Ending of COVID funding prompts mid-year round of mass layoffs and budget cuts in US public schools

Jane Wise

Across the United States, a brutal assault on public education is occurring, with school districts from coast to coast announcing drastic budget cuts and mass layoffs even before the Trump administration comes to power. The attacks on teachers, social workers, and support staff are not isolated incidents but rather a systematic dismantling of public services that will be sharply accelerated after Trump’s inauguration.

Parents, teachers and students protest school closures outside Acero's Idar Elementary in Chicago on December 11, 2024.

The scale of the attack on public education is staggering. In Anchorage, Alaska, a $107 million budget deficit threatens to eliminate 598 jobs. The Anchorage School Board, using an online simulation tool called Balancing Act, is planning cuts to programs and personnel, as “there is no other way to do it,” according to Board Member Margo Bellamy. Even if the state increases per-student funding, the district would still face a $62 million deficit, requiring further cuts.

In East Orange, New Jersey, more than 70 school staffers, including teachers and social workers, were laid off due to an $8 million budget shortfall. These cuts are taking place despite previous tax increases, and parents worry this is only the prelude to a further undermining of their children’s education.

The Santa Ana Unified School District in California is also moving towards massive teacher layoffs. The school board voted 4-1 in favor of proposed cuts that could impact more than 300 educators. The district claims it faces a $180 million deficit, citing the end of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds and declining student enrollment as reasons for the cuts. 

In Springfield, Missouri, the school district plans to eliminate $8.6 million in salaries and benefits, the equivalent of 142 full-time positions, with 68 currently filled positions set to be cut by June 30. This is on top of $15 million in cuts from the current school year. Parents and teachers expressed frustration with the lack of transparency around these cuts and the prioritization of administrative positions over those in the classroom.

The Kingfisher, Oklahoma Public School board accepted the resignations of 18 employees, with over 20 positions impacted, including teachers and administrative roles. These cuts stem from a $2 million budget shortfall, partially caused by a $5 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging abuse within the school’s football program.

The impact of budget cuts on students and educators will be severe. The loss of teachers will lead to increased class sizes. The layoffs of social workers, counselors and other support staff, already in short supply, will leave students without vital supports and resources, particularly vulnerable students and those with special needs. 

Districts are also targeting extracurricular activities, such as sports programs, and specialized programs, such as the International Baccalaureate program in Springfield, Missouri. Even when districts say they are preserving programs, the elimination of program coordinator positions guarantees that these programs will fall by the wayside.

The loss of jobs and the threat of further layoffs will exacerbate the environment of overwork and uncertainty that currently exists in schools. This will further discourage teachers and accelerate the numbers of teachers leaving education, which has remained high since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The overall turnover rate in US public schools during the 2022–2023 school year was 12 percent, slightly down from 14 percent the previous year. School-level turnover averaged 23 percent last year with turnover in high poverty schools reaching nearly 30 percent.

The Biden administration has allowed ESSER funding to expire despite the ongoing pandemic and long-term effects of mass infection and Long COVID. This has led to widespread budget cuts in schools nationwide as cash-strapped school districts had come to depend on this temporary funding. However, the current fiscal crisis facing districts across the country is the result of decades of chronic underfunding in public education. 

An ongoing wave of public school closures is expected across the nation beginning in 2025. In addition to those cited above, some of the latest announcements include: Boston Public Schools, whose board announced plans to close four school and merge three others before the 2026-2027 school year; Fairbanks North Star Borough School District in Alaska plans to close five elementary schools by the end of this school year; Aldine ISD’s school board in Texas will vote in February whether to close seven schools by the 2025-2026 school year; and in California, district administrators in the Santa Rosa City Schools District have recommended the closure of four schools by the end of the present school year, which has also been met by major opposition among teachers, students and parents. 

Announcements of major cuts to schools have already provoked popular resistance, with rallies and packed school board meetings across the country.

Protesting the announcement the closure of all seven ACERO charter schools within Chicago Public Schools, a high school student, Luis Delgado, stated at a December school board meeting, “Why did you see us merely as profit rather than individuals with dreams and aspirations? We are not items to be counted as dollar signs!...We will continue to fight for our schools!” 

School districts, facing major budget deficits, cite various reasons for planned cuts, including the end of federal pandemic aid, declining enrollment, state and federal funding uncertainties, court decisions, and legal settlements. However, these explanations mask the underlying reality that public education is being starved of resources while a small section of the ruling class amasses unprecedented wealth. 

The total expenditure on ESSER funding, which started in March 2020, is $189.5 billion. This is less than the $213 billion Elon Musk added to his personal fortune (now estimated at $442 billion) during 2024. The annual US military budget is 4.5 times larger than the ESSER funding, a one-time measure spread out over seven years.

While school districts have cited the drying up of ESSER funds as the proximate cause of their austerity measures, many of the positions being cut were not added after the pandemic hit. This reveals a deeper trend of disinvestment in public education.

As for declining student enrollment, this is not primarily a question of demographic shifts. It is both the result of the deepening social crisis, including the impact of poverty, homelessness and the pandemic, as well as the deliberate policy of both capitalist parties to starve the public schools of vital resources.

Every educator has seen this movie before: Public money is siphoned off from public schools to fund charter, parochial and other for-profit ventures. Reduced services, understaffing and overcrowded public schools lose enrollment and this is used to justify more cuts.

As the World Socialist Web Site has consistently explained, the world’s capitalist oligarchs are amassing wealth at an unprecedented rate, while the working class faces increasing poverty and hardship. Such levels of gross inequality are incompatible with the democratic and egalitarian principles which lie at the foundation of public education.

Trump has nominated the wrestling billionaire Linda McMahon for education secretary and has called for sweeping cuts and restrictions to public schools including universal school vouchers to promote school privatization and elimination the Department of Education. The latter would significantly impact federal Title I and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funding for low income and special education students.

Trump also plans to steamroll any limitations on the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to arrest immigrant children and their families at schools before deporting them.

China’s economic malaise deepens as economic warfare intensifies

Nick Beams

The New Year has opened with deepening concerns that the present malaise in the Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, could be the lead-in to a long-term deflationary spiral which is set to be compounded by the tariff measures threatened by incoming US President Trump.

Display board showing Chinese stock market movements on the US presidential election day in Beijing, November 6, 2024. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The clearest evidence of mounting long-term problems is the situation in the $11 trillion government bond market where yields have fallen sharply. A move by investors into bonds, which sends their price up and their yields down (the two have an inverse relationship), is a sign they expect low growth in the future and deflationary conditions.

The yield on the 10-year government bond, which was just below 5 percent in 2013, fell to below 1.6 percent when trading began this week. There is now a gap of 300 basis points (3 percentage points) between Chinese and US ten-year bonds.

The extent of the deflationary trend was underscored by monthly price data released yesterday. Consumer price growth was up by only 0.1 percent in December as against a year earlier and down from the 0.2 increase recorded in November. Producer prices, taken at the factory gate, were down 2.3 percent with this measure in deflationary territory for the past 28 months.

In a report on the bond market published on Wednesday, Bloomberg commented: “The plunge, which has dragged Chinese yields far below levels reached during the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID pandemic, underscores the concern that policymakers will fail to stop China from sliding into an economic malaise that could last decades.”

Comparisons are being drawn with what took place in Japan at the start of the 1990s when the collapse of a property and real estate bubble led to decades of stagnation from which the country has never really recovered.

The Bloomberg report noted it was significant that China’s ten largest brokerage firms had all produced research on Japan’s “lost decades.”

The situation in China is potentially even more serious. This is because of its greater size and its role in the global economy as the chief engine of growth over the last decade and a half.

Its problems have been exacerbated by the economic warfare which now prevails, sparked by the anti-China measures implemented by the US. These will be intensified by the incoming Trump administration which has threatened to impose a 60 percent tariff hike on all Chinese goods.

The Bloomberg report noted that Chinese markets had entered 2025 “on a knife edge.”

This is expressed not only in the fall in bond yields but also in the continuing decline in the stock market. The CSI 300 index is down by around 4 percent since the start of the year, having lost more than 30 percent from its high in 2021. The offshore value of the renminbi has fallen to a near record low.

The fall in the value of the currency, which the central bank is pushing to halt, is the direct result of the tariff measures foreshadowed by Trump. The view in the markets is that financial authorities will have to lower the official value of the renminbi to counter the effect of the Trump measures by making exports cheaper.

However, the central bank is seeking to hold the line because it fears any devaluation of the currency will spark a capital outflow from China.

In a statement issued on Monday, the central bank, which sets a daily official exchange rate, said it would “resolutely guard against the risk of exchange overshooting and maintain the basic stability” of the renminbi.

It said the experience of “multiple rounds of appreciation and depreciation” showed it had “sufficient” tools to do this.

Apart from concerns about capital outflow, the central bank is fearful that if the value of the renminbi falls, thereby making Chinese goods cheaper in world markets, this will only bring further attacks from the US and also from Europe.

But the pressure from the financial markets for a devaluation is continuing notwithstanding the statements of the central bank.

The Financial Times reported that leading officials at the two main stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen have also intervened. They held meetings last weekend to reassure investors that China’s economy was supported by “solid fundamentals and resilience.”

But such assurances are not likely to cut much ice. The prevailing view in the world of finance capital is that the government must undertake far more radical measures than it has so far to boost the domestic economy via increased consumption spending.

Some measures have been initiated in the past few months including a loosening of monetary policy, limited easing of the debt burden on local governments and some action to lift consumer spending.

The government this week announced the expansion of a subsidy program it introduced last year providing money for customers who traded in old appliances such as air conditioners and washing machines for new ones. The subsidy program has been extended to include such items as microwaves, rice cookers and dishwashers, as well as smartphones and tablets costing less than 6000 renminbi.

According to the finance ministry, the program will cost 81 billion renminbi ($US11 billion) in 2025.

The scheme has already had some impact in boosting consumption. The commerce ministry has said 36 million people used the scheme last year to buy new appliances. But this is a small portion of the market in a country of 1.4 billion and the effects are only short term.

And as the Financial Times (FT) reported “overall sales rose just 3 percent in November, missing expectations and reigniting concerns about the pace of consumption growth, while real estate data showed the largest year-on-year fall in new home prices since 2015 and a deepening decline in property investment.”

Finance capital is looking for what has been termed a “big bazooka” aimed at the domestic economy. “In term of key things to look for in 2025… we think investors need to see more regarding consumption,” Winnie Wu, chief China equity strategist at Bank of America, told the FT.

But while it has been willing to introduce some marginal measures and President Xi Jinjing has pointed to the need to lift consumption in recent speeches and remarks, the government is not prepared to introduce the kind of large-scale stimulus measures it did in the past, fearing this will only compound debt problems.

Moreover, it is operating in a highly uncertain economic environment given the Trump tariff threats and the intensification of economic warfare measures from the US in the dying days of the Biden administration.

In the latest decision from Washington this week, the Pentagon placed more companies on a list deemed to have links to the Chinese military. These included the social media and gaming giant, Tencent, CATL, the world’s largest maker of electric vehicle batteries, and COSCO, China’s largest shipping firm and one of the biggest in the world, among others. There are now 134 companies on the list.

The Pentagon listing does not bring any sanctions with it but is a sure sign that the named firms are being targeted for further action.

All three companies denied connections with the military, with Tencent insisting it was “clearly a mistake” and it would work with the defence department to “address any misunderstanding.” CATL said it had never engaged in military related business. COSCO said none of its companies were involved with the military and it would seek to “clarify this matter” with US authorities.

But the actions of the Pentagon are not the result of mistakes or a misunderstanding. The US miliary apparatus is one of the most vociferous proponents of the position that economic and technological advance by China, irrespective of whether there is a direct connection to the military, is in and of itself a threat to the US.

The listing of CATL indicates some of the contradictions which will arise as the economic war intensifies. As a result of its expanding sales—CATL is a supplier to Tesla—the company was drawing up plans for a secondary stock market listing in Hong Kong, with an initial public offering (IPO) intended to give it access to offshore funds as it expanded its international operations.

The US firms Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have been reported as expressing interest in supporting the IPO. In the past US banks made considerable profits from such deals. But if they were to do so after the Pentagon listing, they could be accused of underwriting shares for a company with ties to the Chinese military that is supposedly thereby a threat to US national security.

Back in 2021, the Chinese consumer electronics firm Xiaomi was able to undertake court action to have itself removed from the Pentagon list. It successfully argued that its investment in 5G and artificial intelligence, the reason for its inclusion, was what every other company was doing.

No doubt the latest named firms will try to take the same path. But four years on, the economic war against China has been qualitatively stepped up and is about to become even more intense under Trump.

As Ankara and Washington disagree over the future of Syrian Kurds, Israel warns of war with Turkey

Barış Demir

On Friday, Hoşyar Sarıyıldız and Nuriye Arslan, Co-Mayors of the Akdeniz Municipality in Mersin, which is governed by the Peoples’ Democracy and Equality Party (DEM Party), were detained along with four municipal council members. A trustee is expected to be appointed to this municipality by the Ministry of Interior in violation of the Constitution.

The removal of elected mayors and the appointment of trustees is a clear attack on basic democratic rights. The Socialist Equality Group condemns this anti-democratic, police-state repression and demands the release and reinstatement of the elected mayors and councillors.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, shakes hands with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara, Turkey, Monday November 6, 2023. [AP Photo/Jonathan Ernst]

On March 31, many mayors of DEM Party elected in local elections were dismissed and replaced by trustees. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) mayors of Esenyurt, a municipality of 1 million people in Istanbul province, as well as the CHP mayors of Ovacik district in Dersim, have been subjected to the same arbitrary measure. The government’s recent escalation of police-state repression has included the arrest of May Day and Gaza genocide protesters, as well as numerous journalists, the linking of a left-wing political party to a fabricated “terrorist organisation”, and the closure of many media websites and X/Twitter accounts.

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been using this unlawful practice intensively since 2015, mainly to effectively abolish the Kurdish people’s right to vote and be elected. The latest operations against DEM Party mayors come amid his government’s attempt to force Kurdish forces to lay down their arms through the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan.

On December 28, a delegation of DEM Party deputies met with Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999. The same delegation then held talks with Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and parliamentary political parties, including the CHP, and a “rosy picture” was painted.

The appointment of trustees and other attacks on democratic rights by the government show that the renewed negotiations between Ankara and the PKK, which Ankara has been trying to suppress for 40 years, have nothing to do with the claim of “peace and democracy”. These negotiations are essentially part of the war in the Middle East—which has escalated with the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, the struggle for the division of Syria, and the efforts of US imperialism to reshape the region.

On the one hand, Ankara wants the PKK to lay down its arms on Öcalan’s initiative, and on the other it wants the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria—led by the Kurdish nationalist People’s Protection Units (YPG)—to be liquidated.

Mustafa Karasu, a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), to which the PKK belongs, and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), to which the YPG belongs, said in an interview with Medya Haber TV: “We support the efforts of our leadership [Öcalan],” but he stressed, “Of course, when it comes to the Turkish state, especially when it comes to the Kurdish question, there is nothing wrong with a cautious approach to state policy.”

The Kurdish question, which is inherently an international problem due to the presence of the Kurdish people in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, has become an integral part of the imperialist struggle to divide the Middle East, especially after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the war for regime change in Syria in 2011.

The position of the SDF, which leads a de facto entity in Syria called the “Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria”, is critical because of the region’s oil reserves and its alliance with the United States, which continues to occupy the country with a force of 2,000 troops. Ankara’s initiative therefore requires an agreement not only with the Kurdish leadership, but also with the United States, once again under the presidency of Donald Trump, and with Israel, which is expanding its occupation of southern Syria and has declared the SDF its ally.

Ankara is also trying to use its influence with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has seized power in Damascus, to impose the dissolution of the Kurdish forces without any status and their subordination to the Damascus regime. While the HTS has decided to liquidate the armed groups in Syria and subordinate them to the central army, it remains unclear what will happen to the autonomous administration led by the SDF and its armed forces. However, the HTS, which does not want to confront the US and Israel, is postponing solving this difficult equation through dialogue with the SDF for now.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview on Wednesday that the PKK and the YPG had been given ultimatums through Washington and Damascus and that Ankara or the HTS would take military action if non-Syrian PKK members did not leave the country: “When we say ultimatums or conditions, we are saying that if you don’t want military action in the region, either by us or by the new government in Syria, the conditions are clear.”

In response, Washington had previously threatened Ankara with sanctions and increased its military presence in the region. During a visit to Paris on the same day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled that the US military presence in Syria would continue under the pretext of fighting ISIS, saying: “an even more acute danger would be if the more than 10,000 foreign terrorist fighters who are being detained under the vigilance of our Kurdish friends in Syria were to get out and reconstitute the very potent force that was Daesh in Syria, in Iraq, before it was defeated.”

Blinken stated the following about Ankara’s operation against the SDF: “We’ve been working very closely as well with our ally, our partner, in Türkiye—which has very legitimate concerns of course about the PKK and about terrorism—to navigate this transition, to navigate it in a way that I think leads to a resolution of many of those concerns, including over time with the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into Syrian national forces, including with the departure of foreign members of that force to their own countries, including with a resolution of questions around oil, around borders, et cetera, but that’s a process that’s going to take some time.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also said on Monday that France would not abandon “freedom fighters like the Kurds” who are allies of the West in the “war on terror” in Syria.

Speaking recently to France’s TV5 Monde, SDF foreign affairs officer Ilham Ahmed called on France to send troops to the region, saying, “The US and France can indeed secure the entire border. We are ready for this military coalition to assume such a responsibility.”

In Syria, which has been ravaged by a war for regime change since 2011, Ankara may find itself clashing not only with its NATO ally Washington or the SDF, but also with Israel.

On 6 January, the Nagel Commission’s report, which was presented to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stated that “Turkey has become the most influential power in Damascus and that the Sunni-Turkish axis has replaced Iran’s Shiite axis.”

“Turkey’s interests in turning Syria into a client state and thereby increasing its regional influence are clear. It should be prepared for actions on the ground and potential threats that could escalate rapidly,” the report said, arguing that military capabilities should be strengthened in preparation for a possible conflict with Turkey.

The Trump administration, which will take office on January 20, will play a decisive role in the deepening US-led divide in Syria and the Middle East. In his speech on January 7, Trump avoided answering the question of whether the US would withdraw its troops from Syria, saying, “I won’t tell you that because that’s part of a military strategy. But I will say it was Turkey.”

Trump, who recently announced his own annexation and global hegemony plans for the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada, mentioned Erdoğan with praise and stated the following: “President Erdoğan is a friend of mine. He’s a guy I like, respect. I think he respects me also.... if you look at what happened with Syria, Russia was weakened, Iran was weakened, and he’s a very smart guy. And he sent his people in there through different forms and different names, and they went in and they took over [in Damascus].”

“He [Erdoğan] is the one that didn’t go after certain people after I requested that he not. You know who I’m talking about? The Kurds. I don’t know how long that’s going to be, because they’re natural enemies. They hate each other,” Trump also said, suggesting he could rein in Erdoğan as he has in the past.

While Ankara hopes to advance its plans in the region by reaching an agreement with the new Trump administration, the Kurdish leadership is turning to the imperialist powers with the same bankrupt bourgeois nationalist perspective. In an interview with The Guardian on Friday, SDF leader Mazlum Abdi addressed Trump, saying, “the key factor for stability in the region is the US presence on the ground” and calling for continued cooperation against the “ISIS threat” and the possibility of an attack by Ankara.

2024 was the deadliest year on record for migrants trying to reach Europe

Lena Sokoll

The last deadly shipping accident in 2024 at the gates of Fortress Europe was reported on December 27: a boat with 80 people on board sank on its way to the Canary Islands. Only 11 lives could be saved, 69 people died. Many of the victims were from Mali, a country in West Africa where armed conflict has raged for more than a decade, where various powers, including European countries, have been heavily involved.

A handout image provided by Greece's coast guard on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, shows scores of people covering practically every free stretch of deck on a battered fishing boat that later capsized and sank off southern Greece, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing. [AP Photo/Hellenic Coast Guard via AP]

The year 2025 began with the sinking off the Tunisian coast of two refugee boats bound for Italy in the Mediterranean, in which 27 people lost their lives. No further details about the deceased were available in news reports. With these victims, the tragic death toll at Europe’s external borders ushered in the new year.

According to the Spanish human rights organisation Caminando Fronteras, 2024 was the deadliest year so far for migrants trying to reach Europe. On average, more than 30 people died every day on the journey from Africa to Spain, and the NGO counted a total of 10,457 migrants who died or disappeared at sea.

This is an increase of more than 50 percent over the previous year and the highest number since records began in 2007. Caminando Fronteras obtains its data from hotlines for migrants in distress at sea, from family members of missing migrants and from official statistics on rescue operations.

The victims came from 28 countries, mainly from Africa, but also from Pakistan and Iraq. Most of the deaths are due to shipwrecks on the Atlantic route between the African continent and the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are the nearest embarking point, just about 100 kilometres from the Moroccan coast, but boats also set out from much further south in Senegal.

The Spanish Ministry of the Interior reports that between January 1 and December 15 of 2024, 60,216 refugees entered Spain irregularly, an increase of 14.5 percent over the same period last year. Over 70 percent of them landed in the Canary Islands.

About one in five migrants, however, lose their lives on the Atlantic route, with Caminando Fronteras documenting 9,757 deaths along the way. The route is dangerous not only because of the waves on the open sea and strong currents that prevail in the deep water. Most of the boats used for the crossing are not seaworthy and are overloaded. Above all, rescue systems and resources are completely inadequate in view of the number of accidents that occur on the route on a permanent basis. “More than 10,400 people dying or going missing in a single year is an unacceptable tragedy,” said Helena Maleno, a spokeswoman for the NGO, calling the toll “proof of a profound failure.”

This tragedy, however, is not only tolerated by the European Union, it is very deliberately allowed to happen in order to deter so-called “illegal” migration. Not only Spain, but especially Italy and Greece, as the largest EU Mediterranean coastal states, bear direct responsibility for the deaths of thousands fleeing poverty and oppression, hoping for a better life for themselves and their families in Europe. However, the brutal border policy is ultimately supported by all EU countries and is being driven forward by Germany in particular.

Thousands of people continue to lose their lives in the Mediterranean every year because there are no legal ways for them to come to Europe. The European Union’s border policy, with the practice of pushbacks, cooperation with North African rulers and their troops, and the active obstruction of sea rescues, is directly responsible for the deaths in the waters bordering Europe.

In its 2024 annual report the NGO SOS Humanity states: “Almost 21,000 people seeking protection were intercepted by the EU-funded, so-called Libyan coast guard, unlawfully returned to Libya and imprisoned there under conditions that the United Nations fact-finding mission classified as crimes against humanity.”

Under the government of fascist Giorgia Meloni, Italy is increasingly harassing not only refugees but also civilian sea rescue operations. Since 2023, a government decree has allowed civilian rescue ships to be detained and assigned to ports far from the rescue area in northern and eastern Italy. SOS Humanity counts a total of 323 days of detention, 117,000 additional kilometres and 293 lost days of operations for the civilian fleet maintained by NGOs in the Mediterranean in 2024.

Another decree, which the Italian government only passed at the beginning of December 2024, allows future civilian rescue ships to be confiscated after being detained multiple times. In addition, the ships are now no longer allowed to help anyone in distress at sea if they already have refugees on board. Various civilian sea rescue organisations have therefore described the so-called Flussi decree as an “under the hand death sentence.”

They summarise: “The aim seems to be to make life impossible for those who save lives and witness the violations of international law that take place daily in the central Mediterranean. It is yet another harmful, propagandistic and inhumane law that is, in addition, clearly illegal.” With the decree, the Italian government is attempting to abolish international law in order to “inflict the greatest possible damage” on both rescuers and those being rescued.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the number of people who died or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2020 is estimated at around 2,400. This brings the total number of people who have gone missing on the Mediterranean routes since 2014 to over 31,000.

At another of the European Union’s maritime borders, the English Channel, a record number of irregular crossings and a record number of deaths have also been recorded since official counting began in 2018. The British government reports that a total of 76 people have died in 20 incidents between France and Britain.

This massive crime against refugees and migrants will continue in 2025. European governments are individually and collectively responsible for the mass and completely avoidable deaths at sea of those seeking protection and safety, work and a better life in Europe. The most fundamental human right, the right to life, is denied to migrants at the gates of Europe. And if they do set foot on European soil, they face inhumane detention in camps, all kinds of harassment and deportation to war and crisis zones.

At least 67 dead in Nigeria in stampedes for food assistance

Alice Summers

At least 67 people have been killed in a series of stampedes in Nigeria at charity events offering financial assistance and free food parcels. The tragic deaths come in the midst of a severe cost-of-living and food insecurity crisis across the country which has left millions of people struggling to access adequate food supplies.

On December 18, at least 35 children were crushed to death and many more were injured at a Christmas funfair held at a high school in the Bashorun district of Ibadan, Nigeria’s third-largest city. The fair’s organisers had invited children aged under the age of 13 and had advertised that cash handouts and food aid would be provided for all attendees, as well as giving children the opportunity to win prizes like scholarships.

Screenshot of a TRT World news clip showing aftermath of stampede in Abadan, Nigeria [Photo: TRT World Now/Facebook]

Around 5,000 attendees had been expected, with organisers promising handouts of N5,000 (around $3) to each child. Such is the desperation of Nigeria’s increasingly impoverished population that at least 7,500 people arrived at the venue, with some news sources estimating that as many as 10,000 may have turned up. Many arrived at 5 a.m., several hours before the event’s scheduled start time, while others reportedly slept outside the school the previous night to ensure they received handouts.

Eyewitnesses reported scenes of panic when parents and children rushed to enter the venue as organisers arrived. Victims became trapped in a crush at the main gate, leaving them with no way to escape the crowd as children fell and were trampled underfoot. Others tried to scale fences to access the event. The overwhelming turnout also caused gridlock on the road leading to the high school, complicating rescue efforts.

Only three days later, on Saturday, December 21, at least another 32 people were killed in crowd crushes at two separate charity events.

Of those, 22 people died in the town of Okija in the southeastern state of Anambra at an event organised by a local philanthropist to distribute food, including rice and cooking oil. Hundreds arrived at the venue, leading to a crush as crowds surged forward to try to claim the food aid. Victims of the stampede included “the elderly, pregnant [women], nursing mothers and children,” Christian Aburime, Chief Press Secretary to the Anambra State Governor, said in a statement.

The same day, another 10 people, including four children, were crushed to death in the Nigerian capital city of Abuja, at a food and clothing distribution event for the vulnerable hosted by a local church.

Deadly stampedes are by no means new in Nigeria, although the number of incidents and fatalities appears to be increasing. In 2014, 18 jobseekers were killed at various locations across Nigeria as thousands of applicants attempted to enter venues for recruitment events. Thirty-one people were crushed at a Port Harcourt food distribution event in 2022, while another 20 died the following year at a rice distribution event in Ilorin, the capital of the western state of Kwara.

In 2024 alone, at least three other deadly crushes took place, all involving desperate individuals trying to obtain rice or other food or financial assistance. At least 17 died, although official death counts are rarely given and news reports often lack detail, so the real toll may be much higher.

In a statement on December’s deadly stampedes, Nigerian president Bola Tinubu declared that he had cancelled his official engagements in honour of the victims and urged state governments and the police to enforce strict crowd control measures at festive and charity events. While much of the media reporting of these incidents has followed Tinubu’s lead in focusing on poor planning and insufficient crowd control, the main cause of the tragic deaths is the rampant poverty facing Nigerians across the country, exacerbated by the government’s International Monetary Fund (IMF)–dictated austerity measures.

Since coming to power in May 2023, after an election marred by violence, fraud and other irregularities, Tinubu has introduced a raft of pro-market policies, including floating the Nigerian naira, previously pegged to the US dollar, and ending a decades-long fuel subsidy. This led to a rapid doubling of the price of petrol on which many Nigerians rely to generate electricity for their homes. Since then, the Nigerian currency has lost around 70 percent of its value, pushing inflation up to a 28-year high of 34 percent over the summer—and 40 percent for food—and sparking a crushing cost-of-living crisis.

Around 40 percent of Nigeria’s population now live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank—some 93 million people. Between October and December 2024, 25.1 million Nigerians were also estimated to be acutely food insecure by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), a figure which is predicted to rise to 33 million in 2025.

Around 5.4 million children and almost 800,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Nigeria are also at risk of acute malnutrition or wasting in six of the most affected states across the country—Borno, Adamawa and Yobe in the northeast, and Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara in the northwest—according to the WFP. Of these, as many as 1.8 million children could face Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and require critical nutrition treatment, the WFP reported.

Food and transportation costs have been particularly impacted by inflation, tripling over the past 18 months. Beans, a staple food product for many Nigerian households, have skyrocketed in price, increasing by 283 percent between October 2023 and October 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The cost of rice has also shot up, with locally produced variants increasing in price by 153 percent over the same period.

Nigeria’s food insecurity crisis has been exacerbated by protectionist government measures restricting food imports. Between 2015 and 2022, the government of president Muhammad Buhari, Tinubu’s predecessor, introduced various measures that effectively banned the import of rice, as well as other foodstuffs, into Nigeria, ostensibly to encourage local farmers to grow more of the crop. While rice production has increased, it is still far outstripped by demand, with farmers only able to fulfil about 60 percent of the country’s rice consumption needs.

Climate change, particularly floods, has also severely impacted food production in Nigeria. Last year, just between October 1 and 15, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recorded that floods affected over 9.2 million people in Nigeria and submerged 4.5 million hectares of land, including approximately 1.6 million hectares of farmland. According to the FAO, flooding could lead to annual production losses for maize, sorghum and rice of 1.1 million tonnes—enough to feed 13 million people for a year.

Ethnic and religious conflicts have disrupted agriculture, too, particularly in northern Nigeria, where the bulk of food production occurs, interfering with supply chains and leading to food shortages across the country.

While Nigerians are particularly badly affected by food insecurity, the problem of hunger is a global issue. According to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, released in July, a staggering 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and including one in five in Africa. Global hunger levels have remained the same for three years and now include around 152 million more people than in 2019.

UK retail chains begin cull with more than 200,000 job losses predicted in 2025

Barry Mason

UK fashion retail chain New Look is to speed up its planned closure of around 90 of its 364 stores. Hundreds of its 8,000 strong workforce are set to lose their jobs.

In 2018, New Look had around 600 stores but two restructuring exercises in the intervening period reduced its portfolio to the current 364. While New Look was planning some closures this year, it plans to accelerate the rate of closures in response to Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s budget in October over increasing employer national insurance contribution (NIC), due to be implemented in April—plus the planned rise in the minimum wage.

New Look's store in Brighton, England in 2016 [Photo by Hassocks5489 / CC BY 1.0]

This is only the latest in a wave of job cuts. The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) estimates around 170,000 jobs were lost in the sector in 2024. This was the highest number since the 200,000 lost in 2020 as a result of the forced closures during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Retail is an important part of the UK economy with its 2.8 million jobs around 8.5 percent of the total workforce.

According to the CRR, around 13,500 stores shut for good last year—an average of over 35 a day. Among the big names lost were fashion chain Ted Baker, and flooring and carpeting retailer Carpetright, which closed around 200 shops. DIY supplier Homebase collapsed into administration with around 50 stores to go, despite rival The Range taking over some. The level of closures was up more than 40 percent on 2023.

The CRR’s analysis noted that 38 major retailers entered administration in 2024, accounting for over 7,500 store closures and 55,000 jobs were lost. The remaining approximate 115,000 job losses were a result of cutbacks by big chains rationalising store numbers or independent outlets shuttering their shops.

Larger chains shut over 2,100 stores in the year. Pharmacy chain Boots, established in 1849, closed around 300 of its stores in 2024 following a plan drawn up in June 2023 to close around 650 of its UK outlets with savings of over £600 million. In December, Boots’ parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance entered into talks with US private equity firm Sycamore Partners in attempts to relieve financial difficulties.

CRR figures show around 11,300 independent shops shut in 2024—an increase of over 45 percent on the previous year.

Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR, noted, “The comparatively low figures for 2023 now look like an anomaly, a pause for breath by many retailers after lockdowns if you like.

“The problems of changed customer shopping habits, inflation, rising energy costs, rents and business rates have continued and forced many retailers to cut back even more strongly in 2024.”

He added, “Whilst the results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”

The CRR expects a major cull in the sector for 2025, predicting 17,300 store closures of which around 14,500 will be independent shops. This represents an expected loss of around 200,000 jobs.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) sent a letter to Reeves following her October budget making clear they would respond to a rise in employer’s national insurance contributions and the minimum wage by cutting jobs. Among the 81 signatories were supermarket chains Asda and Sainsbury’s, department store John Lewis, high street pharmacy chain Boots, and electronic goods chain Currys, along with charity shops such as the British Heart Foundation and the Associated Independent Stores trade group.

From April the threshold at which employers pay NIC will be £5,000 rather than the current £9,100 and the rate paid will be 15 percent rather than the current 13.8 percent. BRC said this will cost British retailers over £2.3 billion a year.

In April, the minimum wage will increase 6.7 percent to £12.21 an hour, heavily affecting an industry that runs on appallingly underpaid minimum wage staff. A further cost on larger companies from October will be the extended producer responsibility scheme. Under this scheme, introduced by the previous Conservative government, the costs of recycling previously met by local councils will be transferred to the companies using the packaging.

Another additional cost for retailers is the planned increase in business rates. While some rents have fallen due to the lack of demand for store premises business rates have not come down. Hospitality and retail businesses not qualifying for small business rates relief currently get a 75 percent business rate discount but from April this year the discount will reduce to 40 percent.

A Guardian article published December 27, based on a report by insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor, reported that the proportion of retail businesses that could be described as in “critical” financial distress had risen by 25 percent to over 2,100 in the final quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter.

Brick-and-mortar retail stores have also been impacted by the move to online shopping, a growing trend accelerated by the COVID pandemic. A Retail Bulletin piece last May noted that 91 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds shop online. It explained, “The tidal wave of shifting consumer habits and the relentless pull of the internet have been particularly devastating to the fashion retail industry…

“More than one in every four retail sales from textile, clothing, and footwear stores are made from online channels. This has caused problems for traditional high street retailers, which has resulted in closures and job losses due to the new consumers’ shopping habits.”

As big business responds to these pressures in predictable fashion, by firing workers and making those who remain work twice as hard—while forcing smaller, independent outlets into collapse—no response is forthcoming from the unions in the sector. This is in keeping with their waving through of the last few years of unprecedented job losses, generally only going so far as to plead that chains going out of business be taken over by one or another competitor or asset stripper looking to make a killing in the administration process.

The GMB union’s response in August 2023 to the closure of Wilkos stores was to run up the surrender flag entirely, saying it would “continue to support members through this process and will fight to ensure members are consulted as per the law and that you receive every penny you are entitled to.” The final closures of Wilkos stores in October 2023 coincided with a report issued by the GMB showing over 420,000 retail jobs had been lost since 2010 and that the high street may be in “terminal decline”. All these went without the unions lifting a finger in opposition.

Unite’s response to planned café closures at Sainsbury’s supermarkets in March 2022 with the threatened loss of around 2,250 jobs was a call to “rule out compulsory redundancies”. This support for “voluntary” redundancies has become a standard practice of the unions over many years across a wide range of employers, and enables companies to smoothly carry out job cuts with minimum disruption.

In January last year in response to the loss of 120,000 retail jobs and 10,000 store closures in 2023, the shop workers’ union USDAW issued a call only for “the Government to work with them and employers to develop a retail industrial strategy to tackle longstanding and ongoing difficulties in the sector and help save our shops.”

More Australians at risk of homelessness but missing out on vital support

Vicki Mylonas

Abandoned homeless camp site in Mawson, Canberra [Photo by Johnscotaus / CC BY 4.0]

Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis, with rental inflation and mortgage repayments skyrocketing but wages remaining stagnant. Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) however, are unable to meet the growing demand for help which puts more people at risk of becoming homeless. 

A recent Impact Economics and Policy report for the national peak body Homelessness Australia revealed that in 2022, there were between 2.7 million and 3.2 million Australians at risk of homelessness. That represented a 63 percent increase between 2016 and 2022. Even just one negative shock could put these people at risk of losing their homes and seeking assistance from already over-stretched homelessness services.

This crisis is cutting across all demographics of the population, including women with children, those over 55 years old and full-time workers. 

Another report. “Australian Homelessness Monitor 2024,” by the University of NSW (UNSW) and University of Queensland showed that there is a growing representation of people from the low and middle-income bracket who are finding that a full-time job doesn’t protect them from the risk of homelessness. More older Australians are being impacted by the housing crisis, with home ownership decreasing across all age brackets, including Australians at retirement age. This forces more older people to rent while being dependent on the paltry age pension. 

This report noted that between March 2020 and June 2024 the median advertised weekly rent throughout the country rose from $413 to $624, a nominal increase of 51 percent. General inflation increased by 29 percent over the same period. 

The combination of record low rental vacancies and rents spiraling in prices led to higher rates of rental stress. The Impact Economics and Policy report estimated that those experiencing rental stress has increased by 141,000 across the nation since the 2021 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census (a 17.9 percent increase). 

The housing crisis has been exacerbated by Australian governments, including the federal Labor government, which together with the corporations and the unions have imposed historic cuts to worker’s real wages. 

Contrary to the Labor government’s boast that wages have grown since 2022, wages nominally rose to just 3.5 percent in the last year to September 2024. The meagre increase was eaten up by inflation, while rental increases were well above the inflation rate and mortgage repayments rose by 155 percent under the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 13 interest rate increases, supported by the government. 

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) Raise the Rate Survey 2024 showed again that Australians relying on welfare payments such as JobSeeker and Youth Allowance face a life of deprivation and isolation, well below the poverty line. Ninety-four percent of those surveyed who rent privately are experiencing housing stress, having to pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. Fifty-two percent pay more than half of their income in rent, defined as severe housing stress.

The report on the survey stated: “Australia currently has the worst rental affordability on record and one of the highest rates of homelessness among wealthy countries. Australia’s supply of social housing is at a four-decade low.”

There have been decades of cuts by both Labor and Liberal-National governments to public housing, reducing these dwellings to a tiny fraction of total stock. State Labor governments such as in Victoria are continuing this assault on the working class, with every high-rise public housing tower in the city of Melbourne targeted for demolition, to be replaced by primarily privately-owned apartments. A third are to be reserved for so-called social housing. 

The Albanese Labor government claims to be addressing the housing crisis with its $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), with the aim to build 30,000 new “affordable” homes by 2029. However, this has as its primary purpose the increase of the wealth of major property developers. Even if the homes are built by 2029, this barely addresses the extreme shortage of social housing. The Housing All Australians organisation has stated that the current shortfall of affordable/social housing nationally is well in excess of 500,000 dwellings. 

Under the National Housing Accord, Labor claims to be aiming for the construction of another 1.2 million new homes over the next five years to address the housing affordability crisis. However, data from the ABS has shown that the year 2023-2024 was the worst year for home building in more than a decade. Housing construction dropped 8.8 per cent. 

The nation’s peak building and construction industry association, Master Builders Australia, stated that “if building continues at this pace, we’ll be in less than 800,000 new home starts over the next five years.”  It described the target to build 1.2 million new homes as “impossible.” Regardless, Labor’s target has nothing to do with the construction of affordable dwellings, and is simply encouragement for the property development sector, which bears substantial responsibility for the crisis, to continue to profit.

It is clear that the housing crisis and the broader social crisis of which it is a part will only deepen.

Although over 250,000 Australians received assistance from a SHS between 2022-2023, thousands of other requests for assistance went unmet due to lack of resources and an increase in those seeking assistance. The Impact Economics and Policy report revealed some of the following statistics from a two-week survey that was completed of various homelessness services:

• 39 percent of services were forced to close their doors to people seeking help at least once during the fortnight.
• 83 percent of services were unable to answer phone calls for some period, leaving people in crisis without immediate assistance. 
• Families with children who had no accommodation were not assisted on 1 in 5 days. 
• Unaccompanied young people and children with no accommodation were turned away on 1 in 9 days. 

Those who do not receive help are frequently not included in official statistics measuring people requiring such assistance. In addition, services have been reporting increasingly complex needs, bound up with the lack of medium- and longer-term housing solutions.

The housing disaster is contributing to broader social hardships. A recent Red Shield report by the Salvation Army found that 94 percent of respondents could not afford essential living expenses such as housing, groceries and medical care, and 35 percent were unable to pay their rent or mortgage on time. 

People are being forced to take drastic actions, with 22 percent saying that they either live in darkness or use candles and torches at night to cut down on their electricity costs. Forty-seven percent of respondents said that they had experienced severe food insecurity, going a whole day without eating because of financial difficulties.