CDC covers up spread of Omicron XBB.1.16, the latest COVID variant

Benjamin Mateus

Once again, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has delayed announcing the presence of the latest Omicron variant of interest that is circulating the globe, Omicron XBB.1.16, given the name “Arcturus” by virologists. With XBB.1.5 in retreat, XBB.1.16 has rapidly gained momentum, accounting for 7.2 percent of all sequenced variants last week. However, two other new Omicron sub-lineages, XBB.1.9.1 (6.5 percent) and XBB.1.9.2 (2.5 percent), are also of concern. 

The Omicron XBB.1.16 subvariant first drew international attention in India last month. It was quickly placed on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of variants “to watch” on March 22, 2023. So far, it has been detected in at least 33 countries. However, as surveillance and sequencing are being ended, the ability of public health agencies to detect the emergence of a new variant of concern will be severely affected.

As Rajendram Rajnarayanan, PhD, an assistant dean of research and associate professor at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, recently noted, “closing up shop too early could mean we are blindsided.” He added, “You have to maintain a base level of sequencing for new variants. Right now, the variant that is ‘top dog’ in the world is XBB.1.16.”

According to the CDC’s latest “weighted estimates” of variant proportion, it appears this variant of interest had attained the 1 percent threshold for reporting as early as the week ending March 18, 2023. The CDC is required to report new variants of interest when they reach the 1 percent threshold.

Estimates of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants in the US, for 2023 [Photo: Greg Travis]

By the week ending on April 1, 2023, the proportion of XBB.1.16 variants had climbed to 2.1 percent. Yet, a review of the list of variants of interest at the time in a WSWS report published on April 3, 2023, which included an examination of the CDC’s tracker, found no mention of it by the national health agency. At the time, we wrote, “In the US, XBB.1.5 remains the dominant version, accounting for 88 percent of all sequenced variants as of the first week of April. They [the CDC] have not listed XBB.1.16…” We then noted that Arcturus had been detected in 18 states and its descendant, XBB.1.16.1, was present in 14 states.

The omission of XBB.1.16 in the CDC’s variant surveillance report is the third time this is has happened since last October, with only the WSWS exposing these blatant cover-ups. It coincides with the push by the Biden administration to shut down all official response to the pandemic and prematurely declare it over. Alongside every political maneuver by the White House and Congress regarding the pandemic, carried out to suit the needs of finance capital to shut down both mitigation measures and even elementary tracking of critical data in real time, the CDC has responded in lockstep.

As a prelude to the May 11 ending of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, President Joe Biden has signed the bipartisan-backed bill that ended the COVID National Emergency (a separate legal measure).

Professor Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and data scientist, speaking with WebMD, commented, “It’s a bit ironic to have a date for the end of a public health emergency; viruses don’t care about calendars. COVID-19 is still going to be here; it’s still going to mutate. I’m most concerned about our ability to track the virus. It’s not clear what surveillance we will still have in the states and around the globe.” She added, “We still need to approach this virus with humility; that’s at least what I will continue to do.”

Given the current trajectory of XBB.1.16 , it is expected to become dominant in the US just as the COVID public health emergency is officially ended, leaving the population to fend for itself at a moment when the latest wave of infections gains its full momentum. 

In a recent non-peer-reviewed study by Kei Sato and the Genotype to Phenotype Japan Consortium at the University of Tokyo, published on bioRxiv on April 6, 2023, the authors underscore why this subvariant, XBB.1.16, has raised eyebrows. 

It is a recombination of two subvariants, BA2.10.1 and BA.2.75. They explained that the “effective reproductive number” of XBB.1.16 was “1.27- and 1.17-fold higher than the parental XBB.1 and XBB.1.15, respectively, suggesting that XBB.1.16 will spread worldwide in the near future.” It also has robust resistance to antibodies like a variety of other Omicron variants like BA.2 and BA.5 which were dominant last summer. 

The authors concluded, “Altogether, our data suggest that XBB.1.16 has a greater growth advantage in the human population compared to XBB.1 and XBB.1.5, while the ability of XBB.1.16 to exhibit profound immune evasion is comparable to XBB.1 and XBB.1.15.” They surmised that these changes may be due to its newly acquired mutations.

Over three years into the pandemic, the coronavirus demonstrates persistence and an ability to constantly redefine its characteristics and find new molecular ways to infect and reinfect the population regardless of the global population immunity from prior infections and multiple courses of vaccination. This is the fundamental reason why a global elimination strategy remains the only viable approach to this virus.

Objections claiming there are more “realistic” and “practical” alternatives to such a strategy, such as “herd immunity” or “endemicity” (accepting the permanence of COVID-19), are more than short sighted. They will be catastrophic for millions more people either as a direct result of new infections or as a result of the long-term impact that infections will have on the course of their lives.

A recent report published in Nature underscores the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on a person’s immune system. The authors wrote, “Owing to worldwide vaccination efforts, mortality due to COVID-19 has been decreasing, but we continue to witness considerable morbidity and increased rates of post-COVID-19 conditions and in particular, new-onset autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in individuals who have had COVID-19.”

Among working age adults, excess deaths from heart attacks have jumped during the pandemic. It was most pronounced among those between 25 and 44 years, with excess mortality having risen from 23 to 34 percent. Among the older groups, the rise in excess deaths from heart attacks had jumped only 13 to 18 percent by comparison.

This data was corroborated by Greg Travis, an advocate of an aggressive response to COVID, who has continued to analyze the epidemiologic data on a daily basis. He found a similar rise in deaths among those 25 to 54 years old, with cardiovascular deaths jumping from a baseline of 9,319 deaths per month before the pandemic to over 11,878 deaths per month from March 2020 to April 2021, and 11,588 deaths per month from May 2021 to November 2022. 

Although official COVID deaths are already over 1.1 million, excess deaths in the US are over 15 percent higher than in pre-pandemic years, or up by more than 1.25 million deaths. These are not just due to an undercount of COVID deaths and deaths as a byproduct of previous COVID infection. They also relate to the broader impact the pandemic has had on a social scale. For instance, the reason behind the drop in life expectancy in the US stems from higher mortality among young people. 

The pandemic has not only exposed the rot in capitalism, but it has also heightened its destructive tendencies. And with the end of the official public health emergency, the impact on the health care system is expected to be catastrophic.

In light of these developments, a barely mentioned modeling study conducted by Airfinity found that there was a 27.5 percent chance that a pandemic as deadly as COVID-19 could take place in the next 10 years. Airfinity is a UK-based predictive health analytics company whose modeling was followed closely during China’s abandonment of Zero-COVID that led to mass rates of infections and deaths at the turn of the year.

The report states, “This new risk-assessment outlines the likelihood of future pandemics under varying degrees of severity. It shows that in a worst-case scenario, an avian flu type mutation that transmits from human to human could kill as many as 15,000 people in a single day in the UK.” They continued, “In recent times, we have seen an increase in the frequency of virus emergence. Climate change, the rise in international travel, a growing global population and the increasing threat posed by zoonotic diseases are some of the main factors contributing to the increase in high-risk outbreak incidences.”

It is precisely in regard to such global catastrophic developments that the refusal to develop an internationally based pandemic response infrastructure could prove disastrously fatal.

America’s barbarous prisons: A daily crime against humanity

Jacob Crosse

Sickening images released in the last week concerning the deaths of two inmates trapped in America’s gulag, the largest prison population in the world, have outraged millions of people in the US and internationally.

Lashawn Thompson, a 35-year-old black man, died in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia on September 12, 2022. Photos released by the family attorney last week show Thompson’s body covered with insects and lesions before he died in the jail.

Joshua McLemore, a 29-year-old white man who was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, starved to death in the Jackson County Jail in southern Indiana in August 2021. In a lawsuit filed last week, a lawyer for the family revealed that for nearly 20 days, McLemore was kept in solitary confinement despite displaying no aggressive behavior.

These two cases, representative of the thousands of cases of abuse, torture and outright murder in US prisons every year, refute the cynical and hypocritical claims proffered by President Joe Biden and the Democratic and Republican parties that capitalist America is a bastion of “freedom” and “human rights.” The emaciated corpses of McLemore and Thompson, left to rot in deplorable, inhuman cells, are not aberrations, but the daily reality of the American capitalist gulag.

The initial article about these two cases on the WSWS won a wide audience, with nearly 100,000 readers in less than a week. These readers were responding not only to the exposure of shocking atrocities, but to the stark contrast between the official US posturing about human rights and the reality facing working people.

The courageous and award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger commented on the disturbing photos this past weekend on Twitter: “Look, and recoil at, the photos below. They were taken in the barbaric prison system to which the UK and US and Australia conspire to send Julian Assange, an innocent man whose only ‘crime’ is real journalism.”

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Similarly, human rights lawyer and environmental activist Steven Donzinger characterized the treatment of Thompson as “state-sanctioned torture.”

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It is entirely possible, and even likely, that had the families of the deceased not been able to retain competent legal counsel these horrors would never have been revealed. In both instances, images detailing the torture both men endured while incarcerated were released as part of lawsuits, either ongoing or in preparation.

Neither man had been convicted of a crime. They were “innocent until proven guilty” when they died. Despite the fact that both men deteriorated physically and mentally and were denied medical care, no charges have been filed against any jailers, and in the case of McLemore, the district attorney has already ruled out criminal charges.

Thompson was a 35-year-old Florida native who “loved Atlanta,” according to his brother, Brad McCrae. While sleeping on a park bench on June 12, 2022, Thompson was arrested on a simple misdemeanor battery charge, according to a Georgia Tech police report. The charge stemmed from Thompson allegedly spitting at a cop, who transported him to the Fulton County Jail where he would die three months later.

While Thompson was incarcerated in the “mental health” wing of the Fulton County Jail, photos released by Michael D. Harper, a lawyer for Thompson’s family, showed him abandoned in a disgusting cell full of insects that proceeded to “eat him alive.” The disturbing photos released by Harper show Thompson covered in sores, insects and lesions. Thompson’s cell was filthy with grime and refuse, “unfit for a diseased animal,” the lawyer said.

Lashawn Thompson's body riddled with sores and lesions inside the Fulton County Jail. [Photo: Michael D. Harper, Esq]

Commenting on the decision to publicly release the disturbing photos, Thompson’s brother Brad McCrae invoked the memory of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black teen from Chicago who was murdered in 1955 for the “crime” of supposedly talking with a white woman. “It’s heartbreaking,” McCrae said in an interview with the Washington Post. “The pictures are really awful, they’re hard to look at.”

While the conditions Thompson endured before he died were outrageous and disgusting, they were not unique to Fulton County or exceptional in the US prison system. Inmates are among the most exploited and mistreated populations in American society, subject to everything from being denied medical care to being forced to carry out virtual slave-labor for major corporations while incarcerated.

Just over a year before Thompson was found dead in his cell, Joshua McLemore, a 29-year-old white man who suffered from schizophrenia, died after being starved to death in the Jackson County, Indiana, jail.

Suffering from severe psychosis after consuming methamphetamine, McLemore was in the emergency room when an off-duty police officer witnessed him grab the hair of a nurse, at which point the cop charged him with assault. He was hauled off to the Jackson County Jail and placed in an isolation cell.

While he was in “Padded Cell 7” at Jackson County, a windowless cell that did not have a bed, McLemore’s condition continued to worsen. In the course of 20 days, McLemore was alone in the cell, the fluorescent lights were kept on 24 hours a day, and the door to the bathroom was locked, forcing the ailing man to relieve himself on the same floor on which he slept and ate. An investigation by the state police found that during the more than 400 hours he was locked up in solitary confinement, McLemore rarely ate or drank, losing nearly 45 pounds.

Joshua McLemore starving to death inside the Jackson County Jail. [Photo: Jackson County Sheriff's Office]

Despite having been previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, and arrested at a hospital, McLemore was never given a basic medical intake exam by the jail staff, who never even photographed or fingerprinted him. But an “investigation” last year by Jackson County Prosecutor Jeffery Chalfant found “that no crimes were committed by employees of the Jackson County Jail related to the death of Joshua A McLemore.”

The lawsuits and photos in these cases have further exposed the sprawling US prison system, with over two million current inmates, for what it really is: a barbarous, inhumane and cruel system that tortures and kills working class, mentally unwell and poor people unfortunate enough to end up trapped within its confines.

How can a government that covers up and condones the brutal torture of its most vulnerable and unwell citizens claim to be fighting for “freedom” in Ukraine or anywhere else in the world? The fact is, as millions of people throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia know, US government intervention is not a harbinger of peace and human rights, but terror, exploitation and death.

The images released in the last week, reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib torture photos, are an embarrassment for the US ruling class. As was the case then, President Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party are silent on the deaths of these inmates because it exposes their “social justice” rhetoric as a fraudulent defense of the capitalist state.

The silence of the Democratic Party demonstrates that 20 years after the Iraq war, the abuse and torture that became official policy under the Bush administration overseas have been brought to the “homeland” by both big business parties, to be used against the American working class and class-conscious opponents of US imperialism.

NATO to surge troops to Russian border

Andre Damon

NATO forces land in Estonia during BALTOPS 2019 (NATO via Flickr)

NATO plans to surge troops to Russia’s border as part of an effort to become a “war-fighting alliance,” the New York Times reported Monday.

The Times wrote that “NATO now has deployed a battalion of multinational troops to eight countries along the eastern border with Russia. It is detailing how to enlarge those forces to brigade strength in those frontline states.”

A battalion can include up to 1,000 troops, while a brigade can include up to 5,000 troops, meaning that NATO could potentially plan to increase the number of troops on Russia’s borders fivefold, to up to 40,000 troops.

The Times reports that NATO “is also tasking thousands more forces, in case of war, to move quickly in support, with newly detailed plans for mobility and logistics and stiffer requirements for readiness.”

Politico, meanwhile, has cited even larger numbers. On March 18, it reported, “In the coming months, the alliance will accelerate efforts to stockpile equipment along the alliance’s eastern edge and designate tens of thousands of forces that can rush to allies’ aid on short notice… The numbers will be large, with officials floating the idea of up to 300,000 NATO forces.”

“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” wrote the Times, has launched “a full-throttled effort” to prepare for military operations all along its eastern flank.

As the Times put it, this “means a revolution in practical terms: more troops based permanently along the Russian border,” It also means “more integration of American and allied war plans, more military spending and more detailed requirements for allies to have specific kinds of forces and equipment to fight, if necessary, in pre-assigned places.”

The alliance has “shed remaining inhibitions about increased numbers of Western troops all along NATO’s border with Russia,” the Times stated.  The aim is “to make NATO’s forces not only more robust and more capable but also more visible to Russia.”

Additional troops will be placed under the direct authority of Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who also commands American forces in Europe, as part of the NATO alliance’s decision.

The Times reports that General Cavoli is integrating American and allied war-fighting plans for the first time since the Cold War. Citing a NATO official, the newspaper wrote, “Americans are back at the heart of Europe’s defense …  deciding with NATO precisely how America will defend Europe.”

This will entail a massive military buildup, involving enormous increases in military spending. “Now the demands will be tougher and more rigorous to bring the alliance back to a war-fighting capacity in Europe and make deterrence credible—to ensure that NATO can fight a high-intensity war against a rival, Russia, from the first day of conflict,” the Times wrote.

Instead of meeting the previous goal of 2 percent of gross domestic product devoted to the military, NATO members will be expected to spend between 2.5 and 3 percent, the Times reported.

In perhaps the most ominous passage in the article, the Times wrote, “Previously, the annual exercises of NATO’s nuclear forces, known as Steadfast Noon, were kept quiet. But last year, after Russia’s invasion, the exercise went ahead openly. It was important, a NATO official said, to show Moscow that the alliance wasn’t deterred by nuclear threats.”

NATO’s headquarters is likewise “being transformed into a major strategic and war-fighting command, charged with drawing up the alliance’s plans to integrate and deploy allied troops.”

The accession of Finland to NATO, which doubled the length of NATO’s land border with Russia, will be a key component of these plans, with Russia’s entire border with NATO becoming a militarized zone.

Just weeks after its accession to NATO, Finland has begun building a fence on the Russian border, with the initial section to be completed in June.

In June of last year, NATO published a strategy document declaring that the alliance must prepare for “high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors.” The document declared that “the Euro-Atlantic area is not at peace”—all but declaring that the alliance is at war.

In January, Rob Bauer, NATO’s top military spokesperson, declared that the US-led NATO alliance is prepared for a “direct clash with Russia.” Asked by Portugal’s RTP News, “You don’t believe that it’s only about Ukraine?” Bauer replied, “No, it’s about turning back to the old Soviet Union.”

The interviewer continued, “So the entire Eastern Flank is at risk somehow?” Bauer replied, “Yeah.” The interviewer asked, “We are ready to [sic] a direct confrontation with Russia?” To this Bauer replied, “We are.”

In this supercharged environment, NATO will begin Defender 23, the alliance’s annual war game, on April 22.

The exercise will involve 9,000 US troops and 17,000 soldiers from other NATO members. The “nearly two-month-long exercise is focused on the strategic deployment of U.S.-based forces, employment of Army pre-positioned stocks and interoperability with European allies and partners,” a Pentagon spokesperson said April 5.

A key goal of the exercise will be to “increase lethality of the NATO Alliance through long-distance fires” according to U.S. Army’s Europe and Africa commands.

This will be followed by Air Defender 2023, the largest NATO air exercise since its founding. A US Air National Guard official told the War Zone that Russian officials can “take away whatever message they want” from the drill.

Against this background, a group of former top officials from France, Germany, the United States and Spain have written an op-ed in the Guardian Sunday encouraging more direct NATO military intervention against Russia, declaring “We have to go ‘all in’ in our support for Ukraine.” They declare that “Ukraine needs the combined force of tanks, longer-range missiles and aircraft to conduct a successful counterattack, paving the way to Ukrainian victory.”

The press is full of such declarations. David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post, argued, “President Biden doesn’t want to start World War III, but he will look back with regret if the United States and its allies leave any weapons or ammunition on the sidelines that could responsibly be used in this conflict. Whatever Biden might wish later he had done if things go badly, he should do now.”

As the deteriorating military situation for the Ukrainian armed forces becomes increasingly apparent, NATO is making open plans to massively intensify its conflict with Russia.

Kenya’s civil servants threaten strike over wage delay as economic crisis deepens

Kipchumba Ochieng

Hundreds of thousands of Kenyan healthcare workers and civil servants are threatening strike action, a move that could paralyze the country.

The Kenyan government of billionaire William Ruto has delayed salary payment of government and parastatal workers, save for some education workers and police, while imposing International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity measures and privatisations and waging war in Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo in defense of US imperialist interests across the region.

President of Kenya William Samoei Ruto addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022 at U.N. headquarters. [AP Photo/Mary Altaffer]

Last Friday, health workers of eight unions, including the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), Kenya National Union of Nurses, Kenya Union of Clinical Officers, Kenya National Union of Pharmaceutical Technologists, Kenya Health Professional Society, Kenya Union of Nutritionists and Dieticians declared a strike in 12 of Kenya’s 47 counties starting this Wednesday. They would join doctors and nurses in Nandi County already on strike over three months’ salary arrears.

The unions are under mounting pressure from their members after Ruto's government's failed to pay March 2023 salaries. Other workers have gone without salaries for three months. This doesn’t only affect civil servants and their immediate families, but also relatives from rural areas that depend on this lifeline to sustain their livelihoods.

The Kenyan economy is facing a deepening economic crisis, including inflation of 9.2 percent and a high cost of living intensified by NATO’s war on Russia in Ukraine. Debt service is consuming over 60 percent of revenue, compounded by a weakening local Kenyan shilling currency and international market turmoil precipitated by the bank bailouts in the US and Switzerland, reflecting an intensification of the global capitalist crisis.

County governments, responsible for education and healthcare, have not received the money for the fourth consecutive month since December. By end of March, counties said they were owed US$907 million, with county governors blaming the withheld cash for their failure to pay workers’ salaries. This is the longest period that the devolved units have gone without receiving revenue from the national government.

Last week, Kenya's government acknowledged it is grappling with a severe cash crunch. In his usual arrogant manner, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua blamed the cash crisis on the massive debt contracted by the previous government, while making clear that the priority was repaying foreign lenders, not workers’ salaries.

Gachagua said, 'They [the previous government] borrowed money left, right and centre”, adding 'And because we are a responsible government, we have to pay this money. Last week, some loans matured. And they have to be paid because we have obligations.' Gachagua omitted the fact that Ruto was deputy president of the previous government.

The unions are seeking to contain and suppress overwhelming opposition from the membership to Ruto. In a pathetic joint statement, read by KMPDU Secretary General Davji Bhimji, the unions made clear that they were forced into strike action and intended to call it off through backdoor channels with Ruto.

KMPDU Secretary General Davji Bhimji [Photo: Davji Bhimji/Twitter]

Bhimji said, “We wish to emphasize that this is not a strike notice but rather a demonstration of the inability of our members to attend work due to lack of resources.” Rather than appealing to other sections of workers in a political confrontation with the government, Bhimji said, 'We remain open to further discussions with you [Ruto] and hope for a speedy resolution to this matter”.

Bhimji refused to broaden the struggle beyond healthcare workers, even though the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU), consisting of 36 trade unions representing more than 1.5 million workers in the public and private sectors, confirmed receipt of strike notices from the Union of Kenya Civil Servants and the Kenya County Government Workers Union last week. Both unions represent tens of thousands of civil servants.

COTU’s members, including the KMPDU and the Kenya National Union of Teachers, have a track record of calling off strikes at the last-minute seizing on supposed “advances” in negotiations. When strikes do erupt, they work to isolate them, like last November’s of pilots at Kenya Airways. After Ruto’s government outlawed the action, the unions refused to come to their defence.

The Ruto government has made clear it will not take loans to pay for salaries or make even the slightest concessions.

Kenyan and world capitalism faces an economic, social and political crisis that increasingly assumes revolutionary dimensions, as demonstrated by the mass upheaval in France over Macron’s pension reform. Under conditions of war against Russia in Ukraine, an economic recession and the impact of climate change reflected in a drought affecting millions across the Horn of Africa, a major upsurge of the class struggle is starting to erupt in Kenya as part of a growing global movement of the international working class. Unbearable living conditions are pushing millions into a confrontation with the Ruto government, the major corporations and the state.

The struggle can only be waged as a political struggle directed against all factions of the ruling class, including the union bureaucracy and Azimio la Umoja coalition. Azimio is led by billionaire Raila Odinga, who belongs to the super rich oligarchy in Kenya. According to Oxfam, this consists of 8,300 individuals owning more wealth than the bottom 99.9 percent (more than 44 million people).

In March, under mounting social pressure, Odinga called for limited protests demanding that Ruto “solve the high costs of living” an ambiguous demand without any concrete measures, besides vague calls for Ruto to reintroduce subsidies. These cuts led to price hikes on key commodities like fuel and maize flour, leaving millions in need of food support. 

Thousands responded to the opposition’s call, mainly in the capital city Nairobi, and Western Kenya, Odinga’s home region and political stronghold, despite violent crackdown by the Ruto government that included banning demonstration and teargassing and arresting hundreds of protestors, including shooting dead two protestors. Odinga responded by calling them off fearing a loss of control and their intersecting with the looming civil servants strikes.

Odinga also received a personal visit from a delegation from the US led by the Senator for Delaware Chris Coons, known as US President’s Joe Biden’s main representative in the Senate. Coons also met with Ruto government officials. While the back door discussions have not been revealed, Washington is clearly concerned that a mass upheaval in Kenya would destabilize its control over East Africa, under conditions of its war against Russia and advanced preparations for war against China.

Weeks before, in February, the US launched Justified Accord 2023 in Kenya, the most important military maneuvers to date of the US Africa Military Command (AFRICOM) in East Africa, mobilizing over 2,000 troops from Uganda, Djibouti and Rwanda. The drill took place as the South African, Chinese and Russian navies conducted joint maneuvers in South African waters.

Above all, Odinga feared that protests were intersecting with across Africa, including South Africa, Nigeria and Tunisia against high costs of living, corruption, authoritarianism, fraudulent elections and unemployment. This showed the potential of coordinating struggles across national borders, artificially created by the European colonial powers during the 19th century.

Sudan fighting erupts between rival military factions backed by external powers

Jean Shaoul

On Saturday, fighting broke out across Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and other cities between rival factions of Sudan’s armed forces.

The fighting comes after months of rising tensions spiraled into an all-out battle for control of the country. Paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Force (RSF)headed by warlord Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy leader of the ruling Sovereign Council, and believed to have 100,000 fighters—said they had taken control of the presidential palace, the state television station, Khartoum airport where two Saudi jets were hit, and other key buildings and infrastructure. The military, headed by army chief, leader of the Sovereign Council and de facto ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, denied the claims.

Smoke is seen rising from a neighborhood in Khartoum, Sudan, Saturday, April 15, 2023. Fierce clashes between Sudan’s military and the country’s powerful paramilitary erupted in the capital and elsewhere in the African nation after weeks of escalating tensions between the two forces. The fighting raised fears of a wider conflict in the chaos-stricken nation. [AP Photo/Marwan Ali]

Armed clashes were reported across the country, including at the Port Sudan on the Red Sea, West Darfur, Meroe and the southern provinces, with both sides claiming control of key installations, and accusing each other of staging a coup. There are fears of a broader civil war, embroiling neighbouring countries amid reports of Egyptian forces fighting alongside the Sudanese army in Meroe, where Cairo has a base housing fighter jets used in joint drills in 2020.

The air force told people to stay indoors while airstrikes were launched on an RSF base in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, with the Sudanese army saying the airport and other bases remained under its “full control.” With fighting taking place in residential areas where the two sides have offices and bases, at least 56 people have been reported killed and 600 more injured, including civilians and combatants. On Sunday, a working day, the authorities declared a holiday in Khartoum state, closing schools, banks and government offices.

Both leaders rose to prominence during the war in Darfur, in western Sudan, where 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in fighting from 2003 to 2008. Al-Burhan was an army chief, while Dagalo (widely known as Hemedti), led the notorious Janjaweed militias responsible for the worst atrocities of the conflict.

Al-Burhan is backed by Egypt’s brutal dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and layers close to the military that have long controlled Sudan’s sprawling military-industrial complex. He is reportedly supportive of the US and the European powers in the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. Dagalo, who has become enormously rich based on Darfur’s gold, is backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia. Controlling the export of gold, he has close relations with Russia whose Wagner mercenaries operate in Sudan and neighbouring Central African Republic.

The eruption of hostilities prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres, the Saudi and UAE foreign ministers, Russia, China, the Arab League and African Union to appeal for calm, testifying to the multiple, competing interests in the conflict-ridden country. On Sunday afternoon, with al-Burhan’s forces apparently gaining the upper hand in Khartoum, both sides agreed to the UN’s proposal for a three-hour humanitarian pause.

The long-expected power struggle threatens to destabilise not just Sudan but much of the Horn of Africa region, which is beset with myriad conflicts amid drought and famine and is the arena of a battle for influence involving the Gulf powers, the US, the European Union and Russia.

Sudan’s military has close relations with Russia, which is trying to establish a base at Port Sudan, on the Red Sea; selling much of its gold that accounts for 40 percent of the country’s exports to Russia via the UAE; abstaining on the UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and infuriating the Biden administration. Washington is determined to sever Sudan’s relationship with Iran, Russia and China, close Port Sudan to the Russian navy, and strengthen its regional anti-Iran alliance to which Sudan had signed up earlier this year.

The European powers are anxious to avoid any instability in Sudan, strategically located in the Horn of Africa alongside the Red Sea and the entrance to the Suez Canal, that might disrupt oil supplies or generate a new wave of refugees. It takes place as Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country and the Horn’s powerhouse, having reached an agreement to end a two-year-long civil war with Tigrayan rebels, faces mass unrest in Amhara province over plans to integrate its regional armed force into the national army. The Amhara forces played a key role in defeating the Tigrayans, with whom it has territorial disputes.

The violence at the weekend erupted after weeks of mounting tensions, increased army deployment and security measures and jockeying for public and international support over the planned integration of the RSF—along with former rebel militias involved in insurgencies in various parts of the country—into the Sudanese army. This was a key demand of al-Burhan’s faction in the negotiations due to be concluded this month, returning the country to civilian rule and ending the political and economic turmoil that has engulfed the country since December 2018. Dagalo had called for the elimination of the Islamist powerbrokers from the al-Bashir era and civilian control of the military.

In April 2019, following months of mass protests against the Muslim Brotherhood-backed military dictatorship of President Omar al-Bashir that had the support of Qatar and Turkey, military chief al-Burhan—with the support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia—mounted a pre-emptive coup, overthrowing al-Bashir. His aim was to prevent the overthrow of the entire state apparatus and the expropriation of their substantial financial and corporate institutions that control much of the Sudanese economy.

In the months that followed, and despite a massacre by the military of more than 1,000 unarmed protesters, the leaders of the protest movement—the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), an umbrella group of 22 bourgeois and petty-bourgeois groups, including the professional trade unions and the Sudanese Communist Party—held out the prospect of negotiating a return to civilian rule with the military. Given Sudan’s long history since independence from Britain in 1956 of coups and military rule, such a treacherous path could only provide a cover for the military to carry out the economic measures needed to remove the US sanctions that had crippled the country and access international loans.

In the event, the government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a British-trained economist and former member of the Sudanese Communist Party, as head of a transitional “technocratic” government, with the real power held by al-Burhan’s Sovereign Council, lasted little more than a couple of years.

When free market and political reforms, including the abolition of fuel subsidies, the privatisation of hundreds of state companies and the crackdown on corruption and the looting of state revenues by companies linked to al-Bashir and the military, threatened the military’s substantial commercial, political and diplomatic interests, al-Burhan sacked Hamdok and his “technocratic” government and resumed military rule in October 2021. He stacked the governing and state-owned bodies with generals, Islamists and other reliable allies of the al-Bashir regime and stepped-up repression, clamping down on the resurgent protest movement. Undaunted, the main opposition parties agreed another treacherous and unpopular deal with the military that reinstated Hamdok, which fell apart weeks later, leaving al-Burhan in power.

Since then, Burhan and Hemedti have had increasingly fractious relations, amid a crackdown on the ongoing social protests that have led to the deaths of more than 120 civilians. Some 15 million of Sudan’s 46 million people face acute food insecurity due to escalating food and fuel prices, the economic crisis precipitated by the secession of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011, political instability, conflicts and the displacement of some 3 million people, poor harvests and floods.

The FFC has supported Dagalo, whom they view as a counter to the Islamists, and in December signed a renewed framework agreement for a return to civilian rule, although local resistance committees opposed the deal. This agreement has little to say about the dismantling of the former regime, the Juba Peace Agreement with the various rebel movements that has failed to resolve the conflicts, and the crisis in Sudan’s resource-rich east—which is home to diamond and gold mines—as well as the vital Port Sudan, where armed groups have taken control of the country’s ports and are demanding more autonomy.

The claim that any civilian government, stitched together by such forces, would be capable of resolving the enormous social and economic problems confronting Sudanese workers and rural masses is a dangerous trap. The aim of these middle-class forces, liberal layers and their fake left supporters is to block a social revolution, as the history of the Middle East and Africa has shown.

Berlin state executive coalition agreement: CDU and SPD focus on increasing state powers

Markus Salzmann

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) have now made public their agreement for the future coalition state government in Germany’s capital city under the title “The Best for Berlin.” The focus is on providing the security forces with greater powers and resources and on massively attacking democratic rights. (Berlin is one of Germany's 16 constituent states, the eighth-largest by population, with 3.7 million people.)

The draft must be confirmed in a vote by SPD members by April 23, which is considered relatively certain despite some superficial criticism. The SPD Berlin state association already agreed to an alliance with the CDU in February. The state chairwoman and acting Berlin Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey threatened to resign if the state executive committee did not agree.

Franziska Giffey [Photo by Sandro Haling / CC BY 4.0]

Right-winger Kai Wegner, chairman of the Berlin CDU, is slated to replace Giffey as Governing Mayor in the grand coalition. Giffey herself is expected to become the new Senator (state minister) for construction. In forming the coalition, both parties are preparing for confrontation with the growing social opposition and its violent suppression.

The February recall state election proved to be a disaster for the coalition of the SPD, Left Party and Greens, which has governed Berlin since 2016 and whose continuation would have been possible. However, these parties together lost nearly a quarter of a million voters–the SPD 111,000, the Left Party 71,000 and Greens 65,000–from the previous election in September 2021, which was annulled by Berlin’s Constitutional Court.

The fact that the CDU gained more than ten percent and became the largest vote-getter with 28.2 percent is primarily due to the fact that the SPD, Greens and Left Party are widely hated in the capital because of their right-wing, anti-social policies.

In its short time in government, the SPD-Green-Left Party Senate (state executive) has implemented social attacks, deported refugees and upgraded the police.

The CDU and SPD in coalition will only continue and intensify these policies–the coalition agreement leaves no doubt about this. In addition to numerous irrelevant phrases and declarations of intent, it contains above all plans for a radical law-and-order policy. “It’s about strengthening our police and emergency services and making streets and public squares significantly cleaner and safer for everyone,” reads the preamble.

The number of police officers was already increased in previous legislative periods, while cuts were made in other areas, such as health and education. Now, another 1,000 posts are to be created in the police and fire departments. In the past, such positions were created almost exclusively in the police, while the fire departments are completely lacking in terms of personnel and equipment.

Wegner stated at the presentation of the coalition agreement: “You will notice that this new coalition stands behind the police.” The future Governing Mayor is thus writing a blank check to Berlin’s police, notorious for excessive use of force and racism.

The material equipment of the police force is also to be improved. While the capital’s schools are falling into disrepair, police stations are to be renovated with special funds. The police are to be equipped with body cams “immediately, permanently and comprehensively.” These are also to be used in private places in the future. The use of tasers is to be expanded and provided with a lenient legal basis.

The state government also wants to create the necessary legal foundation for the more extensive monitoring of telecommunications. With the usual reference to the threat of terrorism, the security authorities are to be given easier access to online searches by using special “Trojan” software.

The CDU and SPD also want more surveillance of public spaces, including more video surveillance at “crime-ridden locations.” This term can be interpreted in any way, which is entirely intentional. The expansion of the so-called “no-knife zones” is intended to create additional areas in which police can check people without any reason or suspicion. In fact, this would correspond to a permanent police power to stop and search, which was abolished in Berlin in 2004 due to considerable constitutional concerns. Now it is to be reintroduced through the back door.

With the extension of preventive detention from two to five days, activists and those the authorities find disagreeable can be taken into custody without having committed a crime. To prevent demonstrations in the name of “public order” and to expand the corresponding powers of the police, the coalition plans to curtail the Freedom of Assembly Act. This is a high priority for the CDU and SPD, and is to be accomplished by next year.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as Germany’s domestic secret service is euphemistically called and which is a haven for right-wing extremist conspiracies, is to be “strengthened” like the police and, for example, given easier access to data from telecommunications providers.

When it comes to deporting refugees, Berlin will continue to be one of the federal states with the highest expatriation figures. Even under the SPD-Green-Left Party state executive, deportations were carried out, preferably under the cloak of darkness and with no publicity. Under the new state administration, “voluntary” departures are also to be facilitated. This means the conditions of stay for refugees will be made even more miserable to “encourage” them to return to their home countries.

The SPD and CDU will also continue the racist campaign for a police-state launched under the outgoing government after the so-called “Berlin New Year’s Eve events.” At the time, politicians and the media spread the propaganda that there had been unprecedented violence by predominantly immigrant youths against the security forces. The SPD, Left Party and Greens organized a “summit against youth violence” that threatened young people with “clear consequences for crimes and border violations.” The coalition agreement now states that the results of the summit will be “swiftly implemented.”

While the agreement is very concrete about increasing the powers of the state and domestic security, promising extensive funding, it does not go beyond empty words in the chapter on health and care. In the area of education, too, there is no mention of the dilapidated state of Berlin’s schools and the enormous shortage of teachers.

It is believed the finance portfolio will go to the CDU. The draft agreement speaks of a “solid budgetary policy,” a code phrase indicating that the austerity policies of the previous state administration will be continued and even stepped up.

Housing in Germany’s capital will continue to become more and more of a luxury. The SPD, Greens and Left Party had already ignored a referendum in which a large majority of Berliners voted in favour of expropriating large, private real estate corporations. Wegner and Giffey opposed it from the start and maintain close contact with the real estate lobby.

The incoming administration wants to acquire 15,000 new apartments for the state-owned housing companies. These are to be bought at inflated prices from highly leveraged corporations such as Vonovia, which in this way will be supported with public money so that they can continue to drive up rents.

Vonovia has already announced it will drop all new construction projects in Berlin because of rising interest rates and construction costs. According to Bloomberg, the company’s situation on the Euro Stoxx 50 is steadily deteriorating, and its shares may soon be removed from the index.

Kai Wegner [Photo by Sven Teschke / CC BY 2.0]

The coalition agreement makes clear that a right-wing Senate is about to take over the state executive in Berlin. Giffey is known to be on the far right of the SPD. She is the political heir of former Neukölln district Mayor Heinz Buschkowsky, notorious for his vile racist outbursts against immigrants.

Wegner stands on the right-wing fringe of the CDU/CSU. In the past, he openly expressed solidarity with the far-right former head of the secret service, Hans-Georg Maassen, declaring that the latter could “of course also be a member of the Berlin CDU.”

Even during his time in the CDU youth movement Junge Union, Wegner, now 50, was conspicuous for his right-wing, nationalist views. He explicitly spoke out against a multicultural society and advocated a so-called “Leading German Culture“. In a party conference speech in 2000, he demanded that young people “finally develop a healthy relationship with the nation,” as the Tagesspiegel reported. At the time, he also attended an event in Berlin with the now-deceased Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider.

Attack on Japanese prime minister points to growing political instability

Ben McGrath

During a campaign event Saturday morning for upcoming parliamentary by-elections in Japan, a man allegedly threw a pipe bomb in the direction of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the city of Wakayama. While Kishida was not hurt and a police officer reportedly received minor injuries in the explosion, the event highlights the increasing political instability in Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses opening session of the Tokyo Global Dialogue, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023, in Tokyo. [AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko]

According to Japanese authorities, the suspect in the bomb-throwing incident is Ryuji Kimura, a 24-year-old man from Hyogo Prefecture who was detained at the scene. A motive has not yet been revealed, as Kimura refused to talk with police until he had a lawyer present. He has initially been charged with forcible obstruction of business. Police searched Kimura’s home early Sunday morning, removing some ten boxes of material.

Kishida was in Wakayama to speak on behalf of the right-wing ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) candidate for the city’s first district. It is one of five seats available in a by-election occurring on April 23 for four seats in the lower house and one in the upper house of the National Diet.

Numerous connections have been made between this latest incident and the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last July, which also took place during a campaign event. The suspected assassin Tetsuya Yamagami is believed to have shot Abe over the latter’s involvement with the Unification Church, a cult in Japan that exercises a great deal of influence within the LDP.  

Without any evidence or other information being made public, one can only speculate on the reasons why this latest supposed attack on Kishida was carried out. However, in the span of less than a year, one former and one sitting prime minister have been the targets of violence, pointing to growing volatility in Japanese politics. This is bound up above all with deteriorating social and economic conditions.

This goes unmentioned by the political and media establishment, which undoubtedly will use the bombing to increase the powers of the police and the military in preparation for crackdowns on working class protests. Instead, politicians are posturing as defenders of democracy. LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi stated, “This was an outrageous act coming during a campaign that lies at the very foundation of our democracy.”

The head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) Kenta Izumi, echoed these remarks, saying, “We must not let any violence affect our democracy.”

In reality, it is the ruling class itself that is carrying out attacks on democracy, above all in its drive to remilitarize in support of a US-instigated war against China. These preparations are falsely presented as necessary measures to counter Chinese or North Korean “aggression.” Washington’s efforts to stoke a conflict over Taiwan are kept from the working class and young people.

At the same time, economic conditions are deteriorating. The Kishida government intends to raise taxes in order to pay for its plan to double military spending over the next five years. Last year, the economy grew only 0.1 percent from October to December while contracting 1.1 percent between July and September. Takeshi Minami, an economist at the Norinchukin Research Institute told Reuters in March, “The economy remains in a tough position from April onward with the heightening risk of stalling growth in Europe and North America on relentless monetary tightening.”

Wages in general have been stagnant for more than two decades. The COVID-19 pandemic, in which thousands in Japan continue to be infected each day, and the refusal of the government to address this serious health crisis, has similarly led to a growth in poverty.

A report published in January by business magazine Shukan Diamond in cooperation with Professor Kenji Hashimoto of Waseda University pointed out that those living in lower economic strata have seen their incomes fall sharply in recent years. The average annual income for the bottom stratum, comprising 17.39 million households, fell from 4.313 million yen ($US32,236) in 2019 to 3.966 million yen ($US29,642) in 2021. The number of people in this group living below the poverty line rose to 36.6 percent over the same period, a 3.8 percent increase.

The deepening gulf between rich and poor is incompatible with genuine democracy. However, there is no party in Japan that represents the interests of the working class and poor. The so-called “liberal” or “left” parties like the CDP and its ally the Stalinist Japanese Communist Party (JCP) offer nothing to the working class and are widely unpopular.

While in power from 2009 to 2012 the then Democratic Party of Japan reneged on election promises to move a US military base off Okinawa, supported the US war drive against China, and pursued austerity measures at home. Since leaving power, it has falsely postured as opponents of remilitarization while advocating pro-war policies similar to those of the LDP with only minor differences. The CDP has supported the US war against Russia in Ukraine.

The mass hostility to the Democrats was demonstrated during the first round of regional elections held April 9. In total, there were nine prefectural gubernatorial and six mayoral races as well as 2,260 prefectural assembly seats in 41 prefectures up for election. The LDP took six of the prefectural governor seats, including in Hokkaido, traditionally considered a CDP stronghold. The ruling party also took more than half of the prefectural assembly seats available.

The right-wing populist party Nippon Ishin no Kai, or Japan Innovation Party, also won the governorship and mayoral seat in Osaka Prefecture and city respectively. Founded as an Osaka regional party, it also gained the governorship in Nara Prefecture, the first time it has won such an election outside of Osaka, demonstrating a growth of right-wing forces.

Voter turnout reached averages of just 46.78 percent in the gubernatorial elections and 41.85 percent for the assemblies, both record lows. Overall, a Jiji Press poll from April 14 found that Kishida’s government has only a 33.5 percent approval rating while even fewer—24.9 percent—supported the LDP. The CDP had just a 3.6 percent approval rating.