US interest rate hikes would continue in contrast to expectations in some quarters that the Fed was preparing to ease back.

The fall in sterling was accompanied by a sell-off in UK bond markets. The yield on the 10-year bond rose from 3.4 percent to 3.5 percent (yields rise as prices fall) and shorter-term bond also dropped in price.

Commenting on Bailey’s statement, Jordan Rochester, a foreign exchange strategist at the Japanese financial giant, Nomura, told the Wall Street Journal: “The big surprise for markets today is Bailey saying that market pricing for the terminal rate is too high. That’s helped accelerate sterling lower.”

One reason for Bailey’s contradiction of market predictions is the extent of the economic devastation to which they point.

According to BoE calculations, if its interest rate rose to 5.25 percent, the economy would contract by 1.5 percent next year followed by a further contraction of 1 percent in 2024, with the jobless rate rising to 6.5 percent in what would be the longest UK recession since records began in the 1920s.

But whatever the eventual path of interest rates, the projections by the MPC make clear the extent of the recessionary forces. It warned that Britain faced “recession for a prolonged period” and the economy was unlikely to start growing again until at least the middle of 2024.

More interest rate increases “may be required for a sustainable return of inflation to target [2 percent],” he said, but with a “peak lower than priced into financial markets,” it said.

However, as indicated by the bond and currency movements yesterday, there is considerable scepticism over this assessment in financial circles.

“Our forecast is that inflation will be stickier than the Bank expects and that activity and the labour markets will be a little more resilient. That’s why we think the MPC will change its tune and raise interest rates to a peak of 5 percent,” said Capital Economics senior UK economist Ruth Gregory.

This reference to the labour markets, and by implication wages, is also the central focus of the BoE in determining its policies.

It said the risks around its set of “inflation projections” were “judged to be skewed to the upside in the medium term… in part reflecting the possibility of more persistence in wage and price setting.”

Spelling out that this is the central issue, it said: “The MPC’s remit is clear that the inflation target applies at all times, reflecting of price stability in the UK monetary policy framework.”

And it left no doubt that if financial markets considered the rate hikes were not enough, then they would be obeyed. The MPC said further increases in the bank rate may be required, although the peak would be lower than market estimates.

“There are, however, considerable uncertainties around the outlook,” it continued. “The Committee continues to judge that, if the outlook suggests more persistent inflationary pressures, it will act forcefully as necessary.”

The BoE decision is the latest shot in the global war being carried out by central banks—a war which is being fought not against inflation but with the objective of crushing the struggles of the working class for wage increases to compensate for the highest inflation in four decades.

The last week has seen interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank (ECB), the US Fed and the Reserve Bank of Australia, among others, and now the BoE, all of which have referred to “tight” labour markets and wages.

The inflationary surge is not the result of wage rises—real wages have been cut for more than a decade around the world.

It is the outcome of the refusal of capitalist governments to eliminate the COVID virus, leading to supply chain constrictions, the trillions of dollars pumped into the financial system since 2008, the inflationary impact of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and the profit gouging and speculation by giant global energy and food companies.

Interest rate rises, inducing a recession, are the key weapon of the financial arm of the capitalist state, the central banks, in waging this war.

This strategy has been underscored by ECB president Christine Lagarde. In comments on Thursday evening during a visit to Latvia, she indicated a mild recession in the euro zone would not be sufficient on its own to bring down inflation and would not deter the bank from increasing rates.

As with Powell’s comments at Wednesday’s press conference, Lagarde’s remarks were aimed at scotching any belief there would be a let up in interest rate hikes even if they result in recession and rising unemployment. In fact, that is their aim.

Armed forces establishes new Territorial Leadership Command to militarise German society

Johannes Stern

“Militarism is, however, not only a means of defence and a weapon against the external enemy; it has a second task, which comes more and more into prominence with the sharpening of class contradictions and the growth of proletarian class-consciousness. Thus, the outer form of militarism and its inner character are more and more precisely determined: it has the task of protecting the prevailing social order, of supporting capitalism and all reaction against the struggle of the working class for freedom” (Karl Liebknecht, “Militarism and Anti-Militarism,” 1907).

Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht and Inspector General Eberhard Zorn set up the Bundeswehr's Territorial Command Command [Photo by Stubenviech/wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0]

German militarism is assuming increasingly menacing proportions at home. Almost unnoticed by the public, the newly established Territorial Leadership Command (TerrFüKdoBw) of the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) began its work on October 1.

Put into service by Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht and Inspector General Eberhard Zorn, the command is part of the comprehensive war offensive that is to make Germany a leading military power again after two catastrophic world wars in the 20th century. It has two main tasks: to conduct and coordinate all Bundeswehr operations within Germany, and serve to mobilize troops for war operations, most immediately for the NATO offensive against Russia.

The command’s headquarters is the Julius Leber barracks in Berlin. According to the day-order from Lambrecht and Zorn, which was issued on June 13, the Territorial Leadership Command is “responsible for the operational management of national forces in the context of homeland protection, including official and disaster relief and civil-military cooperation.” At the same time, it “takes over the tasks as the ‘mobilisation command’ for national deployments in accordance with NATO plans within the framework of national and alliance defense.”

In addition to the so-called Territorial Reserve, which has the responsibility for Homeland Security, and a related training organisation, the following units are subordinate to the command: the Multinational Command Operative Leadership, the Multinational Civil-Military Cooperation Command (MN CIMIC Cmd) Nienburg/Weser, the guard battalion at the Federal Ministry of Defence (WachBtl BMVg), the 16 State Commands (LKdo) and the troop training ground commands North, East and South with their respective troop training bases.

At the official inauguration of the command on September 26 in Berlin, Lambrecht and Zorn left no doubt as to what was at stake. “With today’s inauguration, we are taking a very important step in this new epoch. We are strengthening the Bundeswehr’s operational readiness,” said the Minister of Defence. “The new command leadership will help us to make even better, faster and more coordinated decisions in the future. It also strengthens our ability to lead—in peace as well as in crisis and war.”

Lambrecht justified the establishment of the command with the “brutal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.” It was a “visible and effective reaction to the Russian invasion.” This is nothing but the usual propaganda. In fact, the so-called “new epoch”—including the €100 billion Bundeswehr Special Fund and NATO’s military build-up against Russia—was prepared well in advance.

The main aggressor is not Moscow, but the imperialist powers. With the systematic military encirclement of Russia, NATO provoked the reactionary intervention of the Putin regime and is now escalating the conflict to subjugate the resource-rich country. Germany’s ruling class is also pursuing the goal of establishing itself as a leading European power and forming independent German-European military structures in order to pursue its global interests.

Zorn admitted this unreservedly in his own remarks. For the German Armed Forces, the “new epoch” meant “consistently continuing the focus on the core mission of the state and alliance defense, which had already begun in 2014.” He continued, “Speed and decisive action at all levels” are “more than ever the imperative of the hour.” This would require “operationally ready strike forces on stand-by.” At the same time, it is important to “fulfil our missions in international crisis management and in administrative assistance.”

By “standby capability” the German military leadership understands the fastest and most comprehensive mobilization of society for total war. In the somewhat cryptic military language of the Inspector General, it is described as follows:

“The further development of the Territorial Tasks Command into a Territorial Leadership Command now improves the framework conditions for the fulfilment of complex tasks across the entire intensity spectrum—from administrative assistance in peace to hybrid threats to tension and defence—by bundling competences and leadership responsibility.”

In fact, the ruling class, which waged an extermination war against the Soviet Union in the Second World War with about 30 million dead, is at war with Russia again. “A large number of German forces, together with the Allies, ensure the task of deterrence at the eastern border of allied territory,” boasted Zorn. In addition, Germany “assumes a central task as part of the so-called hub function, which serves the freedom of action within NATO and our Allied partners.”

The war offensive abroad requires, as in the past, the comprehensive militarization of society at home. “A key challenge in this state security provision” is “the coordination of the actions and capabilities of state and non-state actors,” Zorn said. The new Territorial Leadership Command will play a central role in this and “improve in its linking functions, interfaces and connecting points with reference to the changed situation.”

The ruling class has long laid the legal foundations for the deployment of the Bundeswehr domestically. Already the emergency laws passed in 1968 allow such operations “to ward off an imminent danger to the existence or the liberal democratic basic order of the Federation” (Art. 87a of the Basic Law). The German Armed Forces white paper, adopted in 2016, explicitly states that the armed forces can “also perform sovereign tasks in support of the police forces by exercising powers of intervention and coercion.”

With the new command, a centralized organizational structure will now be created in order to use the military as an internal force of order and, if necessary, to suppress social protests and revolutionary struggles by force. For this purpose, explicitly military units, which organize the NATO mobilisation against Russia and other war operations, will be merged with the “civilian” military structures. The result is a new German military state.

At the end of his remarks, Zorn gave an indication of how far this process has already progressed. “For years,” he said, “a comprehensive civil-military network has been built up at all levels—from the Chancellery to the municipalities.” The national command will bring together “elements” that “functionally or on the ground have been cooperating closely for years” and place them under the authority of a “national territorial commander.”

The general also mentioned the home-guard regiments oriented towards right-wing extremist forces, which would “continue to grow according to plan” and “contribute significantly to the training and integration of reserves.” In addition, the Territorial Leadership Command “based on the experience of the COVID crisis team” will “provide the nucleus for a crisis team of the Federal Government.”

The World Socialist Web Site already warned at the beginning of the Bundeswehr’s so-called “COVID operation”: “But regardless of how much immediate medical assistance the Bundeswehr provides, the operation ultimately serves a different purpose. Leading generals are openly declaring that the key issue is imposing military-police control over the population and defending the institutions of the capitalist state.”

This assessment has now been confirmed. Significantly, the new command is led by Lieutenant General Carsten Breuer, who previously headed the federal government’s COVID crisis unit. In his new function as so-called National Territorial Commander, he is a kind of military dictator on call.

His new command serves to “bring procedures into one hand, to bring leadership into one hand and thus to make [the whole] much more stringent and much more effective …,” Breuer explained in a Bundeswehr podcast. Only “the interplay of effective forces, of a command, which is effectively led, but also of well-established troops can ultimately lead to success in an operation, ... in a crisis or even in war.”

The growing domestic influence of the military is a serious warning, especially in the context of German history. The ruling class previously used the military as an instrument of repression during the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. It is now preparing to do so once again. This is its response to the deepest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, which is being exacerbated by the social and political effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the NATO war offensive against Russia.