US maternal mortality rate soars: An example of capitalist barbarism

Patrick Martin

US maternal deaths rose by 40 percent in 2021, the latest year for which statistics are now available, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of maternal deaths rose from 754 in 2019 to 861 in 2020 and 1,205 in 2021. The maternal mortality rate, at nearly 32 per 100,000 births, is back to where it was in 1965, a staggering regression of more than half a century.

Women who give birth today in the United States are nearly four times more likely to die than their own mothers were when they gave birth. The US maternal death rate hit its all-time low of 6.6 per 100,000 births in 1987. It was in single digits from 1978 to 2002, then rose steadily, doubling by 2017, then skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly doubling again.

These figures, stemming from a report released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the CDC, are an indictment of American capitalism and the profit-based health care system, which denies adequate prenatal and postpartum medical treatment for millions of women, simply because they are poor or uninsured.

The United States is not only the worst-performing among the industrialized nations, in terms of maternal mortality, the difference is not even close. Women giving birth in the US are four times more likely to die than in Germany, France or Britain, and 10 times more likely to die than in the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries. They are twice as likely to die as in China. According to the World Health Organization, these disparities predate the COVID pandemic: Maternal-mortality rates in the US rose 78 percent between 2000 and 2020, while dropping in most other countries.

The particular causes of death are varied, according to the CDC, although a majority are cardiovascular in origins, including cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle), 11 percent; blood clots, 9 percent; high blood pressure, 8 percent; stroke, 7 percent; and other cardiac conditions, 15 percent. Infection and postpartum bleeding account for another 24 percent, while mental health issues, including drug overdoses and postpartum depression leading to suicide, are also a factor.

But it is the social causes of death that are the main issue. According to estimates by the CDC and other health authorities, 80 percent of maternal deaths are preventable with proper treatment. Many pregnant women, however, and even more so many women during the weeks and months after birth, do not receive proper treatment.

This lack of care has two basic causes. Women in rural areas are frequently living in what have been termed “obstetric deserts,” more than 25 miles away from a labor and delivery unit. According to the CDC, some 2 million women of childbearing age live in such conditions. This has been greatly exacerbated by the evisceration of rural health care in recent decades, with hundreds of rural hospitals and medical centers, generally smaller and poorly financed, being forced to close their doors.

Far more significant is the overall growth of poverty and the consequent social isolation throughout the whole of American society, to the point that urban and suburban women, living only a few miles and even a few blocks from a well-appointed hospital or a skilled provider, are unable to access the care they need because they lack health insurance and cannot afford the expense.

Both factors contribute to the much worse than average statistics in Southern states with impoverished rural populations, like Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas. It is clearly poverty and inequality which are the overriding factors in a heavily urban state like New Jersey, with one of the highest per capita incomes but the fourth-worst maternal mortality rate among the 50 states.

The CDC and other agencies have laid stress on the racial disparities in maternal mortality, and these are quite significant. Black women had a maternal death rate of 69.9 per 100,000 births, compared to 26.6 for white women and 28 for Hispanic women. Native American and Alaska Native women had a mortality rate over 50, and 90 percent of their deaths were considered preventable.

A pregnant woman waits in line for groceries with hundreds during a food pantry, sponsored by Healthy Waltham for those in need due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, at St. Mary's Church in Waltham, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

However, claims of “systemic racism” fail to explain why, if only white women were considered, the United States would still be the worst among the industrialized countries, and three times worse than any Western European country in terms of maternal mortality. The rate for white women in the United States is equivalent to the rate for Chinese women, who live in a country still mired in mass poverty, particularly for hundreds of millions in rural areas.

It is also the case that during the COVID pandemic, maternal mortality has risen more rapidly for white and Hispanic women than for black women, who were already at an abysmal level in terms of deaths during pregnancy, childbirth, or in the year afterward.

As with so many social indices in the United States, the breakdown along class lines is simply not reported. But there is little doubt that there is a direct correlation between income and maternal mortality. The mothers in the ruling elite only die in childbirth in the rarest of circumstances, when there are health care complications of an extreme or novel character that even the best medical care money can buy cannot resolve.

The effect of the income divide is exacerbated by the reactionary social policies of state and federal governments. Medicaid, the joint federal-state program providing health insurance for low-income families, drops expanded coverage for pregnant women 60 days after they give birth, although doctors advocate a much longer period of additional care and monitoring.

The “let it rip” COVID policy of the Trump and Biden administrations has worsened the crisis. Pregnant women, particularly if they are not vaccinated, are at a much higher risk of severe illness if they contract coronavirus. Moreover, the persistence of the pandemic, thanks to the rejection of any serious effort to suppress it, means that health care facilities have been overwhelmed with people sick with COVID, leaving fewer resources available for non-emergency treatment such as care for pregnant or postpartum women.

The systemic neglect of poor and working class women stands to be greatly exacerbated by the barbarous consequences of the fascistic campaign being waged against abortion rights. Under conditions where pregnancy is becoming more life-threatening, the ultra-right is seeking new laws and procedures to impose forced pregnancy, even for women who face significant dangers to their own health.

In the months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped women of the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, dozens of states have enacted laws banning or restricting abortions, or making them more difficult to obtain.

The latest legal salvo is an effort to impose a nationwide ban on the sale of the medication mifepristone, a key component in the two-pill regimen that accounts for half of all abortions in the US.

Here the barbaric consequences of for-profit medicine intersect with the deliberate barbarism of a social outlook that harks back to the days when women were to be kept “barefoot and pregnant.”

Police assault protests across France against anti-democratic attack on pensions

Samuel Tissot

After the French government announced that it would force through the widely opposed pension reform using Article 49.3 of the Constitution without a vote of deputies in the National Assembly, a wave of spontaneous protests broke out across France’s major cities. Seventy percent of the population oppose the reform, and around 60 percent support blocking the economy until the government withdraws it.

Pallets burn as protesters demonstrate at Concorde square near the National Assembly in Paris, Thursday, March 16, 2023 [AP Photo/Thomas Padilla]

On Thursday afternoon, French President Emmanuel Macron told his cabinet before the announcement of the government’s decision to pursue Article 49.3 to pass the reform bill that he could not allow a vote on the law because “the financial and economic risks are too great.”

Thursday’s protests took place amidst a wave of strikes throughout France’s critical sectors which began last week after a series of one-day mobilizations against the reform which have been ongoing since January. Thousands took to the streets in cities across France to express their opposition to Macron’s pension cuts.

Macron intends to rely on the violent state security forces to push through his reform, and Thursday’s protests were met with police repression in almost every major French city. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has augmented personal security for deputies in the National Assembly in the coming days.

In Paris, a protest of tens of thousands occupied the Place de la Concorde on Thursday afternoon. As police began to clear the square, makeshift barricades were temporarily erected by protesters. The square was only cleared by multiple violent charges and the use of tear gas by heavily armed riot police. Water cannon was also used against protesters. According to the police on Thursday night, 73 people were arrested at Concorde alone.

After clearing the square, police assault units and gendarmes chased protesters through the center of Paris, assaulting them with gas grenades and batons.

Clashes continued throughout the night in Paris, and multiple fires were lit. Barricades were put in place by protesters along Rue Saint Honoré as protesters marched toward the Élysée Palace, the official residence of the French president. As of midnight, the police announced they had made 217 arrests in Paris.

Scenes of spontaneous protest and police repression were repeated across France’s major cities on Thursday evening, although arrest figures outside of Paris were not published as of this writing.

In Toulouse, the Capitole saw a huge protest, which was also dispersed by riot police using tear gas late on Thursday evening. Thousands also protested in Bordeaux.

In Nantes, police also used tear gas to disperse 3,000 protesters, which led to a similar series of makeshift barricades and fires. On Wednesday, Nantes had also been the scene of major clashes between police and protesters which saw 34 arrests. Elsewhere in Brittany, thousands also gathered in Brest and Rennes and were dispersed with tear gas.

In Lille, spontaneous protests in the Wazemmes district were also tear-gassed by the police. There was also a gathering of thousands at the Place de la République. Thousands gathered in front of the Hôtel de Ville in Le Havre, in Normandy. In Amiens, 1,500 protesters were also dispersed with tear gas.

In the East, there were major protests in Strasbourg, Mullhouse, Dijon and Saint-Étienne. In Lyon, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the city center before being dispersed with tear gas, amid violent clashes with police.

In the South of France there were major protests in Montpellier and thousands gathered in central Marseille. Police assaulted both protests with volleys of tear gas. The alleged looting of boutique stores in Marseille has already being seized upon by the bourgeois press to claim that the protests do not reflect popular revulsion toward the reform and the Macron government.

100,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in war with Russia

Andre Damon

More than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in the war with Russia Politico reported Wednesday, according to statements by US officials.

Based on the precedent of other 21st-century wars, this would mean that total Ukrainian causalities (killed and injured) since the start of the war last year is half a million or more.

This figure is four times greater than earlier statements, such as the declaration in November by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, that over 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed or injured.

A Ukrainian serviceman sits on a boat during an evacuation of injured soldiers participating in the counteroffensive, in a region near the retaken village of Shchurove, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

The latest figures would mean that Ukrainian soldiers are being killed at a rate comparable with World War I, during which 450,000 Ukrainian soldiers died over the course of four years.

Describing the bloody battle of Bakhmut, Politico wrote: “Moscow and Kyiv are continuing to throw bodies into the fight for a southeastern city the US does not consider strategically important.”

Despite the tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers that died in Bakhmut, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that the city is “more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value.”

In reality, the public cannot know the actual number of dead, because both the Ukrainian and Russian governments are keeping the true number of casualties hidden from their populations.

Regardless of the death toll and a significant deterioration on the ground, the United States is determined to force half-trained Ukrainian conscripts to once more go on the offensive against entrenched Russian lines.

Politico reports that:

U.S. officials are more focused on getting Ukraine ready for a major spring offensive to retake territory, which they expect to begin by May. Hundreds of Western tanks and armored vehicles, including for the first time eight armored vehicles that can launch bridges and allow troops to cross rivers, are en route to Ukraine for the offensive…

U.S. aid packages “going back four or five months have been geared toward what Ukraine needs for this counteroffensive,” said one U.S. official.

While funding, arming and directing Ukrainian forces, Politico writes that “U.S. officials are careful not to appear to tell Kyiv how to fight the war.”

If they are keen “not to appear” to be directing the bloodletting, it is because they are. While repeatedly asserting that the goals and outcome of the war are to be determined by “the Ukrainians,” the United States has completely taken over the country’s political structures, which have banned all anti-war parties.

Despite the massive amounts of weaponry the US and NATO are surging into the country, Ukrainian forces continue to lose ground. The Ukrainian military is throwing vast numbers of raw recruits into battle in Bakhmut, where media reports have said the average lifespan on the front is as short as four hours.

On Monday, the Washington Post published an interview with a Ukrainian commander who described how his entire command of 500 men had been wiped out, and that he was the only one left.

He said that even if the coming offensive turns into “a massacre and corpses ... there will be a counteroffensive either way.

“There are only a few soldiers with combat experience,” the commander told the Post. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.”

The commander, in the words of the Post, “described going to battle with newly drafted soldiers who had never thrown a grenade, who readily abandoned their positions under fire and who lacked confidence in handling firearms.”

Predictably, the commander, who goes by the callsign Kupol, was relieved of command, for “disseminating inaccurate information.”

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian defense ministry declared, “100% of the servicemen of the airborne assault troops, called up for mobilization, underwent basic and professional training before being appointed to positions in military units.”

He continued, “Proper training of Ukrainian paratroopers and their motivation were repeatedly noted by foreign instructors”—presumably from the United States.

But even as the extent of the bloodbath is becoming clear, the US and NATO are escalating their preparations for ever more direct involvement.

On Thursday, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that the country would be sending Mig fighter jets to Ukraine “literally in the next few days.”

The Migs, which are reported to be upgraded to use NATO-standard weaponry, are a critical stepping-stone to a looming decision by the United States to send modern NATO-standard fighter jets such as the F-16.

The announcement by Poland crosses yet another threshold of what the United States and its allies pledged they would not do in Ukraine.

In March 2022, the Pentagon declared that “we assess the transfer of the MIG-29s to Ukraine to be high risk” and could “increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO.”

The announcement follows the publication of a letter Tuesday by a group of senators calling for sending F-16 fighters to Ukraine. Declaring that “we are now at a critical juncture in the conflict,” the senators called on the Pentagon to “take a hard look at providing F-16 aircraft to Ukraine.”

Ultimately, the achievement of the United States’ sweeping war aims will not be possible without the deployment of NATO ground troops directly into the conflict.

The downing of a US reaper drone by a Russian fighter aircraft earlier this week is a testament to the extent to which, amid horrifying casualties on both sides, the conflict is emerging ever more openly into a direct clash between NATO and Russia.

Zelensky government steps up persecution of Russian-affiliated Orthodox Church amid mounting military losses

Jason Melanovski

Amidst a deepening military and political crisis in the country, the right-wing government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky moved last week to oust Orthodox monks attached to the Russian-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) from their base at the 980-year-old Pechersk Lavra monastery complex in Kiev.

The UOC has had a long-standing affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church but declared its independence from Moscow in May 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church still includes UOC-affiliated clergy in its work, however.

Regarding the escalating prosecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Zelensky appealed to both Ukrainian nationalism and religious separatism in justifying the move, claiming that “One more step towards strengthening our spiritual independence was taken this week.”

The move is a clear signal to ramp up religious and ethnic conflicts in the war-torn country. In an indication that this is just the beginning of a broader campaign, Zelensky stated, “We will continue this movement. We will not allow the terrorist state any opportunity to manipulate the spiritual life of our people, to destroy Ukrainian shrines—our Lavras—or to steal any valuables from them.”

In 1991, only 39 percent of Ukrainians identified as Orthodox Christian. In the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and amid the widespread deindustrialization and poverty that followed, religious sentiments and obscurantism grew as did various rival sects of the Orthodox Church—all with their own separate geopolitical orientations. By 2015, a Pew Research Center study found that approximately 78 percent of Ukraine’s adult population identified as Orthodox Christian.

Following the 2014 Western-backed coup of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the right-wing nationalist government of Petro Poroshenko intervened strongly in the creation and promotion of a single Kiev-aligned Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in opposition to the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Both antecedent separate Orthodox churches of the OCU had supported the 2014 Maidan coup and would become a central part of the NATO-aligned Poroshenko  government’s push to promote nationalism, militarism and anti-Russian sentiments.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was formed in 2018, out of the two smaller rival but pro-Maidan Orthodox churches, both lay claim to representing all of Ukraine. In 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was granted independence or “autocephaly” from the Moscow-based Patriarch. The move by the Patriarch of Constantinople to formalize a split with the Russian church to which it had been tied since 1686 was strongly opposed by the Moscow Patriarchate led by Putin-ally Patriarch Kirill, who broke off relations with Constantinople in response.

Since the 2019 split from Moscow, the rivalry between the two separate churches over property, parishioners and religious sites continued. In this conflict, the Kiev-aligned OCU was granted the full backing of the right-wing Ukrainian government, of which it has become an integral part.

The February 2022 invasion of Russia marked a new stage in the religious war between the two churches with Kiev moving quickly to denounce the UOC as “collaborators”.

Later in October of last year, the Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), which maintains close ties to the Ukrainian far-right, began to regularly carry out raids in search of “anti-Ukrainian” materials at UOC churches, impose sanctions on its bishops and supporters, and open criminal cases against dozens of its clergymen.

The Pechersk Lavra monastery located in Kiev is viewed as one of the most important historical and religious sites within Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe. Until recently, the site was administered jointly by the National Kyiv-Pechersk Historic-Cultural Preserve and the Moscow-aligned UOC.

In January of this year, the Ukrainian government terminated the UOC’s lease of the site and intervened to allow the government-backed OCU to celebrate a Christmas service at the site’s Dormition Cathedral.

The announcement Friday gave the remaining UOC monks until March 29 to fully vacate the premises. Initial media reports following the eviction notice suggest that the UOC monks are refusing to leave and will likely be forcibly removed and arrested by the SBU after the deadline passes.

The Orthodox Church in both Russia and Ukraine has for centuries promoted obscurantism, nationalism and anti-Semitism with its own clergy members guilty of participating in some of the worst pogroms of the previous centuries.

However, there is clearly nothing progressive in Zelensky’s crackdown on one religious organization while supporting its equally backward rival. It speaks to the reactionary character of the Zelensky regime that it has embraced Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” in order to promote Ukrainian nationalism, anti-Russian chauvinism and ethnic conflict.

It is no accident that the Ukrainian government announced the eviction just as it made public plans to continue pouring troops into the “meat grinder” of Bakhmut, where Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have died in the thousands and Ukraine appears to be losing.

On Tuesday, in his evening video address, Zelensky said that Ukraine's top military command unanimously favors defending the sector of eastern Ukraine including Bakhmut to “destroy the occupiers to the maximum.”

In a further indication of an intense political and military crisis, on the same day, Zelensky removed the governors of Luhansk, Odesa, and Khmelnytskyi provinces with no reason given for their sudden dismissals.

Regarding the ongoing mass death at Bakhmut, a Ukrainian soldier recently stated plainly to the Kyiv Independent that, “When they drive us to Bakhmut, I already know I'm being sent to death.”

Welsh Government Wales & Africa Grant Scheme 2023

Application Deadline: 24th March 2023

Eligibility: Grant aims for the immediate covid-19 response round of the Wales Africa grant scheme:

• Assist African partners in combatting the immediate effects of covid-19
• Encourage stringent health & safety practices
• Make contributions to the following themes of the Wales Africa grants scheme:

• Health
• Sustainable livelihoods
• Lifelong learning
• Climate Change

It must be emphasised that this is a grant funding round in response to a global crisis, requests for funding will need to strongly demonstrate the impact they will make for their African Partner in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For further information about grant aims, eligibility, and timeframes please read the full guidance document.

Type: Grants

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Grant are available from £3,000 up to £15,000. If you have a request which falls outside of this grant range, please speak to a team member before completing your request for funding. You can contact WCVA at walesafricagrants@wcva.cymru.

How to Apply: The process for funding requests is live on the WCVA website. All requests to be made on the downloadable application form and returned to walesafricagrants@wcva.cymru

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Government of Singapore – ICAO Training Programme for Developing Countries 2023/2024

Application Deadline: Various. Check the courses for the different deadlines

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Singapore

Type: Training, Fellowship (Career)

Eligibility: 

• The fellowships/scholarships are intended for participants nominated by their respective Governments.
• Nominating Governments should preferably nominate not more than 2 candidates for each course and advise which candidate should take priority if more than one candidate is nominated.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Government of Singapore will bear the training fees, daily allowance of Sixty Singapore Dollars (S$60) and hotel accommodation for participants accepted for the programmes.

• Complimentary breakfast will be provided at the hotel and lunch at SAA during training days. Travel arrangements are to be made and costs borne by the nominating Governments.
• Hotel accommodation will be provided for the training duration, i.e. one day before course commencement (after 2 pm) and one day after the course (till 12 noon).
• Daily allowance will be limited to the training duration, i.e. from the start of the course up to the last day of the course.
• Expenses to be incurred for stay beyond this duration will not be covered.
• Travel arrangements are to be made and costs borne by the nominating Governments.

How to Apply: Apply below

It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before apply

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Anti-Defamation League reports “all-time high” white supremacist propaganda incidents in United States in 2022

Jacob Crosse

A new report published last week by the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism found that an “all-time high” number of “white supremacist propaganda” incidents occurred in the United States in 2022, eclipsing the previous year’s record total of 4,876 by nearly 2,000.

“Our data shows,” the ADL wrote, “a 38 percent increase in incidents from the previous year, with a total of 6,751 … the highest number of white supremacist propaganda incidents ADL has ever recorded.”

In addition to an increase in white supremacist incidents, the ADL recorded a more than doubling of “antisemitic propaganda” incidents, rising from 352 in 2021 to 852 in 2022. These included banner drops on roadways, in-person demonstrations, leafleting neighborhoods and projecting images on buildings and stadiums.

The ADL found that propaganda efforts were undertaken in every US state except Hawaii, with the most active states being Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Utah, Florida, Connecticut and Georgia. These propaganda efforts were organized by “at least 50 different white supremacist groups” according to the ADL, however, “three of them—Patriot Front, Goyim Defense League (GDL) and White Lives Matter (WLM)—were responsible for 93 percent of the activity.”

White supremacist “events” such as demonstrations at state capitols, parades and local businesses, organized by WLM, GDL, Patriot Front, the Proud Boys and others increased by 55 percent last year, from 108 in 2021 to 167 in 2022.

The only area where ADL recorded a decrease in fascist activity was on school campuses, where the ADL found 219 incidents of white supremacist propaganda in 2022, a slight 6 percent decrease from 2021. Fascist propaganda, overwhelmingly distributed by Patriot Front (74 percent of all incidents), was discovered on campuses in 39 different states, led by Texas, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

This is the second report released by the ADL in the last month that has documented an historic rise in far-right agitation and violence in the US.

Last month, the ADL reported that every single “extremist” mass killing in 2022 was linked to far-right ideology. Notably, the ADL did not mention that every mass killing linked to in their report was directly inspired by Republican Party politicians and their sycophants in right-wing media. This is also the case in the March report, which likewise does not mention Trump or the role of the Republican Party in cultivating these right-wing and openly fascist elements.

While the Republicans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, have advanced some 420 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation so far in 2023, violent Republican rhetoric is translating into threats of real-world fascist terrorist violence.

Last week, less than a week after a heavily armed fascist was arrested after threatening to kill “anyone that is Jewish” in the Michigan government, another Michigan man, Randall Robert Berka II, was arrested on charges of unlawfully owning guns after he threatened online to kill LGBTQ people and leading Democratic politicians, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and President Joe Biden.

According to the March 9 criminal complaint, Google forwarded the FBI several threats posted by an account linked to Berka that were made between February and March 2023.

“Trans freaks and gays lgbt freaks [they] all need [to] die and be genocided its all I talk about anymore is wanting to kill trans freaks,” the account linked to Berka allegedly posted online. The complaint included over two pages of threats allegedly made by Berka over the last month.

The complaint noted that Berka had been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment in 2012. Despite his previous commitment preventing him from legally owning firearms, Berka’s mom, Michelle, according to the complaint, admitted that within the last year she had purchased four guns for her son.

In the complaint, Michelle confirmed with the FBI that her son has ammunition for all of his weapons, which he kept “staged” at his apartment along with body armor. In the complaint, Michelle said she is scared of her son and that he “should be arrested and put in prison.”

The day after the FBI arrested Berka, one person was arrested on assault charges at an anti-trans demonstration held in Sacramento, California, on March 10. Police have refused to confirm if the person arrested was part of the small crowd of neo-Nazis or part of the larger group of counter-demonstrators.

Social media video posted online appears to show a woman, identified as Aurelia Moore, pointing a gun at counter-protesters. Separate photos show previously identified neo-Nazis dressed in black and armed with brass knuckles.

The day after the anti-trans rally in Sacramento, over 100 neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, Patriot Front and White Lives Matter fascists descended on a drag queen story hour held Saturday at Wadsworth Memorial Park in Ohio.

The armed Nazis, led by Chris Pohlhaus from the Nazi group “Blood Tribe,” wore red sweaters, black pants and waved black and white flags with swastikas on them, screaming “Sieg Heil!” “There will be blood!” “Pedophiles get the rope!” along with chants of “Weimar problems require Weimar solutions.”

Photos from the event show the Nazis protected by police as they scream obscenities at the children and parents gathered at the public park.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported on Monday that at the end of the event, two people were charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and arrested after a fight broke out in which an opponent of the neo-Nazis pepper-sprayed a fascist in chain mail. After a brief scuffle, a man pointed what appeared to be a gun into the crowd, although police have since claimed that the “metallic object” was a not a gun, but a weapon used to shoot pepper-spray balls.

In Florida, police have yet to announce an arrest after a man attacked the Chabad Jewish Center of Cape Coral shortly after services ended Saturday night. According to multiple witnesses, the enraged man used a brick to try and break into the center, even as worshipers were still inside.

“We hear this loud noise,” Rabbi Yossi Labkowski told NBC 2, “I was approaching the door and I see somebody picking up a brick and just yanking it, throwing it at the door.”

Jacob Ben-Haim, who was inside the building at the time of the attack, told NBC he thought someone was shooting through the door.

“Four or five loud bangs on the door. So I thought for a moment, somebody’s shooting at the door … I was looking, where’s the bullets?”

Rabbi Yossi said that after the man was unable to break through the door, he proceeded to vandalize a painting of a menorah and smash the windshield of the rabbi’s vehicle.

“He was targeting the Jewish community,” Labkowski said.

This past Tuesday, police in Lakewood, New Jersey, arrested 22-year-old Max Sanchez after multiple people reported the man was exhibiting disturbing behavior while armed with a large knife outside the Satmar Shul synagogue. In a statement, police captain Gregory Staffordsmith said that while there were “no specific threats made to any of the victims,” the area where Sanchez was menacing people is home to “a large portion of Orthodox Jewish families.”

Former Fiji PM Bainimarama arrested, charged with abuse of office

John Braddock

Fiji’s former prime minister and coup leader Frank Bainimarama was arrested last Thursday and spent a night in custody before being granted bail by a Suva court and released. Bainimarama and former police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho pleaded not guilty to one charge each of abuse of office.

Fiji prime minister and FijiFirst leader Frank Bainimarama addressing climate conference in 2017. [Photo by Flickr/James Dowson / CC BY-NC-SA 2.5]

Both men were ordered to hand over their travel documents and reside at a permanent address. The magistrate also instructed them not to interfere with witnesses. They are expected in court again on May 11.

Fiji police laid the charges after questioning Bainimarama and Qiliho over the past month regarding allegations that they directed police to close investigations into senior officials at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in 2019. Director of Public Prosecutions Christopher Pryde has indicated that nine more charges are pending.

Fiji Police chief of intelligence, prosecutions and acting assistant commissioner Sakeo Raikaci told a media conference a special taskforce was undertaking “further investigations into other matters arising from this case.” He declared he wanted to “clear the air” and “reassure” the public about the “independence of the investigation process.”

Bainimarama, who led Fiji for 16 years following his 2006 military coup, lost December’s general election and was suspended last month from parliament for three years. As opposition leader Bainimarama delivered a belligerent speech on the opening day of parliament, accusing the new government and Fiji’s president, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere of “setting out to destroy constitutional democracy” and appealed to the military, which he once commanded, to act.

The installation of the new government has seen an ongoing power struggle between Bainimarama and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, another former military coup leader, and the contesting factions of the divided ruling elite that back them. Rabuka heads a fragile three-party coalition including his People’s Alliance Party, the National Federation Party and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA)—a minority party holding the balance of power with just three MPs.

The swirling political crisis escalated in January when the military head Major General Jone Kalouniwai released an extraordinary media statement declaring that the armed forces had “quietly observed with growing concern… the ambition and speed of the government,” claiming it had “the potential to bring about fateful, long-term national security consequences.” Under Section 131 of the 2013 Constitution, drawn up by Bainimarama, the military has unrestrained powers to ensure the “safety and security of the country.”

Two weeks after his suspension, Bainimarama last Wednesday abruptly announced his resignation from parliament “with immediate effect” but vowed to remain leader of his FijiFirst Party. He denounced his “unwarranted and most certainly unjustified” suspension and declared he would “engage more actively outside parliament with our FijiFirst supporters and the growing number of unsatisfied Fijians” disillusioned with the government.

Rabuka has quickly moved to replace key personnel in the civil service seen as Bainimarama’s political appointees. These include Qiliho, a former military officer with connections to previous coups, and corrections services boss Francis Kean. Both ran infamously brutal and corrupt operations under Bainimarama.

The charges against Bainimarama and Qiliho centre on allegations the pair terminated a police investigation into misuse of money at the USP in 2019. The regional university, headquartered in Suva, is owned by 12 Pacific states with part funding from Australia and New Zealand.

The USP vice-chancellor, Pal Ahluwalia, was witch-hunted and suspended from his post in 2020 by the university council for “material misconduct,” after exposing alleged corruption and mismanagement under the leadership group, with millions of dollars missing. Hundreds of students and staff protested the professor’s suspension and demanded the removal of the USP Executive Committee.

Ahluwalia’s removal prompted warnings that the university’s autonomy and academic freedom was under threat. Ahluwalia was later reinstated and cleared of the bogus allegations. After he submitted a report to the council, Auckland accountancy consultancy BDO was hired to investigate. When the damning BDO report reached the council, it was suppressed and details kept from the public.

The government then froze a $A28 million university grant, again prompting condemnation. The BDO report was leaked, naming 25 senior staff accused of manipulating allowances to pay themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars they were not entitled to. The government flatly refused to accept the BDO’s findings.

In February 2021 immigration, police and military officials carried out a midnight raid at the home of Ahluwalia, who is a Canadian national, and his wife, summarily deporting them. The pair was presented with a letter stating they had been declared “prohibited immigrants” by Bainimarama as minister for immigration for unspecified “repeated breaches” of the immigration act and of their visa conditions.

New Zealand journalist Michael Field wrote on Pacific Newsroom that there was clear evidence that the attacks on the vice chancellor were primarily directed by USP pro-chancellor Winston Thompson, a former Fijian ambassador to the United States, who had close links to the regime.

Ahluwalia’s expulsion was denounced by students, staff and alumni as a “coup,” and likened to “gestapo tactics.” Fiji’s Law Society joined the condemnation, while civil society group Civicus said it would create a “chilling effect for whistle-blowers and those who want to speak up and expose violations by officials in Fiji.” A police presence was established at the USP’s Laucala campus to intimidate any protests.

The issue escalated into a region-wide controversy. USP Chancellor Lionel Aingimea, who is president of Nauru, accused a “small group” of Fiji officials of “hijacking” the institution. Samoa’s then prime minister, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, declared he would seek to “rehouse” the university in his country. He said the deportation was only the latest in a series of issues at the USP which “came as no surprise,” adding that “many big organisations have actually left Fiji in a similar fashion.”

Among Rabuka’s first moves on taking office in January was to bring Ahluwalia back from exile and reinstate him at the university. Clearly intended as a shot over Bainimarama’s bow, Rabuka delivered an effusive public apology at the USP, declaring: “It doesn’t matter who did it. As far as the world is concerned, Fiji did it to you.” He promised to pay the first instalment of $10 million in owed grants.

Rabuka’s public rehabilitation of Ahluwalia, followed by Bainimarama’s arrest, is also part of Rabuka’s posturing about liberalising and undoing aspects of the previous unpopular dictatorial regime. An oppressive media law that allows fines and prison sentences for news reports deemed against the “national interest” is to be replaced. The trade unions are being brought in from the cold through a tripartite wage fixing system that will offer them “consultation” alongside government and employers.

Rabuka however, has no less of an authoritarian history than Bainimarama. He ruled as prime minister from 1992 to 1999 after leading two military coups in 1987 to boost the position of ethnic Fijians against Indo-Fijians, many of whom fled the country.

Rabuka is now reviving contentious communalist politics, aimed at cementing the position of the ethnic iTaukei Fijian elite at the expense of Indo-Fijians and the working class, including the re-establishment of the privileged Great Council of Chiefs. That body was shut down in 2012 by Bainimarama, who accused it of exacerbating racial divisions “to the detriment of Fiji’s pursuit of a common and equal citizenry.”

Rabuka’s positioning is a response to fears within the ruling elite of simmering anger in the working class. Fiji’s workers are suffering skyrocketing inflation, the destruction of thousands of jobs, and fractured supply chains for food, energy and basic goods. The poverty rate is nearly 30 percent and the social catastrophe has been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As they are internationally, more austerity measures are on the way.

Should Rabuka’s strategy fail to contain widespread social struggles, the army still stands waiting in the wings.