Syrian government collapses after Bashar Al-Assad flees to Russia

Jordan Shilton

Islamist militia supported by the United States and Turkey seized Damascus, the capital of Syria on Sunday, after Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fled to Russia.

US-backed opposition fighters celebrate as they burn down a military court in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, December 8, 2024. [AP Photo/Hussein Malla]

After nearly 14 years of war, the so-called “rebels,” dominated by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia, won a lightning victory. Reports Saturday evening were that HTS forces had entered into the central Syrian cities of Hama and Homs. However, news broke barely a few hours later that the Syrian capital, Damascus, had fallen, and that Assad had taken a plane to flee the country. Last night, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Assad was in Moscow.

Assad’s collapse could not have occurred without the complicity of factions of the Syrian, Iranian and Russian regimes. On Sunday morning, HTS leaders announced they were in discussion with Syrian Prime Minister Mohamed al-Jalali. On Telegram, they instructed their troops that “public institutions [should] stay under the supervision of the former prime minister until they are formally handed over.” Jalali, for his part, declared he is “ready for cooperation” with the new authorities.

Yesterday, the Russian government announced that, after talks with the “rebel” factions, Assad had ordered his troops not to fight the HTS-led offensive. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated: “As a result of negotiations between Bashar al-Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, he decided to leave the presidential post and left the country, giving instructions to transfer power peacefully.” It added that “the Russian Federation is in contact with all groups of the Syrian opposition.”

The Iranian government similarly called to “end military conflicts as soon as possible, prevent terrorist acts, and initiate national dialogue with the participation of all segments of Syrian society.”

The imperialist powers responded in a celebratory mood to news of Assad’s downfall. French President Emmanuel Macron enthused, “The barbaric state has fallen,” while German Foreign Minister Analena Baerbock declared it was a “great relief” for the Syrian people. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign affairs representative, gloated that the fall of Assad was “a positive and long-awaited development,” adding, “It also shows the weakness of Assad’s backers, Russia and Iran.”

HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, a former al-Qaeda asset who had ties to Islamic State, have become the darlings of Western media outlets virtually overnight. Even though HTS was designated a foreign terrorist organisation by Washington and Golani was the subject of a $10 million bounty in 2018, he has received overwhelmingly favourable coverage in the US and European media. Perhaps giving away more than it intended, CNN observed in an article based on an “exclusive interview” with Golani on December 5 that he “exuded confidence” and sought to “project modernity” during a meeting “which took place in broad daylight and with little security.”

The HTS-led forces’ pro-imperialist character was underscored soon after they seized Damascus. Fighters ransacked the Iranian embassy, destroying pictures of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qasem Soleimani, assassinated at Baghdad’s international airport by the Trump administration in January 2020, and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, by the genocidal Zionist regime in September 2024. International media outlets were all conveniently on hand to capture these events.

By acquiescing to a handover of Syria to an al-Qaeda-linked militia, Assad and his allies in Moscow and Tehran are falling in line with longstanding foreign policy objectives of Washington and its NATO allies. Particularly since Israel began its US-backed genocide of the Palestinians in October 2023, the Zionist regime has waged a low-level war on Syria with US-supplied bombs and missiles. Al Jazeera reported that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) warplanes have struck Syrian military sites three times a week on average over the past 14 months.

These attacks were directed not only at Syrian forces but also at weakening Iran’s presence in the country. The most high-profile of these was the April 2024 bombing of Iran’s Damascus consulate, killing a high-level IRGC commander and other officials. Israel’s attacks continued over the weekend, striking the Mazzeh district of Damascus and southern areas of Syria following Assad’s downfall on Sunday. IDF soldiers have also advanced into Syrian territory on the Golan Heights, where a “closed military zone” has been declared.

Offensive operations by the “rebels” were launched less than a day after US President Joe Biden unilaterally announced a ceasefire between its regional attack dog, Israel, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah from the White House. The announcement brought to an end a two-month savage bombardment of Lebanon by the IDF that decimated one of the Assad regime’s most important allies and suppliers of military manpower.

During the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians and the war in Lebanon, Israel also struck—with US approval—targets in Iran, Assad’s key regional backer. These attacks included the July assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, present in the Iranian capital as an official guest of the regime, and the 26 October strikes on Iranian military facilities. All of this unfolded amid an illegal, years-long occupation by 900 US troops of northeast Syria, denying the Assad regime any revenue from the region’s substantial oil reserves.

The HTS offensive is closely linked to the war in Ukraine, where the imperialists are recklessly escalating towards a direct conflict with Russia. Just weeks before fighting erupted in Syria, the Biden administration approved Ukraine’s firing of long-range missiles into Russia, bringing NATO and Moscow ever closer to all-out war. This reckless step was taken to avert Ukraine’s collapse on the battlefield, where Russia is making substantial advances.

Indeed, it appears this explosive international situation, with Europe teetering on the verge of a vast military escalation, played a critical role in the decision of Moscow and Tehran to acquiesce, for now at least, to the HTS-led takeover of Syria. The offensive and the sudden collapse of Assad’s regime come amid signs that the incoming Trump administration may believe opening negotiations is the best way to secure its interests. Trump himself issued a long post on Syria and the Ukraine war on his Truth Social network.

Trump wrote:

Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lose all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers are wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started... Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted… I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!

The decision to place an al-Qaeda-linked organization at the head of the Syrian government is, however, monumentally reckless, and the events in Syria are by no means fully under US imperialism’s control.

On the contrary, the contradictory and mutually antagonistic interests of multiple imperialist and major powers, as well as regional players, in and around the country give an especially explosive character to the sudden revival of the 13-year-old Syrian civil war. Provoked in 2011 by Washington’s arming and training of the predecessors of HTS, with the aim of ousting Assad, the conflict has claimed at least 500,000 lives and forced millions to flee the country.

The volatility of the Syrian events is chiefly due to the fact that American imperialism and its allies are engaged in a region-wide war to secure Washington’s hegemony. The US is determined to exert control over the Middle East’s rich energy reserves and geostrategic location on key trade routes as a gateway to the Eurasian landmass. It is one front in a rapidly escalating third world war involving the US and its European imperialist allies against Russia in Eastern Europe and China in the Asia-Pacific. As David North wrote in his 2016 preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony:

The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.

All of these conflicts find a reflection in Syria, which is forcing major and regional powers to pursue their own interests ever more aggressively and could trigger a region-wide bloodbath endangering millions of lives. Washington, which inflamed the Syrian civil war in 2011 by funding and supplying Islamist terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front, one of the forerunners of HTS, never accepted the outcome of Russia’s 2015 intervention, which stabilised the Assad regime.

The Putin regime profited with the establishment of the Khmeimim air base near the city of Latakia, which served both as a base for Russian air operations in Syria and a transit point for flights to Africa. Russia’s naval military base at Tartus, the only such base Moscow has in the Mediterranean, is a holdover from the Soviet era, having been established in 1971. Together with Iran, which depended on Damascus for land access to Lebanon to supply its ally Hezbollah, Russia was the Assad regime’s main backer.

In the north, Turkey has patronised Islamist militias under the Syrian National Army banner. Although these militias are not directly part of the forces led by HTS, the latter could only operate and received their military supplies through Turkey, a NATO member state. As a result, it is widely acknowledged that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had foreknowledge of the HTS-led offensive.

Erdogan declared Saturday that “a new political and diplomatic reality” existed in Syria. Ankara’s principal concern is to prevent the emergence of a unified Kurdish territory on its southern border, which it has sought to do by funding SNA operations and launching invasions of its own to target the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). For their part, the Kurds receive backing from the US. Reuters reported last Tuesday that US-backed Kurdish forces launched an offensive in eastern Syria against Assad’s troops, resulting later in the week in the capture of Deir Ezzor.

While the timing of the Islamists’ advance and its rapid progress speak to the deep involvement of the imperialist powers and Turkey, the ignominious collapse of Assad’s forces demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of the region’s bourgeois nationalist regimes. The Assad family, first under the regime of Hafez al-Assad (1971-2000) and then his son Bashar (2000-24), ruled Syria as a one-party dictatorship for 53 years. But by the end it effectively worked to dissolve itself and hand over power to the forces it had fought against for 14 years.

More than 2,000 people hospitalised as UK faces "quad-demic" including COVID

Robert Stevens

The winter season has opened with Britain’s population hit by four respiratory illnesses—dubbed the “quad-demic”—including the COVID-19 virus.

The illnesses, which spread at different times during winter, also include the flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and norovirus.

Clinical staff care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, May 5, 2020 [AP Photo/Neil Hall Pool via AP]

On December 5, National Health Service England issued a statement headlined, “Hospitals managing record flu levels going into Winter”, warning, “NHS fears of a potential ‘quad-demic’ are rising with a 350% increase in flu cases and an 86% rise in norovirus cases in hospital compared to same week last year—alongside concerns about rising COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)c levels in hospitals.”

The agency’s first report of the winter warned, “New weekly figures published today for the first time this year show the NHS is going into winter under more pressure than ever before with an average of 1,099 people in hospital with flu every day last week compared to 243 in the same week last year—the highest number of cases heading into winter for at least three years.” Of the 1,099 hospitalised, 39 were in critical care, compared to nine last year.

NHS England statement: "Hospitals managing record flu levels going into Winter" [Photo: screenshot from NHS England web site]

The NHS England alert included a statement from national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis who said, “The NHS is busier than it has ever been before heading into winter, with flu and norovirus numbers in hospital rising sharply—and we are still only at the start of December, so we expect pressure to increase and there is a long winter ahead of us.”

Calling for everyone who was eligible to be vaccinated he explained, “For a while there have been warnings of a ‘tripledemic’ of COVID-19, flu and RSV this winter, but with rising cases of norovirus this could fast become a ‘quad-demic’.”

The statements by NHS England and Powis point to the terrible situation facing a health service systematically underfunded for decades, with staff run off their feet and unable to cope with demand for treatment. As noted in the NHS report, “a record number of patients were in hospital for this time of year, with an average of 96,587 hospital beds occupied each day.”

The fact that COVID continues to spread, 20 months after the World Health Organisation said in May 2023 that it was no longer a public health emergency, is an indictment of the capitalist governments internationally who had by that point already torn up every major mitigation in place against the disease.

The situation report found there were an average of 1,390 patients with COVID in hospital beds each day last week. Several hundred people are still dying of the disease every week. As seen on the banner at the National Covid Memorial Wall in London—the COVID death toll in Britain, to November 22—stands at almost 246,000.

Many more will die due to the lack of free vaccines. The only cohorts of the population now offered free vaccines are people aged 65 years and over, those in older adult care homes, and those aged six months and over in clinical risk groups. Frontline health and social care professionals, including clinical and non-clinical staff who have direct contact with patients, are also offered the flu and COVID vaccines. Otherwise people must find a private vaccine provider with costs varying from about £45 to £99.

Many thousands die each winter from flu, but the number dying from COVID has now outstripped those fatalities. The Times noted, “Over the past two winters, flu has killed 18,000 people, while Covid has killed 19,500.”

Despite COVID being a killer, eligibility for a vaccine is set to be restricted even further from next autumn. The website of medical magazine Pulse Today reported November 14 that although the final decision would be taken by ministers, the “Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said both the spring and autumn COVID vaccine campaigns in 2025 should be restricted to the over-75s, residents of a care home for older adults and those six months and over who are immunosuppressed.”

Pulse Today added, “The committee said over the past four years, population immunity to SARS-CoV-2 had been increasing ‘due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity’.

“As COVID becomes an endemic disease, the JCVI has moved from a pandemic response to a standard assessment of cost effectiveness, it said.”

The JCVI “Statement on COVID-19 vaccination in 2025 and spring 2026”, published November 14, is a full-throated defence of the reactionary nostrum of “herd immunity”, declaring, “Over the last 4 years, population immunity to SARS-CoV-2 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity (this combination is termed ‘hybrid immunity’).”

In the face of thousands dying from the disease each year—and the estimated 1 million suffering from Long COVID—the update states breezily, “COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since SARS-CoV-2 first emerged.”

The NHS winter situation report also found that there were a daily average of 756 patients in hospital with norovirus—the winter vomiting bug—nearly twice as many as this time last year.

Children were particularly affected by circulating diseases, with the NHS report finding that 142 children were in hospital each day with Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)’s COVID-19, influenza (flu), RSV and norovirus surveillance bulletin, published weekly, found in week 48 that there were increases of RSV “seen in most age groups, the highest activity was in under 5s.”

Cases of flu were “rising rapidly” among various age groups but were the highest among children aged five to 14. Almost 17 percent of tests for flu in that age group were positive in the first week of December—up from 11.5 percent last week.

The substantial and likely further circulation of dangerous respiratory disease is overwhelming the NHS, under conditions in which the incoming Labour government has demanded it end its “begging bowl culture”.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting responded to the NHS winter report showing the need for vastly more resources to be allocated to the health service with an order to NHS workers essentially to get on with it. He stated, “We’re backing them with an extra £26 billion secured in the recent Budget and we’ve already resolved the industrial action to ensure A&Es will be strike-free for the first time in three years.”

Streeting added, “For too long, an annual winter crisis has become the norm. We will deliver long term reforms through our 10 Year Health Plan that will create a health service that will be there for all of us all year round.”

What he didn’t say was that the paltry extra funding—which does nothing to address the hundreds of billions of pounds the NHS has been deprived of going back decades—and any further funding is dependent on pro-market reforms being implemented, including the private sector making further inroads into healthcare provision, and staff increasing productivity by an initial 2 percent.

On Monday, Streeting was forced to hold “crisis talks” with NHS leaders in England, including those in charge of the largest hospital trusts. The Guardian reported the meeting was called amid “mounting alarm that more than 2,000 of the service’s 100,000 beds are already filled with people with Covid (1,390) or norovirus (756), another 142 occupied by children with RSV and that ambulance services are struggling to cope with the number of 999 calls they are receiving.”

Australia’s housing crisis sees more retirees burdened with mortgage debt

Vicki Mylonas

A growing number of workers are reaching retirement age with huge mortgage debts still outstanding. Many more are going their whole working lives without being able to afford a home, leaving them struggling to pay rising rent prices out of superannuation or the poverty-level age pension.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, the proportion of Australians aged 55 to 64 who own their homes outright fell by almost half between 2000 and 2020, from 63.9 percent to 36.1 percent.

This trend is only likely to worsen, with even sharper declines revealed in younger cohorts. The home ownership rate among those aged 45 to 54 fell from 38.8 percent in 2000 to 15.2 percent in 2020. Just 5.4 percent of those aged between 35 and 44 owned their homes in full, down from 17.1 percent in 2000.

Suburban housing in Hobart, the Tasmanian capital, Australia. [Photo by Graeme Bartlett / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Two decades ago, average first home buyers were in their 20s, now they are in their mid-30s and taking out longer mortgages, up from 20 to 30 years. In 1971, around two-thirds of 30–34 year olds either had a mortgage or owned their home outright; by 2021, this had fallen to just 50 percent.

This is primarily a product of the soaring housing market. Between 1992 and 2022, according to data from CoreLogic, the capital city median house value rose by 453.1 percent to $928,812. The median value of apartments went up by 306.7 percent to $636,352 over the same period. In Sydney, the median house is now worth $1.48 million, while units cost an average of $846,000.

Exacerbating the financial pain for workers, 13 interest rate hikes have been imposed since May 2022 by the Reserve Bank of Australia on behalf of the federal Labor government. This has resulted in households with a average mortgage of around $750,000 having to pay $1,815 more in repayments every month.

This situation is forcing some older workers to delay retirement. Linda Thoresen, a 66-year-old civil servant who still owes $170,000 on her mortgage, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC): “There will come a time when I go, ‘no, I really have had enough of work.’ But unless I have a windfall, I can’t see a solution other than having to sell and find somewhere else to live.”

Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) stated that the number of older Australians forced to sell their homes and enter the very tight rental market has increased in the last decade.

For some, the only source of income is the age pension. The maximum basic rate for a single pensioner is $1,144.40 per fortnight, and $862.60 each for couples.

National Seniors Australia, a not-for-profit organisation, says that 23.7 percent of pensioners live in poverty and need additional support just to meet everyday living costs. Almost 40 percent of older renters have been severely impacted by cost-of-living pressures, intensified under the Albanese Labor government.

Despite more than three decades of compulsory superannuation, three-quarters of retirees with a mortgage owe more than they have in super, according to a survey by Digital Finance Analytics. On average, they had an outstanding loan balance of around $190,000, while some still owed more than half a million dollars.

In 2022, the median superannuation balance for people aged between 60 to 64 was $205,000 for men, and $154,000 for women, according to the Association of Super Funds Australia (ASFA).

The federal Labor government’s 2023 “Intergenerational Report” states that “superannuation will become the primary source of retirement income for many future retirees.” However, this is predicated on retirees owning their homes outright.

Compulsory superannuation was introduced by the Keating Labor government in 1992 with the full support of the unions, the bureaucratic leaders of which serve as directors of the super funds, alongside corporate executives. The arrangement initially involved an obligatory “employer contribution” of 3 percent of each worker’s wage to super, which has subsequently been increased to a minimum of 11.5 percent.

In reality, Labor and the unions have ensured that these “employer contributions” have effectively been extracted from workers’ wages, through other concessions pushed through in “exchange” for super. As a result the major super funds are now the largest financial institutions in the country, controlling more wealth than the banks.

By contrast, only 30 percent of Australians have enough super to be able to retire comfortably, according to research from the Association of Super Funds Australia (ASFA). However, this is likely an understatement, as it is based on the needs of retired couples who already own their own home outright.

The “Intergenerational Report” notes that “high rates of home ownership have historically played an important role in supporting retirement outcomes.” The decline in home ownership, it warns, presents a “fiscal risk to Age Pension spending” in the future.

In other words, the Labor government’s “concern” is that the growing number of workers reaching retirement age without a home or adequate superannuation to live off will be a burden to the budget.

This is a reflection of the same callous indifference to the elderly that has been starkly demonstrated throughout the COVID pandemic. The homicidal “let-it-rip” policies, begun under the Morrison Liberal-National government but continued and expanded by Labor, have allowed the deadly virus to spread unchecked, killing more than 25,000 people, with older people among the most at risk.

This underscores that the Labor government, like all capitalist regimes, is fundamentally hostile to the basic needs of ordinary people, including the elderly and other vulnerable layers.

Street protests, backed by EU and US, try to bring down Georgian government

Andrea Peters

Violent protests have seized the capital city of the country of Georgia for the last week. Demonstrators, backed by the European Union and the United States, are working to drive the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party from power.

Demonstrators launch fireworks at Parliament during a protest against the government's decision to suspend negotiations on joining the European Union, in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

The immediate spark for the street fighting outside of the parliament building in Tbilisi was an announcement by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that he is suspending talks with the European Union (EU) regarding his country’s membership in the alliance. Kobakhidze, whose party recently won elections that the West claims, without proof, were falsified, said he was halting discussions due to Brussel’s “constant blackmail and manipulation.”

Earlier this year, the EU froze Georgia’s ascension process and cut its financial support, after Tbilisi passed a “foreign agents law.” Brussels insisted that the bill be rescinded. This was, however, the least of their demands.

The NATO powers want Georgia to cut all its ties to Moscow and become the next front in the war against Russia. The Georgian Dream party, despite repeatedly making clear that it wants to bring the country into the EU, has been labeled as “pro-Russian” by the imperialist powers because it has thus far resisted the total reduction of Georgia into a NATO client state cut off entirely from Russia’s markets, which are key to its economy. Georgian Dream, which describes its opponents as a “global war party,” won the election on the basis of its appeal to popular anti-war sentiments.

Estimates of the size of the anti-government demonstrations in Tbilisi have varied from day-to-day, with some news reports putting it as high as “hundreds of thousands” to, more commonly, “tens of thousands,” and in the last couple days, “thousands.” Demonstrators have been holding aloft EU and Georgian flags and signs that read, “Russian slaves.” One banner read, “You suck.” Demands that relate to the concerns of the working class—for jobs, higher wages, better working conditions, decent healthcare, and so forth—are absent.

The government is responding with force. Several hundred people have been arrested and dozens injured in ongoing clashes with riot police, who are using tear gas, water cannons, and truncheons to break up the crowds. Protesters have transformed fireworks into mini-missiles and are attacking the security services with them and Molotov cocktails. Oppositionists’ homes and offices are being searched and several have been arrested. Some appear to have been beaten up in the process.

Prime Minister Kobakhidze declared the protests to be an attack on the country’s constitutional order, for which “EU politicians and their agents” are to blame. He insisted that his government would resist a Maidan-style attempt to overthrow it. Kobakhidze promised oppositionists would face “the full rigor of the law.”

On Tuesday, the executive secretary of the Georgian Dream party, Mamuka Mdinaradze, declared that 30 percent of those arrested in Tbilisi are foreigners, including individuals from Russia, the UK, the US, and the Netherlands.

At the center of the efforts to bring down the government is the former French diplomat and now Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili. She insists that the parliamentary vote held in October, which delivered a victory to Georgian Dream, was “illegitimate.” Zourabichvili, who worked in Paris’ diplomatic corps for three decades, including as its ambassador to Georgia, says that she will not vacate the presidential post when her constitutional authority expires on December 29. She claims that the legislature, which will elect the new president, has no popular mandate.

The United States and its allies are rapidly moving to isolate and strangle the Georgian government. Washington announced on November 30 that it is suspending the US-Georgia Strategic Partnership, halting its foreign assistance, and imposing sanctions. The EU, Canada, Germany, and the Baltic states are following suit.

Unencumbered by hypocrisy, in a November 28 statement that “strongly condemns Russia’s systematic interference in Georgia’s democratic processes,” the European Parliament demanded that Tbilisi nullify its recent vote. “MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] want the elections re-run within a year under thorough international supervision and by an independent election administration.”

A vote is only valid if it produces the result they want.

The reality or unreality of electoral fraud has nothing to do with why EU and US-allied forces are trying to push out the GD government. In nearby Moldova, Washington and Brussels just hailed the outcome of a highly undemocratic and suspect election that delivered a victory to pro-EU forces on the basis of a 1 percent margin.

When Georgia’s ruling party won the parliamentary election in late October, garnering 54 percent of the vote in comparison to 38 percent split among various opposition parties, the West and its allies in Tbilisi immediately claimed there was evidence of vote rigging, ballot stuffing, intimidation at the polls, and so forth. The basis of their allegations was reports by not-so-neutral election observers, local and international, who oppose Georgian Dream.

At that time, Georgia’s state prosecutor’s office, having launched an investigation into the matter, asked that President Zourabichvili, who was at the center of these allegations, provide them with the evidence she had. She replied, “It’s not up to the president to provide proof of election fraud,” adding, “I just want to say that my answer to the prosecutor’s request that I present proofs to sustain my declarations on the results of the elections is not relevant because the prosecutor should be doing its own investigation.”

This was an obvious set up. Zourabichvili had no evidence and knew that the investigators, appointed by a government that she says is illegitimate, would find little to none. Initially, the US and EU held back from saying that Georgian Dream had stolen the vote outright. Following the election of Donald Trump, however, they are anxious to ignite more fronts in the war against Russia before President Biden leaves office. This includes, in addition to Syria, the South Caucasus, which were once part of a unified nation, alongside Russia and other states, in the Soviet Union.

When the Communist Party bureaucrats that ruled the Soviet Union decided to dissolve it in 1991 and turn themselves into capitalist oligarchs, the appetites of American and European imperialism were whet. The South Caucasus sit astride trade routes that are central to the US’ struggle to destroy Russia, China, and Iran.

In a recent study, the Institute of War noted that Georgia is critical to securing the “Middle Corridor,” a trade route from Central Asia to Europe that bypasses Russia and drastically reduces transit times. “Cargo volumes through this corridor increased by nearly 65 percent in early 2023, surpassing one million tons,” observed the Institute. “Georgia has emerged as a pivotal hub in this network, playing a vital role in transporting oil, gas, and goods along the Middle Corridor.”

For the imperialist powers, it is now time to bring Georgia to heel. Despite years of cutting deals with the EU, the United States, and NATO, Georgian Dream is inadequate. Thus, the country’s “opposition” has been activated. Its leaders, several of whom were educated in elite universities in the US, have long histories in the country’s previous violent, anti-democratic, right-wing governments, which gutted social spending and privatized services, making Georgia by 2008 “the leading economic reformer in the world,” according to the World Bank.

Running around yelling about the “European path” and “democracy,” they appeal to the grasping sentiments of better-off layers in the major cities, whom often have personal and financial ties to EU and American institutions via business, education, or one of Georgia’s numerous “civil society” organizations. They find a further base of support among some sections of youth. Many of Georgia’s expensive, private universities have shut down in support of the demonstrations.

Two articles on the website of Civil.ge, which is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy, highlight the political outlook of these layers. The first fawns over “Georgia’s libertarian youth,” who combine advocacy for the legalization of drugs with support for “right-wing economics and minimal government intervention.” Forming groups like the Ayn Rand Center, Institute for Individual Liberty, and “Georgia’s right-wing youth party” Girchi, they are hostile to, in the words of one representative, the idea that “the ‘Nanny State’ should provide everything for us.”

The second article published by the US government-sponsored website promotes the “new generation of leftist youth,” who insist, according to one activist, that “merging class and national interests is the only way forward.”  Behind a hodge-podge of references to feminism, labor rights, environmental protection, anti-authoritarianism, social justice, etc., lies the goal of giving Georgian nationalism a left-wing coloration. The ultimate aim is to drown any genuine socialist sentiment that emerges among young people in a cesspool of political reaction. The group highlighted in the piece, Khma, has some association with the Pabloite United Secretariat, whose political life has been dedicated to this very cause.

To the extent that the working class of Georgia is drawn to the anti-government demonstrations, it is due to a combination of illusions and delusions in what a “European future” means and misdirected, albeit well-founded, anger at the not-so-dreamy reality that Georgian Dream has delivered. But if workers allow themselves to be swept along by the US and EU-directed regime change operation in Tbilisi, they will discover the consequences of the “European path”—savaged living standards and a country transformed into a bombed-out parking lot.

The Georgian Dream party is no alternative. It represents a layer of Georgia’s ruling class which believes that its interests will be best served by finding some sort of balance between Russia and the West. Unable to make any genuine popular appeal—to call the working class onto the streets in opposition to the machinations of the imperialists—they resort to police brutality to secure their hold on power. The state violence unleashed against the opposition in Tbilisi today will be directed against the workers tomorrow as soon as they express their own demands.

The fall of the French government and the bankruptcy of the New Popular Front

Alex Lantier

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s unpopular minority government fell after the National Assembly censured its 2025 budget. This is a major political blow to President Emmanuel Macron, who assembled Barnier’s government following snap elections in July. Public discontent is surging, with two-thirds of the French population now calling for Macron’s resignation.

Jean-Luc Melenchon listens to speeches from the tribunes at the National Assembly on Dec. 4, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Macron is deeply despised. His brutal pension cuts, violent repression of mass strikes, calls to send French troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, and open support for the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza have provoked overwhelming opposition. However, the political forces strengthened by Barnier’s fall are not on the left, but on the right.

Barnier’s government collapsed after Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) withdrew its support and backed a censure motion introduced by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Front (NFP). French media are now lavishing attention on the RN, the foremost French allies of Israel’s genocidal regime and America’s fascist president-elect, Donald Trump. Le Pen’s party is positioning itself as the decisive force in French politics, biding its time while signaling its readiness to topple Macron.

The strengthening of the far right amid Barnier’s fall is a direct consequence of the bankruptcy of the NFP, which is seeking to paralyze workers. As he campaigns for Macron to resign, Mélenchon limits himself to calling on the National Assembly to support an NFP-led government, headed by Finance Ministry bureaucrat Lucie Castets.

Mélenchon won 8 million votes in the 2022 presidential elections, dominating working class neighborhoods in nearly all of France’s largest cities. A strike movement mobilizing these voters could bring France’s economy to a standstill. Yet not once in the last two years has Mélenchon called for, let alone organized, a mass mobilization to challenge Macron’s repeated violations of popular will.

During last year’s mass strikes against Macron’s pension cuts, the NFP limited its intervention to attending trade union rallies and writing a pathetic letter politely asking him to reconsider. Millions marched against Macron, and polls showed two-thirds of the French people wanted to halt the cuts with a general strike to block the economy. But the NFP was silent as the union bureaucracies halted protests once Macron’s cuts were promulgated as law.

This year, following Macron’s snap election call, Mélenchon formed the NFP—a coalition between his France Unbowed (LFI) party, the big-business Socialist Party (PS), the Stalinist French Communist Party, the Greens and the middle-class Pabloite New Anti-Capitalist Party. This opportunistic alliance, with discredited figures like ex-President François Hollande of the PS, was based on a thoroughly right-wing program, including pledges to send troops to Ukraine and bolster riot police and spy agencies.

In the election, LFI withdrew hundreds of its own candidates to support PS and pro-Macron candidates, claiming this alliance would block the far right. Mélenchon thus helped get hundreds of pro-Macron or PS legislators elected. When the elections resulted in a hung parliament, Macron promptly discarded his alliance with the NFP and turned to the far-right RN, which initially agreed to support Barnier’s government without formally joining it.

By blocking working class opposition to Macron and the bourgeoisie, the NFP strengthened Le Pen. It let her denounce the “left” as a tool of the banks and consolidate support among millions of workers who vote for the RN out of bitterness with the social attacks carried out by successive governments headed by the PS.

Last week, the RN abruptly withdrew support for Barnier, reflecting a broader global restructuring of bourgeois politics following Trump’s election. In recent days, Ukraine has launched NATO-backed missile strikes on Russia, South Korea’s president issued an abortive declaration of martial law, and both the German and French governments have collapsed. Trump’s reelection, marked by plans for military escalation, mass deportations, and $2 trillion in austerity measures, signals a coordinated global intensification of the bourgeoisie’s class war on the working class.

In this context, pseudo-left parties like LFI serve to block and disorient working class opposition, strengthening the far right. Indeed, during the 2022 elections, Mélenchon pledged to serve as prime minister under either Macron or Le Pen. His view of neo-fascism had shifted since the 1970s, he said: “At the very beginning of the struggle against the National Front [the predecessor of the National Rally], I took a very harsh position. Inspired by the past, I said we should not accept them ... Now the question is not posed that way for me.”

WHO investigating unidentified illness which has killed at least 143 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Benjamin Mateus

A health team organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) has been sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to investigate a disease outbreak that began in late October and has claimed the lives of at least 143 people in southwest Congo. Over the weekend provincial health minister Apollinaire Yumba informed reporters there have been at least 376 confirmed cases of the yet unidentified but extremely lethal illness. 

The logo of the World Health Organization is seen at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland [AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus]

Those infected have developed flu-like symptoms with high fevers, nasal congestion, and severe headaches. Another curious symptom of the disease includes anemia, a drop in the level of the hemoglobin. Women and children, especially those between 15 and 18 years of age, have been most severely impacted.

Yumba asked the population to take all necessary precautions to avoid contact with dead bodies and prevent contamination. He also asked residents not to attend mass gatherings, maintain hygiene, and report any suspected cases to health authorities. Additionally, he made a plea to international partners for medical supplies to assist with addressing what appears to be another health crisis on top of the mpox (monkeypox) outbreak in the eastern part of the country. Since January 1, 2024, the country had reported more than 47,000 mpox cases and more than 1,000 deaths believed linked to the outbreak. The following official communique was uploaded on the BNO News social media channel. 

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In the same period, one of the largest outbreaks of Marburg virus disease in neighboring Rwanda affected 66 people, killing 15 patients. Health authorities haven’t identified the source of the epidemic, but no new cases have been identified since October 30, 2024. Marburg outbreaks are declared over when no new infections arise over a 42-day period after the last recovered patient has tested negative twice by PCR, separated by 48 hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One of the first reports on the current outbreak in DRC appeared on FluTracker.com on November 30, 2024, relaying that 67 deaths (from November 10 to 25) of an epidemic of unknown origin had been recorded in the Panzi rural health zone, in the southwest region of Kwango Province. The first reported death occurred on November 10, 2024. Most of the afflicted have perished at home due to lack of medical care. 

Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo with the Kwango province highlighted in red. [Photo by Profoss / CC BY-ND 3.0]

Then on December 3, 2024, the death toll was revised upward to 143 fatalities prompting Cephorien Manzanza, a civil society leader, to tell Reuters, “The situation is extremely worrying as the number of infected people continues to rise.”

The WHO was first notified last week of the outbreak. The international public health’s spokesman, Tarik Jašarević, confirmed these developments to inquiries made by reporters. Furthermore, Jašarević added, “WHO is aware of an unidentified disease and is working with the national authorities to understand the situation. We have dispatched a team to the remote area to collect samples for lab investigations.” No timeline has been set on the investigation and the identity of the pathogen is not yet known.

Yesterday, health officials raised concerns that the death toll may be higher and growing by the day. Yumba who confirmed that a team of epidemiological experts had been dispatched to the affected region had communicated that even before reaching their central office in the zone, “they found many deaths in the health areas in the villages, always caused by this disease.”

Kwango Province’s vice-governor, Remy Saki, provided the following synopsis to Deutsche Welle (DW):

[The authorities have] sent a team to the site that is taking samples and raising awareness among the population about certain measures to be taken, so that the epidemic cannot become widespread. Among these measures, for example, immigration officials have been asked to be able to limit the movements of the population and also to record the entries and exits of the population, people who come from surrounding villages, but also to practice the barrier measures previously practiced during the coronavirus period. Wearing a nose mask is also required.

Anne Rimoin is a professor of epidemiology at UCLA, an expert in emerging infectious diseases in central Africa, specifically in Ebola and human mpox, who has worked in Congo since 2002. Speaking with NBC News, she urged caution and patience in evaluating the complicated rural and under-resourced setting in which the epidemic is taking place.

“I think it’s important to be aware of what’s happening,” she said. “And I think it’s also really important not to panic until we have more information. It could be anything. It could be influenza. It could be Ebola. It could be Marburg. It could be meningitis, or it could be measles. At this point, we just don’t know.”

The DRC is a country with more than 100 million people. Its population has almost doubled in the last 20 years. Despite being immensely rich in natural resources, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP of $708 forecast for 2025, with half the population living below the abysmally low poverty line, and 25 percent of people lacking access to clean water. Ongoing civil wars, driven by the conflicts over minerals which are exploited by hugely profitable global corporations, have decimated the little infrastructure that had existed. Millions have died and millions more displaced over the years. Corruption is endemic. 

It is also a country of tremendous biodiversity, home to the world’s second largest rainforest. Encroachment into these regions can bring people into contact with pathogens that human beings have never previously encountered. And as the COVID pandemic has demonstrated so keenly, the globalization of the world means no place is immune from such diseases wherever they initially emerge. The DRC already is known for the second highest number of malaria cases and deaths. Measles and HIV remain major health concerns. Ebola is ever-present. Rift Valley fever is a mosquito-borne disease that affects livestock but also associated with acute and fatal disease in humans.

The urbanization of the country is already the third largest in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa and Nigeria, with 43 percent of the population living in cities. That figure is expected to grow at more than 4 percent per year. The capital, Kinshasa, with 17 million people is expected to become the most populous city in Africa by 2030. It is only a few hours (262 kilometers) northwest of the epicenter of the latest outbreak. 

Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician from Stanford, told NBC that the outbreak certainly “does raise alarm bells.” The interaction between humans and wildlife, he explained, raises concern for these types of spillover events: “Many animal infections that transmit from animal to human can cause pretty severe disease.”

Sheffield universities to cut hundreds of jobs amid higher education deficit crisis

Joe Mount

Workers at the University of Sheffield are facing potentially hundreds of job losses in the coming years, as the institutions seeks to save £23 million in costs.

This month, the University leadership has launched a targeted voluntary severance scheme, to be followed by compulsory redundancies next spring. The deadline for staff to apply for redundancy is January 8.

Falling student numbers, which dropped by 2,200 enrolees (7 percent) this year, have plunged the institution into a dire financial situation and created a £50 million deficit. Like all UK universities, it is dependent upon sky-high tuition fees.

The University, which employs over 8,600 lecturers and professional workers, is implementing spending cuts and reviewing infrastructure projects as it looks to tackle the shortfall.

These will have a drastic impact on the over 30,000 people studying at the institution: domestic students as well as the international students who make the highest tuition payments, upon which the University of Sheffield is financially dependent. Its 10,000 international students, many from China, were largely attracted by its top 100 position in the QS World University rankings. But the University now stands at number 105 after sliding down the scale this year.

Arts Tower, which houses the School of Architecture [Photo by BCDS - Own work / CC BY-SA 4.0]

University upper management are targeting professional services (non-academic) staff and those schools and subject areas that recruit higher numbers of Chinese students. Departments being hit are the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, the School of East Asian Studies, the Journalism School, and the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; the Materials academic staff within the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering; Accommodation and Commercial Services; the English Language Teaching Centre; IT Services; and the faculty and school-based professional services staff.

Staff expressed their frustration with the way the university has been run and management’s unrealistic vision of never-ending growth by passing a vote of no confidence at a trade union all-staff meeting on November 14, approved by 93.3 percent of the 944 workers who participated. Workers from the Unite, UNISON and University and College Union (UCU) were involved.

Workplace relations have been strained for a number of years due to a series of pro-market measures and cuts. University management are imposing a major restructuring of most academic departments and Professional Services teams. This merges teams together and makes it easier to cut staff. The move follows the closure in 2021 of a world-class Archaeology department and a proposed over 100 jobs losses that could see the closure of the University’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

Proposals for job losses take place amid a clampdown by management on the freedom of expression of staff and students who oppose the crimes of the British ruling elite.

Over the summer, the University used legal action and disciplinary measures to evict a student encampment opposing the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The university is complicit in these war crimes due to the relationships between its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and aerospace companies such as BAE and Boeing that provide parts for American war planes used by the Israeli state. The university hired private investigators to spy on students opposed to these links. In October, security staff violently removed anti-genocide protesters at the careers fair that hosted these arms manufacturers.

During the same period, Vice-Chancellor Koen Lamberts (who is paid over £300,000 per year) oversaw a pay raise for himself and the lifting of the 10 percent cap on pay increases for university executives.

A similar crisis scenario exists at the city’s other major higher education institution, Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), which has seen a long-running dispute over mass job losses and cuts to teaching budgets, pay, and conditions. SHU lecturers protested last month over the delay of their pay rise until next July.

The picket line at Hallam University design school, February 2023

Management recently cut 225 academic jobs, of which 80 were fired through compulsory redundancy. The university announced in June a further voluntary severance scheme to shed 400 non-lecturer roles. Sheffield Hallam faces a catastrophic financial situation due to falling student applications and its costly, ill-fated London campus project and other construction plans.

Both universities can proceed with this scorched earth policy due to the role of the University and College Union (UCU) which has sat on opposition to these attacks, most recently by demobilising a strike planned this September at the last minute.

The situation in Sheffield has developed amid a huge financial crisis facing the entire higher education (HE) sector. As part of desperate attempts to fend off bankruptcy, 76 higher education institutions are imposing restructuring and redundancy plans, according to an official report by the Office for Students, a UK government regulator.

They forecast a £3.4 billion black hole for 2025-26, with teaching-focused institutions worst affected. Many higher education institutions face massive job losses and mergers to survive. The immediate cause of this is the anti-immigration policies and austerity measures imposed by the Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer and previous Conservative-led administrations. Other factors include higher taxes due to the recent increase in national insurance contributions for businesses and rising costs due to inflation.

Most of the sector faces a catastrophic money shortage, impacted by falling international student numbers, with student visa applications down by 16 percent compared to last year, according to the Home Office. Nationally, domestic student recruitment has increased by just 1.3 percent, far below the forecasted rate of 5.8 percent.

The entire sector has become totally dependent upon sky-high tuition fees from international students as funding from the Treasury has been reduced. This situation has its roots in decades of marketisation and creeping privatisation, as the ruling class dismantles the higher education system as it has existed for decades.

They have cut central government spending and increased the dependency on tuition fees since their introduction by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1998. This month, in the first rise since 2017, Labour hiked fees by 3.1 percent from the 2025-26 academic year to £9,535 per year. Further rises are planned that will increase the debt burden on students entering the job market.

For lecturers and other university staff, pay has fallen precipitously due to years of below-inflation pay rises, while workloads have skyrocketed and precarious contracts have proliferated.

The vote of no confidence in management at Sheffield demonstrates the determination of staff to fight, but this cannot find any expression within trade unions led by a bureaucracy which has driven every major fight into the ground.

In the struggle immediately ahead, university workers at Sheffield and nationwide cannot oppose management’s attacks through the UCU, which has overseen a series of defeats stretching back to the onset of mass austerity in 2010. These laid the basis for the sellouts by the union of the national strikes that took place in 2018 and 2022-2023, over pay, pensions, equality and casualisation.

The UCU divided up strikes, isolating them from workers engaged in industrial disputes in other sectors during the 2022-23 strike wave, and treating them as separate disputes with individual employers. They blamed the personal mismanagement and greed of specific executives, rather than basing the struggle on a fight to unite workers against the marketisation of education and its root in the demand by the capitalist class for increased exploitation in order to drive up competition between institution in the education “market”.

The union bureaucracy is tied to both management and a Labour government boasting itself as the “most pro-business in history”. The UCU is making only the meekest appeals to the right-wing Starmer government to change its ways and fund universities properly. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady stated, “The tuition fee increase… will not stop the rot; Labour now urgently needs to set out how it will put the sector on a sustainable footing by providing long-term public funding.”