FATF: The “Most Powerful Organization You’ve Never Heard Of” Strikes Again

Paul Cochrane

FATF Logo – Public Domain

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental technical and policy-making body that is “the global standard setter on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” is once again trying to emphasize it is not a politically influenced body, but strictly technical in its globally-reaching decisions.

At the end of February, FATF suspended the Russian Federation for its “illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale military invasion of Ukraine.” It is the first time in the body’s history that one of the 37 members has been treated in this way. South Africa and Nigeria were also added to FATF’s lengthy gray-list, which signals a serious economic blow to both countries.

Being gray-listed means you are high risk in the financial sector. What the high risk designation does, in a nutshell, is deter inflows of investment, and makes trade, debt repayments and the like so much harder and more expensive, particularly when it comes to accessing foreign currency, whether as loans or for trade financing. Being high risk can also undermine the local currency, causing depreciation, which makes debt repayments more expensive.

“The most powerful organization most people will have never heard of”

Created in 1989 by the G7, in large part by the US Treasury, to combat the narcotics trade, FATF is one of those international bodies that has incredible global clout yet is largely unknown by the public, a bit like the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS), AKA the “central bank of central banks”. 

As Tom Keatinge, the director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the RUSI think tank in London, told me back in 2018, FATF is “the most powerful organization most people will have never heard of… and one that’s only grown more influential in recent years”…“A lot of aggravation that people suffer with their banking is FATF-related but they don’t realize it.”

The ‘suffering’ the average person in the US or Europe experiences is having to go through a bank’s Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, such as declaring source of income, or having certain payments queried if there is unusual account activity, such as large amounts of funds going in and out. Clamping down on money laundering is also why it is harder to pay for large ticket items with cash and why it is harder to open a bank account in another country.

The public invariably does not know why they are subjected to these controls, but financial institutions are following the rules of their governmental regulator, which have enacted laws in response to FATF’s guidelines on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.

Yet while FATF is largely unknown in the West, countries and populaces on the receiving end of FATF’s decisions do know of it. The body makes headlines in what FATF calls ‘high-risk jurisdictions’. And during the height of the US-led War on Terror, people around the world, particularly Muslims or those with Arab names, faced issues when opening bank accounts, transferring money abroad, or making donations to charities, ostensibly over concerns over ‘terrorist financing risks’.

FATF’s expansion post-9/11

Indeed, the FATF’s importance increased exponentially following the September 11 2001 attacks on the US, when terrorist financing suddenly became a global concern. A special unit was established in the US Treasury, documented by Juan Zuarte, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, in his book Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare.

The US Treasury pushed global adoption of FATF’s standards, and over the next decade countries  scrambled to put anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism legislation into place.  Central and Western Asia were particularly under the spotlight, given the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Then came the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or Daesh. Terrorist financing became a primary focus of FATF.

Several years ago a participant at one of FATF’s bi-annual plenaries told me that, to his exasperation, they spent 90 percent of the week discussing Daesh. This was at the expense of focusing on major financial crimes such as human trafficking, the illegal wildlife trade, real estate, and trade-based money laundering, which only garnered more focus in the past few years.

FATF’s focus has been on whatever is the political zeitgeist. Last year I could barely get an interview to discuss Daesh and terrorist financing, including at US-based think tanks that had churned out articles on the topic during the heyday of the War on Terror.

Suspending Russia from FATF

Terrorist financing is still on the agenda, but it has slipped down the list of priorities. Today it is of course Russia that is under the spotlight, with the US and Europe using all the weapons in its financial arsenal to cut Moscow out of the financial system. First it was sanctions, and now FATF has joined the melee in suspending the Russian Federation from the body.

FATF stated that Russia’s actions “unacceptably run counter to the FATF core principles aiming to promote security, safety, and the integrity of the global financial system. They also represent a gross violation of the commitment to international cooperation and mutual respect upon which FATF Members have agreed to implement and support the FATF Standards”.

This is clearly a political decision, given membership is dominated by what is essentially the “international financial system” – the US and Europe. The only members that are outside of the Western block are Argentina, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, and Malaysia. Then there are West Asian members Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel. The core FATF members include most of the 45 countries that sanctioned Russia in 2022, and again in February this year.

Russia was very much part of the FATF club. In fact Russia held the year-long presidency of FATF in 2013-14, during the same period Russia invaded Crimea.

But the tide has turned on having undesirable members in the big financial clubs. Last year, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) suspended Russia. “The access of the Central Bank of Russia to all BIS services, meetings and other BIS activities has been suspended,” the bank stated. This move effectively cut-off Russia from clearing money through BIS.

FATF’s move further tightens the screws. It did not need to gray-list Russia as Moscow was already a high risk jurisdiction due to US and European sanctions. But the decision was not a technical one, based on Russia having inadequate controls or policies following a periodic Mutual Evaluation Report, as is typically the case for a country to be gray-listed until it gets its act together. The membership decided to suspend Russia – which members supported, rejected or abstained is not public knowledge.

Selectively going after aggressors

What is significant is that it is another case of selective use of mandates by international bodies. No such action for undermining the “security, safety, and the integrity of the global financial system” has been taken against any other member before, or for invading, occupying or violating the sovereignty of another country. Neither has FATF ever, to my knowledge, deplored the “huge loss of lives and malicious destruction” from other invasions, other than in regard to Russia’s recent warmongering.

Russia was not disciplined in the past for its wars in Chechnya, Georgia and the Crimea. The USA, the UK, Saudi Arabia and Israel – among others – could equally be called up for violating the FATF’s principles. Yet there was no call for this to be done following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor military involvement in the conflict in Syria, or the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

And Syria and Yemen are gray-listed by FATF. Neither country has been subject to an on-site visit to assess whether reforms have been implemented since 2014, not due to war, but to the more tamely worded “security situation”.

FATF has also used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to not review Iran and North Korea, having put the process on hold since February 2020. Presumably this is also because no members of FATF are pushing for reviews of these pariah states to be carried out.

South Africa and Nigeria were gray-listed at the FATF plenary in February. Immediately questions were asked whether this was politically motivated. The South African Broadcasting Corporation asked the FATF president whether the country had been listed because it hosted a joint military exercise with China and Russia in February (it also held one with France, which seems to have gone largely unnoticed). The president said that was not the case, and indeed, South Africa had been evaluated and called upon to address its deficiencies since June 2021. It was a technical decision.

However, the timing of FATF’s announcement is problematic amid global tensions, and South Africa being under pressure for not condemning Russia, having abstained at the UN.

Gray-listing equals GDP loss

Gray-listing is a major financial blow at a time no country can afford further dents to their economies amid high fuel prices, inflation, rising debt levels and, in the case of Turkey, the devastating earthquake in early February. It is a lengthy list of “jurisdictions under increased monitoring” by FATF – Albania, Barbados, Burkina Faso, the Cayman Islands, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gibraltar, Haiti, Jamaica, Jordan, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, the UAE, and Yemen. On the “black-list” are North Korea, Iran and Myanmar.

Being FATF gray-listed is meant to make a jurisdiction clean up its act ASAP due to the financial repercussions – borrowing money becomes more expensive, financial inflows dry up, and the cost of business rises overall.

According to a 2021 IMF paper, being gray-listed has “a large, significant negative” … “on capital inflows. The empirical results suggest that capital inflows decline on average by 7.6 percent of GDP when the country is gray-listed. The results also suggest that FDI [foreign direct investment] inflows decline on average by −3 percent of GDP, portfolio inflows decline on average by −2.9 percent of GDP, and other investment inflows decline on average by −3.6 percent of GDP. The estimated impacts are all statistically significant.”

While there are of course strong technical grounds for gray-listing the above-listed countries, no such action has ever been taken against what are considered the world’s money laundering hubs – the United Kingdom and the US.

Furthermore, most of the gray-listed countries do not have banks accused of the sort of multi-billion-dollar money laundering schemes that Lloyds, HSBC, Deutsch Bank, Danske Bank and other Western heavyweights have been involved in. While these banks were penalized, they did not disappear off the face of the planet, as two Lebanese banks did when fingered by the US Treasury for being banks of “prime money laundering concern” for allegedly facilitating funding for Hizbullah.

Then again, there does not seem to be the political will to truly go after the launderers, with ongoing efforts to curb money laundering proven to be largely ineffective, at 1 percent or less of proceeds of crime being recovered by the authorities. Indeed, in a 2018 speech, before stepping down as executive director of Europol, Rob Wainwright said: “Professional money launderers – and we have identified 400 at the top, top level in Europe – are running billions of illegal drug and other criminal profits through the banking system with a 99 percent success rate.”

The ineffectiveness of the fight against money laundering is another matter, for another article, but it does fit into an interconnected-narrative of which jurisdictions can get away with what.

Risky business

What also needs to be highlighted is that if a country is removed from FATF’s gray-list it does not equate to a country suddenly being considered a less risky jurisdiction. Many non gray-listed countries are considered high risk, certainly by the US, and pretty much by default by other US allies.

The UAE is a case in point, which was gray-listed in 2021. A former US Treasury official told me last year that “the risk rating for the UAE increased with the listing, but it was already in a risk area due to the fact of its geography. If I were advising a company, it would be in the high risk bucket due to the known issues. That is already pegged in. Taking the UAE off the gray-list doesn’t make a big difference from the US risk standpoint.”

An oil-rich country like the UAE can arguably afford to deal with being deemed high risk, given its attractiveness to international capital and as a major hydrocarbons producer, but many countries do not have such buoyant economies or the petrodollars.

As a result of being high-risk, money flows out of countries and gets deposited in ‘safe jurisdictions’, particularly the USA, and to a lesser extent the UK, Europe and its archipelago of offshore tax havens. This helps shore up US dollar hegemony, or what economist Michael Hudson has termed the “current volatile and predatory dollar-centered system”.

FATF’s recent decisions show once again where the so-called international financial system is centered and how it is politicized. The rules – as well as the loop-holes – were created by the West, and can be used as a form financial warfare elsewhere in the world to shore-up the dominance of the Western financial system.

New warning strikes in Germany’s public sector

Marianne Arens

Public sector workers in Germany are striking again this week. Hundreds of thousands have already stopped work, and virtually all federal states are affected. It is well known that kindergartens, hospitals, public utilities, public transport companies and administrative offices have long been working at their limit in the face of rampant staff shortages and cuts in real wages.

There is also growing anger at the service sector union Verdi, which does not want to organise an effective joint strike movement. Verdi officials may be making big speeches about the “frivolous” offer from the other side, but behind the scenes they are preparing a sell-out, as the example of Deutsche Post shows.

Postal workers voted 86 percent in favour of an indefinite strike in a ballot, but Verdi subsequently struck an agreement with the Deutsche Post board within hours. The Verdi negotiating committee has accepted a contract that is just as bad as the first offer, which workers overwhelmingly rejected.

'Underpaid, understaffed, overworked, overburdened,' this social worker from Hesse expresses the mood among public sector workers [Photo: WSWS]

“Underpaid, understaffed, overworked, overburdened”—with this hand-made poster, a social worker from Hesse summed up the general mood of public sector workers. For a fundamental improvement in their situation, social workers, educators, municipal employees, nurses in municipal hospitals, retirement homes and providing care for the disabled, as well as refuse collectors, streetcar drivers and many others went on strike yesterday.

While in Saxony there was a strike on Monday, in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia Verdi called for a separate strike on Tuesday. Around 30,000 took part in three rallies in Gelsenkirchen, Monchengladbach, and Cologne. Another 20,000 took part in warning strikes in Baden-Württemberg on Wednesday, and there are to be further actions and a central rally in Leipzig on Friday.

In Berlin, staff at the Employment Agency and Job Centre were on strike on Wednesday, along with employees in vocational training and student services. On Thursday, the Berlin hospitals Charité, Vivantes and the Vivantes subsidiaries as well as the Jewish Hospital were again on strike.

Workers in the city's sanitation services and water companies were also set to strike on Thursday and Friday. Apprentices at various municipal companies and the local transport provider BVG also took part in the warning strike Thursday. Drivers are planning to strike March 27 together with EVG railroad workers, who are also in a wages dispute.

In Hamburg, Germany's largest port remained closed to large ships on Wednesday morning, as pilots remain on strike until Friday. Furthermore, workers on the Kiel Canal (NOK) at the locks in Kiel and Brunsbüttel are also to go on strike for the first time on Friday.

Strikers rally in front of the headquarters of the employers' association (KAV) in Frankfurt/Main [Photo: WSWS]

In Frankfurt on Wednesday, several thousand workers from the city's public utilities, nurseries, AWO nursing homes, Mainova (electricity and gas supplier) and the municipal transport company took part. The city appeared very quiet, as no streetcars or subway trains were running, and municipal offices were closed. About 2,000 strikers from the city and surrounding areas participated in a central rally in the city centre, in front of the headquarters of the employers' association (KAV).

Many of them felt that Verdi was demanding too little, while others expected at least the official demand would be enforced this time. This amounts to a 10.5 percent wage increase for a period of one year, with a minimum of €500 per month and €200 for apprentices.

In the second bargaining round, federal and local public sector employers rejected raising basic rates, something that would particularly benefit low-wage earners. Instead, they are offering a total of 5 percent over 27 months, plus an additional one-time payment of €2,500. This does not come close to compensating for the loss in wages due to inflation and the pay freezes of recent years.

Ben, a municipal utility worker from Bad Nauheim, with colleagues [Photo: WSWS]

Ben, who works at Bad Nauheim's municipal utility provider, came to Frankfurt with his colleagues. “Above all, we need more money,” Ben says. “Everything depends on that. We definitely need the ten percent for one year, that’s what we're fighting for, and that’s what we have to achieve.” Low wages meant that hardly anyone was interested in the profession, and staff shortages were the result, he said.

This was confirmed by Kirsten, Merle, and Anna, three educators from a municipal after-school care centre in Mühlheim. “Improved conditions, better wages, more staff and good training,” one said, then we could see further, that would be a start. Right now, we’re all exhausted because there’s a lack of staff, and it’s getting worse.”

Horst, who works for the city of Offenbach, thinks Verdi was asking for far too little. “Giving everyone a thousand euros more per month, that would be a start,” Horst says.”' "Why is our work worth less than that of IT specialists and bankers?” But he has no confidence that Verdi will follow through: “What Verdi did at Deutsche Post was a breach of trust; they should have gone on strike.”

An employee of the Offenbach Youth Welfare Office also agrees: “It’s an outrage what happened at Deutsche Post office.” But no one is talking about it, he says. “There, 86 percent voted for a strike, and then it’s all concluded [by the union] very quickly.” He suspects Verdi doesn’t want a big strike at all. “Why don’t we all strike together? We could really achieve something.”

Employees of the Youth Welfare Office, Offenbach [Photo: WSWS]

Many reacted with horror to information about the hasty deal struck at Deutsche Post, as did Steve, a social worker from Frankfurt. “We’re fighting for higher wages and better working conditions here, after all,” he says. At the moment, the situation is so tense that there is no time at all for proper pre- and post- case processing, he adds. “This also affects the children and young people. The staffing shortage affects everything; it’s built up over decades.”

Steve feels the union leadership has “slept through” the situation. He himself studied social work, has a degree, “but compared to engineers and all the other degrees, I make a lot less. That doesn’t make any sense. Why is it worth more to build a house or a bridge than to take care of your kids and take care of society?”

Like many others, Steve says he does not understand “why we’re so tame here.” At the same time, he says, there was a real strike going on in France right now.

Very many felt that under no circumstances should Verdi be allowed to make a deal for two years. One worker said: “Who knows what will happen in a year? There’s a war in Ukraine, and several banks—like Credit Suisse—have already collapsed.”

Educators from Hesse demand, 'Education instead of child minding.' They charge, 'We can't work as badly as we are paid' [Photo: WSWS]

The warning strikes foreshadow the power workers could unleash to truly change conditions. Some 2.5 million federal and local public service workers are affected by the current pay round, which also impacts municipal contractors, non-profits, and civil servants.

But federal and municipal public sector employers will not offer an acceptable solution next week either. Especially after the sell-out at Deutsche Post, they are relying on Verdi, hoping the union will succeed—as it has every time so far—in stalling the labour dispute and pushing through a new sell-out.

Scientists find extensive wildlife DNA from the Wuhan wet market mixed with SARS-CoV-2

Benjamin Mateus

A devastating blow has been dealt to the claims by US right-wing politicians and media outlets that the COVID-19 pandemic is the product of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with a new study documenting scientifically, for the first time, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA mixed with the DNA of numerous wild animals being sold at the Huanan wet market in Wuhan.

A preliminary finding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA mixed with the DNA of a raccoon dog from the Huanan wet market was made public late last week, and the WSWS commented on it March 20. Now the full report has been released linking the DNA of several other wild animals from the market to the virus that causes COVID-19.

The study adds to the mountain of evidence supporting that theory of a zoonotic origin for the coronavirus, with the virus jumping from animals to humans when they came into contact at the market. SARS-CoV-2 is a natural virus, not an artificial one, manufactured in a Chinese laboratory, as the US media campaign claims, on the basis of zero evidence except for the sick imagination of fascists like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and racist former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade.

The study was released Monday on the Zenodo website by Dr. Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (NCSR) and lead author. Dr. Débarre and her co-authors found genetic evidence of susceptible wildlife among positive SARS-CoV-2 samples at the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market taken in January and February of 2020.

Dr. Florence Débarre

It is precisely the recent identification of raccoon dog and other wild animals’ DNA at the Huanan market mixed with SARS-CoV-2 RNA that provides further compelling evidence that this was the epicenter for the origin of the pandemic in late 2019.

As Débarre noted in introductory remarks, she and her team, almost by chance, had on March 4, 2023 come across a set of genetic sequences publicly posted on the database of the GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, from environmental samples collected at the wet market in Wuhan. Débarre told Nature, “Basically, [they’re] the ones we’ve been waiting for, for a year.”

She and her colleagues downloaded approximately half-a-terabyte of genetic sequences for around fifty different samples that included drains, market stalls and carts, as well as the grounds in the Huanan market. What was remarkable was finding genetic sequences for multiple animals. 

The Chinese authorities had denied the existence of such wild animals known to be susceptible to SARS-Cov-2 and able to function as potential intermediary hosts for a zoonotic spillover into human. But a paper published on June 7, 2021, in Nature under the title, “Animal sales from Wuhan wet markets immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” reported that between May 2017 and November 2019 some 47,381 individual animals from 38 species (including 31 protected species) had been sold.

The paper additionally noted that no pangolins were traded there, which supported an earlier finding that these animals were not likely to have caused the spillover into human populations. Dr. Peter Daszak had explained that “it was doubtful that this species played a role in the outbreak. We need to keep looking for the original reservoir.” The president of EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak has for more than two decades worked tirelessly on the question of potential pandemic pathogens. He has become the target of the right-wing conspiracy theorists because his group had collegial connections with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Indeed, the present report corroborates that no pangolin DNA was found. However, DNA samples for five different species of wildlife—raccoon dog, Malayan porcupine, Amur Hedgehog, masked palm civet, and hoary bamboo rat—were present. 

Chart shows where at the Wuhan wet market wild-animal DNA was found mixed with SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

Débarre and colleagues wrote that when they notified the former head of the Chinese CDC, George Gao, on March 10, 2023, that they had found animal species linked to SARS-CoV-2 in the genetic samples, the sequences were made unavailable the next day and the CCDC declined to respond to inquiries. The NCSR researchers were also admonished by the GISAID Secretariat for supposedly not complying with terms of use and their privileges suspended, until objections were raised that there were no violations of the terms of use.  

The Chinese CDC had said in a February 2022 report on their investigation, released in preprint form, that no infected animals had been identified after the market was closed down on January 1, 2020. 

As the CCDC report stated, “Herein, we presented the SARS-CoV-2 detection results of 1,380 samples collected from the environment and the animals within the market in early 2020. By SARS-CoV-2 specific RT-qPCR, 73 environmental samples tested positive for SARS-Cov-2 and three live viruses were successfully isolated … In contrast, no virus was detected in the animal swabs covering 18 species of animals in the market. The SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids in the positive environmental samples showed significant correlation of abundance of Homo sapiens with SARS-CoV-2. In summary, this study provided convincing evidence of the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the Huanan Seafood Market during the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak.”

On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of the Débarre group’s findings. The next day, leading epidemiologists Michael Worobey, Edward Holmes, and Kristian Andersen met some of the members SAGO (the WHO-convened Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel pathogens) to review the findings. 

As the introductory comment from the published report notes, “We cannot comment on the CCDC team’s findings, as those are theirs to share, but some findings from our analyses have already been shared in the media and in in public statements by the WHO. This meeting constitutes one of several efforts to establish a collaborative relationship with our colleagues at CCDC to share data and findings as rapidly as possible.” 

Moreover, Débarre recognizes the important work that was done by the CCDC when she said, “They did what needed to be done. We wouldn’t have this data, if it wasn’t for their work.” Behind her comments stands the need to address the origin question through scientific and open collaboration, rather than the right-wing imperialist demonization of China that is escalating once again.

Although it is understood that SARS-CoV-2’s ancestors originated in bats, how coronavirus passed into human populations is a critical question that scientists have been attempting to study in the laboratory since the SARS epidemic two decades ago. Field research has been critical in identifying recent SARS-CoV-2 related viruses. Additionally, research into such specific features as the furin cleavage site and the adaptive mechanisms these viruses evolve to jump into other species is critical. Apparently, the acquisition of such genetic characteristics is more commonplace than previously understood.

This is a an issue of political as well as scientific importance, because right-wing conspiracy theorists have sought to capitalize on the lack of understanding of the scientific complexities to suggest that the furin cleavage site had to be specially engineered in a laboratory and could not have evolved naturally.

A report from 2021 on the global diversification and distribution of furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses found that at least “86 types of furin cleavage sites have been detected in strains of three coronavirus genera in 24 animal hosts in 28 countries since 1954, including at least 25 types in Beta-coronaviruses recorded in the years 1988-2019 in 14 countries. Most of them could cause unexpected threats to human beings or other mammals. Four of seven coronaviruses known to infect humans carry furin cleavage sites, including two with low pathogenicity (HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1) and two highly pathogenic zoonotic viruses (MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2).”

They added, “Moreover, evidence of frequent interchange of furin cleavage site motifs among the three coronavirus genera indicates that frequencies of recombination of coronaviruses’ furin cleavage sites may have been underestimated.”

Graphical representation of the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 comparing the same location n the coronaviruses of the bat and the pangolin

In the early days of February 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH Director Francis Collins, and Dr. Jeremey Farrar, then Director of the Wellcome Trust, assembled an international cadre of foremost virologists and scientists to study the question of where COVID-19 came from, which eventually led to the critically important and still relevant paper titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.” 

After extensive debate and analysis of the extant data, the scientists wrote, “Our analyses clearly shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”

Most extraordinary is the list of authors on the report who have been at the forefront of studying the question, including several directly involved in this question in late January 2020 when they first raised their concerns that the novel coronavirus may have been bio-engineered. But their investigation convinced them otherwise.

They concluded, “Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here [various notions of how the zoonotic transfer took place]. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD [Receptor Binding Domain] and polybasic cleavage site [Furin Cleavage Site], in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

They noted, “More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another. Obtaining related viral sequences from animal sources would be the most definitive way of revealing viral origins.”

Despite the continued accumulation of evidence corroborating the zoonotic spillover of SARS-CoV-2, the highly provocative and malicious congressional hearings held on March 8 on the COVID origins attempted to give political credence and legitimacy to the reactionary conspiracy theory that posits the virus that causes COVID was bio-engineered and leaked from the WIV.

This week President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, a bill sponsored by the fascistic Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. This new legislation which passed the Senate and House earlier and has unanimous support from both parties, ordered the Director of National Intelligence to declassify within 90 days all pertinent information pertaining to the Wuhan institute and COVID-19. 

By all accounts, the release of the intelligence data of low confidence, will be couched in the most obvious and malignant terms. Regardless of the weight of evidence that continues to be discovered, the ruling elites in Washington will seize the opportunity to use the bogus lab-leak conspiracy theory to further their anti-China agenda.

Clashes erupt across France as police assault record protests to defend pensions

Anthony Torres & Alex Lantier

Yesterday was the first national day of action organized by the union bureaucracies in France after President Emmanuel Macron succeeded in ramming through his pension cuts without a vote in parliament. He trampled underfoot the opposition of nearly 80 percent of the population who reject Macron’s cuts. Over 3.5 million people marched across France yesterday, as working class anger explodes against this naked assertion of dictatorial power.

There is no “democratic” way forward for the working class within the framework of the capitalist state, and there is no deal to be made with Macron. Aware that his imposition of the cuts would produce an eruption of anger, he instead mobilized the largest police deployment yet to attack the protests. With 5,000 elite, heavily armed riot policemen deployed in Paris alone, clashes erupted and fires broke out in cities across France.

There were record protests in Marseille (245,000), Toulouse (120,000), Bordeaux and Lille (both 100,000), and Lyon (50,000), according to trade union sources. Many smaller cities also saw record participation, such as Brest, Caen and Nice (40,000), Saint-Etienne (35,000), Rouen (23,000), or Laval (9,600). In Paris, the trade unions estimated that 800,000 people protested in different gatherings.

Police clearly had received instructions to attack marchers far more aggressively even than in previous days of action. In cities across the country, they systematically blocked the onward movement of marches and charged individual sectors of the march, provoking clashes that intensified over the course of the evening. Last night, the Interior Ministry reported 177 arrests, and that 149 policemen or military police had been wounded nationwide.

In Bordeaux, police fired tear gas and charged the march early in the demonstration, and clashes spread across the center of the city. In the evening, a group of protesters marched on city hall and burned down its main entrance.

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Marchers in Marseille went to the nearby fuel depot at Fos-sur-Mer to give support to fuel depot and refinery workers, who are taking nationwide industrial action. A heavy police presence surrounded the facility at Fos. As fuel shortages spread across France, especially in the southeast, the government is cracking down, trying to serve requisition orders to force strikers back to work. Defying the requisition order is punishable by six months in prison and a €10,000 fine.

To help workers at the CIM fuel depot in Normandy evade requisition orders, dockers from Le Havre, France’s second-largest port after Marseille, have placed shipping containers across the entrance to the facility, blocking it off.

In Rouen, an investigation has been opened after a police stun grenade fired at a group of striking teachers tore part of a woman’s hand off.

In Rennes, police fired two water cannon and tear gas in streets and squares across the city. Nathalie Appéré, the city’s PS mayor, sent an open letter to Macron that reflects fear growing in layers of the ruling class that he is losing control. She said: “Day after day, violence is repeated in our streets, we see scenes of chaos. Day after day, police are mobilized in large numbers. But it is no longer enough to protect our city. ... I call on the President of the Republic: You have the power to stop this downward spiral.”

Similar points were made by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the head of the Unsubmissive France (LFI) party allied to the social-democratic Socialist Party and the Stalinist French Communist Party. He appeared last night on TF1 television, begging Macron to defuse the situation by giving the state bureaucracy time to study his cuts.

Mélenchon said, “Mr Macron, withdraw your cuts and give the matter over to the Administrative Council for Social Security. From 2027 to 2029 the pension budget will be balanced, so it’s a matter of dividing things up? People do not need to work two years more.”

The explosive conflict between the working class and the capitalist state will not be resolved by the French state administration, whatever the arguments of Mélenchon. Far broader class forces have entered the fray. Macron, having publicly boasted in his TV interview Wednesday afternoon that he is willing to be unpopular, is leading a class war of the financial oligarchy and the riot police on the workers. And the workers, having risen up against Macron’s dictatorial measures on pensions, are entering into a direct confrontation with the capitalist state.

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In Paris, police charged demonstrators in the main march early on in the afternoon. Clashes with protesters continued across the center of Paris throughout the evening, with riot police totally sealing off Opera Square during the evening, kettling large numbers of protesters inside. Mobile teams of military police appeared from the subway also to fire tear gas into the crowd, which responded with chants of, “Everyone hates the police.”

For the first time during protests against Macron, riot police in Paris also deployed attack dogs against protesters.

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Certain reports indicate that constant street fighting with large numbers of people is beginning to exhaust the riot police. Some units were seen standing and resting in the street; in one instance, separate units lost overall coordination and fired tear gas at each other.

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In Paris, the WSWS spoke to Maia, a high school student, on Macron’s imposition of the cuts without a vote, despite overwhelming popular opposition. She said, “We are not in a democracy. We have protested many times since the beginning. So now what this means is that basically they dictate their laws every time and they are not afraid of losing elections, so they can do anything. It will be too easy.”

Fanny and Ninon, two university students, also denounced Macron’s imposition of the cuts without a vote: “It is shameful, it is an attack on democracy. ... At no point have the people been listened to, it has been treated with contempt. One has the feeling that the only thing that bothers him is that the trash is not being picked up” because of the garbagemen’s strike.

Ninon spoke of the growing anger among youth, as the capitalist state systematically shuts off every avenue inside the existing political system for the masses to advocate for policies in their interests.

She said, “It has been several years that we have gone on protests, we feel it is necessary. Each time we have had this same impression of contempt on the one side, and of enormous anger that has existed for a long time on the other. We use every democratic means at our disposal and they do not work, so questions are posed. We play by the rules of that game, but on the other side, they do not.”

Fanny pointed to the link between Macron’s antidemocratic policies and the 100-billion-euro fortunes amassed by France’s leading billionaires. She said, “For me, that should be illegal. It is impossible to amass that much money without at some point having exploited someone. These are astronomical sums; it is really sick.”

Yesterday evening, the all-trade union alliance that called yesterday’s protest met to call for another national day of action, this time for March 28. These bureaucracies, whose leaders are in discussions with Macron on the pension cuts and the scheduling of protests, are terrified that they might lose control of protests and strikes. They have no intention of fighting to bring down Macron, but call actions to try to keep control of protests in an emerging, objectively revolutionary crisis.

Macron brazenly defends decision to impose pension cuts without parliamentary vote

Alex Lantier

Yesterday, in a mid-afternoon TV address, President Emmanuel Macron defended his move to impose pension cuts opposed by 80 percent of the French people without a vote in parliament. He also pledged to pass a new immigration law that aims to speed up deportations and limit the right to asylum.

Macron’s address totally exposed those, like the leaders of France’s union confederations or the Unsubmissive France (LFI) party, who argued for impotently imploring Macron not to promulgate the law he had just imposed. Even as millions of workers strike and protest today, it is evident that Macron intends to run roughshod over basic social and democratic rights.

His address, timed to fall at a time when few workers could watch it, confirmed that there is no “democratic” way forward in the struggle against Macron. He is trampling public opinion underfoot to impose the diktat of the banks, diverting tens of billions of euros from pensions to bank bailouts and the military build-up for war with Russia. His actions have torn the “democratic” veil off the state, which is a naked dictatorship of the capitalist oligarchy that impoverishes the masses via presidential fiat and police violence.

Before his TV address, speaking to members of his own Rennaissance party, Macron provocatively asserted that the people do not have the legitimacy to challenge his government. He said, “If you believe in the democratic and republican order, riots do not trump the representatives of the people, and crowds have no legitimacy against the people whose sovereignty is expressed through its elected officials.”

This is a conception of elections with which any dictator could agree. According to Macron’s argument, being elected president means that until the next elections, one is free to trample the will of the people underfoot. Mass protests with overwhelming popular support must bow, in this view, to diktat of the president and his hordes of thousands of heavily-armed riot police.

During his TV interview, Macron maintained this anti-democratic pretense, ludicrously claiming that by slashing pensions and living standards, he is defending democracy against the people. “The reform will pursue its democratic path,” Macron claimed about his pension cuts, adding: “This reform is necessary, there are not 36 solutions. … I am ready to be unpopular.”

Asked if there is anything he regretted or would have done differently, Macron said he regretted “not having succeeded in convincing people of the need for the reform.”

In fact, the justifications Macron advanced for his cuts failed to convince the population because they were all lies. These included above all the claims that the pension system is bankrupt, and that there is no more money to be found. In reality, the pension system has a balanced budget; if there is no more money for it, it is that Macron is raising military spending by nearly 100 billion euros over the rest of the decade, while leaving his billionaire backers like Bernard Arnault at a zero percent effective tax rate.

Having admitting that the population is convinced his cuts are destructive and bitterly opposed to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s government, Macron pledged to keep Borne in office. He pledged to carry out a “forced march” on policies like the draconian immigration bill.

Finally, Macron defended himself against press criticisms of his provocative comment that he has more democratic legitimacy than the views of over three-quarters of the French people. He compared workers striking against his cuts to neo-Nazi forces who supported then-US President Donald Trump’s attempted putsch on January 6, 2021 targeting the Capitol building in Washington, or to military officers plotting a coup in last year’s Brazilian elections.

Denouncing workers exercising their constitutionally-protected right to strike and protest as “agents of sedition,” Macron said: “Given that the United States went through what they did at the Capitol, and that Brazil went through what it did, we must say, ‘We respect, we listen,’ but we cannot accept either agents of sedition or rebellious factions.”

This turns reality on its head. Trump’s coup attempt in America took place when the sitting president tried to block the congressional certification of his defeat in the 2020 elections, trampling the election result underfoot. Brazil’s military officials also attempted a Trump-style putsch, working closely with the sitting president, Jair Bolsonaro, after the election result went against him.

It is Macron, using the prerogatives of his office and his control over France’s massive police-state machine, who is also trying to trample the will of the people, not tens of millions of workers in France who are opposed to the slashing of their pensions and living standards.

Class tensions are continuing to mount rapidly in the run-up to today’s one-day protest against the pension cuts. Macron is continuing to deploy heavily-armed riot police to attack protesters and now also to assault the picket lines of refinery and garbage collection workers striking against his cuts.

The way forward for the working class in this confrontation with the capitalist state and Macron is to take strike struggles out of the hands of forces like the union bureaucracies and the pseudo-left, who tie workers to the capitalist state machine on the fraudulent grounds that it is democratic. The feckless and cowardly response of the French political establishment to Macron’s address shows they are bankrupt and organically tied to the capitalist state machine.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said that Macron had acted with “the usual signs of contempt” for the public. Accusing Macron of “living outside of all reality,” Mélenchon asked, “How is it possible, as the country is plunging into a dead end, …[to] lie with such arrogance?”

One reason why Macron can lie with such arrogance is that he is sure that Mélenchon and his allies will make no serious attempt to mobilize opposition against him. During the 2022 presidential elections, Mélenchon received nearly 8 million votes, including majorities in the working class districts of almost all of France’s largest cities. Now, as two-thirds of the French people support a general strike to stop Macron, a campaign by LFI for a general strike could rapidly bring down the Macron government.

But Mélenchon has abstained from making any such appeals and is instead trying to drive the workers behind the union bureaucracy and its impotent perspective of seeking negotiated settlements with the capitalist state machine.

Yesterday, the leader of the Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) bureaucracy, Philippe Martinez, lamely insisted that his union should not bear the blame for actions the workers may take against the Macron government in anger at his remarks. Martinez said, “These remarks will stoke the anger. He did not take into account either our warnings, or the anger. … The trade union organizations asked him to invite us for talks. We pointed to the explosive situation.”

Macron refused to invite union leaders, Martinez complained, and has “taken no heed of the determination” of workers.

Martinez and other high-ranking CGT bureaucrats failed to make any appeal to mobilize workers more broadly in defense of refinery and garbage workers assaulted by Macron’s police.

Chinese and Russian presidents meet as US targets both countries

Peter Symonds

Chinese President Xi Jinping has just concluded his high-profile two-day trip to Moscow and meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin at which the two leaders declared their cooperation had “reached the highest level in history” and, in opposition to the United States, declared their determination to “safeguard the international system” based on the United Nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands after talks at The Grand Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, Russia, March 21, 2023. [AP Photo/Mikhail Tereshchenko, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool]

Their joint statement not only outlined agreements reached to strengthen bilateral economic and strategic ties but amounted to a diplomatic counteroffensive against Washington’s belligerent propaganda as it recklessly escalates the conflict against Russia in Ukraine and accelerates its preparations for war with China.

The two leaders hit out at Washington, urging “the United States to stop undermining international and regional security and global strategic stability in order to maintain its own unilateral military superiority.”

The US media paints Xi and Putin as a threat to the “international rules-based order”—that is, the post-World War II order in which Washington set the rules. But China and Russia have been driven together, despite longstanding disputes and disagreements, by necessity out of weakness, not great strength, to push back against US aggression and provocations that threaten to engulf the world in a global war between nuclear-armed powers.

There was absolutely nothing progressive about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the chief responsibility for the devastating war rests with Washington, which pushed NATO towards Russia’s borders and poured billions into the Ukrainian military to destabilise and ultimately subordinate Russia. The US and its allies have imposed crippling sanctions on Moscow and effectively excluded it from global finance.

With staggering hypocrisy, the US has pushed for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes—a move that would be far more appropriate for a string of US presidents, including Biden.

Washington, however, regards the war against Russia as the prelude to a conflict with China, which it regards as the chief threat to its global dominance. In a replay of the lead-up to the Ukraine war, the Biden administration is seeking to goad Beijing into attacking Taiwan as the pretext for war with China.

The US is engaged in an accelerating arms build-up throughout the region, including provocatively in Taiwan, and the strengthening of its military alliances in Asia, including with NATO members such as Britain, France and Germany. At the same time, the Biden administration has maintained the massive tariffs on China imposed under Trump and is seeking to cripple Chinese hi-tech industries by banning the sale of advanced semiconductors and related equipment.

The Xi-Putin summit in Moscow marks the end of American geopolitical strategy pioneered more than 50 years ago by US president Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger who engineered a rapprochement with China and de facto alliance against the Soviet Union. The deal was sealed by Nixon’s visit to Beijing and meeting with Mao Zedong in February 1972.

Mao’s pact set into motion the process of the restoration of the market in China amid the rise of economic globalization in subsequent decades. The effect of these global processes on the Soviet Union and the crisis of the nationalist dogma of socialism in one country also produced the crisis that led to the dissolution of the USSR.

The US strategy set in train processes that ultimately led to the dissolution in 1991 of the Soviet Union, the establishment of Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics as separate nation-states and a massive economic and social regression. Mao’s pact with US imperialism also opened the door for the processes of capitalist restoration, spurred as in Russia by the globalization of production.

More than 30 years after the end of the Soviet Union, US imperialism, facing a continuing historic decline and an immense economic and social crisis at home, has swung geopolitical policy into reverse over the past decade. Russia and China, now two capitalist powers, have retained a degree of independence from the US-dominated world order that is intolerable to Washington. That is particularly the case with China, whose economy ballooned as a result of the massive influx of investment and technology by American and international corporations eager to make super-profits from cheap Chinese labour.

Significantly, it is Xi who is projecting China on the world stage as the peacemaker in opposition to the US. A key aspect of the discussion between the two leaders was Beijing’s proposals announced last month for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia for a ceasefire and an end to a war that is devastating both countries.

On Tuesday, following talks with Xi, Putin embraced the Chinese peace plan, declaring it could “be taken as the basis for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, when the West and Kyiv are ready for it.” In a barely disguised criticism of NATO’s encroachment in Eastern Europe, the joint statement opposed “any country or group of countries harming the legitimate security interests of other countries in pursuit of military, political and other advantages.”

Not surprisingly, the US slammed the Chinese peace plan as it cuts across Washington’s aims to use the war to bring Moscow to its knees. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced any call for a ceasefire “that does not include the removal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory,” claiming it would effectively be “the ratification of Russian conquest” and “allow President Putin to rest and refit his troops.”

Blinken also latched onto Putin’s arrest warrant conveniently issued just days before Xi’s visit to criticise China for failing “to hold the Kremlin accountable for the atrocities committed in Ukraine, and instead of even condemning them, it would rather provide diplomatic cover for Russia to continue to commit those very crimes.”

Despite the US stance which Kiev publicly echoes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was open to “dialogue” with China about its proposals. Prior to Xi’s arrival in Moscow, a possible online video call was mooted between the Chinese and Ukrainian presidents. Citing a senior Ukrainian official, CNN reported on Tuesday that discussions were underway between the two countries to facilitate such a call but nothing had been scheduled.

The joint statement between Xi and Putin highlighted an extensive list of geopolitical issues on which the two agreed, and areas of economic cooperation to be facilitated.

The leaders expressed their “serious concern” about the AUKUS pact between the US, United Kingdom and Australia and the timeline just announced for the provision of nuclear-powered attack submarines to the Australian navy that are clearly targeted against China. They also express the same serious concern over “NATO’s continued strengthening of military security ties with Asia-Pacific countries, which undermines regional peace and stability.”

Putin and Xi also announced a further boost to China’s purchase of Russian energy and the building of a second major gas pipeline—the Power of Siberia-2—across Mongolia to China. Russia in return is helping to build several new nuclear power reactors in China. The joint statement listed other major joint projects “in civil aircraft and helicopter production, nonferrous metallurgy, space exploration, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, as well as other science-intensive areas.

Under intense pressure from the US and its closest allies, Russia and China are being driven together—economically, politically and militarily. The latest Xi-Putin summit is another sign that what is rapidly emerging are opposing blocs in a world war driven by US imperialism but for which neither the Chinese or Russian regimes have any progressive solution.