Ukrainian forces on defensive as “counteroffensive” ends in failure, mass casualties

Jason Melanovski

As the Biden administration is backing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and preparing for a much wider war in the Middle East, the Ukrainian government’s much publicized four-month-long “counteroffensive” has effectively ended with minimal gains in territory. Ukrainian forces are now on the defensive against advancing Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine.

In recent weeks, fighting has centered on the city of Avdiivka, currently held by Ukraine and located north of the major city of Donetsk.

Over 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers are currently stationed in Avdiivka, a strategically important city due to its proximity to Donetsk. Over 31,000 civilians resided in the city prior to the war, while just 2,000 now remain. Control by Kiev grants Ukrainian forces the ability to hit the heavily populated Donetsk with artillery and potentially attempt to “retake” the city, which had been under Russian-backed separatist control following the NATO-backed coup of elected President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.

Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces previously warned of at least 15 or more daily Russian attacks on Avdiivka in their attempts to encircle the city but reported a weakening of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

However, Avdiivka’s military administration chief Vitaly Barbash acknowledged the precarious situation on the front, stating, “Shelling and small arms fire continue around the clock, so the situation remains very hot.”

According to Barbash, “I can say for sure that this is the largest offensive that has ever been launched against Avdiivka since the war began in 2014.”

Whatever the outcome of the battle for Avdiivka, it is clear that the Ukrainian military is now quickly moving its forces into defensive positions to prevent further Russian gains before winter.

With billions spent and reported casualties of over 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers, even the New York Times was recently forced to acknowledge that the “counteroffensive” was a debacle, stating that while “Ukraine made small gains in the south, Russia took slightly more land overall, mostly in the northeast.”

Amid severe manpower shortages, the potential loss of Avdiivka would further consolidate Russian control of the Donbas region and end even the most delusional hopes of the right-wing government of President Volodymyr Zelensky of ever retaking the territory it has lost since the start of the disastrous imperialist-backed war in February 2022.

With the end of the counteroffensive now obvious, officials within the Zelensky government are attempting to cast blame for their own massive failures.

In an interview last week with news outlet Ukrainska Pravda, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, admitted the counteroffensive was “out of schedule.”

When pressed for details, Budanov stated, “There are objective and subjective reasons—everything is complex. But, sorry, most of the explanations for this are state secrets, and it’s just not for public discussion. Over time, all of this will become clear.”

Presidential Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak responded to Budanov’s comments in an interview with Channel 24 by admitting the counteroffensive was over and blamed Western failures to provide even faster military aid.

“If Ukraine had received weapons faster, we could have defended ourselves better and launched a counterattack. Only after all these events did the weapons finally arrive,” Podolyak said.

“We are 6-9 months behind. Everything is very stretched in time. Budanov is right here. If we had received everything we needed in a month, it would be one story. But getting it in 8 months is a different story,” he stated.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a former Zelensky adviser, further underlined the massive failure of the counteroffensive on his Telegram channel and called for the end of the Zelensky government as he attempts to build his own political brand within the country. After previously predicting that Kiev’s forces would quickly be in Crimea, Arestovych now called the counteroffensive a “disaster” and admitted, “They are not telling the truth. There will be no return to the borders of 1991, and there will be no Crimea in the near future.”

Despite the counteroffensive’s obvious failure, both the Zelensky government and the Biden administration have signaled they will continue the war with the proposal of sending a massive $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Following the declaration of war by Israel against Gaza, aid to Israel may be included as well in order to gain support from Republicans opposed to further funding of the proxy war against Russia. 

Unfortunately for both the United States and the corrupt, right-wing oligarchic Zelensky regime, Ukrainians are not so eager to die in a fratricidal war for minimal exchanges of land.

As the Deputy Minister of Defense Natalia Kalmykova recently admitted in a television interview, “hundreds of thousands of citizens are currently trying to avoid mobilization.” 

As the Zelensky regime attempts to restock its forces following the mass slaughter of the counteroffensive, Kalmykova warned the Ukrainian government was preparing to deal with so-called “refuseniks.”

“Proposals have already been prepared for changes to the draft law regarding the registration of conscripts who later become military personnel in order for people to be able to pass the VLK, as well as all procedures related to mobilization at the place of residence. Final agreements on conceptual issues are currently underway, in order to be able to introduce amendments to the Law of Ukraine and normalize the issue of military servicemen’s records,” she said.

“Unfortunately, we see a lot of situations, and this is also not news, when people do not want to, they try to avoid mobilization in any way. Let’s not say mobilization, but avoid the need to defend our country. Here [we face] such a complex ethical dilemma, because the state really needs protection. Protection of the state is the responsibility of every citizen. Unfortunately, there are many, measured in hundreds of thousands, who create conditions for themselves to avoid mobilization,” Kalmykova added.

UK Prime Minister Sunak stands with Netanyahu to back Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza

Robert Stevens

Thursday saw UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak make his own visit to Israel to kiss the ring of the bloody war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

He followed in the footsteps of US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in pledging full support to Israel’s war of extermination against the Palestinians in Gaza, telling Netanyahu, “We want you to win.”

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (left) meets the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu [Photo by Simon Walker/No 10 Downing Street / CC BY 4.0]

Landing in Tel Aviv, Sunak first held talks with Israel’s head of state President Isaac Herzog. In the face of massive opposition in Britain to Sunak’s Conservative government and the Labour Party’s support for the war crimes being carried out by Israel against Gaza—with over 150,000 demonstrating in London just six days earlier—Downing Street’s readout of the talks made out that Sunak came as a humanitarian campaigner.

Stressing as always that the “UK stands in solidarity with Israel and firmly believes in the country’s right to self-defence in line with international law,” it added, “The prime minister and President Herzog agreed on the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support to ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who are also suffering. The prime minister welcomed yesterday’s announcement that Israel would not stop aid from entering Gaza. He expressed his sincere hope that further progress could be made on delivering crucial food, water and medicine.”

It concluded, “The prime minister and President Herzog stressed the imperative need to avoid further escalation of violence in the region.”

Who does Number 10 think they are kidding? Herzog is an avowed advocate of the collective punishment being unleashed by the Israeli war machine on the Palestinian people. Sunak’s supposed “friend of peace” declared only last Friday that the entire population of Gaza were targets for destruction: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”

As Sunak arrived the Israeli Defence Forces bragged it had struck “hundreds of Hamas structures” in the last day, and that it “continues to attack all the time throughout the Gaza Strip.” The human cost of this savagery is clear in Gazan health ministry figures of more than 3,500 Palestinians dead, the vast majority civilians, with 70 percent of these women, children and the elderly, and over 12,065 injured. A further 1,300 remain buried beneath destroyed buildings—among them 600 children “trapped under rubble”.

As for the “urgent humanitarian support” supposedly agreed by Israel, this was a cynical face-saving measure for Biden, amounting to just 20 trucks to feed and water a displaced population of over a million—which will not be allowed in until Friday at the earliest, if at all.

On Wednesday Netanyahu said his meeting with Biden had given Israel carte blanche to begin a land invasion and the destruction of Gaza. He boasted of winning “immense security assistance of an unprecedented scope” from the US president in support of escalating the war. “We agreed on actions that will ensure the continuation of our just war.”

Biden will have not only discussed the genocidal assault on Gaza, but how the war will be extended to target Iran and its allies Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon—reporting on the behind-the-scenes discussions with Egypt and other regional powers conducted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Sunak said during his visit to Israel: “It is important that the conflict does not escalate regionally, that’s why I am talking to as many people across the region as I can.”

What this means is that he will continue the filthy diplomacy waged by Washington in talks Friday with Saudi Arabian dictator Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Middle Eastern leaders to ensure that the Arab states continue to give Israel a free hand in the face of rising popular opposition. Foreign Minister James Cleverly is undertaking a concurrent three-day visit to the region to include talks with leaders in Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar.

In his joint press conference appearance with Netanyahu, Sunak declared, “We will stand with you, in solidarity with your people and your right to defend yourself, to bring security back to your country, to your people, to ensure the safe return of the hostages that have been taken… You have not just a right to do that, I think you have a duty to do that, to restore that security to your country.”

The thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza were dismissed by Sunak, as he said to Netanyahu, “I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians, in direct contrast to the terrorists of Hamas, which seek to put civilians in harm’s way.”

Of the bombing Monday of the al-Ahli hospital, he added, “The scenes over the past day have shocked all of us, particularly at the hospital, and we mourn the loss of every innocent life”, concealing the fact that the perpetrators were the Israel Defence Forces, armed to the teeth by the US and Britain, and mobilised by the war criminal he was standing beside.

Netanyahu responded, “This is our darkest hour. It is the world’s darkest hour. We need to stand together and we will win. And this is why I support, I value your support and the fact that you are here—we must win together. That means that this is a long war and we’ll need your continuous support.”

The most belligerent mouthpieces of British imperialism are demanding that Israel rapidly wipe out Gaza.

The Telegraph editorialised, “Israeli forces will need to enter the Strip and seize Gaza City, something they have threatened to do but have so far held back from. No one is under any illusion that such an offensive will be bloody, with losses on both sides, including civilians. The hospital calamity has shown that Israel will be blamed whatever it does.” It concluded, “Many in the West will be hoping for a time-limited campaign that leads to a swift and comprehensive victory rather than a long, drawn-out offensive.”

Sunak can pledge support for whatever crime Netanyahu perpetrates, knowing that when he offers “unity” between the UK and Israel he speaks for the Labour Party and all the main opposition parties. All are stained forever with the blood of Palestinian men, women and children.

Last week, they all backed Sunak in his deployment of Royal Air Force surveillance aircraft, two Royal Navy ships, three Merlin helicopters and a company of Royal Marines to the Middle East “to deliver practical support to Israel and partners in the region, and offer deterrence and assurance.” This military support is not simply to facilitate Israel’s operations against Gaza to contribute to a US-led plan for conflict with Iran, either directly or by engineering a military clash with Syria or Hezbollah.

Israeli regime continues bombardment of Gaza as ground offensive looms and threat of regional war grows

Jordan Shilton

The Israeli regime continued its savage bombardment of Gaza Thursday, striking targets in the south, where over one million Palestinians were ordered by Israel to flee last week, as well as in the north.

Palestinians evacuate wounded from a building destroyed in Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023 [AP Photo/Fatima Shbair]

On Thursday night, the Israeli military bombed a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City, where dozens of Palestinian families had sought refuge from the murderous air attacks on civilian targets. As of this writing, the death toll in the bombardment of the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church had risen to eight, with dozens more reported wounded.

Women and children were among those killed in the attack on the church, located in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Rescuers were continuing to pull people out of the rubble and the toll of dead and wounded was expected to rise.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Majdy Jildah, who had sought refuge at the church, as saying that some 500 people had been sheltering on the church campus, including some 80 in the church council building where the explosion occurred. Dozens were inside the assembly hall of the church, which was also damaged.

The church is one of the oldest in the world. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued its “strongest condemnation” of the attack, stating that “targeting churches and their institutions, along with the shelters they provide to protect innocent citizens, especially children and women who have lost their homes due to Israeli air strikes on residential areas over the past 13 days, constitutes a war crime.”

Al Jazeera quoted one survivor of the church bombing as saying, “Where do I go now? There is no place to live.”

The church bombing came less than three days after Israel bombed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing close to 500 Palestinians, and a day after US President Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and declared Washington’s full support for the genocidal war on Gaza.

Underscoring the increasing threat of a broader conflagration throughout the region, fighting also escalated throughout the day on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and US military facilities have come under attack in Syria and Iraq.

Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed 33 people near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and 11 family members in a house in Khan Younis. In the north, near the border with Israel, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported the deaths of 18 people following an attack on the Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza’s largest, and home to some 160,000 people.

A map of the Gaza Strip showing key towns and neighboring countries. [Photo by Gringer / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Prime Minister Netanyahu gave one of the strongest indications yet that a ground offensive into Gaza, which threatens to claim the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, is imminent. Addressing the elite Golani Brigade of soldiers at an assembly point on the border with Gaza, he declared, “I am here with Golani soldiers from all parts of the country. They have fought like lions and will fight like lions. We are going to win with full force.” He also participated in a meeting of the security cabinet, which would need to give the go-ahead for a ground incursion.

Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who gained notoriety in the first days of Israel’s genocidal onslaught for his description of the Palestinians as “human animals,” told soldiers that they would “soon” see Gaza “from inside.” Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of the Israeli Defence Force’s southern command, asserted that the ground invasion would be “difficult, long and intense”

The impending escalation of the 12-day murderous assault on Gaza, which according to the Palestinian health ministry has already claimed the lives of 3,785 Palestinians, is taking place with the unequivocal endorsement of the United States and its European imperialist allies. The final preparations by Netanyahu and the military for the ground invasion came just 24 hours after US President Joe Biden visited Israel, embraced Netanyahu, and reiterated Washington’s unconditional support for the massacring of Gaza’s 2.3 million people. The visit followed Israel’s cold-blooded slaughter of close to 500 men, women and children Tuesday when it bombed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, a war crime under international law.

Emphasizing the unanimous support within the American political establishment for Israeli war crimes, the Senate adopted a resolution by 97 votes to 0 yesterday that reaffirmed  Israel’s “right to self-defence.” The resolution also committed Washington to restock Israel’s weapons supplies so that it can continue its onslaught for as long as it desires, and impose tougher sanctions on Iran to combat its support for “terror proxies.”

Visitors from the major imperialist powers continued to arrive in Israel Thursday to give their stamp of approval for the Netanyahu regime’s genocidal onslaught. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared, “We want you to win,” while German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius met with Gallant to pledge Berlin’s assistance.

The air bombardment, a vicious act of collective punishment for the mass Palestinian  uprising led by Hamas against the Israeli occupation on October 7, has already laid waste to Gaza. According to the latest United Nations Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report, 25 percent of the territory’s residential buildings, amounting to 98,000 housing units, have been destroyed. There have been 59 attacks on health care facilities, including 17 hospitals and 23 ambulances, killing 491 people, 16 of whom were on-duty health care workers. The bombardments have hit 170 educational facilities, and severely damaged the territory’s sanitation and water infrastructure.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a “ceasefire” in Gaza Thursday as he announced plans from Egypt for an aid convoy to bring much-needed supplies to the enclave Friday. Israel cut off fuel, water, and electricity to the Gaza Strip almost two weeks ago and has prevented aid from entering, with the support of the El-Sisi dictatorship in Cairo.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (left) shakes US President Joe Biden's hand at the GCC+3 summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16, 2022. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the background. [Photo: The White House]

A damning statement issued by two UN special rapporteurs explicitly warned that Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank threaten genocide. Pedro Arrojo Agudo, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, and Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, wrote, “The complete siege of Gaza coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers, is a violation of international humanitarian and criminal law. It is also unspeakably cruel.

“We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza.”

The statement also denounced the bombing of the al-Ahli Hospital as an “atrocity.”

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians in the past two weeks. The deaths of seven Palestinians and one Israeli  were reported yesterday alone during clashes in a refugee camp. A 16-year-old boy was shot by soldiers during a raid on the occupied Palestinian town of Tulkarem, where Israeli soldiers also shot at and seized a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance.

The UN special rapporteurs concluded, “Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestine people.”

The war is rapidly escalating beyond Gaza. On the border with Lebanon, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing 20 rockets into northern Israel Thursday. Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters also exchanged fire throughout the afternoon. An IDF spokesman warned that Hezbollah will “bear the consequences” of the rocket strikes, suggesting that expanded operations in Lebanon are also only a matter of time.

In a separate incident, a Lebanese citizen accompanying a group of journalists near the border was killed by Israeli gunfire. The United States and Britain ordered their citizens to leave Lebanon while flights “remain available.”

Later Thursday, the IDF announced it had carried out air strikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. An attack helicopter also struck a group of fighters preparing to launch anti-tank guided missiles into Israel.

A US navy destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted three missiles fired from Yemen that were heading northwards. The Pentagon stated that the missiles were “potentially” heading for Israel and “posed a potential threat.” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder added ominously that the US is prepared to do whatever is necessary “to protect our partners and our interests in this important region.”

The US al-Tanf military base in southern Syria near the border with Iraq came under attack from drones Wednesday. Meanwhile, three attacks took place against American military facilities inside Iraq since Tuesday, including two targeting the Ain al-Asad base with drones and missiles.

The Biden administration has already dispatched two aircraft-carrier battlegroups to the region, which are clearly designed to create the conditions for the waging of a broader war against Iran. Each battlegroup includes 8,000 sailors, airmen, and marines, and dozens of fighter aircraft. In remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview, Biden explicitly linked the Gaza war to broader regional conflicts, stating, “Going in and taking out the extremists, Hezbollah is up north but Hamas down south, is a necessary requirement. Iran constantly supports Hamas and Hezbollah.”

What is developing across the region is the Middle East front in the US-led global imperialist war to secure its hegemony against its strategic rivals, above all Russia and China. The imperialists’ unreserved support for the Israeli government’s brutal massacre of the Gaza population goes hand-in-hand with the reckless escalation of the war with Russia in Ukraine by Washington and its European allies, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands on both sides. Biden’s remarks from the White House Thursday evening, in which he called for military support to Israel and Ukraine and asserted that ”American leadership is what holds the world together,” demonstrate that the US capitalist class is determined to wage a war against the world.

Shooting in Belgian capital leaves two Swedish citizens dead, one in critical condition

Jordan Shilton

Two Swedish nationals, one in his 70s and one in his 60s, were killed in a mass shooting in the Belgian capital of Brussels on Monday. A third man in his 70s remains in hospital in critical condition. The gunman, a 45-year-old asylum-seeker from Tunisia, cited the reactionary government-backed Quran burnings in Sweden throughout the summer as the motivation for his attack, which deliberately targeted Swedish nationals.

Belgian Police patrol the Grand Place in central Brussels, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, following the shooting of two Swedish soccer fans who were shot by a suspected Tunisian extremist on Monday night [AP Photo/Martin Meissner]

Abdesalem Al Guilani was living without a permit in Belgium after his asylum application was rejected. After fleeing to Europe in 2011, he arrived in Italy before travelling to Sweden. He served a prison sentence in Sweden between 2012 and 2014. In a post following the shootings, which took place as the Belgium vs. Sweden football match was starting, he cited the Islamic State terrorist group as his inspiration. He was shot and killed by Belgian police early Tuesday. Chief prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw stated that initial indications suggest that the gunman acted alone.

In a video, Al Guilani declared he had “killed three Swedes” as “revenge for all Muslims.” A statement published later Tuesday by Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Over recent months, media outlets associated with Islamic State and al-Qaida have urged revenge attacks against Sweden for Quran burnings by far-right provocateurs Salwan Momika and Rasmus Paludan.

Al Guilani’s attack is deeply disoriented and reactionary, but it cannot be explained outside of the vicious Islamophobia systematically incited by the ruling elites in Sweden and the major imperialist powers. Swedish media cited a social media post from the gunman Monday, indicating that the trigger for his shooting was the brutal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian boy in Chicago by his mother’s landlord. Al Guilani reportedly wrote that the stabbing would have been described as a terrorist act if it had been carried out by a Muslim against a Christian.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained, the stabbing of the boy and threats of violence against Muslims and their organisations “are not just random incidents, but rather the product of a deliberate campaign directed from the highest levels of the national-security apparatus to whip up anti-Muslim bigotry and mobilize it in support of a US military intervention in the Middle East that has no popular support.” The anti-Muslim campaign has reached fever pitch with the unanimous support in ruling circles for the Israeli regime’s genocidal onslaught on the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Swedish ruling elite has made its own contribution to fomenting anti-Muslim hysteria. The current right-wing government led by the conservative Moderate Party relies on the support of the fascistic Sweden Democrats to secure a majority in parliament. Throughout 2023, the government has tacitly backed the Quran-burning provocations, beginning with Paludan’s burning of a Quran outside the Turkish embassy in January. 

Throughout the summer, Momika, an Iraqi Christian previously associated with the Sweden Democrats, carried out a series of Quran burnings and desecrations in various locations in Stockholm and Malmö. All of these intentionally provocative acts were made possible with the approval of the police, which gave the go-ahead for small demonstrations by right-wing extremists at which Qurans were burned and provided security protection.

In one case where the police tried to ban a burning, the courts stepped in to overturn the prohibition, citing “freedom of speech.” Similar provocations were organised by far-right groups in neighbouring Denmark.

Underscoring the close connection between figures like Momika and the government, Momika declared in an interview with German public broadcaster ARD that the only party capable of “protecting Sweden” was the Sweden Democrats. He then announced in early August a suspension of his Quran burnings for fear that they could play into the hands of Russia and Turkish efforts to delay Sweden’s NATO membership.

For their part, the government and media defended these provocations with bogus and hypocritical statements about the need to uphold “freedom of speech.” After mass protests swept Muslim-majority countries, including one in Iraq where demonstrators stormed the Swedish embassy, the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm released a statement describing the Quran burnings as “Islamophobic.”

But the right-wing government refused to take any action to prevent the burnings, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson declaring, “We stand up for the Swedish freedom of speech.”

The government seized on the heightened anger towards Sweden produced by the Quran burnings to strengthen police powers. In August, the Swedish security agency SAPO increased the country’s terror threat to “high,” the fourth level on a five-level scale. The government strengthened border controls, giving police greater authority to stop and search people. In September, Kristersson met with the head of the military to discuss using the army to deal with a spike in gang-related shootings, which often occur in impoverished immigrant communities.

The campaign for more police state measures was intensified following Monday’s attack. Kristersson told a press conference in Stockholm, “This is a time for more security, we can’t be naive.”

At the same time, the whipping up of Islamophobia has been exploited by the political establishment to strengthen the case for Sweden’s NATO membership, which a significant portion of the population continues to view with skepticism. The government denounced a “Russian disinformation” campaign for spreading the claim that it facilitated the Quran burnings.

“Russia is using this deeply disrespectful action with the Quran for its own agenda in media outlets and channels controlled by Russia,” Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer alleged. “The goals of these messages are to split and polarise the West, spread conspiracy theories, hinder decision-making processes, and create disunity in countries that they want to influence.”

The truth is that the political climate in which state-backed Islamophobia can flourish in Sweden has been created by the entire political establishment. During two parliamentary terms in government from 2014 to 2022, the Social Democrats, supported by the Greens and Left Party, implemented stringent immigration controls demanded by the right, oversaw a disastrous “herd immunity” pandemic policy that saw death rates in heavily immigrant-populated communities significantly exceed those in the general population, and continued to enforce austerity measures that have gutted Sweden’s once relatively generous social welfare system. 

Systematic privatisations and cost-cutting have turned many immigrant communities on the outskirts of large Swedish cities into areas of mass unemployment and social misery. 

The refusal of any political party to decisively oppose these policies has helped create the conditions within which reactionary Islamist terrorism and gang violence can gain footholds.

The Social Democrat-led government also helped legitimise the far-right Sweden Democrats. During its last year in government, the Social Democrats implemented a budget drafted by the right-wing opposition parties in parliament, including the Sweden Democrats. Since Kristersson came to power, his Sweden Democrat-backed government has announced a “paradigm shift” in immigration policy, including a clampdown on family reunifications and more stringent rules for obtaining residency permits.

Within this context, the series of Quran burnings that appear to have provoked Monday’s shooting has much in common with the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by a Danish newspaper in 2006. At the time, supporters of the conservative daily’s right to print offensive depictions of Mohammed as a terrorist, including the right-wing Danish government and much of the domestic and international media, justified their position with references to “freedom of speech.” 

In reality, the provocation emerged from an appeal by Denmark’s then Cultural Affairs Minister Brian Mikkelsen to create a “Danish cannon” of art to combat the emergence of a “parallel society” in the country where “minorities” practiced “their own medieval values and undemocratic views.” The publication occurred as the Danish government enforced an unprecedented crackdown on immigration in alliance with the far-right Danish People’s Party and triggered angry protests around the world.

US steps up high-tech war against China

Nick Beams

As it intensifies operations against Russia in the Ukraine war, threatens Iran with the movement of warships into the Gulf and gives full backing to the Israeli onslaught against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the US has stepped up its high-tech war against China with the announcement by the Commerce Department of new export bans on Tuesday.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo reacts during the press conference at the Boeing Shanghai Aviation Service Co., Ltd, in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. [AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool]

The bans are a tightening of the export controls introduced last October aimed at trying to further restrict the ability of Chinese companies to continue to make advances in the crucial area of artificial intelligence (AI).

Their main target is two chips developed by Nvidia specially for the Chinese market in response to the US measures a year ago. Nvidia redesigned two of its top-of-the-range chips, central to AI development, to produce modified versions known has A800 and H800 which complied with US regulations.

These sales will now be halted, one unnamed official told the Financial Times. Another commented that in drafting the new rules the administration had taken into account how attempts were made “to work around our parameters.”

A Commerce Department statement said the updates were “necessary to maintain the effectiveness of these controls, close loopholes, and ensure they remain durable.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the goal was to limit China’s “access to advanced semiconductors that could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sophisticated computers.”

The US is stepping up the high-tech war on national security grounds, claiming the development of AI by China can give it an edge in military technology under conditions where the US military is continually advancing its war preparations.

The bans have a wider objective as well—the placing of constraints on the advancement of the Chinese economy, especially high-tech areas. Numerous studies and reports, going back to the Trump presidency and before, have made clear that Chinese gains in these crucial sectors are regarded as an existential threat to the global economic position of the US.

Officially, the US claims that it is not trying to hit the broader Chinese economy but is only targeting its military capabilities. This distinction is largely meaningless.

Raimondo acknowledged this in comments to reporters before the latest moves. “It’s difficult to draw a bright line between military and commercial technology,” she said, noting there are often “dual use technologies.”

In devising the new bans, US officials have drawn some lessons from the experiences of the past year. When the controls were put in place last October, agreement had not been reached with Japan and the Netherlands which supply crucial components and machinery for the development and manufacture of chips. Also, it had not ensured that China was cut off from alternative suppliers.

It has announced that it will require companies to obtain a licence to sell chips to more than 40 countries where China could find intermediaries to get around the US controls.

It is also looking to extend restrictions to machines used in the manufacture of chips. One of the major firms in this area is the Dutch company ASML.

The company opposed the restrictions imposed last October and it took some months to get it to comply. Now the US is seeking to extend controls to lower grade manufacturing equipment and, according to a report in Bloomberg, has been working with the Netherlands on the issue.

ASML said the new regulations would be applicable to a “limited number” of fabs (chip manufacturing plants) in China but did not specify which of its machines would be affected.

The net is being cast wider and tightened. The administration added two Chinese chip startup companies and their subsidiaries to a list that mandates companies in the US to obtain a government licence before they can export to them.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security hardened due diligence requirements to determine whether foreign companies were taking part in the evasion of export controls. It said the framework was now “default assumption of licence denial.”

The new regulations will also require the companies which sell chips below the official threshold to inform the US government. This is because, as Bloomberg reported, according to a US official “with a lot of money and a little jury-rigging, a whole class of slightly inferior chips could also be used for AI and supercomputing and therefore pose a national security risk.”

While the White House is determined to press ahead there are conflicts and contradictions arising from its ever-tightening restrictions.

The industry trade group, the Semiconductor Industry Association, said that “overly broad, unilateral controls risk harming the US semiconductor ecosystem without advancing national security as they encourage overseas customers to look elsewhere.”

The president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank, Robert Atkinson, said limiting the sale of chips to China risked significantly reducing competitiveness.

“US firms will lose the most profitable part of their markets, significantly reducing profits that otherwise would be invested in research and development for the next generation of chips,” he said.

Paul Triolo, an expert on China and technology at the Washington-based consultancy Albright Stonebridge, pointed to an issue of growing concern for the Biden administration.

US controls had “massively incentivised the Chinese system … to invest in domestic capabilities.” Since the initial measures, “tool makers in China have become fully integrated with the foundries in a way they never had before” and were taking market share.

The Chinese response to the bans has already rung alarm bells in the Biden administration.

Despite sweeping bans imposed by the Trump administration, continued under Biden, aimed at crippling it, the telecommunications giant, Huawei, launched a new upgraded phone in August.

Raimondo said the news that Huawei had developed a more advanced phone was “incredibly disturbing.” While it is not directly related to AI technology, the Huawei advance was undoubtedly a motivation for the latest measures because it showed a capacity to get around the US bans to a significant extent.

Besides the expression of concerns in the industry over the economic fallout of the bans, there are also fears in some more historically aware sections of the financial elites as to where US policy is heading.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Ray Dalio, the founder and long-time chief executive of the Bridgewater hedge fund, likened US-China relations to those between the US and Japan in the lead up to outbreak of war in 1941.

“The reason in World War II—war with Japan—you had the [US] cutting off of the oil and then sanctioning them, taking their payments,” he said.

There was now a “much similar situation. Chips [are] like oil back then.”

While he did not see a war as inevitable, he saw Taiwan as a “breaking point.” If the US said it was in favour of an independent Taiwan that would be “the equivalent of a declaration of war.”

After two weeks of repayments, student borrowers still lack basic information about their loans

Kevin Reed

After two weeks of resumed federal student loan payments, reports and studies are showing that many borrowers still do not have accurate information about how much they owe or what their monthly payments are.

Student debt relief advocates gather outside the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, as the court hears arguments over President Joe Biden's student debt relief plan. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]

On October 1, the three-and-a-half-year pandemic pause in repayment and interest accrual for more than 43 million student loan borrowers was ended by the Biden administration. The total amount of federal student loan debt in the US is $1.7 trillion. Since 2003, student debt has been the fastest growing type of household debt, increasing by more than 500 percent over the last two decades.

Of the 43 million borrowers, 28 million people with student loans must now make monthly payments. The other 15 million borrowers are not required to make payments because they are either still in school or are enrolled in some type of repayment deferment, forbearance or grace period.

Some of those in repayment are reporting their government-contracted loan servicers have sent them incorrect bills, they are not able to reach anyone on the phone and, when they are able to talk to someone, the information provided is either confusing, unclear or incorrect.

Among the biggest problems are for borrowers who enrolled in the Biden administration’s SAVE (Save on Valuable Education) plan, which the White House touted as the “most affordable repayment plan ever.” It is one of several income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that supposedly make monthly payments affordable based on a borrower’s current income.

According to a report by CNBC, many borrowers who signed up for the SAVE plan “complain they’ve gotten incorrect bills.” Higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz told CNBC that he estimates that “hundreds of thousands of borrowers may have been affected.”

Kantrowitz said the student loan servicers are using an outdated poverty line from 2022 to calculate borrowers’ payments instead of the current 2023 figures.

Meanwhile, Ella Azoulay, a policy analyst at the Student Borrower Protection Center, said, “Because of the misinformation being disseminated, borrowers are likely to make overpayments, or underpayments and get off-track.” Azoulay continued, “Moreover, being forced to make incorrect monthly payments places additional strain on borrowers’ monthly finances and puts some in the position of being unable to afford necessities, like medication.”

In a report on Saturday by Fortune, student loan borrower Juniper, with a $44,000 debt, said she had signed up for the SAVE program and was quoted a monthly payment of $47. However, the article says, “Fast-forward to October, though, when the first loan payment was due, and Juniper was quoted $138 per month on her loan servicer's website. In her account, she is enrolled in the PAYE program, another income-driven repayment (IDR) plan that isn’t as generous, according to screen shots of her account reviewed by Fortune.”

The 31-year-old, who had been laid off last November, told Fortune, “It's been a nightmare. I might not starve, but I certainly won’t be thriving. When we’re talking $1,200 a year, it’s significant. It’s that much more I can’t plan if life throws me another curveball.”

According to the US Department of Education, the SAVE payments for at least 420,000 borrowers have been miscalculated by their loan servicers in recent weeks. The Fortune report says, “the total number could grow much higher, given that at least 4 million people have applied for SAVE and not all of the applications have been processed yet.”

A representative of Biden’s Department of Education (DoE) issued a public relations statement about the chaos, claiming that the White House’s “top priority” is “supporting borrowers as they successfully navigate return to repayment and making sure they have the resources, tools, and information they need to find the best repayment plans.”

Meanwhile, the number of delinquencies and defaults on the massive amount of student loan debt is expected to increase rapidly. According to DoE data from third quarter of 2023, there are 34.2 million borrowers who owe $40,000 or less on their student loans, while 6.9 million owe between $40,000 and $80,000 and another 4.8 million owe between $80,000 and over $200,000.

Other data from the DoE shows that during the repayment pause that began in 2020 the amount of total debt represented by students loans has fallen from over 10 percent to just over 9 percent. This means that other types of consumer debt, such as credit cards and auto loans, have been taken out over the past three years. Additionally, any new debt taken on in the last 18 months will have higher interest rates due to the Fed’s policy of rapidly raising the prime lending rates. 

According to a press release by Liz Pagel, senior vice president and consumer lending business leader for Transunion, “The majority of consumers with a student loan have not been required to make payments for the better part of three years. Payment amounts will vary, but many of these consumers have taken on additional debt since the last time they had to pay their student loans. It’s important for both lenders and consumers to be prepared for this new payment shock.”

Prior to the payment pause, the number of student loan borrowers in delinquency or default had grown to about 15 percent. These numbers came down during the payment pause, but are now expected to rise rapidly. When those with student debt have to choose between buying food, paying their rent or putting gas in their car to get to work, the loan payments will have the lowest priority.

A report by 14 News WFIE of Evansville, Indiana quoted one student who said she had no plans to repay her student loans. Kali Smith said, “I was 17 when I signed up for them, so I don’t know what kind of loan I actually got, but for some reason, mine didn’t actually get put off.” She said she only attended college for a year and a half in 2007 and now owes $21,000. “I’m not paying them off,” she said.

Billionaire CEOs continue campaign to blacklist students for opposition to Israel’s war crimes

Emma Arceneaux

Mass opposition to the Israeli government’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza continues to mount across the United States and internationally. Despite the combined pressures of relentless propaganda and anti-democratic attacks against expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people, millions of workers and youth throughout the world continue to pour into the streets to protest Israel’s war crimes.

In the United States, where the Biden administration has fully backed the Israeli government, university campuses have emerged as a major battleground in the fight to defend democratic rights and expose the lies used to justify Israel’s policies. As the scale of Israel’s war becomes increasingly clear—including through the mass bombing campaign and the deliberate deprivation of food, water and fuel to the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, half of whom are children—the class lines are being clearly drawn.

On the one side are tens of thousands of students who are fighting to stop Israel’s historic crimes against Gaza; on the other hand are the billionaire CEOs, members of the capitalist ruling class who populate university board rooms and whose checkbooks secure the allegiance of the university administrations.

The recent statements by these figures highlights the right-wing, anti-democratic character of this social layer which exercises vast influence over academia.

At Harvard University, the CEO campaign to blacklist pro-Palestinian students has continued to mount following the events last week, when students were publicly doxxed and threatened with retaliation for signing a statement correctly blaming Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinians for the current conflict.

Harvard University Widener Library [Photo by Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0]

After public denunciations of the students by Larry Summers, former Harvard president and former US Treasury Secretary, along with calls by Bill Ackman, Harvard alumnus and billionaire hedge fund manager, for the university to release the names of students associated with the statement, a van rode around campus plastered with the pictures and names of protesting students.

Since then, more billionaire donors, aligned with both the Democrats and Republicans, have come forward to slander the students as “antisemitic” and demand that they be “held accountable” for their opposition to Israel’s crimes.

After denouncing the student letter, Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, demanded that the university take a harder stance in defense of Israel. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Griffin is the world’s 33rd wealthiest person with an estimated wealth of $36 billion. He has donated more than half a billion dollars to Harvard, including $300 million this year alone.

The New York Times reported a private call between Griffin and Penny Pritzker, billionaire senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and sister to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, after which the university issued a second, more forceful statement on the conflict, condemning “the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.”

Griffin has also joined Ackman’s call for students to be blacklisted, declaring that students associated with the letter would never be hired by Citadel for their “unforgivable” digression.

Students across the US are facing intense retribution for voicing their opposition to the war. At New York University, Ryna Workman, president of the Student Bar Association (SBA), came under vicious attack by the university administration after issuing a principled statement defending Palestinians against Israeli oppression. They were publicly denounced by university administrators; their job offer from the corporate law firm Winston & Strawn was immediately revoked; and the SBA announced that it would remove Workman from their elected position.

At the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), President Liz Magill was forced to issue a second statement on the Israel war, in which she denounced Hamas’s “terrorist assault.” She also capitulated to demands that the administration denounce a Palestinian literature festival held at the university in September, slandering speakers for their opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel, stating they had “a public history of speaking out viciously against the Jewish people.” Among the panelists was Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters, who was banned from campus by the university and had to participate remotely.

Magill’s latest statements followed a concerted campaign by the university’s wealthiest donors and state figures to demand the school align itself with the state of Israel.

Billionaire Jon Huntsman Jr., former governor of Utah who served in the administrations of every president from Ronald Reagan through Donald Trump, announced that his family foundation would “close its checkbook” to Penn for its supposed “moral relativism” in response to what he called the “reprehensible and historic Hamas evil.”

Vahan Gureghian, CEO of CSMI, a for-profit charter school operator, resigned from the Penn Board of Trustees last Friday, describing the Palestine literature festival as an “embrace of antisemitism.”

Another billionaire donor, Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management and chair of the Wharton School, Penn’s business school, called for both Magill and the university’s Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok to be fired and for donors to discontinue funding to the university.

While Griffin, Ackman, Rowan and others have been public in their statements, the Times reported that in its interviews with donors, “the most intense demands have come behind the scenes” from Wall Street financiers who feel they “had a right… to weigh in” but who do “not want to speak publicly on a rapidly evolving issue that has elicited death threats on both sides.”

While students are publicly doxxed, removed from elected academic positions and physically threatened, the financial elite have self-declared their right to dictate university policy and suppress academic freedom in backroom dealings without the threat of public scrutiny.

In addition to blacklisting by major corporations and the American state, students are also confronted with similar attacks against their democratic rights by right-wing professors.

At the University of California, Berkeley, Zionist law Professor Steven Davidoff Soloman published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday titled, “Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students,” in which he equated criticism of Zionism with “anti-Semitism and dehumanizing Jews.”

He menacingly stated that it was “time for the adults to take over” and that students need to “face consequences,” such as being blacklisted by law firms, in order to “straighten up.” In the context of violent police repression against pro-Palestinian protesters internationally, such statements have sinister implications.

Solomon chairs the Board of Directors of the Israel Institute, a Zionist organization which promotes the state of Israel on university campuses and has high level connections to both the US and Israeli governments. It was founded in 2012 by Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the US, and its funding comes from the Schusterman Family Foundation, which declares on its website that its work “is rooted in a proud embrace of the vision of Zionism embedded in Israel’s founding Declaration of Independence.”

The intensity of the campaign to discredit political opposition to the policies of Israel and its imperialist backers is indicative of a deep-seated fear within these ruling layers that their slanderous propaganda and warmongering is being rejected by millions of people worldwide.

Indeed, despite significant personal victimization, Ryna Workman has issued a second statement, redoubling their demands for an immediate end to Israel’s genocidal war. At Harvard, hundreds of students held a demonstration on Sunday in support of the Palestinians. Internationally, protesters are courageously defying bans against Palestine solidarity protests in the so-called “democratic” countries.