US student debt crisis deepens as federal loan interest accrual resumes

Kevin Reed

Interest accrual on US federal student loan debt resumed on September 1, impacting 43 million borrowers who owe more than $1.7 trillion through various Department of Education lending programs.

On October 1, student loan holders are due to resume payments, after 42 months of pandemic forbearance first enacted in March 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and extended multiple times by both the Trump and Biden administrations.

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

At the beginning of June, as part of the political horse-trading between President Biden and Republican House Speaker McCarthy over a deal raising the federal debt ceiling, the White House agreed to end the pandemic student loan holiday as of August 30.

At the time of the debt ceiling deal, Biden claimed he was working on a new student debt forgiveness program. His initial proposal, announced in August 2022, would have forgiven up to $20,000 in debt per student and reduced loan balances to zero for 20 million borrowers. It was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling this past June.

The court ruled that Biden did not have the executive authority to cancel $400 billion in student loan debt, saying the plan amounted to “seizing the power of the Legislature” in violation of Congress’ “control of the purse.”

The corporate-financial elite, which dictated the decision to scrap Biden’s loan relief scheme—itself wholly inadequate to rescue millions from a lifetime of debt—is well aware that many student loan borrowers have no means of making their payments. With the average debt per student loan holder at $37,338, the combination of inflation-driven increases in the cost of living and declining real wages, even for those with a college degree, has put borrowers in an impossible financial situation.

The volume of student loan debt in the US stood at $1.766 trillion as of the second quarter of 2023, according to data maintained by the Federal Reserve Board. This is greater than the total amount of US credit card debt ($1.031 trillion) or US auto loan debt ($1.56 trillion).

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), approximately one in five student loan borrowers has “financial risk factors that could cause them to struggle when their payments resume in the fall.” The CFPB reported that one in 13 holders of federal student loans was already behind on other payment obligations in advance of the end of the repayment pause.

As of March, around 2.5 million people with student debt were delinquent on another of their loans or payments, an increase of 200,000 compared to data collected in September 2022. Kentia Elbaum, a spokesperson for the CFPB, told CNBC in June, “These borrowers might be unable to make payments on their student loans if they are already missing payments on their credit cards or auto loans, which research suggests people often prioritize over their student loans.”

The likelihood that a significant percentage of student loan borrowers will not begin repayments in October is very high. According to a survey conducted in August by the research company Intelligent.com, 62 percent of respondents say they are unlikely to start repaying, and approximately one half believe that a payment boycott will lead to total forgiveness of their debt.

Another survey conducted by the consumer financial services company Bankrate showed that 48 percent of borrowers see student debt as a national crisis. The Bankrate study said most households with student debt “have had to put off major financial decisions and milestones because of their loans.” It added, “They’re delaying buying a house, having children or getting married, and are saving less for retirement or emergencies.”

The Biden administration, concerned about the potential economic and political impact, has been working with the corporate media to communicate its yearlong “on-ramp” program. Under this scheme, any payments missed between October 1, 2023 and September 3, 2024 will not be considered delinquent and will not impact credit scores. According to the New York Times, “Your loan servicer will automatically put any missed payments in forbearance, which, in this case, means they will be tacked on to the end of your loan term.”

In other words, for an entire year, loans without payments will increase in size because interest will continue to accrue on them, putting borrowers further in the hole.

The public relations campaign by the corporate media points out that borrowers who were already in default will be getting a “fresh start” if they are at least 270 days behind in their payments. The borrowers will first have to call the US Department of Education’s Default Resolution Group and have their loans put into a special program.

Another promotion by the corporate media concerns a March 2020 government rule change that permits employers to offer educational assistance by repaying up to $5,250 per year of employee student loans, tax-free.

In a statement, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said: “The IRS wants to remind both employers and employees about this special feature that can help with student loans. There is a limited window of time [until December 31, 2025] for this educational assistance program, and the IRS wants to make sure employers don’t overlook this option that can help businesses attract and retain workers.”

These paltry offerings do not address the financial disaster facing young people and their families from the soaring cost of a college or university education and the consequent necessity for tens of millions to borrow enormous amounts of money to have access to higher education—something that should be available and free for everyone.

No one can seriously claim with a straight face that “there is no money” to finance this basic social right when the government allots $1 trillion a year for the military, spends billions each month on the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, comes up with hundreds of billions to bail out bankers and rich depositors, and maintains an economic system that funnels ever greater fortunes to the wealthy elite while further impoverishing the working class.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained in a previous report on the Biden administration’s failed attempt to provide limited forgiveness to student borrowers, Wall Street is feasting off of student loan debt through the securitization of loans, made possible by the government’s use of third-party “loan servicers.”

Companies such as the recently created AidVantage are packaging what are known as Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) and selling them to investment banks and other financial organizations.

As a 2019 article titled “Wall Street has been gambling with student loan debt for decades,” published by OpenDemocracy.net, explained:

These companies [loan servicers] also issue Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) in collaboration with major financial institutions like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. For these firms and their creditors, debt isn’t just an asset, it’s their bottom line.

Investors holding SLABS are entitled to coupon payments at regular intervals until the security reaches final maturity, or they can trade the assets in speculative secondary markets...

Yet the financialization of student debt is almost never reported on in the media. There is little public awareness that when student borrowers sign their Master Promissory Notes (affirming that they will repay their loans and “reasonable collection costs”), their debts may be securitized and sold to investors.

Deteriorating economic forecasts ahead of New Zealand election

John Braddock

As New Zealand heads into a crisis election on October 14 with the Labour government and the opposition National Party both deeply unpopular, deteriorating economic conditions portend intensifying attacks on the social conditions of the working class, whoever takes office.

New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson outside parliament on May 18, 2023. [Photo: Grant Robertson Facebook]

Last week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a blunt warning on behalf of international finance capital. In its final “report card” on the country’s economy, the IMF said that New Zealand is at risk of falling into a deeper recession. The coming quarter is already heading towards a downturn after a previous recession from October 2022 to March 2023.

According to the IMF, New Zealand’s economic growth rate next year will be the lowest in the Asia Pacific region and among the lowest in the world. The economy will slow to near 1 percent growth in 2023 and 0.8 percent 2024, led by “weakness” in private spending. The jobless rate, currently at 3.4 percent, will rise to 5 percent by 2024.

The NZ Reserve Bank told a parliamentary committee last November that it was deliberately engineering a recession. In May, the central bank raised the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 5.5 percent, the latest in 12 consecutive rate rises since October 2021. Last month it warned the rate would need to remain “restrictive” for the foreseeable future, with the likelihood of a further hike in the fourth quarter.

To bring about a “necessary slowdown,” the IMF said the government needed to slash spending, warning that high inflation could last until 2025. According to the report, the economy had slowed, but significant “labour market restraints” had put upward pressure on wages.

The IMF is demanding an intensification of the same class war policies imposed by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks. The “necessary slowdown” means an escalating assault on the working class, placing increasing pressure on jobs, pay and conditions by driving up unemployment to beat back an emerging movement for substantial wage increases to make up for years of below-inflation pay deals.

The IMF’s mission chief to New Zealand flatly advised against a Labour policy to remove GST from fruit and vegetables—which would only save the average household about $5 a week—and reiterated that cuts to the punishing interest rate regime should be off the table. It declared that any cost-of-living support for “vulnerable groups” should be “targeted and temporary” and implemented using means testing—in other words, as meagre and insubstantial as possible.

Separately, global credit rating agency Fitch reaffirmed the country’s AA+ rating but warned that high household debt and a large current account deficit are “risks.” The rating is the agency’s second highest, which it said reflected the government’s commitment to “fiscal discipline” including returning to budget surpluses and reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Fitch warned the economic outlook was “challenging” with growth falling because of worsening trade, higher debt servicing costs and weak consumer sentiment, with a fall in house prices and an “easing” labour market.

In August the NZ dollar dropped to a seven-year low against the British pound and a six-month low against the US dollar. Bank of New Zealand market strategist Jason Wong said the dollar was likely to remain under pressure, while problems in China’s economy had driven down commodity prices to three-year lows. A low NZ dollar exchange rate usually benefits exporters but any gains would be more than offset by weak commodity prices and increasing inflationary pressures, he told Radio NZ.

New Zealand is highly exposed to the downturn in China. The world’s second largest economy accounts for over a quarter of New Zealand’s exports, primarily dairy products, valued at $NZ21.45 billion and $3.4 billion in services. Two-way trade totaled $40.31 billion in the year ending December 2022, making China the country’s largest trading partner.

Market analyst Rodney Jones told TVNZ on August 27 that the outlook for the rural sector, in particular, is “dire” with all the indicators “pointing the wrong way.” “We’ve remained a bulk-commodity exporter,” Jones said “and you look at those auctions, Chinese demand is important, and they’re not turning up. We’ve done well in terms of exporting over the last few years—that’s starting to change.”

Jones warned there were no guarantees dairy prices would not go lower and that NZ was in the “front line” of any shock. Dairy prices slumped by 7.4 percent at last month’s Global Dairy Trade auction, led by a 10.9 percent fall in whole milk powder to $US2,548 a tonne, its lowest point in almost five years. Major companies Fonterra and Synlait cut their forecast milk price to $7 per kilogram of milk solids, which will remove around $5 billion from the economy.

With formal election campaigning now under way, the major parties have turned the “debate” into who will slash government spending the most. Labour’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has ruled out any wealth or capital gains taxes to increase revenue.

On August 28 Hipkins announced spending cuts of $NZ4 billion over the next four years, on top of $4 billion in cuts announced in the May budget. The government will reduce contractors and consultants, spending allowances and slash more than $1.4 billion in operating and capital savings. Included is a $236 million cut from climate initiatives.

The cuts will intensify the crisis in the public sector. Health and education are dealing with severe understaffing, years of under-funding and regular emergencies.

The unions rushed to endorse the move. The Public Service Association released a craven statement which declared: “…we understand as revenue falls during challenging economic times, savings need to be found.”

Last week the opposition National Party released a tax package which it claimed would address the precarious financial plight of the “squeezed” middle class. It offers tax cuts that will mainly benefit the rich, paid for by increased costs for basic necessities, including prescription charges and public transport fares. Meanwhile, a proposal to lift restrictions on the purchase of homes by wealthy foreign investors, which will attract a new tax, threatens to re-inflate the overheated housing market.

The far-right ACT Party, which could join National in a governing coalition, is setting the agenda for sweeping attacks. It calls for increased privatisation of the health system and the reintroduction of privately-run charter schools; massive tax cuts for the rich; $9 billion in cuts to annual government spending, including slashing the public service workforce by 30 percent; and measures to push people off welfare.

The one area that will remain untouched by any of the main parties is defence. Labour aims to increase defence spending from 1.4 percent to 2 percent of GDP, as the government continues to help train Ukrainian forces for the US-NATO war against Russia and prepares for an even more calamitous confrontation with China. The country’s ruling elite is unified in its commitment to this course.

Mass protests in Niger demand withdrawal of French troops

Alex Lantier

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched outside the French military base in Niger’s capital, Niamey, to demand French troops withdraw from Niger.

French President Emmanuel Macron has refused to withdraw from this former French colony, on the pretext that the Nigerien regime demanding it came to power in a coup, on July 26. Macron poses as a defender of democracy against the coup that toppled French-backed Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum. On this basis, Macron is keeping French troops in Niger and refusing the Nigerien regime’s demand that he replace French Ambassador to Niger Sylvain Itté.

The mass protest in Niamey exposed the fraud of Macron’s neocolonial arguments. In reality, it is above all the Nigerien people, and not the Nigerien military junta, that wants an end to the French military presence in Niger and across the Sahel. As in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, both of which French troops have left within the last year after waging a bloody nine-year war in those countries, there is explosive anger against French imperialism and its NATO allies.

Demonstrators rallied on Escadrille square in Niamey, in front of the French military base, after smaller protests on Thursday and Friday. They shouted slogans calling on French troops to immediately leave Niger, a leading supplier of uranium and other critical raw materials for major French corporations. They held up signs that said: “France is a leech that sucks the blood of Nigeriens,” “Niger for Nigeriens, Africa for Africans,” and “Brave People of Africa, Nothing Can Ever Stop Us Again.”

“We are ready to sacrifice ourselves today, because we are proud,” demonstrator Yacouba Issoufou told Reuters. “They plundered our resources and we became aware. So they are going to get out.”

Another protester in Niamey, Mariama Amadou, told the Hindustan Times: “Our only request, our ultimate request, is the departure, the departure, the departure of the French who are on Nigerien territory. We don’t need these people here, we don’t need them, and we repeat: we are ready to die to defend our country. We are ready to die to make them leave. They must leave, we do not need them here.”

The protest in Niamey came amid mounting opposition and protests across West Africa against imperialist-driven economic sanctions and plans for an invasion by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

Macron has called for such an invasion, aiming to use ECOWAS troops as cannon fodder for a French-led campaign to reconquer countries French troops were forced to leave. The regimes of Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Benin have expressed willingness to send troops to Niger.

ECOWAS sanctions have already had a devastating effect on Niger, leading to electricity cutoffs and halting trade in key pharmaceutical products, food and other essential goods. The sanctions are costing an estimated 13 billion nairas (€15 million) in weekly trade between Niger and Nigera alone.

Last month, protests against plans for war with Niger shook the city of Kano in the north of Nigeria. Protesters bore signs saying “War against Niger is injustice,” “It is the handiwork of America”, “It is justice we want,” and “Niger is ours.” The Nigerian daily Vanguard noted that the planned ECOWAS military mission “has been largely opposed by most Nigerians.”

Even within ruling circles in Nigeria, there is growing concern at the prospect of an all-out war. ECOWAS parliamentarian Idris Wase said: “We should be careful not to start what we can’t finish. When the Russia – Ukraine war started, people thought it was to be a sharp war. A year after, the war is still lingering on … [Nigerian] subregional military chiefs know what they stand to benefit economically. That’s why they’re eager to militarily intervene in Niger. Most of them are corrupt. Any war on Niger will have adverse effects on 60 percent of Nigeria, especially northern Nigeria.”

Nigerien workers in Senegal also spoke to Radio France Internationale to voice their opposition to the ECOWAS sanctions and war plans. Tassiou, a worker in Dakar, said: “We live abroad, we cannot take land routes, we cannot take air travel to go back home. If we need to send money via the banks, it is no longer possible, so commerce is blocked. Sending money to help our families is blocked.”

Abdourahmane, a Nigerien working in the finance sector in Senegal, denounced a potential ECOWAS military intervention, stating: “Senegalese people with whom I speak at the office generally do not support this military intervention. And I think that any African, today, should not defend this intervention, because it would be a battle between Africans.”

The danger of war is, however, rapidly growing. In particular because the conflict in Africa is becoming bound up with NATO’s fast-escalating war with Russia in Ukraine, as well as plans for a US military confrontation with China. The military juntas in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have all sought ties with the Russian private military contractors of the Wagner Group, or with Russian military officials directly.

China, whose firms in Niger are working on a oil pipeline to Benin and building food-processing plants, faces the risk that French-backed sanctions will block its industrial plans. It has cautiously signaled its support for the junta in Niamey. On Friday, Chinese Ambassador to Niger Jiang Feng met Nigerien Defense Minister Salifou Mody. Jiang told Mody that Niger’s government has the “support” of China, the Agence Nigériane de Presse reported.

The Turkish, Egyptian and Algerian governments have all criticized calls for an ECOWAS intervention as well. The Turkish government is reportedly selling Bayraktar drones, which it is also sending to Ukraine amid the NATO war on Russia, to Niger in case ECOWAS tries to invade it.

None of these capitalist regimes are friends of the working class or consistent opponents of imperialism, however. While the Algerian military regime opened its airspace to French bombers during the Mali war before closing it this year, the Egyptian regime is infamous for working closely with Washington to drown the revolutionary struggles of the Egyptian working class in blood during General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s 2013 putsch.

The strategy of all of these regimes—trying to negotiate a deal with imperialism and avoid mobilizing the revolutionary sentiment among African workers—emerged in the remarks last month of Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Shortly after the coup, she called for “re-establishing civil peace, ensuring law and order” in Niger. She also called on “the African Union and regional organizations,” like ECOWAS, to resolve the conflict.

Schlumberger Foundation Faculty For The Future Fellowship 2024/2025

Application Deadline: 10th November 2023

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries and Emerging Economies

To be taken at: Top universities abroad

Accepted Subject Areas: Physical sciences and related disciplines

About Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowship: Each year, The Faculty for the Future fellowships, Launched by the Schlumberger Foundation, are awarded to women from developing and emerging economies who are preparing for PhD or post-doctoral study in the physical sciences and related disciplines at top universities for their disciplines abroad. Grant recipients are selected for their leadership capabilities as for their scientific talents, and are expected to return to their home countries to continue their academic careers and inspire other young women.

Offered Since: 2004

Type: PhD/PostDoctoral, Fellowship

Selection Criteria: A successful application will have gone through four selection rounds, with the reviewers paying particular attention to the following criteria:

• Academic performance;
• Quality of references;
• Quality of host country university;
• Level of commitment to return to home country;
• Commitment to teaching;
• Relevance of research to home country;
• Commitment to inspiring young women into the sciences.

Eligibility: Applicants must meet all the following criteria:

• Be a woman;
• Be a citizen of a developing country or emerging economy;
• Wish to pursue a PhD degree or Post-doctoral research in the physical sciences or related disciplines;
• Have applied to, have been admitted to, or are currently enrolled in a university/research institute abroad;
• Wish to return to their home country to continue their academic career upon completion of their studies;
• Be very committed to teaching and demonstrate active participation in faculty life and outreach work to encourage young women into the sciences;
• Hold an excellent academic record.

Number of fellowships: Several

Value of Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowship: Faculty for the Future grants are awarded based on the actual costs of studying and living in the chosen location, and is worth USD 50,000 for PhDs and USD 40,000 for Post-doctoral study. Grants may be renewed through to completion of studies subject to performance, self-evaluation and recommendations from supervisors.

How to Apply: Interested candidates may Apply below

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Social protests in Syria as US tightens net around Iran and its allies

Jean Shaoul

The last 10 days have has seen numerous reports of anti-government protests in Syria demanding relief from economic hardship and the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Commentators have drawn parallels with the protests that broke out in March 2011 and posed the possibility of Assad’s downfall.

The 2011 protests were designated, in the wake of the NATO-led invasion of Libya to topple the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, as Syria’s “revolution” and used as a cover by the Obama administration for armed Islamist forces, financed by its Gulf allies and Turkey to replace al-Assad with a regime more compliant with the diktats of US imperialism.

In this May 17, 2018, file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, listens to Syrian President Bashar Assad during their meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. [AP Photo/Mikhail Klimentyev]

On Sunday August 20, protests broke out in the southern, mainly Druze city of Sweida—the site of anti-government demonstrations in 2020 and 2022—after the government doubled public employees’ salaries and cut fuel subsidies on August 15, more than doubling the cost. The Syrian pound—In free fall since the start of Washington’s proxy war to topple the Syrian government in 2011—fell a further 30 percent. The dollar/lira conversion rate is now a staggering 10,700 lira, up from 50 lira to the dollar in 2011, resulting in hyperinflation and exacerbating already terrible economic and social conditions that have left 90 percent of the population living below the poverty line, amid rampant corruption among the ruling elite.

Local leaders with the support of the Druze clergy called a one-day general strike, closing all the shops in the city. Later in the week, protesters attacked the local offices of the ruling Baath party and set up roadblocks on the road to the capital Damascus. Some demonstrators chanted, “Step Down Bashar, We Want to Live in Dignity” and “Long Live Syria, Down with Bashar al-Assad.”

The local news outlet Sweida 24 reported protests had spread to the southern city of Daraa and the town of Jableh, near the coastal city of Latakia, along with others in opposition-held areas in the northwest, parts of Aleppo province bordering Idlib and the city Deir el-Zur along the Euphrates in the east. Al-Monitor reported that Baath party offices in other towns in Sweida province were also closed.

Rayan Maarouf, Sweida 24’s exiled editor, said that while the ending of fuel subsidies sparked the “uprising,” the demands are political—for the fall of the regime—not economic.

However, these reports are sketchy. While Syria’s state-controlled media have not reported the protests, Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has acknowledged them, blaming them on the US. The content of some of the articles certainly belie headlines such as “Hundreds of thousands demonstrate in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime.”

These protests do appear to have US backing, with Syrian exile groups in the US supporting the demonstrations and calling for al-Assad’s overthrow. In Syria, the Kurdish Autonomous Administration, the US proxy that controls Syria’s northeast, and the rival Kurdistan National Council backed by Turkey, have put out statements in support, while protesters in Aleppo province and the rebel-held province of Idlib, where the Druze have faced systematic persecution, are pledging unity with Sweida and Daraa.

The pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party in Britain has given over the pages of their press to their co-thinkers in the Revolutionary Left in Syria. The group is breathlessly lauding the protests and supporting the recently formed 10 August Movement and the Civil Action Movement “that have called for strikes and other forms of civil disobedience.” It is participating in a coordinating committee that it acknowledges is “made up of several active movements, including our party. So we’re fighting a two-pronged battle—against the regime and against conservative and counter-revolutionary currents.”

In taking part in such an organisation, the role of the Revolutionary Left/SWP is to provide a political cover for efforts to manipulate and subordinate Syrian workers to religious leaders, pro-Turkish Islamist oppositionists, and “democratic movements” that are backed by and support US imperialism and other factions of the Syrian bourgeoisie. This serves to prevent workers from mounting an independent struggle against their own ruling class and imperialism.

The protests coincided with a fleeting visit by three Republican lawmakers from the US Congress—the first in a decade—via Turkey to a rebel-held area northwest of Aleppo that has seen sporadic strikes by Russian and Syrian forces against Turkish-backed Islamist militias. Their aim was to highlight the “tragic” situation in Syria, although their compassion only extended to rebel-held regions, and to call for the “international community to step in” against the al-Assad regime.

People queue up for gasoline in Idlib province, Syria, on December 15, 2022 [AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed, File]

That conditions across Syria are dire is indisputable, but primary responsibility for this rests with US imperialism and its European counterparts. Wages are worth less than $20 a month, making it impossible to put food on the table. Most families are dependent upon remittances from relatives abroad. Of Syria’s pre-war 22 million population, nearly eight million have fled the country, with an estimated 3.5 million living in Turkey. Remittances, believed to total around $400 million a month, far outweigh the value of salaries and wages paid in the poverty-stricken country.

The war, including four years of intense US aerial bombing, has killed half a million people and injured many more. It ruined Syria’s economy, laid waste to its cities and infrastructure, its agricultural system and irrigation networks, and left a deadly legacy of unexploded artillery shells, mines, cluster bomblets and other munitions on farmland, roadsides and in buildings.

Washington and its regional allies, the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel, funded and/or supported hundreds of militias to fight the Syrian regime, but also each other. US forces and its proxies, including the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration, now control up to one third of Syria’s land mass, although not its major population centres, including its oil producing region around Deir el-Zur and its traditional breadbasket around Hassakeh, both in the east of the country, where strife continues. There have been several clashes this week between US-backed Kurdish and Turkey-backed Arab fighters in Deir el-Zur province that have left at least 34 people dead and many wounded.

While al-Assad, aided by Iran and Russia and its regional allies, regained control of much of the country, economic and social conditions failed to improve as the US sought to bankrupt Syria, imposing sanctions targeting its banking sector and choking its export industries and businesses. The US, via its control over multilateral financial institutions, also engineered the collapse in 2019 of Lebanon’s economy with which Syria is inextricably linked, to tighten the noose around Damascus.

The devastating February earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria intensified Syria’s socio-economic crisis, killing more than 6,000, destroying some 10,000 buildings and leaving about 265,000 people homeless. The earthquakes caused more than $5 billion in direct physical damage in Syria and a 5.5 percent contraction in its GDP, already down from $67 billion in 2011 to $12 billion in 2022, according to the World Bank.

The US/NATO led war in Ukraine against Russia has also limited Moscow’s financial support for Damascus, while causing wheat prices to soar. Although the Arab League has readmitted al-Assad after suspending him at the start of the proxy war and the Gulf states have re-established relations with Damascus, this has yet to deliver either investment or significant aid.

Washington, anxious to disrupt the growing links between its Gulf allies, Iran, Russia and China, is ramping up the pressure on Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. The US is to hold major military drills with Israel, including one that would simulate an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It follows a major joint drill involving US Central Command and the Israel Defense Forces in January that included air force exercises and missile defence drills.

General Mark Milley, who heads the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, met Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi recently in Israel in an unscheduled visit. During his previous visit last March, he had discussed regional security issues and “coordination to defend against threats posed by Iran.” Israel has carried out near weekly air strikes against Syria, most recently hitting both Damascus and Aleppo airports yet again, causing heavy damage, adding to the hundreds of air strikes since 2011 targeting Syrian troops, Iran-backed fighters and Hezbollah.

US energy envoy Amos Hochstein is visiting Lebanon to lessen the country’s reliance on Iran by dangling the prospect of support for the country’s offshore energy resources. According to Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen channel, the US has sent military reinforcements to its bases near Deir el-Zur in Syria and deployed fighter aircraft. It has also despatched additional forces along the border between Iraq and Syria, near Al Bukamal, possibly in preparation for operations against pro-Iran militias in eastern Syria.

Former Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki said that the recent deployment of US forces to Anbar province in western Iraq indicated that their aim is to close its border with Syria and prepare to overthrow the Syrian regime. He added that he had refused Washington’s request to close Iraq’s border with Syria in 2011 because it would have amounted to a siege on another country.

Last month, the Pentagon sent additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and two warships to the region following what it claimed was Iran’s seizure and harassment of commercial shipping vessels. Washington is said to be considering a plan to put US Marines on commercial tanker ships to deter Iranian efforts to seize ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of all oil shipments pass.

More than 100 schools in England told to shut buildings at critical risk of collapse days before new school year

Robert Stevens

Over 150 schools in Britain are so structurally flawed they are on the point of collapse, endangering the lives of children and staff. The news was revealed just days before the autumn term starts on Monday.

The buildings in question contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, known as RAAC. The lightweight, cheap material was used extensively across the UK and in many types of buildings, including hospitals, from the 1950s to the 1990s and has passed its 30-year design life.

RAAC is filled with air pockets, degrades in wet conditions, and lacks the strength and durability of ordinary concrete. In 1982, RAAC production in the UK ended amid safety concerns, and the Building Research Establishment subsequently declared it life-expiring after 30 years. The material is still used in China, central Asia, India and the Middle East.

Aerated autoclaved concrete, close-up view [Photo by Marco Bernardini, own work / CC BY-SA 3.0]

The problems with RAAC have been known for years, with the first crack appearing in a UK building in 1995. A national audit was begun in 2018 after the roof of a primary school in Gravesend, Kent collapsed in 2018 above the school staff room, also damaging toilets, computers and furniture. It was only due to the collapse occurring on a Saturday that deaths and injuries were avoided. The roof only began showing signs of stress 24 hours before the incident. Another unnamed school saw its RAAC roof collapse in 2017.

In September last year, the Office of Government Property (OGP), responsible for public buildings, issued a “Safety Briefing Notice” warning “RAAC is now life-expired and liable to collapse”. That summer, emails leaked to the Observer sent by senior officials at the DfE to Downing Street during Boris Johnson’s premiership warned many school buildings posed a “risk to life”.

More urgent warnings were issued in March this year, with experts pointing to the extraordinary £11.4 billion backlog in school repair work—even higher than the National Health Service’s £10.2 billion.

Any remedial work is being carried out at a glacial pace. The response after 2018 consisted of the Department for Education (DfE) sending a questionnaire to schools asking if they had any confirmed or suspected cases of RAAC. Only if the school said yes did the DfE sent out engineers to confirm it. Of the 14,900 schools potentially having RAAC, just 6,300 informed the DfE they had completed work to identify whether RAAC had been used.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb revealed to the media Friday morning, three days before schools were due to open, that events over the summer involving a particular type of concrete had shown educational and other buildings to be unsafe. This included a beam collapsing on school premises, despite there being no external signs it was a “critical risk”—another life-threatening event.

The day before, when the story broke that a number of schools would have to close due to RAAC, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said affected schools would contact parents directly, adding, “If you don’t hear, don’t worry”. Appearing Friday morning, Gibb could not provide any figures on the number of schools needing to be closed, saying, “We don’t know yet.”

The DfE has announced that 156 schools are at risk, with 104 requiring urgent action and only 56 identified earlier having received repair works.

Government officials have recklessly played down the dangers. Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari radio programme, Gibb said some schools would have their ceilings propped up with steel girders. Asked if he would be happy for his young nieces and nephews to sit in a classroom under a ceiling propped up by a steel girder, Gibb replied, “Yes, because we’re taking a very precautionary approach. Some say we are being overcautious in dealing with this.”

It is not yet confirmed but according to the Press Association, 24 schools have been told to close entirely.

Building work underway at one of the affected schools, Abbey Lane Primary in Sheffield, England, September 1, 2023

The problem is vast and requires a mass shutdown and repair of schools nationwide. The Guardian reported, “One schools estates manager told the Guardian that the number of those affected in some way could eventually rise as high as 1,000 and said the crisis could end up with children being taught in temporary buildings for as long as a decade to come.”

Gibb said more than he intended when interviewed by GB News. “By the way, RAAC applies only in the period [between] the 1950s and the 1990s, so schools built or extended before that period or afterwards—which is about half the school estate—will not even need to consider whether they have RAAC.” The other half is therefore at risk.

Figures obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats in May revealed the substance was present in at least 37 Scottish schools.

Due to the refusal to act by successive governments, the full extent of the problem beyond schools—in hospitals, public housing and other buildings—is unknown. Fully seven months ago the Mirror reported, “Over 30 NHS buildings and hospitals are ‘ticking time bombs’ that could ‘collapse without warning’ and it will cost more than £1 billion to repair them.” According to Mid Cheshire Hospitals Foundation Trust chief executive James Summer, seven of those identified were “made nearly exclusively” of RAAC.

The government has identified five hospitals constructed mostly from RAAC which will not be rebuilt until 2030 at the earliest. The north west of England has 11 hospital buildings built with RAAC, including seven with roofs made from it. According to a Manchester Evening News assessment last month, “Current government plans would not see removal of this concrete from all affected hospitals [in the North West] for another 13 years.”

The government, which has imposed £10 billion in school budget cuts since 2010, at first insisted as late as Thursday evening, “We expect you [schools] to be able to fund anything that is an additional revenue cost, for example rental costs for emergency or temporary accommodation for education settings or additional transport costs for local authorities.’

By Friday morning, forced into damage limitation mode, Gibb had to say Whitehall would cover “all capital costs” over any disruption. He made clear the type of alternative accommodation being considered: “So if, in the worst-case scenario, we need Portacabins in the school estate… we will cover all those costs.”

The idea that schools will be quickly able to find suitable space for thousands of pupils, and transport to the new locations, in a country which can barely run functioning school and transit systems at the best of times, is ludicrous. Such an unserious response is indicative of the ruling class’s total disregard for the vast majority of children’s education. Its sole imperative, at it was during the height of the pandemic, is to keep them in schools so that parents can go to work, whatever the risk—whether of infection with Covid or a classroom roof coming down on their heads.

Schools still have next to no mitigations in place against the spread of COVID-19, with a renewed surge underway globally. As far back as April 2022, the government ended routine testing for the virus in educations and children’s social care settings.

This is accepted by and the responsibility of the trade unions, which have not lifted a finger to defend the safety of their members, working in COVID and asbestos ridden, structurally unsound schools for years.

The National Education Union, the largest teaching union, issued a statement Friday proposing no action, only reiterating, “The NEU and sister unions have been raising concerns ever since [2010] and pressuring education secretary Gillian Keegan in recent months to release a list of RAAC-affected schools”. Their sole demand was that the “Government must fund all costs for schools affected by RAAC.”

Mpox pandemic spreads into China after lifting of Zero-COVID policy

Lily Zhao

Since the beginning of June 2023, China has experienced a significant outbreak of mpox (previously known as monkeypox), joining ranks with the rest of the world in the ongoing but rarely reported on mpox pandemic. Unsurprisingly, this development is taking place in the aftermath of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) abandoning its Zero-COVID policy that maintained a strict public health program against the spread of COVID-19 within its national borders.

The mpox pandemic began in May 2022 with the relaxation of most anti-COVID mitigation measures and limitations to public gatherings, with an initial cluster of cases detected in the United Kingdom. By the end of the month several countries, predominately in Europe, but including Asia, Africa, North America and Oceania had reported cases. This was the first time in history that the virus that caused mpox had spread so widely outside of Central and West Africa.

Global distribution of mpox cases. Inset A: mpox cases per country through September 1, 2022. Inset B: Countries with endemic mpox virus. [Photo: National Institutes of Health]

On July 14, 2023, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a situational report where they confirmed they had diagnosed 106 new cases across seven provinces and municipal cities in the month of June. The same monthly report published in August revealed that in July the number of new infections rose sharply to 491 and geographically spread across 23 of the 31 provinces and municipal cities in mainland China.

By the end of July, 597 new cases were confirmed by health authorities. The unprecedented outbreak of mpox in China and more broadly across East Asia this summer is consistent with the abandoning of public health measures against COVID and another dire warning that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of mobilizing the necessary resources against any global public health emergency.

Nearly a third of the cases have been centered in Guangdong Province in the southeast, followed by 126 cases in Beijing. The southwestern province of Sichuan reported 49 cases, while the coastal provinces in the east, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, each recorded 39 and 41. While the majority of cases concentrated in the far more populous eastern part of the country, the virus has spread across most provinces in just two months.

This ongoing mpox outbreak is developing with the most rapid pace in the world at present, according to reports from the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the international health agency, as of August 29, 2023, 114 countries have reported cases with nearly 90,000 cases confirmed and 157 fatalities.

Before June, China had reported only one mpox patient from September 2022 in the southwestern municipal city of Chongqing, and this case was imported from abroad. Because the Zero-COVID policy was still in place back then, the patient was quarantined upon entry into China, during which he was immediately tested for mpox after rashes developed on his skin.

Map of mpox cases in China: September 2022 vs June and July 2023.

This had remained the only mpox case in China until June this year. The sudden uptick, by no coincidence, took place after the ending of Zero-COVID policy and the lifting of all restrictions on domestic and international travels last winter. The virus was most likely introduced again into China this year and was allowed to spread across the country due to the lack of any preventive public health measures.

Even after this outbreak on the national level, the response from the CCP regime has focused on downplaying the danger of the virus and promoting misinformation about how it transmits.

In a Q&A published on August 2 after the sharp increase in cases caused widespread concern, the CDC reassured the general public that “since the outbreak of mpox in many countries around the world in 2022, the majority of cases, clinically speaking, have been mild…. Deaths were mostly among people who were infected with HIV but were not able to receive treatment or other immunocompromised people. Since 2022, the death rate is about 0.1 percent in regions where the disease is not endemic.”

In the meantime, the regime also disseminates illusions that the virus almost only spreads between men who have sex with men (MSM). In the report on July mpox cases, the CDC concluded that since all confirmed cases have been among men and 96 percent of them were MSM, risks through other forms of contact are extremely low.

The CDC in Beijing published an article in mid-June where one of the subheadings is “for normal people, the chance of being infected with mpox is low.” Xinhua News Agency, the official state media, declared on July 14 that “the possibility of a large-scale infection is low.”

Even though statistically speaking, most patients so far have been MSM, the virus can and has spread into and threatens other sections of the population, especially children, pregnant women and the immunocompromised, who are more likely to develop complications after infection.

Before the beginning of this year, according to a study in Lancet, there had been 59 cases among children in Europe and 31 in the United States. Many of the infections were through the household environment. In Brazil, 38 children under the age of four, including two infants, were infected with mpox, and the ratio between male and female is about one-to-one, contrary to the media propaganda that the virus only infects men.

Transmissions outside of sexual contact are not negligible either. In the WHO’s latest release on mpox data, it issued a special warning against occupational exposures. Healthcare workers constituted 4.8 percent of all cases since 2022, and 8 percent of all infections are healthcare-associated.

Quarantine measures have also been very limited. Per the recent guidelines on mpox, jointly published by the CDC and the National Health Commission on July 26, suspected and confirmed cases should be quarantined at a medical facility, but they will be allowed to quarantine at home once their skin vesicles have scabbed. Patients with mild symptoms are allowed to quarantine at home from the beginning. According to interviews in the South China Morning Post, patients quarantined at a hospital must pay for all costs out of pocket.

The guideline suggests patients should quarantine at home. Should they have to leave their homes, however, they advised them to cover their skin, wear masks and avoid the crowd if they need to leave their homes. Close contacts are not required to quarantine at all, but only need to self-monitor for 21 days by measuring body temperature, watching for potential symptoms and avoiding blood donation.

No reference to vaccinations is made in the guidelines. In the CDC’s Q&A article, it simply stated that “mainland [China] has no vaccines against mpox for the time being.”

As noted, the current surge in China is part of a broader resurgence of mpox infections. Although the WHO ended the public health emergency (PHE) on mpox in May, around the same time they ended the PHE for COVID-19, at a press conference on August 25, Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted, “we have seen a significant increase in cases in the last two months in Asia.”

According to WHO data, over the past three weeks, there has been a 72 percent increase in cases from Western Pacific Region, including China, Japan and South Korea, countries who have witnessed upticks in cases in the recent period. During the same period, the increase has been 48 percent and 11 percent for Europe and the Americas, respectively. Portugal reported a 201 percent increase, the highest relative increase in cases.

World Health Organization mpox outbreak map for June 27, 2022. [Photo: WHO]

For China, the recent outbreak is another testament of the criminality and dire consequences of lifting the Zero-COVID policy. On top of close to two million deaths, waves after waves of infections and mass debilitation, other dangerous viruses have and will emerge and spread almost entirely unchecked around the country.

But this is not just the result of a national failure. Under capitalism, every aspect of economy, transportation and life have been integrated internationally. As the impossibility of eliminating COVID-19 based on a nationalist program demonstrates, one cannot build an isolated sanctuary to forever shut viruses out of national borders. Only a globally coordinated strategy, based on the prioritization of public health over private profits, can stop the needless spread of these and many other preventable diseases.

Given the concerted efforts by leading economies to dismantle their public health systems, it is widely accepted that the current figures on mpox, like COVID, are a vast undercount. Despite mpox being a DNA virus that does not mutate as easily as SARS-CoV-2, the failure to contain its spread and to develop and distribute effective vaccines over a year into its global outbreak is a further damning exposure of capitalist decay.