Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales survives assassination attempt

Andrea Lobo

Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales accused the government of President Luis Arce of sending “elite agents of the Bolivian state” to kill him after attackers shot multiple times at his caravan of vehicles on Sunday morning. The incident marks a sharp intensification of the conflict between factions of the ruling class in the resource-rich, South American country.

Screenshot of a video showing reflection of former President Evo Morales in bullet-shattered truck window [Photo: Evo Morales]

Morales published a video on social media showing him switching from a vehicle whose tires had been blown up to another vehicle, which also came under fire during a high-speed chase. The windshields and body of the trucks were riddled with bullets and the driver was hit in the arm and another bullet grazed his scalp. Morales was not injured.  

In a statement, the dominant wing of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, which is controlled by Morales, charged that men dressed in black carried out the attack from two unmarked vehicles. They were then seen entering a military barracks at the site of the shooting and leaving in a helicopter. The statement concludes by blaming the Arce administration and calling it “fascist.”

The attack against Morales took place after several failed attempts by the police to clear major roadblocks, mostly in the central Andean highlands city of Cochabamba, which the ex-president’s supporters have maintained for over two weeks against attempts to arrest him.

President Arce had named a new military high command the night before the attack, ordering it to “ensure the restoration of public order” against the pro-Morales protests. Significantly, the military leadership had already been reshuffled in late June, leading to the ousted commander of the Army, Gen. Juan José Zúñiga, launching a failed coup attempt aligned with the fascistic right to overthrow Arce. 

Now, government officials are openly considering demands for a state of exception and a military deployment made by the far right, which has close ties to the US Embassy, including the fascist Santa Cruz Civic Committee, the Santa Cruz government, and the jailed leader of the US-backed coup that deposed Morales in 2019, Jeanine Áñez. Unable to suppress mass opposition, Áñez was compelled to call for elections in 2020, which were won by Luis Arce, at the time a close ally of Morales. 

On Tuesday, police attacked a roadblock in Mairana, Santa Cruz, but the pro-Morales crowd led by indigenous groups ambushed the police with rocks and dynamite. The government claims that about two dozen police officials and two journalists were kidnapped and tortured for several hours and that it would announce new repressive measures in response.

The Arce administration has sought to pin the blame for the failed assassination attempt on Morales himself, so far unconvincingly. 

Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo said during a press conference that the former president’s caravan had previously sped through a checkpoint of drug enforcement police, shooting at the officials and running over one of them. Del Castillo then played a recording where Morales apparently acknowledged to an interviewer that he personally fired shots at a tire. However, Morales was clearly speaking in broken Spanish about the shots at his own vehicle, while the video does not show anyone in his caravan shooting back as they were being attacked. 

The government has nonetheless filed charges against Morales for attempting to kill a police official, with Del Castillo warning: “No one and nothing will save him from this criminal process, no one who attacks a police officer can remain unpunished.”

The pro-Morales leadership has responded by expanding the roadblocks, and Morales warned on Wednesday to news agency EFE that if he were captured there would be an uprising among indigenous movements and mutinies within the police and the military.

For months, his supporters have demanded the resignation of Arce, whom they blame for growing economic ills, and letting Morales run for re-election, which is banned by the Constitution. 

The most recent wave of roadblocks was spurred by an arrest warrant issued against Morales after the Arce administration resurrected allegations first made by the Áñez regime in 2019 that Morales had impregnated a 15-year-old girl in 2016, when he was still in power. 

Morales, who has barricaded himself in his hometown of Villa Tunari, Cochabamba to avoid arrest, has indicated that a prosecutor in Tupiza, where the alleged victim lives, had dropped the case based on a lack of evidence, and that no one can be prosecuted twice on the same charges. 

Arce’s allies in the judiciary then opened three other criminal cases against Morales, including one of “foreign intervention” for using a truck allegedly donated by the Venezuelan state oil company. 

The pro-Morales wing in Congress launched its own sexual scandal against Arce, preparing a press conference where a woman named Yéssica Villarroel denounced the current president for having a secret relationship with her and forcing her to have an abortion.

As the political conflict in Bolivia moves from mudslinging to an assassination attempt and potentially civil war, Morales and Arce have relied on their control of sections of the capitalist state, the MAS party, peasant organizations and the union bureaucracy.

All factions, however, are doing everything possible to preempt a mass intervention of the working class in the political and economic crisis. A major hike in the cost of living this year, shortages of fuel and dollars and economic stagnation have led to limited strikes among teachers, truckers, and other workers, as well as pot-banging protests in cities. 

Following its economic “miracle” in 2003-2014, when the economy boomed in tandem with the rising gas export prices, Bolivia has proven to be a weak link in the breakdown of bourgeois rule internationally as a result of the US-led imperialist drive to recolonize and redivide the world, which includes securing control over lithium and other key natural resources in Bolivia and Latin America against China and Russia.

Facing economic stagnation as a result of the drying up of natural gas, lower gas and lithium prices, the growth of public debt and the depletion of foreign reserves, each faction of the Bolivian ruling class is vying for support from one or another imperialist or capitalist power. This process, which is taking place across Latin America, threatens to drag the country and the region into world war. At the same time, however, the entire ruling class is determined to secure capitalist rule and exploitation against the working class. 

Carlos Romero, a leader of the pro-Morales camp and former minister, had insisted earlier this year that “Morales is doing everything possible to contain a social mobilization.” On Tuesday, he warned Arce: “Military intervention would lead to an escalation of deaths and the escalation of deaths will provoke an uprising of greater dimensions and a greater state crisis, so what is the best way forward? For the government to convene a major national dialogue.”

European Union imposes tariffs on Chinese EVs

Nick Beams

At every meeting of international economic and financial organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund, there are warnings that tariffs and other protectionist measures are fracturing the global economy, leading to slower economic growth or worse, including the formation of antagonistic trade blocs that characterised the 1930s.

Models pose near the BYD Seal 06 Dmi unveiled during Auto China 2024 held in Beijing, Thursday, April 25, 2024. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

But despite these warnings, which are repeated in comments by financial and economic analysts, tariff barriers continue to be erected. The US has been in the lead with higher tariff barriers and controls on high-tech exports, initiated under the Trump presidency and markedly intensified by Biden.

It is now being joined by the European Union, which this week imposed an additional tariff of 35 percent on Chinese electric vehicles on top of a 10 percent tariff already in force.

The new measures, which will come into force next week, are to last five years. They were introduced on the basis that Chinese EV makers were benefiting unfairly from state subsidies.

The Chinese government rejected the claim of undue state support, saying it would “continue to take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of all Chinese companies.”

While subsidies and assistance are provided, as in other countries, the real reason for the growing Chinese penetration of the EU market is that Chinese technology is more advanced, and its cost structure is significantly lower.

This is one of the reasons why the imposition of the tariffs met major opposition from the German government and German auto makers who are looking to collaborate with Chinese producers as their road to survival in the intensifying global struggle in the industry. They also fear that tariff measures will bring retaliatory actions that will hit their markets in China.

The decision to impose the tariffs came after eight rounds of talks aimed at trying to devise a mechanism through which a minimum price could be set along with the volume of Chinese exports. But the talks broke down with both sides saying the differences remained significant.

Further talks are to be held, with the EU accepting an invitation by China to send envoys to Beijing to see if some agreement can be reached on these mechanisms.

The tariffs came as the result of an investigation launched by European Commission (EU) President Ursula von der Leyen which was initiated in October last year. Their imposition received considerable opposition within the EU. Of the 27 members five, with Germany and Hungary in the lead, voted against and 12 abstained. In the lead up to the decision the Spanish government called for a “reconsideration” of the plan.

But the commission decided to go ahead, which tends to indicate that geo-political considerations, not least alignment with the US economic war against China, rather than the issue of subsidies, played a considerable part.

Announcing the decision, EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis stuck to the line that it was all about subsides and unfair market practices by China.

He said that by “adopting these proportionate and targeted measures after a rigorous investigation, we’re standing up for fair market practices and for the European industrial base.”

“We welcome competition, including in the electric vehicle sector, but it must be underpinned by fairness and a level playing field,” Dombrovskis stated.

However, the reference to the need to protect the “European industrial base” at least indicates one of the underlying reasons for the decision was that all the major powers seek to develop their capacities to shift to a war economy.

The divisions within the EU, which must rank as some of the most significant on trade issues in the history of the Union, were underscored by comments from Germany. Hildegarde Müller, the head of the German auto industry association, VDA, said the decision was “a setback for free global trade and so for prosperity and Europe’s growth.”

“The industry is not naïve in dealing with China, but the challenges must be resolved in dialogue,” a statement said.

A statement issued by the German Finance Ministry said that Berlin “stands for open markets. Because Germany in particular, as a globally interconnected economy, is dependent on this.”

The chief executive of BMW Oliver Zipse said protectionism would only make cars more expensive for consumers and accelerate plant closures in Europe.

The interconnectedness of the global car industry was indicated by Roberto Vavassori, who told the Financial Times (FT) that “for many suppliers in the automotive industry, [the Chinese] are both the biggest threat and the biggest customer.”

The attitude of some of the major car manufactures appears to be that under conditions where China is developing more technologically advanced components, their best hope for survival in the intensifying global struggle for markets and profits is not by erecting tariff walls, which raise costs and invite retaliation, but in developing some form of collaboration with Chinse producers.

The lower cost structure is significant. The FT has reported that major Chinese producers are turning out EVs that are more technologically advanced than their European counterparts and 30 percent cheaper.

Speed of innovation, not just cost, is another factor. According to one estimate cited by the FT, Chinese companies are developing new cars, incorporating better technology and design, in just one year compared to four years in Europe.

The motivations behind the opposition to the tariffs by some of Europe’s major producers were indicated in comments to the FT by Andy Palmer, the former head of the British firm Aston Martin.

He asked: “What did the Chinese do, what did the Japanese do and what did the Koreans do when they were behind on technology? They collaborated. The European industry needs to get the Chinese to localise in Europe and it needs to collaborate with them, particularly around battery technology in order to catch up.”

Survivors of abuse demand accountability over decades-long cover-up by the New Zealand state

Tom Peters

New Zealand’s National Party-led coalition government is desperately seeking to minimise the fallout from the explosive findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.

People arrive at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, for the tabling of a wide-ranging independent inquiry into the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care over the span of five decades wrote in a blistering final report. [AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay]

The long-running inquiry released its final 3,000-page report in August, documenting in horrifying detail the physical, psychological and sexual abuse suffered by generations of children, young people and psychiatric patients. The 3,000-page report concluded that as many as 256,000 people between 1950 to 2019 were abused and neglected—about one third of the total numbers placed in state or religious institutions.

The commissioners found that state and religious leaders “knew, or should have known, about the abuse and neglect that was happening. They failed not only in their duty to keep people in their care safe from harm, but they also failed to hold abusers to account.”

They also wrote: “Political and public service leaders spent time, energy and taxpayer resources to hide, cover up and then legally fight survivors to protect the potential perceived costs to the Crown, and their own reputations.”

On November 12, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and opposition Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins are scheduled to jointly deliver a national apology to survivors. The government says it will also reveal details of its response to the Royal Commission’s report, which included recommendations for redress, independent oversight of care institutions and the reopening of police investigations into specific allegations.

The aim of the apology is to divert public attention from the role played by numerous current and former government ministers, senior public servants, church leaders and senior police officers in the decades-long cover-up.

On October 23, Attorney-General Judith Collins rejected calls by survivors for the resignation of Solicitor-General Una Jagose, the government’s top legal advisor. Collins told Newsroom that she had confidence in Jagose even though the latter “accepted that the way in which Crown Law—over the years—conducted its litigation has not necessarily been focused on victims.”

Jagose joined the Crown Law office in 2002. In 2015 she briefly served as head of the Government Communications Security Bureau, the country’s spy agency, before being appointed to her current role in 2016.

Leoni McInroe, who was abused as a teenager at the Lake Alice psychiatric hospital during the 1970s, told Newsroom: “[Jagose] has made it very clear in all of their legal technicalities and assault on children that were abused—either in Lake Alice or in other situations—legally, she has fought vigorously and aggressively to have us go away.”

Jagose is mentioned numerous times in the Royal Commission’s report as she played a major role in defending the Crown against allegations from victims.

McInroe and other Lake Alice patients were given electro convulsive therapy (ECT) as a form of punishment, which the Royal Commission said amounted to torture. In the 1990s she filed a civil claim over what she had endured, which Crown Law spent years fighting in the courts.

Newsroom points out that “The Crown held overwhelming documentary evidence these allegations of torture [against Lake Alice’s Dr Selwyn Leeks] were true but withheld this evidence on numerous occasions.” In 1999, then Health Minister Bill English publicly admitted that there had been cases of torture at Lake Alice. Yet Leeks and other staff who abused more than 200 children and young people—including with electric shocks to the genitals and acts of rape—were never held accountable.

In a detailed analysis of the cover-up, Newsroom reporter Aaron Smale explains that “it was the Crown that held the largest body of documentary evidence [about the crimes committed at Lake Alice]. But if Leeks were held fully responsible, the Crown would be legally and financially liable.” Extensive evidence pointing to Leeks’ guilt was kept secret and withheld from police.

In May 2000, Labour Party Prime Minister Helen Clark and Health Minister Annette King presented a Cabinet committee with options for dealing with the Lake Alice allegations. Their preference was for out-of-court settlements that limited liability and did not set a precedent.

Clark and King also recommended that Cabinet “seek Crown Law advice on the likelihood of success of technical defences” against the alleged victims. The prime minister and health minister expressed the hope that by putting “the onus on plaintiffs,” who had extremely limited resources, to prove their claims, “a denial of liability by the Crown may succeed.”

Smale concludes that “The victims of the state were effectively treated as legal enemies of the state. The victims of the state’s crimes were treated like criminals, while the real criminals walked.”

In another case examined by the Royal Commission, a man referred to by the pseudonym Earl White took legal action in 2007 against the Crown for trauma resulting from being sexually abused at Hokio Beach School. The Crown’s lawyers knew that the perpetrator Michael Ansell, the school cook, had been convicted for sexually abusing other children at the school in the 1970s, but this information was not provided to White’s lawyer. One of the government lawyers involved in the case was Jagose.

Smale reports that in the lead-up to the White trial, the Ministry of Social Development and Crown Law hired private investigators to “dig dirt” on White—a fact that was only admitted in 2018. The Crown accused White of an “abuse of process” and sought to discredit his claim that the abuse had caused him significant harm.

High Court Justice Forrest Miller sided with the Crown: despite finding that White had been abused at least 13 times, he declared that it had been “embarrassing, not traumatic,” and had not contributed to his severe mental health and addiction issues. Thus, the Crown avoided liability. Miller asserted, without any evidence, that White’s “difficulties” were caused by early childhood experiences and genetics. Jagose defended Miller’s extraordinary decision when White went to the Court of Appeal, which again ruled in favour of the Crown.

The Royal Commission’s report states that Hokio Beach School had a “culture of severe violence” including “severe corporal punishment, sometimes inflicted with weapons and to the genitals.” In addition, peer-on-peer violence was encouraged, “sexual abuse was pervasive,” “racism and cultural abuse was normalised” and “solitary confinement was misused.”

Jagose was also involved in representing the Crown against Keith Wiffin, who took legal action against the Ministry of Social Development in the 2000s over sexual abuse at Epuni Boys Home in the 1970s. Crown Law withheld information from Wiffin’s lawyer Sonja Cooper, including the fact that the perpetrator Alan Wright-Moncrief had been convicted for sexually abusing other children.

In her evidence to the Royal Commission, Jagose admitted that the information should have been disclosed. Asked why it was not, she replied: “I don’t know, I can’t answer. It should have been.”

In September 2008, Crown Law wrote to Wiffin’s lawyer to dissuade him from proceeding with his criminal complaint. Wiffin told the Royal Commission he was led to believe that Crown Law was engaged in its own investigation of Wright-Moncrief, which it was not.

Newsroom’s Smale observes that “The political and official cover-up highlighted by the Royal Commission has had no direct consequences at all.” Several politicians, state officials, judges, lawyers and others implicated by the inquiry remain in positions of power and influence.

While the government and opposition parties prepare to deliver their national apology, the brutalisation of young people continues. Another 519 children were abused in state custody last year. The victims are overwhelmingly from poor, working class backgrounds, including large numbers of Māori.

The far-right coalition government recently reintroduced military-run “boot camps” for teenage offenders—despite the Royal Commission documenting cases of bullying, extreme violence and rape at similar programs.

The Royal Commission revealed the brutal reality of capitalism in New Zealand. As the global economic crisis intensifies, the business elite views hundreds of thousands of young people as surplus to requirements. They are condemned to a life of poverty, unemployment, incarceration or being pushed into the military to fight imperialist wars abroad.

Erdogan government arrests Kurdish CHP mayor in Istanbul

Barış Demir

On Wednesday, the mayor of Istanbul’s Esenyurt Municipality, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Özer of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was detained and subsequently arrested on charges of “being a member of the armed terrorist organisation PKK/KCK”.

The Ministry of Interior announced that the deputy governor of Istanbul, Can Aksoy, had been appointed trustee of the municipality.

Ahmet Özer giving a speech in Van [Photo by Mezopotamya Ajansı / CC BY 3.0]

This arrest and the appointment of a trustee to replace an elected mayor is a clear attack on basic democratic rights. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long sought to stifle political opposition through such anti-democratic operations, building a police state.

This reactionary practice, which the government has systematically resorted to after 2015 by dismissing elected mayors, especially from the Kurdish nationalist movement, also means the de facto abolition of the constitutional right to vote and be elected.

According to the statement of the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ahmet Özer’s communications were intercepted because his name was mentioned in “organisational documents... seized from members of a terrorist organisation”. It was claimed that during the 10-year period “Özer had been in contact with PKK members many times and had contacted Kongra-gel co-chairman Remzi Kartal 14 times”.

Şevket Tuci, one of the people Özer is accused of meeting, has been his lawyer for 17 years and was present during his testimony to the police and prosecutors in this case. Faik Kaplan, who made the money transfer mentioned in the accusation against Özer, said that his daughter was a tenant in Özer’s house, that he paid the rent and had a rental agreement.

It was also reported that Özer was from the same tribe as Remzi Kartal, with whom he last met in 2015, and that at that time various official meetings were held with Kartal in Europe as part of the “peace process”. All this points to the fabricated nature of the charges and the political nature of the case.

Özer was elected mayor of Esenyurt on March 31 with 49 percent of the vote. Esenyurt, an industrial city with a large Kurdish electorate, is the largest district in Turkey with a population of around 1 million. Özer, a Kurdish sociologist and academic, was nominated as a candidate in the local elections as part of the cooperation between the CHP and the Peoples’ Democracy and Equality Party (DEM Party). In line with this strategy, the DEM Party did not nominate any candidates in some cities and districts, especially in Istanbul, and called on people to vote for the CHP.

In his first statement, which was leaked to the press before his arrest, Özer said the following: “I am an author who has written around 40 books, some of them on regional development, some of them novels, some of them on the Kurdish question. I have published around 200 national articles and around 300 papers”.

Emphasising that this was a political case, Özer continued as follows: “I am a scientist who [became] a professor at a young age, I am an academic, I have been a member of the CHP for more than 10 years, I was a candidate in the last elections, I worked as an advisor to İmamoğlu [the mayor of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality], I worked at the State Planning Organisation... until today there is nothing, they are trying to remove me from my post by bringing up some events from 10-15 years ago.”

CHP leader Özgür Özel in his first statement said that “The treatment of a scientist, opinion leader and politician who has held senior positions in the public sector and academia for years, who received clean papers from the relevant authorities as a candidate only six months ago, and who came to office with the great favour of the voters of Esenyurt in the elections he participated in, is unfair and the accusations are baseless.”

Özel also said, “These events are not independent of what has happened in recent weeks. We see the ugly game, the big conspiracy. We will neither be part of it nor surrender”.

The CHP leader called for a mass protest in Esenyurt on Thursday. Speaking at the rally, which was supported by the DEM party and attended by thousands of people. “Neither a condolence call to a relative nor a phone call from 10 years ago can be linked to terrorism. Erdoğan himself openly announced that Ahmet Özel would be arrested. So this was planned,” said Özel, adding that the prosecutors acted on Erdoğan’s orders.

The DEM Party condemned the operation in a statement on social media, saying, “The arrest of Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer and the appointment of a trustee for Esenyurt Municipality is an open coup against the will of the people, a usurpation of the people’s will. This is a disregard for local democracy and the will of the people. We will not remain silent against this lawlessness and political coup.”calan

Before Özer’s arrest on fabricated charges and the appointment of a trustee in his place, Turkey had witnessed important developments. On Tuesday last week, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the fascist ally of the “People’s Alliance” led by Erdoğan, made an unprecedented statement. Bahçeli suggested that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan should lift his isolation and address parliament, “shouting that terrorism is completely over and the organization [PKK] has been dismantled”.

Bahçeli’s statement, supported by Erdoğan, was welcomed by the DEM Party and the CHP as the beginning of a new “peace process” with the PKK. Öcalan was allowed to meet with his nephew Ömer Öcalan, DEM deputy for Şanlıurfa, as a sign of lifting the 44-month isolation imposed on him.

However, just one day after Bahçeli’s speech, while Erdoğan was in Russia for the BRICS summit, a bomb and gun attack took place at the Ankara facilities of the state-owned strategic defence company Turkish Aerospace Industries Corporation (TAI). Seven people were killed, including two of the attackers. The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ankara responded with days of airstrikes on what it claimed were PKK-YPG targets in Syria and Iraq. “In the last week, 198 terrorists were neutralised,” the Ministry of National Defence said on Thursday. The Mesopotamia Agency reported that 17 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 65 wounded in Syria as a result of air strikes. This was followed by a wave of arrests against the Kurdish political movement in the country. It was reported that 55 people were arrested in 17 provinces.

These developments come at a time when, in the Middle East, US-backed Israel has accelerated the genocide in Gaza, invaded Lebanon and is preparing a full-scale attack on Iran.

Turkey’s ruling elite is seeking to strengthen its hand at home, fearing that a widening of the war could undermine its interests in the region. Erdoğan’s statement, “While the maps are being redrawn in blood, while the war that Israel has waged from Gaza to Lebanon is approaching our borders, we are trying to strengthen our internal front,” was a clear expression of this.

Erdoğan approved Özer’s arrest and addressed CHP leader Özel, who opposed it, saying, “Why are you worried about this when our geography has turned into a ring of fire and members of the terrorist organisation are ravaging Esenyurt?”

On the one hand, the Erdoğan government advocates the release of Öcalan and reconciliation with the Kurdish movement inside Turkey in order to force the PKK to lay down its arms. At the same time, it defends the arrest of a mayor elected by the CHP-DEM party alliance on fabricated charges and continues its policy of military repression against the PKK-YPG. These are the efforts of the Turkish ruling elite to protect its interests through contradictory manoeuvres under the conditions of an escalating war in the Middle East.

Labour’s first budget a downpayment on its offensive against British working class

Robert Stevens

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first budget came with the declaration by the Labour government that it marked the end of austerity. This is a lie.

After pushing through £1.4 billion in cuts to 10 million pensioners, including 2 million of the poorest, and declaring that more savage austerity must follow, the government had to change tack slightly in finalising the budget.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves leaves the Treasury to deliver the Autumn Budget 2024 [Photo by HM Treasury / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Sections of the ruling class insisted that the government find some necessary funding for investment and not simply ram through more cuts. This was expressed in op ed-columns and commentary from the Guardian to the Financial Times.

This has nothing to do with largesse on the part of the ruling elite. There was genuine concern that too savage cuts would undermine global confidence in the UK economy, given the evisceration of much of its essential infrastructure.

Politically most important, after backing Labour to take office from a deeply unpopular Conservative government which had carried out 14 years of relentless austerity, there was the fear that a too swift deepening of this offensive would spark massive opposition in the working class. It had taken almost two years to quell the strike wave demanding an end to austerity that erupted in 2022, even with the best efforts of the trade union bureaucracy—in large part consisting of a promise that a Labour government would bring some relief.

The winter fuel allowance cut for pensioners, coming together with Labour’s refusal to scrap the Tory government’s vicious two-child cap on benefits payments, saw a collapse in Labour’s and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s already weak popularity ratings. Having won the July general election with a 10 percentage point lead over the Tories, by the time of the budget a Times poll showed a tie between Labour and the Tories on 27 points and the extreme right-wing Reform UK on 21 points.

Starmer had trailed a budget that would be “painful”, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves speaking of “difficult choices” and “discipline on spending” to “restore fiscal and economic stability”.

As late as Monday, Starmer was still saying, “It’s time to embrace the harsh light of fiscal reality” and to run “towards the tough decisions because ignoring them set us on the path of decline.”

Just two days later, Reeves proclaimed in her speech, “I said there would be no return to austerity, and that is the choice I have made today.”

But beneath a few meagre concessions, Reeves put forward £40 billion in tax rises and spending cuts alongside announcing that the way debt is measured would be recalibrated to allow for investment in the economy over the Parliament of around £100 billion.

Reeves claimed that “Working people will not see higher taxes in their payslips” and that instead there would be an increase in the rate of Employers’ National Insurance by 1.2 percentage points to 15 percent from April 2025. There would also be a reduction in the threshold level at which employers start paying national insurance on each employee’s salary—down from £9,100 per year to £5,000. Reeves said these measures would bring the Treasury £25 billion per year.

The chancellor also announced increases in some taxes affecting the wealthy, including tax trusts used by non-domiciled residents; private equity tax; capital gains tax, and inheritance tax (which will collectively raise around £7 billion a year).

These headline measures are meant to conceal the fact that Labour has already saved the corporate super-rich a fortune ahead of the budget by capping Corporation Tax at 25 percent for the next five years.

Claims now are that employers have just been hit with a £25 billion increase in national insurance taxation. But as was made clear by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in 2021, the “economic incidence of the tax is passed through entirely to lower real wages in the medium term.” What this means is that businesses will seek to pass on this cost entirely to their workforce.

This assessment was echoed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose head Paul Johnson commented following the budget: “These tax rises partly explain why the OBR has downgraded its projections for real household income growth over the next few years. Somebody will pay for higher taxes—largely working people”.

And the slight increases in the minimum wage announced by Reeves to £12.21 an hour for a full-time worker, and just £10 an hour for 18-20 year olds, will just as surely be eaten up by any widely anticipated downturn in the global economy produced by a deepening turn to trade and military war.

Every other announcement made by Reeves kept public spending to a minimum, with each extra penny listed as a concession to “working people” also having a major downside.

Reeves made clear that a £22.6 billion increase in day-to-day spending, plus £3.1 billion for capital spending, for a National Health Service (NHS) brought to the brink of collapse would, as Health Secretary Wes Streeting warned ahead of the budget, be conditional on “vital” reforms, i.e., attacks on the workforce, so that there could be “two percent productivity growth next year.”

With much of the money set to be absorbed by NHS staff pay increases and the increased cost of care, Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at the King’s Fund health thinktank, predicted, “The health spending announced today is unlikely to be enough for patients to see a real improvement in the care they receive.” The capital spend is set against a maintenance backlog of £13.8 billion.

Education spending was also kept to a minimum, with Reeves announcing £6.7 billion in capital investment for next year, claiming this was a 19 percent real-terms increase on the previous year. Like the NHS funding announced, this will fail to even touch the sides.

The £2.1 billion specifically allocated for the schools rebuilding programme, for example, represents an actual increase of just £550 million on what the Tories planned. Just 50 schools will be fixed each year. The £2.3 billion increase for core schools funding represents a measly 1.6 percent increase per pupil.

Even the Starmer-supporting Guardian noted, “School leaders welcomed a £2.3bn increase in core funding for schools, including a much-needed £1bn boost for special needs. However, experts said the additional investment was likely to be used mainly to plug existing deficits, while the special needs system would remain in a ‘perilous’ state.”

Reeves declared that since coming to office Labour had been “driving efficiency and reducing wasteful spending” throughout the public sector and had already “made £5.5bn of savings this year. Today we are setting a 2 percent productivity, efficiency and savings target for all departments to meet next year”.

Reeves announced that she would also implement welfare benefits cuts devised by the Tories, centred on making the work capability assessment more restrictive to deny benefits to hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

The chancellor announced that military spending had to be maintained, handing the Ministry of Defence a further £2.9 billion for the next year, “ensuring the UK comfortably exceeds our NATO commitments”. But the figure means defence spending is now slightly down as a percentage of GDP because of updated growth forecasts.

Reeves was unable to say when military spending would increase more dramatically because the economic and social impact of an immediate hike to pay for deeply unpopular wars would be so severe and provoke opposition. Labour is instead conducting a Strategic Defence Review to be published next year that will “set a path to spending 2.5 percent of GDP on defence at a future fiscal event,” Reeves said.

More than any other measure, this retreat was considered impermissible by Britain’s ruling elite. Pressure is already being piled on to demand Labour ditch this timeline and name a date for when the armed forces are handed tens of billions more.

Speaking in the House of Lords this month, crossbench peer and former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Stirrup insisted, “Investment in defence needs to be above 3 percent of GDP, not the 2.5 percent that the government say that they aspire to but for which they have not so far set out a firm plan.”

Further IFS analysis published Thursday concluded that Reeves’ budget means this parliament set to be second worst for household incomes for 75 years.

Sudan’s civil war and “world’s worst” humanitarian crisis unleashed by imperialist scheming

Jean Shaoul

An emergency session of the United Nations Security Council held to discuss Sudan’s catastrophic civil war on Monday occasioned much handwringing but failed to discuss any measures to stop the fighting or relieve what aid agencies have called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the Sudanese people are living through a “nightmare of violence, hunger and displacement,” while countless others are facing “unspeakable atrocities”, including widespread rapes. He highlighted “shocking reports of mass killings and sexual violence” in villages in east-central Gezira province where paramilitary fighters in a days-long assault had killed more than 120 people in one town.

Sudanese refugee camp in Chad, May 16, 2023. [Photo: Henry Wilkins/VOA]

Guterres said that outside powers are “fueling the fire” and intensifying the nightmare of hunger and disease for millions and warned that the 18-month civil war faces the serious possibility of “igniting regional instability from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa to the Red Sea.”

The emergency session follows last month’s UN fact-finding mission that said both sides of the conflict have probably committed war crimes, including targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid, during the now 18 months-long civil war.

Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army, headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the Sovereign Council and de facto ruler of the country, and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (better known as Hemedti) who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The UN mission said that the RSF had also probably committed crimes against humanity and called for the deployment of an independent peacekeeping force to protect civilians.

The RSF, based in the western Darfur region, has taken control of the west of the country and most of the capital Khartoum. Al-Burhan, who has the backing of Egypt’s military regime, South Sudan and Saudi Arabia, and what remains of the civil authorities have retreated to the east and Port Sudan, on the Red Sea where they have established a quasi-government-in-exile.

Both factions, composed of rival sub-ethnic groups with competing interests, have the support of various local militias as well as constantly shifting support from outside forces, with Egypt (until forced to back off by its paymaster the United Arab Emirates), Saudia Arabia, Eritrea and more recently Iran supporting al-Burhan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia’s Wagner Group supporting the RSF and mobilising their regional allies in Libya, Chad and South Sudan. Russia has largely taken a neutral stance and latterly has supported al-Burhan. This has led to fighting along ethnic lines that has evolved into five or six different wars, with local militias taking control of the northern part of the country, with the potential to splinter the country and spill over into and exacerbate conflicts in neighbouring countries.

The two army leaders, al-Burhan and Dagalo, fighting to control Sudan rose to prominence during the war in Darfur, in which 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in fighting from 2003 to 2008. Al-Burhan headed the army, while Dagalo led the notorious Janjaweed militias responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the conflict. Dagalo has become enormously rich based off Darfur’s gold. Both men were implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Fighting between these two corrupt figures erupted in no small part due to longstanding efforts by US imperialism and other regional powers to exert control over Sudan and its resources—gold, minerals, oil and agricultural land—and cut off Khartoum’s relationships with China, Russia and Iran, which all have growing economic interests in the region.

While there are no official or reliable statistics for the number of people killed in the conflict that started in the capital Khartoum, spread to Darfur and extended into other states, the death toll could be around 200,000. At least 245 towns or villages have been burnt, while much of Khartoum lies in ruins. The fighting has forced almost 11 million people to flee their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). While around 3 million have taken refuge in neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Chad, the vast majority—nearly 8 million—remain inside Sudan, many of them in camps like Zamzam, an internally displaced people (IDP) camp, on the outskirts of the city of el-Fasher in Northern Darfur province in western Sudan

In August, the UN declared a full-blown famine—only the third time in 20 years—in the Zamzam. A staggering 25 million of Sudan’s 50 million population face severe food insecurity. Aid agencies have been unable to reach much of the country, with reports of some convoys taking six weeks to cross the country as both the Sudanese army and the RSF have refused to let trucks carrying aid go through their check points and/or are extorting bribes. Food prices have gone through the roof.

The situation has been further exacerbated by the heavy rains and flooding in the states of Red Sea, River Nile and Northern State that have caused deaths, injuries, the loss of livestock, the destruction of homes, public infrastructure, bridges, roads and the catastrophic collapse of the Arba’at Dam in Red Sea State, hindering the movement of goods and people. With the health system and water systems broken, cholera outbreaks have been reported, with at least 112 deaths between July 22 and September 1.

Map of region of Darfur (light shade), Sudan, July 2011 [Photo by derivative work: User:Пакко / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Last April, the charity Médecins Sans Frontières estimated that a child in the camp was dying from starvation or disease every two hours. Since then, the situation has worsened with Sudan facing mass starvation on a scale not seen in decades. Even in the most “optimistic scenario,” with fighting stopping and this month’s harvest better than last year’s, there could be six million “excess deaths” by 2027, with more than 10 million perishing if the fighting continues.

Sudan’s location in the Horn of Africa gives it enormous geopolitical strategic importance. It is the gateway to the Sahara, Sahel and the Horn. It has an 800-kilometre coastline along the Red Sea that carries around 15 percent of world trade by volume. While it borders seven countries, most of which are in an equally fragile state, it is also close to the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf States.

The Gulf States have turned to the Horn of Africa in search of food supplies for their burgeoning populations, buying up land. Much of Sudan’s most fertile region—the states of Khartoum, River Nile and Northern that once sustained indigenous farmers—has been bought up, particularly after the 2008 food crisis and 2013 introduction of business-friendly legislation. Land has been turned over to highly mechanised food production for export, often via agreements with agribusiness companies such as the US firm Cargill. The UAE’s AD Ports Group has just signed a $6 billion agreement to build and operate a port to export the produce, as well as an industrial zone, an international airport and an agricultural zone covering more than 400,000 acres at Abu Amama, north of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

In other regions dominated by agro-pastoral subsistence economies, changes in the ownership, rearing and export of livestock have led to violent land clearances and the militarisation of livestock rearing for a rapidly expanding export market, as well as to the displacement and destitution of local people forced to live in edge-of-city shanty towns or giant internally displaced peoples’ camps that are little more than bonded-labour camps. The militarised livestock production is believed to have played a role in exacerbating the ethnic and tribal rivalries and the civil war in Darfur and Kordofan states.

With the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, North Africa and the Red Sea basin becoming key battlegrounds for competing interests, the Biden administration in the United States has been unable to broker any agreement either among its own regional allies or between Sudan’s rival gangsters. While in the past the UN Secretary Council might have sent in peacekeepers to keep the warring factions apart and stop the killing, it has been stymied by the imperialist powers’ refusal to oppose the UAE—a crucial ally in its preparations for war against Iran—and the hostility between the US and Russia.

As a result, it has left it to regional bodies, including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country trade block in the Horn, and the African Union (AU) that are themselves wracked with conflicts. Guterres ruled out sending a UN peace-keeping force to Sudan, saying, “At present, the conditions do not exist for the successful deployment of a United Nations force to protect civilians in Sudan.”

With the Sudanese authorities’ three-month approval for the UN and aid groups to use the Adre border crossing between Chad and Darfur—that has also been used to transport mercenaries and arms to the RSF for some of the most intense fighting between government forces and the RSF—due to expire in mid-November, Russia insisted that it was up to the Sudanese government to decide whether the Adre crossing would remain open beyond mid-November and that it would be “inappropriate to put pressure on” the government.

Guterres pointed out that only 56 percent of the UN’s humanitarian funding appeal of $2.7 billion had been met. The miserable funds testify to the prevailing view among the imperialist powers that Sudan’s impoverished people are surplus to requirements.

H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award 2025

Application Deadline:

The application deadline for the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award 2025 For Changemakers is November 15, 2024.

Tell Me About The H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award:

The Global Change Award, launched by the H&M Foundation in 2015 and known as the “Nobel Prize of Fashion,” supports innovative changemakers working to decarbonize the fashion industry and achieve net-zero emissions. Since its inception, the award has funded 46 innovations with a total of 8 million euros in grants. Each year, ten changemakers receive €200,000 and are celebrated at Stockholm City Hall, alongside participation in a yearlong Changemaker Programme with Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The award promotes sustainable solutions aimed at enhancing circularity and fostering a socially inclusive, planet-positive future.

Which Fields are Eligible?

The following fields are eligible:

• Technology
• Science
• Business
• Design
• Social Innovation

Type:

Contest/Grant

Who can Apply For The H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award?

Also, the eligibility criteria include:

• Open to individuals or teams with innovative ideas addressing decarbonization in the textile industry.

• Applicants should demonstrate a commitment and capacity to implement solutions that benefit people and the planet.

Which Countries Are Eligible?

All countries 

Where will the Award be Taken?

Sweden

How Many Awards?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of the Award?

Additionally, the benefits include:

• Winners receive a grant of €200,000.
• Recognition and celebration at the iconic Stockholm City Hall.
• Participation in the yearlong Changemaker Programme.
• Access to a powerful network of industry experts, brands, and retailers.
• Opportunities for collaboration with global brands and businesses.
• Knowledge sharing and insights to drive systems change within the industry.
• Support for innovative solutions in sustainable materials, responsible production, mindful consumption, and new ideas (wildcards).

How Long Will the Award Last?

Not specified 

How to Apply:

To apply, click this link.