Asahi Growing Sustainability Scholarship 2020 (Fully-funded to Attend One Young World Conference 2020 in Berlin, Germany)

Application Deadline: 16th April 2020

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): Berlin, Germany

About the Award: At Asahi, we hold sustainability as our responsibility – we value the gifts of nature and manage them effectively by reducing water consumption, minimizing our carbon footprint and reusing waste products.
Beyond eliminating our own climate impact as part of our Asahi Carbon Zero campaign, we are also working with farmers to help them adapt and prepare for a changing climate. This includes through Campus Peroni in Italy, a centre of excellence promoting and spreading innovation and sustainability in agriculture, Biocycle in Japan, a plant bio-stimulant which reduces the effects of external stresses on crops, and many other local partnerships with farmers, co-operatives and academia in countries where we operate.
This year, we’re proud to have partnered with One Young World to create the Lead2030 Challenge for SDG13. The Challenge aims to find and support solutions that will contribute to the future of sustainable agriculture by supporting and enabling farmers to reduce their emissions and/or help adaptation and resilience against the climate challenges of this decade and beyond.

Eligibility:
This scholarship is intended to support young leaders who are:

• Aged 18 – 30
• Have demonstrated leadership capcity.
• Have proven impact the field of sustainable agriculture. This can include work that:
  • Improves the climate resilience of crops through sustainable practices.
  • Reduces on-farm green-house gas emissions, water or energy us through new technologies.
  • Supports farmers in fostering innovation and improving access to information, raising awareness of climate risks and new skills training.
  • Addresses the sustainability of the wider supply chain beyond the farm

Number of Awards: 8

Value of Award:

• Access to the One Young World Summit 2020 in Munich
• Hotel accommodation on a shared basis between 13 and 17 (inclusive October, 2020
• The cost of travel to and from Munich (flights in economy)
• Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner from 14 to 17 October
• Ground transportation between Summit venues
• Access to bespoke Asahi programming around the businesses participation in the Summit including pre-Summit onboarding calls, an Asahi buddy from the company’s internal delegation and a post-Summit feedback session.

How to Apply: APPLY NOW

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

As Corona Crashes Capitalism, Whatsapp Sings of Conspiracies

Damanpreet Singh

As more and more people die of COVID-19, WhatsApp is busy knitting conspiracy theories looking for traces of biological warfare amid this Coronavirus Crisis. Good old right started it, with tales of ‘Communist’ China synthesizing Corona to suppress Hong Kong uprising but as it overtook the western ‘free world’, songs of trade wars unleashing this deadly virus entered our whatsapp groups. Apart from the ones predicting dooms day every minute now, there are some ‘optimists’ too, expecting welfare state policies in a post-coronavirus period as the Governments will awaken and learn from the inadequacies of present healthcare failure which has already killed thousands of people worldwide.

Conspiracy theorists & What Does Objectivity Beholds?

As for now the Novel Coronavirus pandemic has still not reached its peak. Apparently started in China, it has now sprung across the globe. The number of infections world over have grown exponentially, leaving the tally at its birthplace in Wuhan, China far behind. Some have even warned of newer outbreaks in China as the novel Coronavirus remains obstinate on its worldwide holocaust. This biological crisis has created panic in financial markets; the global economies are under lockdown, the trade has nearly come to a standstill, transactions are interrupted & Stock markets have plunged as much as above 30% in the span of weeks. Current situation is that of a general strike in the whole world; the only downside being it wasn’t organized by the conscious working people but a silly small virus. Due to lockdown of schools, shops, services, businesses and measures like work from home, home quarantines and curfew, the world is operating at about 50% capacity with majority workforce stuck indoors. The production has been put at a halt and resulted in an adverse ‘supply crisis’. This situation is worse than the subprime crisis of 2008 in which unemployment rate in US was a mere 10%. Consequently, not spending any money on travel & services by common people & businesses on one hand and further Income drop of people & low sale of these businesses on the other, resulted in ‘demand crisis’. In fact, it is the same trodden path, the way with all capitalist crises: they start with a contraction of supply and end up with a fall in consumption; not vice versa.  All the world’s major economies are the worst hit by this catastrophe and has come to a standstill whether it’s China, USA, Germany, UK, Italy or India. The oil prices have plunged and hit the middle-east economies and Russia as well. Even the fortunate countries who are yet to face the wrath of this adversity have witnessed plummeting economies as they employ restrictive measures to save themselves. So, its impacts are global in this era of global capitalism knitted quite close via the threads of profit. Even prior to the eruption of COVID-19, the global capitalism was going through deep crisis as the profitability of capital was low and global profits were static at best. As this financial crisis will not result due to instability inherent in speculative capital markets, the situation may get worse than the crisis erupted in the aftermath of Second World War. In strong contrast to WW-II, no country is there to lend the loan for loss recovery in this globally injured economy. Presently, all the hostile classes are at loss. Seeing all the above factors. It doesn’t seem that it will recover from its crisis sooner. So, the claim of a COVID-19 as capitalist conspiracy to get rid of its own crisis holds no ground.

Optimism and what could be the possible fallouts?

This emergency situation (‘shock doctrines’) mostly help the ruling classes. One thing is for sure that when the disaster will get over, the apologists of capitalism will put the blame on COVID-19 to mask the inherent flaws in the capitalist production, inter-imperialist contradictions and the social structure of society. Same was parroted after the subprime crisis of 2008-09. Some optimists are reiterating that COVID-19 will give a blow to globalisation & privatisation (especially of healthcare) overlooking the objective conditions at international and domestic level. Though the global healthcare debate is mounting but it seems unreal in the absence of strong international challenge or an alternative like strong welfare state or socialist system to present Global capitalist system. So it is more likely that the conditions will become more deplorable for people in the aftermath of COVID-19. Going with the economic logic of neoliberalism the governments will force increased taxation (as the government has already increased the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs. 8 through an amendment to eighth schedule of the finance act) on people all over the world, pushing towards more privatisation as per its banal economic rule to overcome crisis especially in the third world while putting the entire blame on coronavirus pandemic. Slashing of funds from social sector, stringent labour laws, Inflation, Central banks providing emergency liquidity to the financial sector, bailing out rich etc. awaits us on the other side of this COVID-19 tunnel. So, coronavirus will become the justification for yet another disaster to come which will be definitely made up by the ruling classes; No conspiracy theory required for that.

What is to be done?

Nature may be involved in the virus epidemic, but the number of deaths depend on human action – economic structure, governement policies & the level of medical infrastructure and resources. The past three months of COVID-19 disaster has proved that global capitalist system is incompetent to tackle Man vs Nature contradictions. So, this small virus has exposed the system from within. It has exposed how globalisation is afflicted with huge intra-world contradictions & health care system etc. With this crisis on humanity comes the responsibility of socially sensitive people to expose this system and take this biological crisis seriously, instead of indulging in naive conspiracy theories or going by “Malthusian logic” of ‘unproductive labour’ which includes old ones too. In ongoing crisis we need to indulge ourselves in exposing the shallowness of ‘globalisation’ and ‘Trickle-down Theory’. The Need of the hour is to spread awareness among people about the necessary precautions regarding coronavirus, avoiding physical gatherings, preparing yourself to volunteer for rescue operations, collecting funds from rich and middle classes for the poor sections and sending food to the toiling masses. Apart from this, we need to keep the pressure intact on the government to nationalise all hospitals (at least till this disaster gets over), fill the vacant or pending seats in all government hospitals and dispensaries with immediate effect, availing necessary equipment (testing kits, masks, sanitizers, screening tests at all places, safety uniforms for doctors and other medical staff etc.), necessary items and funds to the poor people. The time is not far when Coronavirus knocks at your door, or has knocked already. The situation demands investigation based on objective conditions instead of explaining reality in a fashion suited to one’s views or immediate political needs. Moreover, the question of conspiracy or natural accident is the case of post mortem, which will be held later.

Coronavirus crisis “devastates” US museums, arts organizations, many of them for good

David Walsh

The bipartisan corporate “rescue” package passed by the US Congress this week provides only $232.5 million for cultural organizations, one-sixteenth of the $4 billion for which the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and individual institutions had lobbied.

Boeing alone will receive more than four times what the museum group had requested—and was denied. The Metropolitan Museum in New York expects to lose $100 million should it remain closed through July and the American Museum of Natural History (also in New York) estimates it will lose $60 million by June. The AAM asserted in a March 19 press release that museums in the US collectively are losing at least $33 million a day due to closures related to COVID-19. Museums support some 726,000 jobs nationally, with 372,100 people directly employed by the institutions.

Guggenheim Museum in New York

The aid package passed by the Senate and the House this week provides $75 million each for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), to be distributed as the respective organizations see fit. It also allocates $50 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC—home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera—is slated to receive $25 million, while the Smithsonian Institution in Washington will get $7.5 million.

In its press statement, the AAM explained that the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the museum field was “devastating.” The organization noted that museums “of all sizes are experiencing closures, attendance free-fall, canceled events, and layoffs.”

This would escalate day by day, the AAM argued, “as closures and cancellations continue.” It further stated, “Most of these are cash-based businesses; their economic lifeblood is people visiting.” It pointed to declines in both international and domestic tourism, declines in local attendance and increases in social distancing. The AAM estimated that as a consequence of the current situation, “as many as 30 percent of museums, mostly in small and rural communities, will not re-open without significant and immediate emergency financial assistance.”

Thousands of museum employees, freelance workers and others have already lost their jobs. ArtForum points out that since galleries, museums and arts organizations closed down earlier this month “with no idea when they can reopen, job losses were inevitable.” It continued: “Some museums, such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, plan on paying hourly and part-time workers through the closure. Some institutions, including The Broad in LA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will only pay workers until a fixed date, when they will reassess their options. Other museums have already begun letting people go.”

ArtForum goes on to explain that in anticipation of “large revenue losses, museums are also implementing pay cuts and furloughing workers.” It states, “Employees who cannot work remotely, including art handlers, installers, security guards, retail and front-desk workers, gallery attendants, and freelancers, are most vulnerable to losing their jobs.”

Cleveland Museum of Art (Photo: zenbikescience)

The Cleveland Museum of Art, anticipating five million dollars in lost revenue, will furlough all part-time staff and temporarily lay off a portion of its unionized staff, which includes security guards. The Hammer Museum, affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has laid off 150 part-time student employees.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) is laying off all of its part-time employees, a total of 97 workers, reports the Los Angeles Times. The layoffs, which the museum says are temporary due to the coronavirus crisis, include gallery attendants, exhibition installers, retail staff and education team members, among others.

Freelance workers employed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York are protesting the museum’s decision not to pay “on-call” (freelance) employees for work they committed to after March 29, according to Hyperallergic. On-call workers are “casual hour employees,” in the museum’s phrase, who work when called in for specific projects.

One freelance worker explained in a moving tweet addressed to museum officials that this was “a terrible time to exclude people who earn their living at your institution from having basics for their families.” The individual explained that she had committed to working on an exhibition for 22 days.

“I ask,” she went on, “that you consider how not being paid the work already planned will affect my husband and two children for basic things like access to food and housing… Freelancers deserve income continuation. As a mother I am asking you to reconsider your decision.”

The decision by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to close its doors as of March 13, ART news reported, “came as a surprise to the organization’s part-time workers, many of whom did not receive notice until the decision was made public around 7:30 p.m. [the night before]. ‘There has been no clarity on payment,’ said one gallery attendant, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. ‘There have been vague promises about compensation for the next few weeks, but it seems like they are playing it pretty safe.’”

Because of the closure of New York City’s public schools, museum educators at the Whitney, who conduct student tours, have been informed they won’t be paid after March 31, despite having contracts that last until May or June. One educator told Hyperallergic, “Our time was booked months in advance, with our schedules already planned till the end of June. Which means we won’t be compensated after March.”

Museums commonly hire educators as freelancers or contractors, writes Hyperallergic, “a step below even part-time employment, [which] adds to the precariousness of their condition. ‘The vast majority of New York City’s institutions employ their museum educators as contractors, meaning we’re not eligible for unemployment benefits,’ confirmed one teaching artist, who says she makes slightly under $40,000 a year from various museum jobs. ‘We’re just a line item in the ‘programming’ budget.’”

Commercial art galleries in New York, Los Angeles and other major centers have also started furloughing workers. Elizabeth Dee, in a comment on Artnet that suggested “We Don’t Know What a Post-Coronavirus Art World Will Look Like,” observed that “Our very way of life is under threat due to our over-leveraged health care system, the illness of colleagues and loved ones, and the economic hit experienced by countless sectors, including the art industry. Freelance workers, who are essential to galleries and art fairs as well as many hospitality industries, have also been left without support.”

Artnet added that “W, the art and culture magazine, furloughed all but a skeleton crew of people to maintain its website, and restauranteur Danny Meyer—who owns Untitled at The Whitney and The Modern at MoMA—laid off 80 percent of his staffers, nearly 2,000 people.”

The art world has also begun to lose individuals to COVID-19. Vittorio Gregotti, the Italian urban planner, writer and architect of the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, died in mid-March from the coronavirus. Art historian and critic Maurice Berger and architect and critic Michael Sorkin have also died from the disease.

The end result of the current wave of closures, layoffs and cutbacks will be the further concentration of arts institutions, with a relative handful of well-endowed and well-patronized museums “prospering,” while many others go under.

Significantly, the AAM in its press statement also pointed to the fact that in addition to “losses in earned revenue and unremitted expenses,” its member institutions were “expecting lost charitable contributions as donors reassess their capacity to give due to the stock market’s volatility.”

The reductions in already miserly government subsidies to the arts organizations in recent decades and their increasing reliance on wealthy benefactors has created a situation where the continued existence of institutions in many cases depends on the “generosity” or whims of multimillionaires and billionaires.

The US government spends a pittance on culture. The current budget for the National Endowment of the Arts, on which thousands of organizations rely, is $162,250,000, while the US war machine is funded to the tune of $738 billion.

Israel: Gantz paves way for national unity government with Netanyahu

Jean Shaoul

Blue and White opposition leader and former Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff Bennie Gantz is to join a “national emergency government” under the premiership of indicted criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

The new government’s ostensible brief is to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Gantz cited “unusual times” to declare, “That is why I intend to explore the formation of an emergency unity government.”

His move signifies an agreement among Israel’s politicians to impose a dictatorial regime on both the Israeli and Palestinian working class that would drive down wages and living conditions in an untrammeled pursuit of profit.

The national emergency government is trailered by Gantz’s surprise election to the post of Knesset Speaker Thursday evening, replacing Yuli Edelstein and reconvening the Knesset, shuttered by Edelstein’s political manoeuvres in support of Netanyahu. The move was supported by Netanyahu’s Likud Party and some of Gantz’s Blue and White alliance.

It is assumed that Netanyahu would serve as prime minister until September 2021 when he would hand over to Gantz, who would serve in the interim as foreign minister while Gabi Ashkenazi, another former IDF chief of staff and Blue and White member, would serve as defence minister, with Blue and White members holding the justice and communications portfolios.

Gantz had initially, following Israel’s third inconclusive election in less than a year, rejected Netanyahu’s attempt to form a “national emergency government” under his leadership and accepted President Reuven Rivlin’s mandate to form a government. But any such government would be dependent upon the support of the third largest party, the Arab Joint List.

This was anathema for Netanyahu, his fascistic allies, Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home) and opponent of Netanyahu and some of Gantz’s own bloc. They whipped up a ferocious media campaign, branding the Arab legislators as “terrorists in suits.”

Without support for a minority government dependent on the Joint List, Gantz joined forces with Netanyahu, despite having fought three election campaign on the banner of “anyone but Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname].” Having few substantive differences with Netanyahu, his shift was always on the cards.

This has led to a split within Blue and White’s ranks, with Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid faction and Moshe Ya’alon of the Telem faction, both of whom have served in Netanyahu’s governments, refusing to join a national emergency government. Lapid and Ya’alon will keep the Blue and White name, while Gantz’s faction of 17 members will revert back to Israeli Resilience Party.

Lapid, who will serve as the leader of the opposition, declared, “Gantz stole the votes of the people who voted for him when he vowed not to serve under Netanyahu; he caved into Bibi without a fight.” Ahmad Tibi from the Joint List told Middle East Eye, “We backed him [Gantz] to bring about a change after years of incitement against Arabs by Bibi… Corona pandemic is bad enough. To use corona for political gain is even worse.”

What remains of Israel’s nominal left parties, Labour and Meretz, which played a crucial role in backing Gantz, have been thoroughly discredited.

Gantz’s agreement to join Netanyahu comes amid an escalating social and economic crisis. By Friday morning, there were 3,035 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Ten people have died, and 49 are in serious condition. Several weeks ago, with Israel’s healthcare system, eviscerated by years of budget cuts ill-equipped to cope with the pandemic, Netanyahu ordered stay at home measures and shuttered schools, universities and businesses.

Some 21 percent of workers are now jobless, up from 17 percent just a few days ago and 3.6 percent in February. Nearly 40 percent of Tel Aviv’s tenants (46 percent of all the city’s residents rent their home) are unable to pay next month’s rent, with another 30 percent saying that within a few months they too won’t be able to pay.

In anticipation of social unrest, Netanyahu has authorised widespread surveillance powers—routinely used against the Palestinians in the occupied territories—to trace Israeli citizens who have been in contact with coronavirus patients via their cell phones. Such powers for Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic spy agency, will become part and parcel of the state’s surveillance apparatus.

Netanyahu’s scurrilous political manoeuvres have provoked black flag motorcade protests, a large online anti-government virtual protest broadcast over Facebook and a week-long teachers’ strike over an attempt to cut their pay as they moved to distance learning for school children.

On Wednesday, he tightened restrictions, banning all except essential workers from moving more than 100 metres from their homes unless taking part in approved activities such as purchasing food and medicine, and closing all places of worship. Violations will be subject to fines of upwards of NIS 500 ($125) and even imprisonment.

A total lockdown was likely, Netanyahu warned, stating that government-commissioned estimates calculate that 10,000 of Israel’s 9 million population may die due to the coronavirus and 25,000 under the worst-case scenario.

According to a military spokesperson, the government is set to deploy 500 armed soldiers, starting Sunday as a first step toward a full national lockdown involving an additional 2,000-3,000 troops.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls parts of the occupied West Bank, reported the first death from coronavirus on Wednesday—a 60-year-old female with serious health challenges. There are over 80 confirmed cases in the West Bank, mostly in Bethlehem, and around 10 in Gaza, undoubtedly a gross underestimate as the Palestinians have few testing kits. On Thursday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) sent more than 3,000 test kits and 50,000 surgical masks to the PA.

While the PA has issued shelter at home orders, Israel is preparing to close their checkpoints, locking down many Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank and preventing around 120,000 Palestinians travelling to work in Israel. Earlier, the government had announced that it would allow the Palestinians to continue working in Israel, provided they remained there for at least three months in employer-provided lodgings.

Last week, a video went viral on social media showing Israeli security forces dumping a Palestinian at the checkpoint near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, where he collapsed. His employer had taken him to hospital to be tested for the virus after he fell ill with flu-like symptoms. Even before the result was known, police officers arrived and took him away in handcuffs.

Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan has released 500 Israeli prisoners into house arrest on March 20 to reduce the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the country’s prisons, but refused to release any of the 5,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, including 180 children, 43 women and 430 detained with neither charge nor trial —even those with critical health conditions. At least four Palestinians have tested positive in prisons that are notoriously overcrowded.

The Israel Prison Service has banned visits to Palestinian prisoners by family members and lawyers since the outbreak of the virus. Last week, prisoners began refusing some meals as a prelude to a full-scale hunger strike if measures to protect them were not implemented. On Wednesday, a prisoner set fire to his cell in Nafha Prison in protest.

UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Palestine, Michael Lynk, pointed out that official Israeli publications to increase awareness about the disease were issued “exclusively in Hebrew,” even though Arabic is an official language spoken by Israel’s 1.8 million Arab citizens and many Jewish Israelis.

On Thursday, it was announced that the government had opened up a nuclear bunker, the “National Management Centre,” replete with living quarters and command facilities accessible from the government complex in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as a base to coordinate its plans should the situation worsen.

Canada’s parliament approves coronavirus bailout for corporations and austerity for workers

Keith Jones

In response to the coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented economic collapse it has precipitated, Canada’s Parliament, meeting in special session this week, unanimously adopted the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act.

The omnibus legislation creates two new laws—the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act and the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act—and amends more than a dozen others.

The corporate media, the Liberal government, and all four opposition parties, including the social-democratic NDP, have sought to focus working people’s attention on a $107 billion package of measures that supposedly constitute the crux of the Canadian federal state’s response to the pandemic, and that are authorized by the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act.

These measures certainly warrant close scrutiny.

They include some $1 billion, or about $27 for each of Canada’s 37 million residents, to fight the pandemic.

This is a derisory sum. As of late Friday afternoon, COVID-19 had already killed 55 people, a total that exceeds 1 percent of the 4,757 confirmed coronavirus cases in Canada.

Moreover, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals in hospitals across the country are warning of shortages of crucial supplies, from masks to ventilators, and that Canada’s health system, ravaged by decades of austerity, has no “surge capacity.” Earlier this week it came to light that the health authority in Saskatchewan, which, with a population of just 1.1 million is one of the country’s smaller provinces, has estimated that 9,000 to 15,000 people will die if the province’s health care system is overwhelmed by a surge in COVID-19 cases.

As for the federal government’s economic relief measures, much if not the lion’s share, whether in the form of emergency loans or tax deferrals, will go to big business, the rich, and super rich.

Working people, meanwhile, are being given rations. A minority of laid-off workers will be able to access Employment Insurance benefits, equal to 55 percent of their regular pay, up to a maximum of $573 per week. But a large majority of those who have lost their income due to the current crisis—including gig economy and other short-term contract workers, the self-employed, and those who are sick, quarantined or have to look after parents or children impacted by the pandemic and pandemic-forced closures—are to receive just $2,000 a month for a maximum of four months under the newly-created Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

The CERB application system will not even be set up until at least the second week of April. Underscoring the gravity of the crisis facing working people, the government says that it anticipates that four million people—or 20 percent of the total Canadian labour force—will apply for the CERB in its first two weeks.

To be sure, working people who have had the rug pulled out from under them by the sudden seizing up of the economy are preoccupied with how they are going to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

But the media and political establishment’s focus on the $107 billion relief package serves to obscure what has been the real focus of the Trudeau government and other key institutions of the Canadian state—providing unlimited financial support to the banks and big business, so as to safeguard the wealth of the capitalist ruling elite.

The sums that have been mobilized to prop up the banks and corporate Canada are truly gargantuan: $650 billion and counting. This includes: massive state purchases of business and mortgage debt from the banks, so as to clean up their balance sheets and shield them from losses; a vast array of schemes to provide emergency financial support to business; and the halving of the big banks’ capitalization requirement.

During the 2008-9 global financial crisis, the government’s Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) purchased $69 billion worth of mortgages from the banks. Within just two weeks of the current crisis, the CMHC has gone from pledging to take $50 billion worth of mortgages off the banks’ hands to tripling that pledge to $150 billion.

The Justin Trudeau-led Liberal government, the Bank of Canada, the CMHC, and other state agencies now funneling money to the banks justify their actions with the claim that they will encourage the banks to defer loan payments and extend credit to business and individuals.

The reality is the banks—with the government’s full knowledge and support—are already informing their clients they can defer payments, but that this will increase their debt-load and ultimately result in their owing them still more money.

In an incident that typifies the real relationship between the trade union-supported, ostensibly “progressive” Liberal government and the financial elite, Trudeau on Thursday made a show of appealing to the banks to offer relief on credit-card debt, which is subject to exorbitant 19-percent plus interest rates. But after the banks pushed back, a spokesperson for the prime minister clarified that the government wasn’t calling on the banks to reduce credit-card interest rates.

From the outset, the response of the federal Liberal government and the various provincial governments to the coronavirus pandemic has entirely been determined by their role in enforcing the subordination of all socio-economic life to the pursuit of capitalist profit.

The two-month “window” created by China’s efforts to halt the spread of the virus was squandered. Only on March 10 did Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland even write the provinces to enquire about their medical resources for fighting the pandemic and any potential shortages. Later that same week, as it was rapidly becoming apparent that North America was becoming the center of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Ottawa issued its first tenders for vital medical supplies.

Opposed to mobilizing society’s resources to fight the pandemic because that would require impinging on the wealth of the capitalist elite, the government refuses to pour tens of billions into strengthening the health-care system and insists that the procurement of urgently needed medical supplies must be channeled through the capitalist market. According to an article in yesterday’s Financial Post, the government is currently haggling with two thousand for-profit firms about obtaining ventilators, masks and other essentials to fight the pandemic.

One other aspect of this week’s events in parliament merits comment. Under the original version of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, the minority Liberal government sought to arrogate unprecedented emergency financial powers that would have effectively allowed it to rule without meeting parliament again until December 2021.

When the opposition parties balked at this, Trudeau was obliged to publicly affirm the government’s commitment to democracy and parliament. But there is no question that in Canada, as in the US, and all the imperialist “democracies,” the intertwined health emergency, market collapse, and economic crisis are fueling a turn toward authoritarian forms of rule. Above all, the ruling elite fears an explosion of social opposition over their manifest failure to prepare for the pandemic and their efforts to make working people bear the social and economic costs of the catastrophe

Even necessary measures such as quarantines, absent the independent intervention of the working class, can and will be used as pretexts for future attacks on democratic rights. Already, in the name of fighting the pandemic, the Ontario and Quebec governments have passed decrees enabling them to override health workers’ collective agreements at will, and deploy them essentially as a conscripted workforce.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Armed Forces, which had previously complained that its military preparedness was being dulled by its recent deployments in flood relief and other environmental emergencies, has said it is preparing for “a worst case” COVID-19 “scenario.”

The attempts of the Conservative Official Opposition, which led the opposition to what it called Trudeau’s “power grab,” to posture as a defender of democracy are farcical. At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the Harper Conservative government shut down parliament in a constitutional coup to prevent it being voted out of office. Subsequently, it moved to criminalize all working-class opposition with a battery of anti-strike laws, and in 2015, with Liberal support, it vastly increased the powers of the security-intelligence agencies in what even the Globe and Mail, the traditional voice of the Bay Street financial elite, called a “police state” law.

The real thrust of the Conservatives’ objections was that they want to keep the Trudeau government on a tight financial leash, so as to ensure that the relief measures for working people, scant as they are, can be scaled back as soon as possible, and that the enormous debts resulting from the state bailout of big business will be paid for through massive social spending cuts, without even token tax increases for big business and the rich.

Under the final version of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, the government is authorized to spend and borrow sums without limit to counter the pandemic and its economic impact through September 30. But it cannot make tax changes, and all spending and borrowing must be subject to regular scrutiny by the House of Commons Finance committee.

Mexico’s government seeks to place burden of virus crisis on the backs of the working class

Don Knowland

By Wednesday March 25 reported cases of COVID-19 in Mexico had risen to 475, from an initial three reported on February 25. Six had died from the virus.

On Tuesday, Undersecretary of Health Hugo López-Gatell said that the Health Ministry expected a “long epidemic that could last into September or October,” with the highest number of cases expected in August.

López-Gatell had previously recommended on Saturday, March 21 that people stay home, while announcing an initiative he dubbed “Sana Distancia” or Healthy Distance, calling on people for the next month not to get too close to others, and to forego the customary hug, kiss or handshake when greeting each other. Earlier, on March 14, the Education Ministry had extended the two-week Easter school break to four weeks, from March 20 to April 20, to keep students at home.

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), while also recently calling on people to stay home, recklessly repudiated López-Gatell’s advice Sunday, releasing a video message showing him in a crowd in Oaxaca state and encouraging Mexicans to maintain their “normal rhythms of life” and “don’t stop going out.” Yet it is precisely in the packed urban areas filled by masses of workers and poor such as Mexico City and its extensive metro area that the virus is most likely to propagate.

AMLO and his government were very slow to react to the coronavirus threat. As recently as March 16, López Obrador ignorantly belittled its threat to Mexican workers and their families. “Pandemics … won’t do anything,” he boasted. So little was done to attempt to contain it until this last week.

The Mexican government failed to take more timely and serious measures to contain the virus outbreak in substantial part because the economy was already struggling before the virus hit, and it did not want to risk a further slowdown.

The investment bank Credit Suisse and Bank of America have both been predicting that the Mexican economy will contract by 4 percent in 2020, following on a 1 percent drop last year. According to a report by the bank BBVA Mexico, the jobs of 18 million are at risk because of a virus induced recession, and 42,00 businesses in Mexico City alone could close according to the Canacop business chamber.

The Mexican stock market fell to a record low on March 10. With oil prices skidding, Mexico’s crude prices dropped this year to their lowest level since 2002, a huge blow to government revenue. The Mexican peso fell to a record low of over 25 to the dollar on Monday, only gaining some ground in the wake of the massive actions of the US federal Reserve and the US Congress to prop up markets and big business.

Tourism, which normally contributes upwards of 10 percent to Mexico’s GDP, has collapsed. For example, tourism fell 76 percent in one week on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

In Mexico City, street vendors have reported crashing sales, at the same time that prices for essential food items soared. A kilogram of the Mexican staple, corn tortillas, recently increased more than 40 percent. A kilo of eggs rose almost 20 percent, from 38 pesos to 45.

This in a country where even the minimum wage of full-time employees in the official sector is a paltry $5 a day, 56 percent work in the informal sector and 54 million live below the official poverty line.

Given this downward maelstrom the Mexican ruling oligarchy will not make serious resources available to contain and treat COVID-19, or to compensate workers and the poor for their economic dislocation. The well-being of the working class is of no import.

On Tuesday the president asked business leaders not to lay off employees, exposing workers to the choice of not being able to feed their families or threatening their own and their families’ health.

AMLO said there would be no “bailouts” because “we have to take care of the budget.” He said the federal government would make loans bearing no interest or low interest to some small businesses, such as restaurants or workshops, but he provided no detail as to the budget for the program. No aid was offered to workers who lose their jobs.

Similarly Mexico City’s mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, of AMLO’s Morena party, has announced help to “vulnerable sectors” that amounts to little more than crumbs: zero interest loans for four months to small businesses of $400, a $20 grant per child to low income households until the epidemic wanes, and $40 to $60 to indigenous vendors to return to their home regions.

AMLO has also ludicrously claimed that the government has prepared enough medical infrastructure to weather the virus storm. In that respect, the government specifically claims that it will provide an additional $150 million in medical supplies and will hire 42,000 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.

But even were that true, it would be much too little too late.

Mexico’s public health system was already notoriously underfunded. Yet after AMLO entered office in January of last year he slashed health spending by 30 percent, in line with his austerity drive. In response, the head of Mexico’s Social Security Institute stepped down and issued an unusual public resignation letter declaring that “excessive savings and controls in health spending are inhumane.”

The health care afforded the Mexican working class is through the network of public hospitals and clinics operated by the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS)—except for those who work in the informal sector are not even covered, and must incur debt to get private care.

In the IMSS system, lengthy wait times for procedures are the norm. Often, doctors and nurses are forced to ask patients to buy them surgical masks, gowns and other basic supplies. This is the health care afforded to the working class.

The grim reality of this system has been laid bare by the pandemic.

Medical staff treating the virus have already protested the shortage of personnel protection and medical equipment, complaining that a lack of masks, gloves and other supplies is putting them at risk.

Medical workers held strikes and walkouts across the country this week, warning that a lack of resources increases the risk for them and their families as well as for patients.

“We can’t work without equipment,” implored a nurse in Tabasco state in a widely viewed video on Twitter.

One doctor who screens dozens of people a day for COVID-19 at a public hospital in the impoverished state of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City, said she is allotted just two disposable masks for each 12-hour shift, when one should be used for each patient.

As to COVID-19 test availability in Mexico, authorities have given a range of figures, from about 9,000 to 35,000. Given the rate of increase of the infection, these numbers are grossly inadequate. The government has to date conducted fewer than 3,000 tests.

If this disaster is already brewing in the official medical system, one can only imagine the horrors that will arise when the virus spreads to the crowded, unhygienic conditions in migrant camps along the US border or on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, with AMLO serving as junior partner in Trump’s criminal immigration policies.

The response of the Mexican ruling elite to the epidemic inevitably is to shift its cost, both monetarily and in health terms, onto the working class.

Perhaps more ominously, last week AMLO announced that he had called on the armed forces to develop an “emergency plan to address the public health crisis.” This is yet another threat to the Mexican populace that is in reality designed to prepare to meet popular opposition to the criminal policies of the oligarchy.

When Mexico City was devastated by an earthquake in 1985, the populace independently organized itself to meet the critical needs of those afflicted, because the ruling class and its state would and could not do so.

Workers now must organize their own independent response to the coronavirus crisis, by forming committees of action in workplaces and neighborhoods to ensure that society’s resources are directed at combating the impact of the virus on the entire population on the basis of social need, rather than private profit, which dictates the polices of those now in control. Moreover, workers must organize jointly across borders to accomplish this. This is the program of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Workers remain at risk during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown

Tom Peters

New Zealand’s total confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases reached 451 today, an almost nine-fold increase in seven days. Twelve people are in hospital and two are in intensive care. No deaths have been reported, to this point. Most cases are linked to overseas travel, but there are also cases of community transmission and there could be many undetected cases.

Sistema workers strike over unsafe working conditions (Photo courtesy E Tu Facebook page)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the media she expected NZ’s cases to increase sharply for at least the next 10 days. A nationwide four-week lockdown began on Thursday, with schools and most businesses closed and “non-essential” workers instructed to remain home.

The lockdown, imposed after petitions from medical professionals, supported by tens of thousands of workers, is necessary to prevent a catastrophe. Auckland University modeling shows that without such measures the virus could infect 89 percent of the population, overwhelm the underfunded health system and kill as many as 80,000 people.

In the best-case scenario, the number of deaths could be lowered to about 20. Researchers have warned that achieving this goal requires a strict lockdown, contact tracing, quarantines and travel restrictions, most likely lasting much longer than four weeks.

Like its counterparts internationally, the Labour Party-led government’s priority is to defend the interests of big business. Multi-billion dollar subsidies, tax cuts and loans have been announced, including a $900 million loan to Air New Zealand even as it lays off thousands of workers—all with the support of the trade union bureaucracy. The Reserve Bank has promised to make up to $30 billion (equal to 10 percent of gross domestic product) available for financial markets through quantitative easing.

These enormous sums dwarf the $500 million injection into the severely underfunded healthcare system, and the miserly $25 a week increase to unemployment benefits and pensions.

The state of emergency declared on March 25 is being used to test authoritarian forms of rule. Police have been given broad powers, including the ability to enter homes to enforce self-isolation rules. The military has been placed on standby.

With the agreement of the opposition National Party, parliament was suspended on Thursday until April 28 and replaced with a smaller cross-party committee. All parties in parliament put their campaigns for the September election on hold and pledged support for the government. Some media commentators are suggesting that the election could be postponed, as happened during World Wars I and II.

These measures, accepted by the unions, pseudo-lefts and liberal pundits, go well beyond what is needed to enforce the lockdown. The state is preparing to confront working-class opposition to the worsening economic crisis, attacks on living standards, and the appalling state of the public health system that has been sharply exposed by the pandemic.

Gross domestic product is widely expected to fall up to 10 percent in the second quarter of 2020, with hundreds of thousands of job losses. Shamubeel Eaqub from Sense Partners compared the crisis with the 1930s Great Depression. He told Radio NZ that unemployment could rise from 4 percent to 15 or even 30 percent. During the 1930s, governments used emergency measures to suppress demonstrations by unemployed workers.

Already thousands of workers in the forestry, tourism, hospitality, retail and other industries have been laid off, due to the shutdown of markets and supply chains throughout the world.

Workers who have for now kept their jobs could face savage wage cuts. Employers receiving the “wage subsidy” of $585 a week per full-time worker, or $350 per part-time worker, are required to pass it on, but do not have to top up the payments to a liveable income.

Workers in industries deemed essential are being placed at risk. A 28-year-old New World supermarket worker with asthma told Radio NZ yesterday that he walked off his shift. Articulating the views of thousands, he said: “I just didn’t feel safe… I know there are a lot of workers around me in the same situation. There are workers with families, with kids, who have had surgeries or are immuno-compromised, and are still working.”

Workers for Sistema, a plastic container factory in Auckland, walked out on Wednesday to protest the lack of social distancing and other protective measures. Sistema management had initially claimed to be an essential service but, following the strike and a subsequent inspection by the regulator WorkSafe, the plant will close for four weeks with workers receiving full pay during the shutdown.

Numerous factories have been allowed to remain open, including Imperial Tobacco’s cigarette factory in Wellington. A spokesperson for the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation told the media the decision was “outrageous,” particularly “given the emerging evidence that COVID-19 infections may be more severe among smokers.”

The Otago Daily Times reported yesterday that workers at Alliance’s meat processing factory in Oamaru felt like “cannon fodder” due to inadequate precautions. An anonymous Change.org petition calling for all meat processing factories to be shut gained more than 2,600 signatures this week.

One comment on the petition stated: “I’m signing as my son has lung issues and I want to keep him safe.” Another said: “Lives are more important than profit.”

Another wrote that workers at their factory “are not supplied with masks, many carpool with others outside their isolation group & have been told that if they can’t go to work because they haven’t got alternative transport, that’s their problem.”

One worker explained: “There is absolutely no way we can keep a safe distance from one another, there are far too many variables out at the meatworks and a perfect breeding ground for this virus to spread quickly.”

The Meat Workers Union has asked that workers be allowed to stay home if they feel unsafe, but did not endorse the petition. The union is working with the Meat Industry Association and the government to ensure that factories remain open during the lockdown.

Many healthcare workers still lack basic personal protective equipment (PPE) despite the government claiming there are enough masks, gowns and goggles. District Health Boards (DHBs) have a thoroughly disorganised response to the pandemic.

One nurse wrote yesterday in the Facebook group “New Zealand, please hear our voice”: “My DHB has just informed me that we are not allowed to wear masks for direct patient contact, only if the patient is symptomatic.”

Caregivers who work with elderly and disabled people have also reported inadequate PPE. “This is a prime route of transmission of COVID-19,” one worker told Newsroom yesterday, “Thousands of support workers going through goodness knows how many tens of thousands of homes every day.”

Radio NZ reported yesterday that NZ Post courier drivers in Wellington said they did not have sufficient PPE and hand sanitiser, and up to 100 people must share a few, unsanitary toilets.

Australian governments reject calls for lockdown despite rising COVID-19 danger

Mike Head

A lengthy “national cabinet” meeting of federal, state and territory leaders yesterday took no new steps to address the coronavirus pandemic, except a compulsory quarantine of arriving overseas passengers, to be enforced, in an unprecedented fashion, by the army as well as the police.

The number of officially confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia now exceeds 3,500, more than trebling in the past week. A total of 14 deaths are so far attributed to the virus.

People queuing for coronavirus tests at Royal Melbourne Hospital

New South Wales remains the worst-hit state, with 1,617 cases as of this morning, an increase of 212 in the previous 24 hours. Victoria has 684 cases, after recording an increase of 111 yesterday. Queensland has reported at least 70 new infections and a total of 625. The official figures elsewhere in the country, as of this afternoon, were South Australia 257, Western Australia 255, Tasmania 58, Australian Capital Territory 62 and the Northern Territory 15.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison nevertheless declared: “We’re getting on top of this and we can keep on top of this and we need to keep doing what we have been doing.”

The prime minister’s claim was reminiscent of US President Donald Trump’s tweet a month ago that the virus was “very much under control.” Now, the US has the greatest number of confirmed cases in the world—more than 100,000—and the deaths are spiralling above 1,500.

Like the Trump administration, Australia’s political leaders are determined to keep as many workers as possible on the job in order to shore up corporate profits. Those most exposed to infection, such as in factories, warehouses, large building sites and mining projects, are being required to work.

No new shutdowns were announced yesterday, and there was no expansion of testing. Restrictions still bar most people from being tested for the virus—even those with flu-like symptoms—making the official count unreliable.

Nor were wage subsidies announced to support the hundreds of thousands of workers who have been laid-off, including more than 40,000 retail workers who lost their livelihoods this week. There were no protections from eviction for tenants who can no longer pay their rents.

Above all, there was no explanation for the refusal of the governments to heed the impassioned calls by thousands of doctors, as well as numerous health experts, for an immediate strict lockdown to halt the disease’s potentially fatal spread.

Morrison emphasised the united opposition of all Liberal-National and Labor government leaders to any suggestion of a “lockdown.” Morrison denounced journalists for even using the word.

Asked why the government was not taking that precaution, Morrison replied: “I would actually caution the media against using the word ‘lockdown,’ because I think it does create unnecessary anxiety.”

Morrison and the federal government’s Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy dismissed a question about a study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Thursday, which estimated that the hospital system’s intensive care unit (ICU) capacity of 2,200 beds will likely be exceeded by about April 5.

Models vary, but most predict that the number of people in Australia who may become infected could fall between 12 million, with some control of spread, and 16 million if out of control. Even if the fatality rate is relatively low—0.9 percent—roughly 100,000 to 145,000 people will die before the epidemic is over.

There is mounting evidence that the Australian governments are keeping the public in the dark about the true extent of the looming catastrophe.

Under the headline, “Planning for the dark side of the pandemic,” the Australian Financial Review reported yesterday that teams of medical professionals have begun devising a mass palliative care plan, preparing for the horrific conditions of overwhelmed hospitals already seen in Italy, Spain and the US.

“Such a plan would be for people who become seriously ill with COVID-19 and are not able to secure an ICU bed,” health editor Jill Margo reported. “As there is no other treatment, they will need end-of-life care… Under a national plan, they could be taken to town halls, school halls, gymnasiums or other large covered spaces that have been transformed into decent places for people to go for a safe and dignified death.”

At yesterday’s press conference, Morrison and Murphy downplayed such dangers, saying plans were being made to triple the ICU capacity. But this could be insufficient and would also require thousands of additional trained ICU nurses.

Hospital nurses, doctors and other health workers are continuing to report acute shortages of personal protection equipment such as surgical masks and gowns.

A journalist asked Morrison: “Many have suggested that more comprehensive restrictions would result in a shorter disruption and fewer deaths. Now, we know you don’t agree with that, but are you willing to release the modelling that explains what the government thinks would happen under each scenario?”

Morrison provided no answer. Instead, he attacked “critics,” accusing them of being “cavalier” toward job losses. “I sometimes note that those who often are pushing for greater restrictions, they will keep their job,” he insinuated. “I am not going to be so cavalier about it.”

In reality, the workers thrown onto the Great Depression-style dole queues outside welfare offices this week are also victims of the refusal of the authorities to take the measures needed weeks ago to introduce mass testing, tracing and isolating of positive cases, as repeatedly urged by the World Health Organisation.

Anger and concern among teachers, parents and retail workers this week shattered the determined efforts of the national cabinet, backed by the trade unions, to force schools to remain open, and keep shopping malls and retail chains open.

Despite being backed by the unions, such as the Australian Education Union (AEU), all the states and territories have been forced to “transition” schools to mostly online teaching. Retail giants are shutting their doors, joined yesterday by Myer, which laid off 10,000 workers.

There are signs that outrage over unsafe conditions is spreading throughout the working class. About 80 workers at one Coles supermarket warehouse at Laverton, in Melbourne, walked out on Thursday night because they were being forced to work close together, in violation of 1.5-metre distancing protocols and without personal protection equipment. They returned to work after Coles agreed to their demands.

While refusing to take now urgently-needed restrictive measures, the federal and state governments are imposing unprecedented enforcement measures, such as severe fines and jail terms, and the domestic deployment of the military.

At the request of the state governments, Australian Defence Force troops will be on the front line of policing quarantine and self-isolation orders, including visiting people’s homes and residences.

During his media conference, Morrison again thanked the trade union apparatus, saying: “I thank the unions for their support and the constructive way they are approaching it.”

A report in today’s Australian revealed how far the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is going to assist the governments and big business to keep workers on the job, despite unsafe conditions, as well as to slash working conditions, wages and penalty rates.

Morrison personally rang ACTU secretary Sally McManus to express his appreciation and “he especially wanted to thank the education unions.” He had met AEU leaders during the week to strike a deal to attempt to coerce teachers into staying in unsafe classrooms.

For two weeks, McManus and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter have spoken daily via video-conference to “communicate frankly and quickly about the fast-moving, multi-pronged crisis.” Porter told the Australian he was now “BFF” [best friend forever] with McManus.

The ACTU has agreed to what the Murdoch media newspaper called “groundbreaking agreements” to cut the conditions of hospitality, clerical and restaurant workers. These deals, quickly rubber-stamped by the federal government’s Fair Work Commission, include sweeping reductions in penalty rates and minimum-hours rules.

While described as temporary, these deals will establish precedents that will be imposed when businesses resume. This dovetails with Morrison and his state and territory counterparts pouring billions of dollars into the coffers of the corporate elite via repeated “rescue” or “hibernation” packages to boost profits.

For the ruling elite, “winning the war” against the pandemic means exploiting the crisis to intensify the exploitation of the working class. Walkouts like those at the Coles warehouse need to be the starting point for workers to break out of the employer-union straitjacket and form their own action committees to develop the fight for the necessary socialist reorganisation of society.